Hey fellas. This is a guide on how to learn the mechanisms of League of Legends and how to become a better player faster. It can help you dominate your games and/or be a better teamplayer. I don't know how comprehensive it will be, but I hope it can help new players improve. When I started out I fortunately had a team to play with, who was lvl 10-20, who knew a little more than I did. If you have the game recommended by friends, tell them to teach you some stuff about the game, so you don't have to read all my rambling.

Other guides on this site has more comprehensive guide on some of the sections in this guide, and I recommend that you check them out. Some of the sections in this guide is similar to other user's guide, but I wouldn't let out parts of my guide for that reason. I added everything I could in here to give a wider understanding of the game.

Please don't judge the guide on the champion builds. I have not played some of the champions that much, they are just examples of champions that are somewhat easy to pick
up and learn. I might be wrong about some items in the sequences, so please correct me if there is a better way. :)

I have copied stuff from other people, this guide is not completely my own. I've simply made it the way I found best, in order to help other people.

Just to make it clear this guide probably have sections for completely new players and also sections for more experienced players. Some of it is extremely simple, but is aimed at players at level 1-15 and some of it can be helpful at all levels. If you feel that I have left out some good points or I have made errors, please tell me, so I can improve this guide. ^^ -> I'm not a pro player, nor do I have a high ELO, but I've played LoL alot and I'd say that I understand the game well, though I'm not playing it like a baws.

NOTE: This guide is aimed at matches in Summoner's Rift, not Twisted Treeline. I haven't played enough 3v3 to ramble that much about it. I might add alot of stuff for Dominion and Twisted Treeline at some point, but I have yet to try Dominion, and I'm not experienced in 3v3

Enjoy reading this totally funky guide.

Warning! There will be some walls of text, but reading haven't ever killed anybody..

There are a lot of abbreviations and terminology in League of Legends. When you are new, it can be nice to know about those beforehand, so you don't experience misunderstandings and communication errors. It can happen that you play with players, who are using smurf accounts, so they aren't even new to the game. Then they will use the terminology and you might not understand it. So here is a link to MOBAFire's own list of abbreviations and terminology in LoL.

Terminology in League of Legends

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Riot Points and Influence Points

RP - Riot Points - You can buy Riot Points for real money. Riot points will allow you to unlock skins, champions and different bundles in the store in the interface.

IP - Influence Points - You earn influence points from playing matches. The amount of IP you receive is decided by the lenght of the match and whether you win or not. You can use IP to buy champions from the price-range 450-6300 IP and you can buy runes to boost your stats in-game. You can also buy additional rune-pages for the cost of 6300 IP. I recommend that you wait with buying runes until level 20, so you can get tier 3 runes.

Others
Smurf Account
A smurf account is an account made by a player, who has reached level 30 and makes a second account to:
1) Pwn new players to have fun.
2) Reach level 30 and attempt to get a better ELO.
3) Have users on both EU and US servers.
4) Perhaps another reason.

I've you've chosen to play League of Legends, do not expect a game, where you can go all out solo and expect to get killing spree after killing spree. It is a teamgame and it should be played as a teamgame. When you start out, it is a good idea to begin with some rather simple champions. Furthermore it is also a good idea to start out with some cheap champions, since you won't have to use tons of IP to afford them. Try some different champions, who are free and find one or two that you like and save up some IP for them. In the first few levels team composition is not that important, the important thing is to learn the mechanics of the champions and the game. Examples of simple champions is to be found later in the guide.

In League of Legends you have two types of matches: Ranked matches and normal matches. Ranked matches are accessible when your summoner level reach level 30 and they will give you a rank-type called ELO. You ELO will improve, the more ranked matches you play. In ranked matches each team gets to ban 2 champions, that none of the teams can pick. This is why you should learn to play several different champions and roles before you start playing ranked, so that you aren't rendered useless when your main champion is banned.

Normal matches are simply put, just the unranked matches, where your rating isn't official to other players. I recommend that new players play a lot of normal games after reaching level 30, before you start ranked. The more experience you have, the better chance you have of reaching a high ELO. Personally I started playing ranked way too early, which means that I destined myself to a low ELO, which I can't seem to carry myself out off. ELO-hell is a phenomenon you experience, when you've lost a lot of matches and can't seem to get above 1100-1300 ELO. It's also when you seem to be placed on bad teams, while the enemy teams have better teammates than you.* That phenomenon is the feared ELO-hell. DUM-DUM-DUM-DUUUUUUM!

* Teams with feeders, leavers, trolls etc.

In League of Legends you can choose between 3 different maps:

Summoner's Rift - 5v5

Riot about Summoner's Rift

Twisted Treeline - 3v3

Riot about Twisted Treeline

Dominion - 5v5

Riot's official Dominion homepage

The most played map in League of Legends is Summoner's Rift, where you play 5v5.
It basically consists of 3 lanes, a jungle and two bases.

Each team has 12 turrets and 3 inhibitors:
1) 3 Outer turrets - 1 in each lane
2) 3 Inner turrets - 1 in each lane
3) 3 Inhibitor turrets - 1 in each lane
4) 2 Nexus turrets - Defending the nexus
5) 1 Obelisk nexus - In the spawning area
6) 3 Inhibitors - 1 in each lane - When this building is destroyed, your team will have super creeps spawning in the lane, where the destroyed inhibitor is.
-> Inhibitors will respawn after 5 minutes and it has 4000 HP and no armor or magic resistance.

Turret stats:

Each time a turret hits you, it deals 10% more damage. So don't get hit too many times consecutively!

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In Summoner's Rift there are several map objectives:

Initial Spawn time: How many minutes into the game, before the camp spawns.

Respawning time: How much time it takes for the camp to respawn after it has been slain.
Note: If one creep is not killed the rest of the camp won't respawn. The respawn time will not reset until the entire camp is dead.

*Gold: Gold from the entire camp. The biggest amount of gold is from the biggest creep and the smaller amounts of gold are from the smaller creeps.

*Experience: Experience from the entire camp. The biggest amount of experience is from the biggest creep and the smaller amounts of experience is from the smaller creeps.

Wolves:
*Initial spawn time: 1:40
*Respawn time: 100 seconds
*Gold: 57 (25+16+16)
*Experience: 190 (90+50+50)
A camp consisting of 3 wolves: 1 big wolf and 2 small wolves.
(Not that hard to kill and don't deal a significant amount of damage)

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Wraiths:
* Initial spawn time: 1:40
*Respawn in 100 seconds
*Gold: 71 (35+12+12+12)
*Experience: 180 (120+20+20+20)

A camp consisting of 4 wraiths: 1 big wraith and 3 small wraiths. Some players counterjungle by stealing the enemy camp's big wraith. (More about counterjungling in the gameplay section)
(Squishy, but deals quite some damage in early game)

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Small golems:
*Initial spawn time: 1:40
*Respawn in 100 seconds.
*Gold: 60 (30+30)
*Experience: 280 (140+140)

A camp with two smaller golems:
Two golems, which gives an equal amount of gold and looks the same. Killing those is a nice way to counterjungle. (read more about counterjungling in the gameplay section).
(Quite beefy, but don't deal that much damage early game.)

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Ancient Golem/Blue golem camp:
*Initial Spawn Time: 1:55
*Respawn Time: 5:00
*Buff duration: 2:30
*Gold from camp: 80 (60+10+10)
*Experience from camp: 280 (220+30+30)
*This unit regens 1.5% mana (or energy) per second and has (16 + Level*0.5)% cooldown reduction on their abilities. If slain, this buff transfers to the killer.

A camp with the blue golem and two smaller creeps. The big one will give you a buff that provides increased mana regeneration & cooldown reduction.
(Hard to kill in early game - Only take this early if you are a jungler of if you get help from teammates)

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Lizard Elder/Red golem camp
*Initial Spawn Time: 1:55
*Respawn Time: 5:00
*Buff duration: 2:30
*Gold from camp: 80 (60+10+10)
*Experience from camp: 260 (200+30+30)
**This unit's physical attacks slow the target's movement speed and deal damage based on their level. If the buff holder is slain, this buff is transferred to their killer.

*The red buff slows (10/20/30)% for melee characters and only (5/10/15)% for ranged characters.

A camp with the red golem and two smaller creeps. The big one will give you a buff that grants a slow on your normal attacks and a DoT as well.
(Hard to kill - Tougher than blue buff. Normally not taken before level 3-4, unless you are playing Shaco as a jungler.

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Dragon:
Initial Spawn Time: 2:30
Respawn Time: 6:00
*Gold: 190
*Experience: 900

*Gives global 190 gold to the killing team, as well as 25 gold and additional experience to the killer and nearby allies.
- The dragon is important, since it provides 190 global gold. (190 for each member on your team).
(A keyspot to ward. Often the jungler kills it, but you can also team up with 1-2 teammates and take it out, to prevent steals or if you don't have a jungler. Normally it is killed when people are about level 6-8, depending on the players' summoner levels.)

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Baron Nashor:
*Initial Spawn Time: 15:00
*Respawn Time: 7:00
*Gold: 250
*Experience: 900

After Baron Nashor is slain, all living players on the team that slew him gain a buff that lasts 8 minutes with the following attributes:

* 40 Ability Power
* 40 Damage
* 3% of your Max Health in Health Regeneration
* 1% of your Max Mana in Mana Regeneration

Each player on the team is also granted the following:

* 900 Experience Points
* 300 Gold

Baron is the toughest of the jungle creeps to kill. Only some champions can solo it, but it is mainly killed when the enemy team is either:
1) When the enemy team is aced, so they can't counterattack your team, to prevent you from having the Baron buff.
2) When the enemy team needs to defend against minion-waves that are pushing too hard.
3) When the enemy team is simply not near the buff and they are unaware.
4) When you simply dominate and the enemies can't do **** about it.

Baron should be warded at all times after it has spawn.

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The Shop

In Summoner's Rift the shop is found in your spawn area. Just click on the weird
looking creature and start shopping. You start with 475 gold.



Before entering your lane, you must remember to buy starting item(s).
Some common starting items are:

Doran's Shield - On tanks and offtanks.

Doran's Ring - On casters and some supporters.

Doran's Blade - On alot of AD carries.

Cloth Armor + 5x Health Potion - On junglers

Regrowth Pendant + Health Potion - For laning sustainability -> Perhaps if you solo top.

Brawler's Gloves + 2x Health Potion - On crit-based champions.

Long Sword - On some AD champions, who buys The Brutalizer or Wriggle's Lantern early in the game.

Meki Pendant + 2x Health Potion - On mana dependant champions

Amplifying Tome + Health Potion - On some AP champions.

I suggest you look up some guides for the champion you want to play and simply see what item to start with. There are tons of ways to start, so this is just some common choices.

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That was what I had about the map. Now, let's move on to the mechanisms and other awesome features in League of Legends!

This map is probably the least popular, since Dominion is new and shiny, while Summoner's Rift have always been more popular than TT. This might be because the champions aren't balanced for Twisted Treeline in the same ways as they are for Summoner's Rift.

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Basically you have 2 lanes:
Top lane -> Normally 1v1
+
Bottom lane -> Normally 2v2

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Gameplay:
- Twisted Treeline is fast-paced and there are a lot of ganks.

- There are a lot of teamfights, since people are roaming a lot.

- People start moving together sooner than in 5v5.

- Games are shorter than in Summoner's Rift.

- People often build more bulky.

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Things you must remember in Twisted Treeline:
- Wards are vital - Wriggle's Lantern is a great item in 3v3.

- Getting the dragon is very important - Have it warded each time it's up.

- Tanky champions are often the stronger pick in this map:
Champions as Singed, Yorick, Dr. Mundo are all really strong picks in Twisted Treeline.

Warding in 3v3:

These are the most important places to ward:

Green are totally vital spots
Yellow are important spots
Red are less important

Dominion is the newest map in League of Legends and it offers fast-paced gameplay and a different style of play than you've seen earlier. To be completely honest I have yet to try it, since I haven't had the opportunity to play League of Legends for a long time now. Therefore I have, with permission from jhoijhoi, this link to her review of Dominion, which also explains some features in this new map.

jhoijhoi on Dominion

Thanks jhoi :D

In League of Legends, there is some sort og pre-phase before the match called champions selection. In this pre-phase you pick your champion, your summoner spells, your rune page and your mastery page. There is a chat in champions selection, in order for your team to communicate to create a good setup. In normal games people often lock in asap and then complain about having a bad setup. Don't mind these people, it's their own fault, but you should still try to adapt to what the team needs, if you want a bigger chance to win.

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The above picture shows the champions selection screen for a normal game. As you can see I haven't picked a champion, since I want to have a good setup and I don't instantly lock in a champion like the Corki did. Furthermore the Cho'Gath says he can solo top (if there is a jungler).
Remember that it is important to use the team-chat to communicate with your team, in order to make a good team composition.
Also remember not to instantly lock in your champion. People won't necessarily pick a tank if you have insta-locked a carry. Talk with your team and try to make a good team composition instead of creating a bad atmosphere in your team before the match have even started.

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In ranked games both team leaders have two champion bans. Those bans decide 4 champions that none of the two teams can pick to play.

The above picture shows a champion selection screen for a ranked match. The draft mode makes you able to see the other team's champion picks, so you can pick according to them. The bans can be seen in each bottom corner of the picture. When both teams have picked their wished champions, players from the same team can switch champions, given that both players have the champions, which they want to switch. The reason for this is that sometimes a champion is played a lot, if he/she is OP at that given time and the first-picker on your team secures that champion to your team, but can't play the champion himself/herself. This way the person, who can play the "flavour of the month" can pick the champion that the first-picker wants to play.

In this screenshot of a ranked champion selection there is a bug, since Rammus is banned, but still picked. Never mind that. xD

This is not that important a section, since most of it is rather obvious and you'll figure it out as you start playing the game.

League of Legends is a free game, where you get influence points from playing matches. With these influence points, you can buy champions in the store. They are all in a price range between 450-6300 IP.
Luckily Riot has a thing called champion rotation. Each week 10 champions are free to play, which means that you can try new champions, without having to buy them. By playing different champions you can find some you like and save up some IP for those. Just remember that the 10 pickable champions change each week, so you don't have to wonder why your favourite champion suddenly dissapeared.
It is a good idea to try some different roles as tank, carry, supporter etc. to see what role you prefer. Furthermore it is a good idea to be able to play more than one role well, since you might experience that another player picks the champion you prefer so the team needs a different role. Having a good setup is not something players care about in low level games, but it is nice to know why such a setup is needed when you hit lvl 20-25+. More about team compositions will be found later in the guide.

If you want to become a good LoL player, you need to understand how the game works and how different aspects of it are performed right. It is a rather tactical game, and that is why you shouldn't play it as a sologame, but as a teamgame. That way your tactical capabilities are way better and your chances of winning will most likely be better aswell.
In the following I have listed some of the game mechanics, if you have something I should add, please tell me in a message or a comment. Thanks in advance. ^^

In the following sections I will be talking about some of the mechanisms that are important to know about when you start playing League of Legends. There will also be a lot of other stuff, which you might find helpful.

Laning

- League of Legends' gameplay is divided into phases: Early game, mid game & late game.
In early-mid game you lane, unless you are a jungler. In the laning phase you focus on farming, pushing and getting kills. You have 1-2 duo lanes and a sololane in mid. Top lane can also be sololane if you have a jungler. It is a good idea to have a good laning composition. It can either be a composition with great farming capabilities, pushing capabilities or one, who gets a lot of kills.

Early Game, Mid Game & Late Game

It can be hard to determine when early game changes to mid game and mid game changes to late game.
Early game is the laning phase, where you focus on getting an advantage over the enemy team. You try to outfarm them, get more kills and perhaps also to push if the match allows it.
Mid game can be started in different ways, but normally I'd say it's when the first turret is destroyed and more players start roaming the map for kills and for pushing. In mid game you focus on getting fed and to push the lanes and get the buffs. You want as big as an advantage before late game as possible.
Late game is when the team starts moving together and teamfights happen. Furthermore you often have fights over Baron. In lategame some players stray off alone for more experience and gold -> This is a risky thing to do, since it leaves you vulnerable to ganks.
In lategame you focus on trapping the enemy team to win teamfights, get the buffs and to get Baron if possible. More importantly you try to push to win, unless you need to defend to survive.

There are champions, which shine in the different periods of the game.
Some strong early game champions are: Zilean - Harrasser, Jax - Insane damage, Urgot - Great at denying.
Some strong mid game champions are: Vladimir - Good damage & survivability, Mordekaiser - Faceroll with high damage and he is hard to kill, Akali - Nice burst and somewhat hard to kill.
Some strong late game champions are: Tryndamere - Insane damage, Twisted Fate - Great pusher with his ultimate, Veigar - Insane burst damage and nice CC.

Teamfights

Teamfights normally start in the end of mid-game or in the beginning of late-game. Teamfights are when members of your team move around the map together and end up in fights with the other team. Teamfights requires organization and a balanced team, if you want a good result against opponents at your own skill-level. Normally the tank initiates a teamfight, while the casters tries to stay protected, while still dealing tons of damage. In teamfights it is important to know your role. A tank should not stray of to chase an enemy, he/she should keep protecting the team's carries, and not care about getting tons of kills, but letting the carries get all the kills. Furthermore a supporter shouldn't rush out in the middle of a fight, but stay behind the team, healing them and buffing them or whatever the given supporter can do.

Harrassing (From a forum thread on www.Leagueoflegends.com)

Harrassing is when you attack an enemy, not necessarily for an instant kill, but to deny them the ability to attack creeps, keep them from attacking you, and hopefully cause them to go back to base (or act stupid and get killed, either way). However, many people do not understand the right targets to harass, and therefore they wind up getting hurt more than they hurt the enemy.

Good harassment targets are those you have a range advantage on, those your skills can counter (teemo blinding an autoattacker), people who have low HP/rely on autoattacking to stay healthy (Trynd, lifesteal carries) and casters that have long cooldowns on their abilities/skillshots they won't fire because it's hard to aim when all you do is run up, shoot once, and then go back. It also helps if you have a way of slowing them or stunning them, because it allows extra hits, and even if you don't chase being slowed gets into the enemies head more than just damage does.

Bad harassment targets are those that have a range advantage on you (it's pretty hard to effectively harass somebody when they can knock off 200 of your starting 600 HP on the approach), somebody who can nuke you with high DPS, somebody that can ignore your attacks entirely, and casters with short CD abilities that deal high damage that aren't jukeable skillshots.

Last Hitting (Taken from Beej's forum thread guide on lane control from Riot's homepage

Last hitting is the practice of timing your attacks on enemy creeps to ensure that you land the killing blow, thus earning the gold for the kill. Ideally you want kill all 6 creeps in a typical wave and you want to do that by attacking 6 times only. You may ask, "But Beej, why not just auto attack?". I would respond, "ROFL, Nub." Then I would explain that when you auto-attack, you do two very negative things:

(1) You reduce your chance to score the killing blow on the creeps you are attacking and you make landing that killing blow, and thus your gold income, a matter of luck (nub fuel).

(2) You push your lane. Assuming your opponent is not dealing more damage to the creeps than you, auto-attacking always pushes the lane quickly, widening your gap, making you more vulnerable to ganks, and ultimately nerfing you because of the ganks or the steps you take to mitigate the risk of being ganked (e.g. backing when you could be last hitting, or buying wards to notify you of incomming ganks).

Last Hitting Can Push
It should be noted that last hitting does mildly push your lane. If you last hit and your opponents just stand there, that minimal damage you are adding to your creep's efforts will eventually begin to push the lane, even if you can flawlessly get all the kills while doing the least amount of damage possible. Think of it this way (which is simplified): Your creep waves form a single entity with a set damage output and health. Your opponents creep waves form an identical entity. These forces battle it out and typically the battle results in a draw. When one or both sides survive long enough for another friendly entity to arrive, these entities are combined, impacting the next battle. If you add any damage whatsoever to your creep entity's damage output, you swing the battle in your creep's favor. Thus, your creeps survive to add their value to the next wave, creating an advantage for the next wave which leaves more of your creep's leftover after that wave. This effect snowballs, with more and more of your creeps surving each battle, pushing faster and faster. Such a push is typically only stopped by an enemy tower or enemy hero.

Jungling

(You might want to check the warding chapter before reading the jungling part).
- Jungling is when you start your game by farming gold in the jungle. You often follow a route from creep camp to creep camp, where you slay minions to earn gold. The reason why you have a jungler is to give your team a gold and XP advantage. As a jungler you get buffs to sustain in the jungle and you also gank lanes to support your team by killing and/or pushing. You often need certain runes to be able to jungle, but a champion like Warwick can do it without. You can find tons of jungling guides on this site. Examples of common junglers are:

Warwick - Easy to jungle with and a good ganker in level 6.

Nunu & Willump - He is great at sustaining in the jungle and he is one of the best counterjunglers in LoL. He can gank quite often, since he has an easy time healing himself in the jungle with Consume.

Trundle - One of the best junglers in the game in my opinion, but somewhat hard to play. He might be your second step of jungling champions, while Warwick is a good first choice.

Fiddlesticks - His lifedrain makes him a good jungler, and his ganks can be devastating when he reaches level 6 with Crowstorm available.

Make sure to check out guides for the champions you want to jungle with, to see the best jungling route. I can't fit all the routes into this guide.. xD

If you want tons of knowledge about jungling and viable junglers, check out these guids by Hahano, they are both some of the greatest guides on this site:

Who is your jungler and what does he do?

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Jungling 202: Beyond The Basics

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Ganking

- Ganking is when you leave your lane/jungle to setup kills on enemies. You usually gank by coordinating a surprise-attack on an enemy. Normally you hide in the bushes and wait for the enemies to go forth enough for you to charge in and attack them. This will often require some sort of crowd control, unless the enemies are really close to your team's turret. If the enemies have escapes like the summoner spell flash, they will most likely escape, but you still had a good result, since you forced them to use a summoner spell and they have long cooldowns. When you gank avoid to get too close to turrets, since they will focus on you, if you attack enemies inside of their range.
This is a map of which paths you often take when you gank, depending on the situation:

This is why you should remember to ward some of those lane-entries with Sight Ward, so you can avoid ganks. Remember that if you push too far on your lane, it leaves you more vulnerable to ganks. Remember to keep track of your ward timer -> When the ward timer is almost up, be more aware of gankers.
If the enemy has stealthers remember to use Vision Wards, since they reveal them and that makes you able to either surprise attack them for a kill or to retreat and avoid death, depending on the situation. Wards can be found in the shop under consumables. There are not many stealthers in League of Legends, but here the current ones:
Evelynn, Twitch, Shaco - To some degree.

Counterjungling

- Counterjungling is often not something you do in low-level games, but if you want to jungle it can be a good idea to know what it is. Especially if you end up playing against people with smurf accounts.
Counterjungling is a strategy that some junglers are really good at, while others lack the ability to do it. Counterjungling means to go steal creeps in the enemy team's jungle, to screw with their jungler's leveling and giving their team a harder time with having the same level advantage in your team.
There are several ways to counterjungle:
1) You start at one of the camps in the enemy junglers forest to deny them XP from those creeps.
2) You attack the enemy jungler to force him to recall and waste important time.
3) You wait near one of their buffs and you steal it (with smite).
4) You put up wards in their jungle and use those for setting up kills on the jungler. Just remember that it can be quite obvious if your teammates are leaving their lanes rather suddenly, without any fights going on elsewhere. Then jungler might be alerted and you've wasted your time.

There are several good counterjunglers in the game, and they don't always have to be junglers themselves:

Nunu & Willump - Extremely strong at counterjungling due to Consume and a nice chase/escape spell in Ice Blast.

Trundle - Insanely strong in 1v1 and he can easily chase or flee the enemy jungler, depending on the situation. Furthermore he has reduced CC, which makes him harder to catch.

These are all viable junglers, but you can also do it with not-junglers like:

Alistar - He has great crowd control and therefore nice escape/chase mechanisms. Furthermore he is a great roamer and therefore he is moving around the map.

Twitch - His arrival in your jungle is hard to predict, due to his stealthing. That makes it easy for him to attack when a jungler goes low. Furthermore you need Vision Ward or Oracle's Elixir to counter it.

Poppy - Poppy is extremely strong in 1v1 fights and she has an easy time stunning the enemy jungler, due to all the terrain walls in the forests in LoL.

Counterjungling requires nice teamwork through use of wards and often also the summoner spell Clairvoyance, which your team's supporter use.

Zoning

This is a video on how to zone, made by Shurelia. It is a good description on how to do it and it can be hard to explain in words. So I will not be rambling about it here, watch the vidoe instead:
Play Video

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Roaming

This is taken from the LoL Wiki:
Roaming is a style of gameplay mostly used in high ELO games in which your champion spends the "laning phase" of the game roaming from lane rather than spending it laning or jungling.

Roamers are generally champions with high base stats, are not dependent on farming/items, can set up ganks well and/or gank well themselves. Roamers often buy Oracle's Elixir to counter warding, and set up their runes and masteries to increase their movement speed.

Roamers should be picked with another strong two versus one champion, one that can hold their own against two champions by themselves, or roaming becomes a liability rather than an asset.

Examples of good roamers are (Not from Riot's homepage):

Alistar - He is a good ganker with quite some CC, he is not that item dependant and he has healing to support the lanes, when he arrives.

Evelynn - Her nerf kinda killed her, but she is a good roamer, since he has decent CC, stealth and nice burst damage.

Taric - A great roamer, maybe the best. A great stun, decent burst damage, heals etc. And the GP10 items are really good on him.

Examples of strong 1v2 champions are (Not from Riot's homepage):

Cho'Gath - He is tanky and he can clear minion waves rather fast. Furthermore he has some nice CC, when the roamer or a jungler arrives to gank.

Nasus - When overleveled and wellfarmed, he is unstoppable. Furthermore he has a nice slow and great damage when gankers arrive at his lane.

Heimerdinger - He has a good damage output, turrets to protect the tower and he is a great farmer. Furthermore he can kite well, if you have placed your turrets right. He also heals turrets when near them, which is good when you are pushed back.

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If you have suggestions to more stuff about the gameplay, feel free to leave them in a message or a comment. :)

To have map awareness means to have a good overview of the map and to be able to use that overview as an advantage. The map is found in your bottom right corner on your in-game screen. Map awareness is to keep track of the enemies movements, to keep track of buffs, dragon & Baron and to keep track of fights in other lanes.
Having a great map awareness can prevent ganks in your lane and set up kills for your team, while it can also make you able to steal buffs from the enemy team. Many new players do not use the mini-map that much and therefore they experience alot of unnecessary deaths. Especially against players with smurf accounts, who know how to gank properly.
There are several ways to get a good map awareness:
1) Simply teach yourself to look at the map every few second. That way you will learn to keep track of the enemy.
2) Place wards to get more sight on the map. Read about warding in the next section.
3) Some champions can place objects that gives map awareness by either revealing enemes, who steps on it. Some also reveals a small area around the object, like Teemo's Noxious Trap.
4) By using the summoner spell Clairvoyance - Mostly used on supporters.

Just remember to place wards and to look at the map. It can help you, your teammates and most importantly it can decide the outcome of a game.

In the last section mentioned a bit about warding. Warding is a key to succes in League of Legends. It can change the outcome of a fight or save your *** from a potential gank. Map control is extremely important, since it can set up kills for your team, allow your team to steal buffs and keep track of the dragon and Baron. Warding spots are somewhat situational, but there some keyspots that should be warded no matter what.
Here is a map that shows you what places that is preferable to ward:

(The picture is somewhat small, so you might have to zoom to read the small text. Sorry about that)

NOTE:
-> The red cross marker should only be warded if they have someone, who can jump/spin/run through the wall and kill the dragon really fast - Like Tryndamere. Then it can be a good idea to ward inside the area, where the dragon is, but under normal circumstances, do always ward the grassy spot outside the Dragon's "nest", since that gives more mapcontrol.
-> Normally the warders are: the jungler, the supporter, the tank. However, the carries can ward as well, if they have farmed really well and they can afford it, while the sidelanes might be struggling.

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I've simply copied the following from the user Summoner's Soraka guide with his permission. It is some nice knowledge in my opinion, so I felt it would be good to share in a general guide as well:

Baron Wards

Laying a ward ON baron when possible means that they cannot do baron. It is very difficult to kill that ward and if the enemy uses skills to take it out you can capitalise on that. Additionally, to hit the ward, they will need to hit Baron, making them take damage.

Laying wards in his "chamber" means they spend more time taking out the ward and it makes it completely obvious what position they are in.

Dragon Wards

Same reasoning as above, laying a ward in the "chamber" basically means they have to go inside to destroy it, making you more aware of their position. Early game, you can capitalize on this by catching their support trying to leave dragon and make them waste their escape spell.

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Summoner's warding map:

(I've added this, since it's easier to see than the one above, I added myself. However, I won't remove the one above, since it still has some nice explanations, if you zoom)

This image shows the best, non-situational (i.e no lane brush wards) positions to place wards, assuming you are winning as the purple side. Mirror the positions if you are on the blue team or need defensive wards for purple.

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Thanks to Summoner for letting me add his section in my guide. You can find his guide for Soraka here: Competitive Soraka -> It is a really good guide, so make sure to check it out. It has some great information on Soraka, but also on more general stuff in League of Legends.

As you probably already know, you get to pick two summoner spells before each match in League of Legends. At the moment there are 13 different summoner spells that have different uses and they are often aimed for different roles, which are complimented by the summoner spell's uses. Here is a list of the 13 summonner spells:

Clairvoyance - It is often used on supporters to reveal what lane composition the enemies have and to keep track of their jungler and their potential gank attempts. It can also make stealthers visible. You get this when your summoner level has reached 10.

Clarity - This is mainly used in normal games or for really mana hungry champions. It is rarely used in high-level games, but somewhat often in low-level games, where you don't have enough runes or masteries to compensate for your need of mana. It allows you to spam your spells in your lane without running empty. It can give a stronger laning phase. You get this summoner spell when your summoner reaches level 6.

Cleanse - This ability is often used on champions that needs to be mobile to do damage. It removes crowd control at activation and reduces it for 3 seconds afterwards. It can be used for chasing, so you can ignore a stun and keep up the chase or for the opposite, where you need to escape. Furthermore it can be used in teamfights to either soak up their CC as a tank, or simply to be able to do more damage as a carry.

Exhaust - This summoner spell has an offensive- and a defensive element to it. You can use it to slow down an enemy for a kill, or to reduce an enemy's damage and movement speed to escape certain death. In teamfights it is used to shut down an enemy, so your team is allowed to deal more damage without receiving as much damage themselves. It can be used on most champions, but some champions are often not in close combat and therefore it is not quite as viable. An example of this is Veigar, who mainly stand behind his team, where he spams his abilities.

Flash - There are rumours that this summoner spell will be removed, but I've added it anyways, since it still exists in the game. It allows you to flash through walls to escape ganks in the jungle or simply to get further away from your enemy to escape certain death. It can, however, also be used offensive to land that last hit or to surprise the enemies with an initiate from far away. Tanks like Amumu, Malphite, Galio & Rammus often initiates like that, to have an easier time aiming at the carries. Flash can be used on almost every champion and is considered as one of the strongest summoner spell, which is probably why it might be removed. You get flash in level 12, which is rather late, but perhaps it is because of it's uses.
I've borrowed this picture from Kibblinator, who has a great and more in depth guide on summoner spells - Go check it out for more information!

The picture shows different places in the map Summoner's Rift, where you can flash through walls or so.


Fortify - This is great for stopping turret-pushes, while also preventing towerdives. In situations where enemies tries to go all out ape**** on a teammate near a turret, sometimes this summoner spell can get 1-2 enemies killed and they will hate you for it. It is rarely used on carries and offtanks, but it's mainly aimed for tanks, who don't need two core summoner spells to benefit their team. It also gives extra damage to minions, when it isn't on cooldown, which can help tanks to farm more efficiently.

Ghost - Like flash this is also an escape/chase summoner spell. You just have it from level 1, instead of 12. It can be used aggressively to chase down enemies or simply the other way around. It can also be used to support teammates, since you can arrive at a fight faster and maybe turn the tides. It is good on most champions, especially good gankers or champions that needs to be close to enemies to be able to kill them. It also benefits champions that scales well with mobility, like Gangplank or Ashe. Remember that you can run through minions when you use it. Some people forget that, though it says it in the description xD

Heal - Many people uses this in low-level games, since you have it from level 1. It is really useful, especially in early-mid game, but it fades a in lategame, perhaps even in midgame. In laning phase it can give you that advantage in fights that makes your laning-combo win. It can sometimes be the difference between your team getting a first blood or their team getting a first blood. Heal is often taken if you have champions that benefits from a strong early game, which leads to late game dominance.

Ignite - This is a purely offensive summoner spell, which is mainly used to finish off an enemy on low health. It is also great against champions with a lot of healing like Swain, Dr. Mundo, Vladimir, Soraka etc, since it reduces incoming healing with 50% for a duration. It is often used on aggressive champions, and not as often on supporters and tanks, though it is somewhat viable on most champions.

Rally - A really underused summoner spell. I've almost never seen anyone use it. It can be useful in teamfights, where it can work as a damage buff to AD & AP carries. It can also be a good way to engage a fight, if your team are camping in a bush and wait for the enemies to arrive. It's normally not a summoner spell, which people use, but it can be fine on some champions, that don't need an escape/chase spell nor a finishing spell like Ignite.

Revive - This is a somewhat hated spell among many LoL players, but it has some uses. It can be used to defend turrets when your team is aced or simply needs assistance. Some people also use it as a back in early game, if you die early. Then the extra 2 minutes with 400 extra HP is kinda awesome. It is really uncommon to use this, but it can be used in some situations. Some people also use it for backdooring after teamfights.

Smite - This is mainly used when jungling to secure that you are able to take out buffs, dragon and Baron. Some champions can't jungle without it, while some champions don't necessarily need it. But I recommend always getting it as a jungler, since it speedens up your jungling a lot. You can use it to steal buffs and the dragon from the enemy. It is normally not used on laners, since they need summoner spells that are aimed on enemy champions, whether it is escaping from them or chasing them.

Teleport - This summoner spell works with most champions, since it gives more map control and it makes your team able to defend turrets, set up ganks and simply to get back to your lane fast. In lategame it can also be used for backdooring, if you have placed wards near the enemy base. You can teleport to friendly units and buildings, indcluding wards and also Teemo's Noxius Trap. It is also used on sololaners, who needs to get back to their lane fast, in order to keep up their XP advantage and to defend their turret.

If you find a champion you like, check out some guides to see what summoner spells more experienced players recommend and why they recommend them.

Normally players do not start buying runes until they reach level 20, since people find it to be a waste to get some before and see them being changed for Tier 3 runes. And I somewhat agree with that, since it is a good idea to find some champions you're good at and then buy them for your IP. Then when you reach level 20, you can start buying the right runes for those champions.
It is important to remember the difference between primary and secondary runes.
Primary runes are the ones, which provides the most stats for a certain thing. For example:
Greater Mark of Attack Damage contra Greater glyph of strenght
-> There is a huge difference in the amount of stats provided, so often it is a good idea to see if you can fit your runeset to be mainly primary runes, since that will provide the most stats. Check out builds for the champions you play to see what recommended runes you should use. Searz has a great guide about runes, which is really comprehensive. Make sure to check it out for more information.

If you want runes that works well with most champions, because you can't afford several runesets, it is a good idea to get runes, which provide stats that most champions can use. If you like casters there are runes for that and if you prefer physical-damage based champions there are preferable runes for that.

Runes that work well with most casters are:
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - Provides more damage from your spells.
Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration - Same reason as for the marks.
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - Gives some ability power for early game.
Greater Glyph of Ability Power - If you want a strong early game and you will have alot of AP lategame.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power - Gives a stronger late game.

Runes that work with most AD champions are:
Greater Mark of desolation - Simply for a better damage output on standard attacks. Works well on almost all AD characters, though some use crit marks of damage marks instead.
Greater Quintessence of Desolation - Same reason as for the marks.

Runes that work well with most champions are:
Greater Seal of Armor - More survivability can never hurt. These runes are also great for junglers.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - More survivability against harrassing spells in early game.
Greater seal of vitality - More survivability doesn't hurt any champions ^^
Greater Quintessence of Health - ^ What I said above.
Greater Quintessence of Armor - Same reason as for the armor seals.
Greater Quintessence of Magic Resist - Same reason as for MR glyphs.
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction - CDR benefits all champions, since it allows more harrassing, farming or whatever you use your spells for.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction - ^Same reason as above, but it gives a stronger late-game and a weaker early game.

Simply put, survivability and utility runes work fine on most champions, though they aren't always the best for the given champion you play.

In Searz's guide on runes, he categorizes runes in ranks in a way I completely agree with.
Searz states:
This is purely my opinion. If you have a good argument for why something should be placed lower/higher, just comment and I'll consider it.

The power of a rune is decided by how good it is compared to the other runes in the same category.

S-Rank: These runes are great. If you benefit from them, they are probably the best choice.
A-Rank: These are very close to the S-rank runes in power and are very good choices.
B-Rank: Solid runes. They don't give as good bonuses as the runes above them, but can be viable if you need the stat or don't need any of the stats above.
C-Rank: These runes are pretty much always worse than the runes above them. Only get these if they are for a special play-style on special champions.
F-Rank: These runes are just overall bad. Stay away from them.
(...)

This is how Searz ranks the runes:

Marks

S-Rank: ArP, MrP
A-Rank: AS, CrC, AD
B-Rank: MR, Armor
C-Rank: CrD, MP5, HP, HP/lvl, AD/lvl
F-Rank: AP/lvl, AP, Mana, CDR, MR/lvl, Mana/lvl

Seals

S-Rank: Armor, MP5, HP/lvl, MP5/lvl, Dodge (dodge belongs in rank B or C without the dodge mastery)
A-Rank: Armor/lvl
B-Rank: HP, HP5/lvl, Energy-reg per 5sec, Energy-reg per 5sec/lvl, HP5
C-Rank: Mana, MR/lvl, Mana/lvl, AS, AP/lvl, CrC, AD, CDR, MR
F-Rank: AP, AD/lvl, CrD

Glyphs

S-Rank: MR/lvl, MR, CDR
A-Rank: MP5/lvl, AP/lvl
B-Rank: AP, Mana, Energy, Mana/lvl, MrP, CDR/lvl
C-Rank: AS, Energy/lvl, MP5, Armor, HP/lvl
F-Rank: CrC, AD, AD/lvl, HP5, HP, CrD

Quintessences

S-Rank: AP, AD, ArP, HP, HP5
A-Rank: MS, Armor, MrP, MR
B-Rank: AS, Increased experience gain, Mana, CDR, CrC, MP5
C-Rank: Death-time reduction, Gold per 10sec, Energy-reg per 5sec, Energy, MP5/lvl, HP/lvl, CDR/lvl
F-Rank: Dodge, AD/lvl, CrD, AP/lvl, HP5/lvl, Armor/lvl, MR/lvl, Mana/lvl


Simply put, you should try to combine your runeset to have as many high-ranked runes as possible for the best rune advantage.

Masteries is a feature in League of Legends that allows the player to improve stats for their champion - For each summoner level you get, you get 1 mastery point to put in your mastery tree.
There are 3 different paths in the mastery tree -
An offensive one, which focuses on damage
A defensive one, which focuses on survivability
A utility one, which focuses on.. well, utility like mana regeneration, CDR on abilities and summoner spells and stuff.

After the remake of the masteries you can now get cooldown reduction in all 3 of mastery trees and also get extra gold in different ways. The new masteries seem quite OP, but when everybody has them, it isn't unfair. - They have also made jungling easier in my opinion - Perhaps it is possible to jungler at earlier levels now, than it was before.

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This picture shows a mastery page. In this case an empty one with 30 available points, since I am level 30. Remember to save the masteries when you're done, especially if you are changing a page during champion selection. When you are in champion selection always remember to use the correct mastery page, which you probably have made for the champion you want to play. If not just remember to change the masteries before the game-start timer runs out. It sucks to have improved smite, if you don't jungle xD
You have 10 mastery pages available, so I'd suggest you make pages for the 10 champions you play the most and/or pages that work with more than 1 champion if possible.

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When you pick your mastery tree it is important to remember some different things:
1) It is not always best to put 21 into a path to get the last mastery. Some times it can be beneficial to get some from each path.
2) There's no point in improving summoner spells you are not using. I've heard of people doing that in low levels, because they didn't know what to do with the mastery points.
3) Just because you are a damage based hero, going mainly into the offensive tree isn't always the best. The same thing counts for casters and tanks according to the utility tree and the defensive tree.
4) You do not have to improve your summoner spells, sometimes other masteries are better. For example you don't have to put 10 points into the offensive tree to improve ignite, it can be better to ignore it to get either 21 in defensive or utility or whatever you want to do.

When you start playing League of Legends you probably do not know what items to get on the champion you play and when to get them. This section is not going to tell you about every single item and what champions you should get it on. It is aimed at making you understand what items the different roles should get. It is important to have the right balance between survivability and damage output and to understand that that balance is extremely different from champion to champion and role to role. Items are very situational and are somewhat often aimed at countering the enemy team. I'll try to explain what items the roles should get:

Carries:
-> You mainly get damage items, since they are supposed to be protected by the tanks. Furthermore they are the ones, who should be dealing the most damage to the enemy team. Getting one survivability item is often necessary. Normally players get: Banshee's Veil or Guardian Angel, since these two items can allow you to be targeted without being rendered useless in teamfights. The survivability item is often the 4th or 5th item in your build.

Tank
-> You focus on getting survivability to be able to soak up as much damage as possible for your team. You should't get kills, so often you will not be getting damage items, unless they also provide some survibility like Abyssal Mask. Sometimes tanks also get aura items that support the team: Aegis of the Legion, Abyssal Mask etc.
-> Tanks often get items that can debuff the enemies: Randuin's Omen, Frozen Heart.
-> Tank builds are very situational, since the enemy team may have mainly magic damage or mainly physical damage and the tank should be building according to that. There's no use in getting mostly magic resistance against 3 physical-damage champions.
-> A lot of players gets Mercury's Treads on tanks, since it allows them to be more mobile in teamfights -> That leads to better positioning and better protection of your carries.

Offtanks
-> Offtanks get a mixture of survivability and damage output items. The builds for offtanks are also quite situational, since your team might having an easy time surviving and that allows you to get more damage. Reversally you can also be struggling and then you need more survivability to be able to sustain in fights. Trinity Force is an item that is used on quite some offtanks, though you shouldn't get it as all offtanks. It is often a good idea to get items that grant both survivability and damage:
Abyssal Mask - On AP offtanks.
Atma's Impaler - On AD offtanks - often combined with Warmog's Armor.
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Supporters
-> When playing the supporting role, you normally get aura items, which benefit your team in different ways. Sometimes you get some AP as well, since most of the supporters in the game scales on AP. Some items that supporters often carry are:
Aegis of the Legion - Makes you more bulky, while it gives your team a nice aura.
Shurelya's Battlesong - Gives you survibability, while it has a nice team-giving active.
Philosopher's Stone - As a supporter you don't farm that much and need gold from elsewhere. Getting items that gives you gold over time is kind of a must on supporters.
Heart of Gold - ^Read above ^^
Soul Shroud - Nice with a CDR aura, which benefits your team alot in teamfights and in laning phase. Furthermore the mana regeneration aura gives you some good sustainability while laning.
Kage's Lucky Pick - You wont farm alot, so gold per 10 items are great on supporters. Just make sure, that you actually scale from AP, before you get this.


I hope this made your mind more clear about what to get on different roles, so you don't pick a supporter like Soraka or Janna and build them purely AP or AD and expect to win a game. Furthermore a tank needs survivability to sustain in a fight and in order to survive an initiation. In low-level games most people pick champions, which can deal great amounts of damage, while the tank & support roles are somewhat overlooked. If this could be changed I think players would significantly improve earlier than it is the case now.

In League of Legends all champions have 5 abilities:
- 1 passive ability
- 4 abilities that can be either a passive or an active (in some cases both).

These different abilities all have certain uses, that is important to know, in order to be able to dominate the game and win teamfights. For example you shouldn't focus your nukes and your CC on the enemy team's tank. There are several different kinds of abilities that a team often needs to be well-balanced:

Crowd Control

There are several types of crowd control, and they are all abilities that can interrupt an enemy to some degree. Different types of CC and some abilities possessing those are:

Slows - Abilities that slows enemies' movement speed.
-> Trundle's Pillar of Filth, Ashe's Frost Shot, Mundo's Infected Bonesaw.
-> Aimed at making an enemy an easier target to chase. -> Great when gankin and when zoning.

Taunts - Abilities that forces an enemy to attack the user of a taunt.
-> Galio's Idol of Durand, Rammus' Puncturing Taunt, Shen's Shadow Dash.
-> Mainly used to protect teammates -> Used on carries to keep them from damaging your team. -> Makes the target(s) easier to attack for your team, since their positioning can be screwed up.

Stuns - Abilities than immobilizes a target for some time. You can't move nor attack.
-> Sion's Cryptic Gaze, Anivia's Flash Frost, Renekton's Ruthless Predator.
-> Can be used as an initiater in fights, since it allows you to start a fight, where one of the enemies can't move -> That weakens the enemies' positioning.
-> Can be used to shut down a carry/supporter in teamfights, since stuns are often not skillshot-based as some snares are.

Snares - Abilities that binds you to a spot, but you are still able to attack.
-> Morgana's Dark Binding, Lux's Light Binding.
-> Can be used as an initiater in fights, since it allows you to start a fight, where one of the enemies can't move -> That weakens the enemies' positioning.

Fears - Abilities that makes the target immobilized and they walk in a randomly direction for a given duration.
-> Nocturne's Unspeakable Horror, Fiddlestick's Terrify.
-> Fears are often used to make a target easier to kill, since it adds to the time that you can damage the target without it, being able to escape. Can also be used to shut down a carry in teamfights.

Blinds - Abilities that make the target unable to hit with standard attacks.
-> Teemo's Blinding Dart, Heimerdinger's CH-1 Concussion Grenade
-> Normally used on physical-damage based champions, that relies on their standard attacks to deal tons of damage. Examples are: Tryndamere, Master Yi, Ashe etc.

Silences - Abilities that makes the target unable to cast spells.
-> Fiddlestick's Reap, Soraka's Infuse, Kassadin's Null Sphere.
-> Normally used to shut down an enemy - A strong way to dominate the laning phase.
-> Often used on AP carries to stop them from dissing out tons of damage.

Knock Ups - Abilities that knocks targets into the air.
-> Malphite's Unstoppable Force, Alistar's Pulverize, Janna's Howling Gale
-> Often used to save teammates and/or initiate.

Suppressions - Abilities that suppresses a target leaving them unable to move or cast spells. It can only be countered by Quicksilver Sash if you remember to use it, but Gangplank has a W-spell that removes all types of CC and so does the ultimate of Alistar.
Suppressions are often used on carries or sometimes supporters to shut them down and make your team able to take the target down fast.
-> Malzahar's Nether Grasp, Warwick's Infinite Duress.

Impassable Terrain
-> This is a CC that only a few champions have. It creates a wall/block/whatever that you can't pass through, even if you are a teammate of the user. Examples of abilities that do that are:
-> Anivia's Crystallize, Trundle's Pillar of Filth
-> Often aimed at stopping an enemy from fleeing or blocking enemies from chasing you and/or your teammates. Can also be used to split the enemy team to make some targets easier to focus.

These are all examples of crow control abilities. A well-structured team should have crowd control, but that doesn't mean that five slows are enough CC. There needs to be a balance in that as well. Some AoE CC like Galio's Idol of Durand and Morgana's Shoul Shackles, while it is also important to have some single-target CC like Sion's Cryptic Gaze to prevent certain carries from attacking your team, while also making them an easier target.

Skillshots

- Skillshots are abilities that requires the user to aim while using the ability. It requires more skill to use than target-spells, since you have to know the speed of the spell and also try to predict the enemies' walking path. Examples of skillshots are:
Urgot's Noxian Corrosive Charge, which is an AoE skillshot, Mundo's Infected Bonesaw
This is a picture that shows a situation where a well placed skillshot from Nidalee might provide a kill:

As you can see the Nidalee aims a bit in front of the Urgot to make sure that he runs straight into the spear. Always try to predict your enemy's moving paths and use your skillshots accordingly. It takes some time to master, but you'll get the hang of it the more you do it. To make it clear there are different types of skillshots.

Burst abilities and continuous damage output

In teamfights it is often required that your team has some burst damage to follow the tank's initiate, since the enemy team will have an easier time shutting your team down, if it relies on damage over time, instead of instant damage. Burst damage often comes from casters and many bursts have some sort of CC in the spell or with another spell connected to it.
Examples of burst abilities are:

Veigar's Primordial Burst - It is an anti-caster spell that is able to take out an enemy alongside with the rest of Veigar's combination.

Annie's Summon: Tibbers - An AoE spell with great damage potential. Furthermore it has the ability to stun, due to Annie's passive ability Pyromania.

You will also need a continous damage output, which can deal a good amount of damage throughout the entire (team)fight. Nukers like Annie & Veigar relies on their spells to be ready to deal great damage, while other champion relies on standard attacks or spells with 1-2 seconds CD. Examples of these are:
Ranged AD Carries - They deal consistant damage with their standard attacks and often have some built in abilities that compliments that. Like Ashe's Frost Shot that lets her deal consistant damage, while the enemy can't escape.
Low CD abilities: Urgot's Acid Hunter, Trundle's Rabid Bite etc.
-> They have really spammable abilities that scales on their attack damage. That is why you can call Urgot a ranged DPS/physical caster, since his main damage output comes from abilities, but not from magic damage like normal casters.

You need a balance between burst-damage champions and continous-damage champions That way your team continues to be a threat from the start of a teamfight until the end. It also means that the tank will have a harder time doing his job. If your team has 3 AD characters and 1 AP character their team can simply stack some armor and make most of your team useless.

Initiating abilities

This ability is mainly found on tanks, since they are the ones, who have enough survivability to survive an initiation. A good initiation is often what decides the outcome of a (team)fight. When initiating it is important to position yourself correctly and try to hit as many enemies as possbible, but most importantly to hit the enemy carries. Some of the best initiating spells in the game are:

- Malphite's Unstoppable Force - Knock up CC ability
- Amumu's Curse of the Sad Mummy - Kind of a stun? - Normally you use Bandage Toss and then this ability as initiate.
- Galio's Idol of Durand - Normally you use flash + Idol of Durand when initiating.
- Annie's Summon: Tibbers - A great AoE stun that deals tons of damage.
- Jarvan's Cataclysm - Creates an arena where you an the enemies are surrounded by walls for 3.5 second.
- Rammus' Powerball + Puncturing Taunt - Can leave an enemy carry somewhat useless in a teamfigt if performed well.

There are a lot of other abilities that can be used for initiating. Those are simply among the ones I prefer for initiating teamfights.

Magic Resistance

Increases the amount of magic damage that you absorb.
For knowledge on magic resistance and how it works, check this link:
Magic Resistance - LoL Wiki

Armor

Increases the amount of physical damage that you absorb.
For knowledge on armor and how it works, check this link:
Armor - LoL Wiki

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Magic Penetration

Decreases the amount of magic damage that your target absorbs.
For knowledge on magic penetration and how it works, check this link:
Magic Penetration - LoL Wiki

Armor Penetration

Decreases the amount of physical damage that your target absorbs.
For knowledge on armor penetration and how it works, check this link:
Armor Penetration - LoL Wiki

To be honest there are no champions, which fits all new players. It is mostly your playstyle and your understanding of the game that should decide, which champion to play. You will quickly adapt to a playstyle, whether it is aggressive or defensive. Try different champions when they are free and find some you like. If you are playing with a friend it is a good idea to make a lane composition that works well. Despite what I just said, there are some champions, who are easy to pick up and learn. Examples are:

Ashe - Easy to learn, but hard to really master. She has a built in slow, a fun ultimate with relatively low cooldown and she does tons of damage. But more importantly (maybe), she is cheap, since she is only 450 IP. Some doesn't find her easy to play, but I started out with her and did fine. Ashe is a ranged AD carry, who bases her kill on right clicking xD.

Annie - She is quite easy to pick up and learn. She does tons of damage and her skillset is not that hard to learn to use well. Just remember to have a stun ready before you use ultimate. I had Vladimir in my guide at first as an easy mage, but he is really expensive, since he costs 6300 IP. Annie, however, is only 1350 IP and is a better choice for new players, who don't have much IP. She is a nuker, who has little survivability, but tons of damage.

Cho'Gath - He is hard to kill and he gains hp from killing minions. He is hard to push out of his lane and his ulti is a single-target spell, and doesn't reguire aiming like other tanky champion's ultimates. Furtermore he can be stomping people in low-level games, since he is really hard to kill, while he is able to deal alot of damage as well. Cho can be played as tank or AP/offtank.

Master Yi - Known as a really easy champion to play. He can deal tons of damage and his skillset is easy to use. He is kinda faceroll. He is a melee DPS, who is really strong in lategame. Furthermore he is able to jungle, but I think it requires some runes.


Malphite - He is not that hard a champion to play. You mainly use Seismic Shard to harras and initiates fights with your ultimate. He is a tank, who can deal alot of damage and has a somewhat strong laning phase. He is also cheap (1350 IP).

Shen - He is a tank, which isn't that hard to learn to play. The reason why I've put him in this guide is, because his ultimate is an ability that forces you to get a better map control, since you can teleport to a teammate and shield them. That requires you to keep an eye on if you teammates goes low on HP. It is a good way to strengthen your skills in League of Legends to play Shen, since you also learn the tanking role as well.

Sona - Not the cheapest supporter in the game, since Soraka is cheaper. But Sona is probably easier to learn and she does more damage, which I think many new players will like. Soraka's skill-set probably doesn't suit the average new player. Sona costs 3150 IP and she is a healer with and AoE stun as ultimate. She's been changed at some point, to make her funnier to play (if I remember correctly).

Warwick - He can jungle without runes, which is kinda required if you want to jungle in low levels. Furthermore his ultimate is a target-spell, so it is not hard to place. He fits the jungle/offtank role well in my opinion. You can find some nice jungling guides for Warwick on this site to see different jungling routes. I recommend DEWO's, but the pro player Saint Vicious also has one.

These are just examples, you might not like to play these, though you are new. They might not suit your playstyle. I'd simply suggest that you try different champions and start saving up for one you like. You can go look up the champions in your menu and see what tags they have. That will give you some hints on how they are. Furthermore there are some recommended items for the different champions. Often they will be okay, but you should go check out some of the great builds/guides this website provides for the best outcome.
For more information on a given champion, you can find tags for all champions in the "champion"-menu in your summoner profile's menu. Clicking the tags will lead you to more info on the champ, the lore for the champion and the skins that has been made for the champion.

This is a list of all the current champions in League of Legends. I've tried to add some kind of tags to them, that tells a bit of what kind of champions they are.

Explanations:

DPS = Damage Per Second
Burst Damage = Instant Damage
Support = Abilities that help the team
Jungler = Potential jungler, but not necessarily
Initiater = Potential to initiate a teamfight
Teleporter = Has an ability than can transport him/her to another area on the map
Poke = Has abilities with poke damage / Good Harrassing abilities
Tanky DPS = Kinda the same as offtanks xD

Note that some champions fit more than one role, for example both tank and tanky DPS.


Akali - Melee DPS, Burst, Snowballer, Assassin, AP
Alistar - Support/healer, Melee, Tank, AP, Initiater
Amumu - Tank, Jungler, Melee, AoE, AP, Initiater
Anivia - AP Carry, Ranged, Burst, AoE, Farmer
Annie - AP Carry, Ranged, Burst/Nuke, AoE
Ashe - AD Carry, Ranged, Farmer
Blitzcrank - Melee, Tanky DPS, AP & AD, Initiater
Brand - AP Carry, Ranged, Burst, AoE
Caitlyn - AD Carry, Ranged, Farmer, Poke
Cassiopeia - AP Carry, Ranged, Spammer
Cho'Gath - Tank, Farmer, AoE, AP, Jungler, Initiater
Corki - AD Carry, Ranged, Farmer
Dr. Mundo - Tank, Melee DPS, Chaser
Evelynn - Melee DPS, Stealth, Assassin
Ezreal - AD Carry, Ranged, Poke
Fiddlesticks - AP Carry, Ranged, Jungler, AoE
Galio - Tank, Melee, AoE, Support, Initiater
Gangplank - AD Carry, Melee, Support, AoE, Jungler, Global Ultimate
Garen - Tank, Tanky DPS, Melee
Gragas - Tanky DPS, Melee, AP
Heimerdinger - AP Carry, Ranged, Pusher
Irelia - Tanky DPS, Melee, Jungler
Janna - Support, Ranged, AoE (Heal)
Jarvan IV - Tank, Tanky DPS, Initiater, Jungler
Jax - Tanky DPS, Melee, Hybrid, Burst
Karma - Support, AP Carry, Ranged
Karthus - AP Carry, Ranged, Epic Ultimate, Farmer
Kassadin - AP Carry, Anticarry, Melee
Katarina - AP Carry, Melee, AoE
Kayle - Support, DPS, Ranged
Kennen - AP Carry, Ranged, AoE
Kog'Maw - Ranged Carry, Hybrid, AP
LeBlanc - AP Carry, Ranged, Burst
Lee Sin - Tanky DPS, Melee, Assassin, Jungler
Leona - Tank, Melee, Initiater
Lux - AP Carry, Support, Burst
Malphite - Tank, Melee, Initiater, Jungler
Malzahar - AP Carry, Ranged, Pusher, Farmer
Maokai - Tank, Tanky DPS, Initiater
Master Yi - Melee DPS, AD Carry, Pusher, Jungler
Miss Fortune - AD Carry, Ranged, AoE, Farmer
Mordekaiser - Tanky DPS, Melee, Farmer, Pusher, AoE
Morgana - AP Carry, Support, Ranged, Farmer, AoE
Nasus - Tanky DPS, Melee, Farmer, Pusher
Nidalee - AP Carry, Support, Ranged
Nocturne - Melee DPS, AD Carry, Melee, Jungler, Assassin
Nunu & Willump - Tanky DPS, Melee, AP, Jungler, AoE
Olaf - Tanky DPS, Melee, AD, Jungler
Orianna - AP Carry, Ranged, Burst, AoE
Pantheon - Tanky DPS, Melee, Poke, Teleporter
Poppy - AP Nuker or AD DPS, Melee, Burst
Rammus - Tank, Melee, Jungler, Pusher, AoE
Renekton - Tanky DPS, Melee,
Rumble - Tanky DPS, Melee, AP
Ryze - Tanky DPS, Ranged, AP, AoE
Shaco - AD DPS, Melee, Jungler
Shen - Tank, Melee, Support, Jungler
Singed - Tank, Melee, Farmer, AP
Sion - AP Nuker, AD DPS, Melee, Burst(AP)
Sivir - AD Carry, Ranged, Pusher, Farmer, Support
Skarner - Melee DPS, AP, Jungler
Sona - Support, Ranged, AP
Soraka - Support, Ranged, AP
Swain - AP Carry, Tanky DPS, Ranged
Talon - Melee DPS, AD, Assassin
Taric - Support, Melee, Burst
Teemo - Ranged Carry, AP or AD(On-hit), Hybrid, Map Awareness
Tristana - AD Carry, Ranged, Farmer.
Trundle - Tanky DPS, Anticarry, Melee, Jungler
Tryndamere - AD Carry, Melee, Jungler
Twisted Fate - Ranged Carry, AD or AP, "Teleporter",
Twitch - AD Carry, Ranged, Stealth, Assassin, Chaser
Udyr - Tanky DPS, Tank, Melee, Jungler, Chaser
Urgot - AD Carry, Anticarry, Ranged, Poke
Vayne - AD Carry, Ranged, Poke, Farmer, Chaser
Veigar - AP Carry, Anticarry, Nuker, Farmer
Vladimir - AP Carry, Ranged, Farmer
Warwick - Tanky DPS, Melee, Chaser, Jungler
Wukong - Tanky DPS, Melee, Eat Bananas
Xin Zhao - Melee DPS, AD Carry, Jungler, Assassin
Yorick - Tanky DPS, Melee
Zilean - AP Carry, Support, Ranged, Poke

If you have more to add on some champions, please tell me. It's a long list, so I might have missed some important things. ^^

As you've probably realized, the previous sections have talked alot about teamplay and the right balance on your team. League of Legends is a teambased game, which requires that players accept to take on different roles. In low level games, team compositions aren't a phenomenon people care about, since they often don't understand how to build a proper team. People often have one single character, whom they stick to, but it is a good idea to learn different champions, fitting into different roles. Having a well-structured team composition is really important, since it allows champions to compliment each other in teamfights. Furthermore it gives a certain balance in lanes as well as in teamfights. Having 3+ AD or AP champions simply allow the enemies to stack armor and magic resistance to counter you. And if you don't have any tanky champions, you will most likely get stomped in teamfights, since you have no initiation power, nor any real survivability. Some champions can fit more than one role, for example a offtank/jungler.

A good team composition looks something like this:
Ranged AD Carry
AP Carry
Tank
Offtank
Supporter

One of these should be a jungler (often the tank or the offtank). You can also have an anticarry, who focuses on shutting down the enemy team's carries. This can be a hard role to play and you might want to wait with that until level 10-15+.

Examples of champions fitting into these roles:

Ranged AD Carry - Ashe, Corki, Tristana, Miss Fortune, Caitlyn etc.
AP Carry - Malzahar, Annie, Brand, Karthus, Kennen etc.
Offtank - Jarvan IV, Trundle, Lee Sin, Maokai, Nunu & Willump etc.
Tank - Shen, Rammus, Malphite, Amumu, Galio etc.
Jungler - Warwick, Trundle, Amumu, Nunu & Willump, Master Yi, Udyr etc. Junglers are often offtanks or tanks, but can also be champions from the other roles.
Supporter - Soraka, Janna, Zilean, Taric, Alistar etc.
Anticarry - Poppy, Veigar, Gangplank, Akali, Olaf etc.

If you have a balanced team, you will have an advantage as soon as in champion selection. Furthermore it can be good to have some good laning combinations, since that will help your team to dominate in one lane, and that will lead to more support and/or dominance in other lanes.
Some good laning combos are:

Zilean + Jax - Zilean can plant bombs on Jax and he can jump at an enemy, to deal damage from his jump and the bomb. That is really annoying and it deals tons of damage.

Taric + Almost everthing - Taric is nice to lane with.

Maokai + Akali - Maokai can charge to an enemy and root them for a little while. Akali compliments this by charging and doing tons of damage. I've seen this combo dominate many times.

Rammus + Urgot - Rammus can taunt an enemy, which makes it easy for Urgot to land his Noxion Corrosive Charge.

Ashe + Janna - Ashe needs to FARM, while Janna is a supporter, who can do well without that many creep kills. Basically Janna works well with most (all?) ranged AD carries.

You will often see that the toplane is also a sololane, since your team has a jungler. Some nice champions for soloing top are:

Jarvan IV - Beefy and deals a lot of damage. He can knock up enemies, which is an easy way to get kills when the jungler ganks.

Malphite - A tanky character with some nice chasing capabilities when the jungler arrives. Furthermore his passive Granite Shield makes him more sustainable in the lane.

Morgana - She can clear wave after wave with her soil and she has a spell-shield, which can avoid stuns. Furthermore her ultimate is good when the ganker arrives.

Galio - This gargoyle is rather tanky and has some nice AoE spells for clearing minions. Furthermore his ultimate is an AoE taunt, which will make the enemies afraid of getting too close to your turret.

Renekton - He is kinda like Jarvan. He deals a lot of damage and is still somewhat hard to kill. He has a charge/stun that makes it easier to get kill from ganks.

Dr. Mundo - He has a lot of health regeneration and his ultimate heals him ALOT, which gives him some awesome laning sustainability.

Many players have 1-2 certain champions they prefer. These are called main champions, since you mainly play them. While it is good to have a champion, which you can really dominate with, you need to be able to play different roles. In League of Legends, many players are really narrow-minded and selfish and therefore, they only instantly pick the one they like and lock in. Sometimes this can lead to bad setups and a bad mood in the team. This sucks, so you should always try to have your mind like this, when going into champion selection:

1) Talk with your team about the setup - A balanced team is great, so having 4 casters and 1 ranged AD carry is bad.

2) Don't insta-lock your pick - See what other people do and try to adapt to that.

3) Don't flame people as soon as they pick a champion (maybe if 3 people insta-lock casters it's okay xD )

4) Do not try to queue-dodge (make other people leave), by picking bad summoner spells for the champion you have picked.. It really really sucks for people, who have waited to get in champion selection.

This is Jebus McAzn's words, which I agree with 100%. He has taken the words from my mouth, so I just copied it xD

Now while LoL is in fact a team game, many players go into what is known as "solo queue". And sadly enough, there aren't nearly enough people in solo queue (especially in lower level games), who realize this essential component of the game. Everyone wants to play the big ranged carry, everyone has a "favorite character", while not knowing how to play anyone else, EVERYONE wants to try the new champion and refuses to play anything different.

Don't be one of these players. I beg you.

Another reason why to have the right mentality:

When people start picking wrong champions, I start picking needed champions and be awesome instead. - Dotter

As stated before, League of Legends is a teamgame. You have 5 players on each team competing to win. League of Legends is known for having tons of aggressive players, constantly flaming each other. This is a huge problem in my opinion, since raging and flaming will make it harder to win, since people won't communicate and help each other properly. The only time, where it is okay to flame somone, is when they are feeding on purpose or simply just trolling.


Here are the reasons why you should have a positive mentality when playing League of Legends:

1) Negative attitudes makes it a worse experience. Perhaps not to yourself, but to the rest of your team. There are alot of angry people in LoL, try not to be one of those yourself.

2) Flaming others and being a douche will probably get you reported alot. That can lead to time penalties, where you aren't allowed to play the game. There is a thing called The Tribunal on Riot's homepage, where players can judge each other depending on what you have been reported for. If you act like a douche, people might want to get you a penalty.

3) Try to communicate properly with a good manner - Often it will get you more respected among your team and that will lead to better organization in teamfights and perhaps also that your teammates are more willing to ward, grant the carries the buffs they need etc.

4) Don't instantly flame people if they go to the wrong lane. Some people are more aware of the chat than others and some do not always read the pre-chat in champion selection to see the lane-setup. You won't lose the game, because a guy goes to the wrong lane 30 seconds before the minion spawns.

5) If your team is struggling and you are the only one with a positive score, it does not necessarily mean you are the best player. Perhaps try to support other lanes by ganking and try to carry your team to victory instead of creating a bad atmosphere within your team. Scores doesn't tell everything about a player's skills. Remember that the different roles aren't supposed to all have tons of kills and therefore you cannot always judge a person, who is negative on scores.

This is taken from Riot's homepage, since I found it hard to explain it as well as they have:

How is my rating measured over time?
We use a modified version of the Elo system. The basic gist of the Elo system is that it uses math to compare two player ratings to guess the game result – like, “Bob will win vs Jim 75% of the time”.

From there, the game is played. If you win, you gain points, if you lose, you lose points. If your win was “surprising” (i.e. the system thought you would lose), the points you gain are larger. Additionally, if you are a newer player, you gain and lose points more rapidly so that you get to your skill level faster. Over time, this means that good players end up high rated because they do better than the system expects, until the system is guessing correctly how often they will win.

We modified this for team use, and basically, the concept is that you get a team elo based on whoever is on the team, and if you win, it’s assumed that everyone on the team was “better” than the guess, and gains points. There are some problems with this, but it generally works out, especially if people use pre-mades a little bit.

We also do a few little things to nudge your elo rating in the right direction when you start out so that people get where they need to get faster.

We use various proprietary methods to identify players that are significantly more skilled than a typical newb, and boot their rating up a bunch behind the scenes when we notice this.
Gaining levels boosts your elo rating a lot. This further helps separate level 30 summoners from low level summoners.


For more details on how the ELO system works on a theoretical level, you can read about it at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

I decided to make this guide, because I didn't think that there were one on this site with the idea of learning new players the mechanisms of LoL..
However, when I was 3/4 done, I realized that Mowen actually had made one, which was really demotivational, but I finished it and published it anyways, now that I had made 75% of it.. I hope there are some new stuff in here that can help new players.

I wanna throw some thanks out to some people, who have made more indepth guide on specific stuff in LoL, check out their guides and upvote them, they all deserve it:

Kibblinator - He has a great guide on summoner spells, which inspired me to add a section on those in this guide.
The Tooltip Tome of Summoner Spells

Jebus McAzn - His guide on team compositions is plain awesome, and I got some inspiration from him.
5 Champs You Should Know How To Play [AKA Who do I Buy Next]

Searz - Searz's guides on runes is a great way to get an understanding of how you should build your runepages and what runes you should get for a given role.
Rune tips - What secondary and primary means and more.

Panglot - He has a really in-depth guide on warding, which can be really helpful to teach you where and when to place your wards.
Warding Helper - More than your eyes can see

Hahano - Simply from getting some experience from his jungling guides and for allowing me to link to his two guides on jungling & junglers. Read them and learn everything worth knowing about jungling.

Thanks to Luther3000 for being a great help! He helped me improve this guide alot.
I also want to thank Wintermond for making me switch Annie instead of Vladimir in the champion section.

Thanks to Riot's homepage for some nice info, thanks to the LoL Wiki for specific numbers and description of different aspects in the game.

Thanks to Shurelia for the zoning video, thanks to my family for mental support, thanks to Lord Voldemort for always sticking around cheering me up and finally a thank you to MOBAFire, which has given me some great times and laughs.

Guess that was about it..
- Dotter