League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game (MOBA) which is mostly played in the map Summoner's Rift. In this map, 2 teams of 5 players fight against eachother. Each player has a set of runes he sets before the game and a set of items he builds during the game. The aim is to destroy the other team's nexus, which is in the corner of the map. To do so, players will have to kill eachother and destroy the towers defending the nexus. To destroy tower, the player needs to hit them. But beware! The towers can hit you, and they hurt a lot. You need to wait that your minions are in the tower range to be protected, because they are prioritised. There are 3 ways of reaching the nexus, and more generally 3 "lanes" where the player gets to play.


The Jungle (jun/jgl) is not a lane and that way the two junglers don't often get to encounter. Instead, they have to farm monsters in the jungle to get stronger and help their teammates on the lanes. The lanes need to use wards to prevent the ennemy jungler from ganking. He can put pressure on the whole map with ganks and counter-jungle Examples of junglers are Amumu, Nidalee, Shaco, Lee Sin or Rengar.

The Toplane (top) is the "fighter" lane where the fights are often the longest and toughest and the two champions the strongest. The main-role of the toplaner is to farm,stack but mostly to splitpush. If you are getting started with the game, this lane is the easiest to learn the game. Examples of
-+toplaners are : Garen, Renekton, Rumble, Gangplank or Fiora.

The Midlane (mid) is the most intense lane where the fights are often fast and technical. The midlane is technically the shortest way to the nexus so it will often be the most decisive lane. The main-role of the midlaner is therefore to push but staying careful because it is often ganked or roamed. Being a hard lane, I don't recommend you to play on this lane until you get better in the game. Examples of midlaners are : Yasuo, LeBlanc, Xerath, Zed or Veigar.

The Botlane (bot) is a 2v2 lane where there are two different roles in each team: The ADC (AD Carry) and the Support. The role of the ADC is to concentrate on farm to stack and carry the team using the important damage. The issue is the ADC is often weak and focused by the enemy team because of his damage. Examples of ADCs are: Vayne, Jinx, Ashe, Kalista or Jhin. That is why the support is here to peel the ADC. He can also give advantage to his ADC by healing him or poking the enemies. He is also here to assure a good map control using wards. Examples of Supports are: Braum, Soraka, Bard, Karma or Blitzcrank.





Over these lane-roles and the system of runes, one of the most important and decisive point in League of Legends is the item-builds. Understanding this will be a huge difference between somebody who doesn't know how to play and a LoL player. There are 209 items in LoL. If you are a beginner, I strongly recommend you using the pre-made builds directly in-game in League of Legends'shop. If you are beginning to acquire experience, try using Mobafire. In Champion select or before the game, type on google : [champion name] + guide. (example: bard guide) This will give you guidelines on how to play your champion: whether you hesitate on the runes or the item-build, it can be really useful as sometimes the in-game items aren't the best. Items are bought at Doran's shop with gold accumulated through the time and the enemy minions/champions/towers your team has taken down. You need to manage your gold intelligently everytime you are at the base to shop for items.

The items have stats, passive and/or actives.

Passive and Actives are individual to each item, or grouped with other items being built with the same smaller item. We can't group them into categories.

Although, wee regroup the item-stats in different categories, all of them separating different types of builds: (Building defense items will make you a tank)
- Health (HP): base= Ruby Crystal example= Sterak's Gage
- Armor : base= Cloth Armor example= Randuin's Omen
- Magic Resist (MR) : base= null-magic wanter example= Abyssal Mask
- Health Regen (HP regen) : base= Rejuvenation Bead example= Warmog's Armor
- Tenacity : No item builds tenacity. Although, the rune Legend: Tenacity is the only thing that does. Tenacity is just resistance to true damage.
- Damage (AD) : base= Long Sword example= Titanic Hydra
- Critical Strike (Crit) : base= Zeal example= Statikk Shiv
- Attack Speed (AS) : base= Dagger example= Runaan's Hurricane
- Lifesteal : base= vampiric scepeter example= Bloodthirster
- Ability Power (AP) : base= Amplifying Tome example= Rabadon's Deathcap
- Cooldown Reduction (CD) : base= Fiendish Codex example= Nashor's Tooth
- Mana : base= Sapphire Crystal example= Seraph's Embrace
- Mana Regen : base= Faerie Charm example= Redemption
- Boots and other (MS) : base= Boots example= Sorcerer's Shoes
- Consumables : base= none example= Refillable Potion
- Trinkets : base= Stealth Ward example= Sweeping Lens

ABILITY

(noun)= Every champion in the game has at least 4 abilities (some have more like Nidalee) which are only casted by pressing a special key. The default keys are Q-W-E-R. They can do damage, support an allie or apply a certain effect.
(example: Man what ability are you maxing with Thresh?)

AD

(noun)= Attack Damage is a type of damage dealt by the auto-attacks.
(example: I'm gonna play Darius full-AD this time.)

AP

(noun)= Attack Power is a type of damage dealt by the abilities
(example: You should play Bard AP as a support man.)

AUTO-ATTACKS

(noun)= They are basic attacks from the champion and their damage depends on the AD of the champion. You have an infinite number of them and need to right click on an ennemy to cast them.
(example: My auto-attacks deal more damage than my abilities)

CARRY

(verb/noun)= To carry or to be the carry of a team is to be the most-important and decisive champion in the team and leading the team to the win.
(example: Please carry me to gold, I am really bad.)

COUNTER

(verb/noun)= To counter a champion or an ability is to have abilities or stats that makes an enemy champion/ability a lot weaker against you and giving you all the chances of winning the fight. For example, a perfect example is Fizz who counters Zed using his Playful / Trickster.
(example: Can somebody firstpick for me so they don't counter me?)

COUNTER-JUNGLE

(verb)= To counter-jungle is to go in the enemy jungle to kill their monsters or the enemy jungler. You should only do that once you know what you are doing on League of Legends and if you have the advantage in the current game.
(example: Warwick can you counter-jungle a bit, nidalee is anoying?)

COUNTER-GANK

(noun)= A counter-gank is when you are doing a gank on a lane and the enemy-jungler, who was close, comes in-lane to have a 2v2 and protect his laner.
(example: Kha come top, lee is coming you can counter-gank him)

ELO

(noun)= As shown on the picture, League of Legends holds a lot of subdivisions in the ranking system. This photo is, i think, clear enough to explain how they work. If you have other questions, feel free to ask.
(example: I want to be high elo like my dad.)

FARM

(verb/noun)= To Farm is to last-hit minion, meaning having the last shot on them that finishes them. We say you have a good farm if you last-hit a lot of them.
(example: I have the best farm of the game, why doesn't LCS want me?)

FEED

(verb)= To Feed is literally to give money to the enemies by giving them too much kills. We say a champion is fed when he has a lot of kills, therefore a lot of money. You can also use it if a champion has a lot more minions than the rest of the game.
(example: Caitlyn is feeding so much she could end starvation in Africa)

GANK

(verb/noun)= To Gank is to surprise an enemy champion in a lane to help your teammate kill him in a 2v1. See: counter-ganks
(example: Rengar can you gank bot please we are having trouble?)

HARASS

(verb)= To Harass is to repetedly and frequently use abilities or autoattackson enemy champions to put a strong pressure on them during the farming-phase.
(example: Don't worry I will harass nasus so he can't stack.)

KS

(verb)= Kills in LoL give money, and money buys items. Wanting to get their carries fed, players usually leave the kills for their carry. Originally meaning Kill-Secure, a KS was a decision taken in fights by non-carries when they took the kills over their carries. This could be to save their carry from death or because he couldn't reach it. It is now more used as a Kill-Steal, meaning a non-carry taking the kill of a carry, who could've got it.
(example: Please Janna stop ks, I need to get fed)

MINION

(noun) A Minion (also called a crip) is the main-target of the game. They are small creatures both teams have and attack the nearest ennemy. (it can be an ennemy minion or a champion) A group of minion appears every 30 seconds and is called a "wave".
(example: These crips keep blocking me it's so annoying.)

PEEL

(verb)= To peel an allie is forcing enemies away from him, or forcing the enemy to not be able to reach its target. This will allow your allie to survive and re-position himself. For example, Alistar peels an enemy Irelia from his Caitlyn by using headbutt.
(example: Guys let's peel caitlyn in the next teamfight.)

PING ALERT

(noun)= A ping is an in-game communication you can use when holding Alt and swipping the mouse towards the direction you need. If you swipe above, you will indicate there is a danger. If you swipe left, you indicate an SS. If you swipe right, you say you will come. If you swipe below, you will indicate that you need help.

POKE

(verb)= To Poke is used before engaging a fight to lower their HP using long-distance abilities or autoattacks. This can be for example Ezreal's Mystic Shot. A good poke is a won fight.
(example: MF is poking me so hard I can't do anything.)

PUSH

(verb)= To Push is to "clean" a wave of minions by killing them as fast as possible, of course trying to last-hit them. It is the opposite of freezing the lane. See Splitpush.
(example: Let me push bot, go mid pls.)

ROAM

(verb)= To Roam is when one/two champions from a lane (not the jungle)gank another lane to help their teammate. This can be really useful to give to advantage to your team if your lane is currently won.
(example: LB can you roam please? Our jungler is afk.)

SPLITPUSH

(verb)= To Splitpush (split) is, in mid-game or late-game, avoid combat in the mid-lane or the jungle to focus on strong and fast pushing to get objectives like towers or inhibitors. This should be done by a fast-pusher like Yasuo or Gangplank so the enemy team doesn't have much time to react.
(example: I will split top, just tempo for a bit.)

STACK

(verb/noun)= To Stack is to grow stonger and stronger as the game goes using an ability, ( Siphoning Strike) an item, ( Rod of Ages) or a rune ( Dark Harvest). The unity of the growth is called a stack.
(example: Our team is really strong late-game because Nasus and I will stack hard.)

SS

(noun)= An SS is a sort of ping-alert meaning an enemy champion is missing. It's often used when you are on-lane and see your laner go in the jungle. It can prevent from roams and save a lot of situations. They are used a lot in high-elo because they are really important for team-communication.
(example: Can you SS next time mid pls?)

SQUISHY

(adjective)= To be squishy is to be really weak and easy to kill. This meaning you are quite vulnerable and shouldn't be in the frontline.
(example: Please protect me, I'm so squishy)

TANK

(verb/noun)= To be tank is to build a lot of defensive items granting health, armor or magic resistance to be hard to kill. To tank something (a tower, a drake) is to take the damage from it to protect your squishy teammates. It is strongly adviced to at least have one tank in your team to be able to win games.
(example: Can you build Jax tank please, we have none otherwise?)

TEMPO

(verb)= To Tempo is to avoid the fight to win some time. To do so, you usually show your position to the enemy, stay safe and keep distance. This can be used in late-game for a splitpush or if one of your teammates is dead.
(example: Guys tempo while i get the tower toplane.)

WARD

(verb/noun)= Also called a Trinket, A Ward is a really decisive item that gives you clear vision in a zone for a certain amount of time. There are multiple types of wards: Stealth Ward, Farsight Alteration, Oracle Lens, Sweeping Lens, Zombie Ward, Ghost Poro and Control Ward. The more you go up in elos, the more the player use them.
(example: Can you ward my red pls?)


- Cho'Gath is usually called Cho
- Lee Sin is usually called Lee
- Shyvana is usually called Shyv
- Lissandra is usually called Liss
- LeBlanc is usually called LB
- Yasuo is usually called Yas
- Amumu is usually called Mumu
- Renekton is usually called Renek
- Blade of the Ruined King is usually called BOTRK
- Infinity Edge is usually called IE
- Zhonya's Hourglass is usually called ZHONYA

,etc. I think you understand now how the short names work, I won't do them all.