Hello, Greetings and Salutations fellow summoner I am the Superstar Wannabe Extraordinaire, MyBloodisBlack with his first attempt to helping the masses when it comes to playing League of Legends for the first time.

Now I am not going to sit here as I type this guide and proclaim that I am some heaven sent gamer who magically knows all of any game I ever touch (unlike a lot of people), I am just a humble player who loves playing video games and especially League of Legends because despite the few people who try to ruin it, the community in LOL is fantastic and friendly.

In this guide I will give you all my personal tips on how to get off to the best start in the game as well as how to manage later game situation, some of these views may not be to your liking and I respect people may disagree (or downvote) this guide but please give it a read anyways and hopefully some of what I say will make sense to you.

When you first start playing League of Legends you will find that you are given 10 free champions to try even week by Riot games, these champions are a mixture of all roles and difficulties ranging from the Recommended Soraka to the Difficult Orianna but whatever role or difficulty the champion is you should give them all a go because you may be surprised who you find good to play as well as getting a better understanding of how a champion will play when you come against them (like their range or their cooldowns for example).

And remember to keep trying them, you may do the first week and think "I hate Tank champions" and then from then on you will deliberately skip playing any other champions but in truth you actually don't "Hate" a role, you actually hate the champion you played who happened to be that role (I know this because I am one of those who hated Tank but I found that I actually do like playing as some of the Tank including Galio and Rammus ).

If you do come across a champion you really like though and feel you can do some good work with them, keep a list of them because one day you will have enough IP to buy them out right (or you can use RP to get them but I think its best to wait (and yes I do know I am rich for saying that considering I spent money to buy all the champion but I shall admit my own stupidity on that part))

One of the most important things to League of Legends is discovering your best champion and Lane, now the Lane part is probably the easiest part to figure out because you can try all 5 roles (Top,Mid, Bot, Support, Jungle) in as many games and you should know what you prefer as easy as that although some may want to give a few of these roles a few more go to really be sure.

Now once you have discovered your ideal role, the champions you can look at will fall dramatically but then you can look to the style of how you want to play, for example do you want to play safe, do you want to go all out, would you like to use Crowd Control (CC) or would you like to use Burst abilities. Once you have discovered that you will only a handful of champions to choose from and then its merely a case of finding the champion that you have the most fun with.

Runes are a fantastic way to give your champions the edge in a game and we all want that edge as quickly as possible but hold out and wait for a bit and do NOT buy any kind of runes until you reach level 20, yes this may mean for a while you don't have that edge in battles but as you keep playing take a moment to look at your IP amount raising, then have a look at the price of Tier 3 runes...then back to your IP amount...Can you see where the bonus is with this.

Once you get to Level 20 you should have enough IP to build your rune page for your favourite champion or your favorite Role (And believe me you will have discovered one or the other by the time you reach level 20 I am sure of it) and whilst the other players will have wasted their IP on Tier 1 and 2 stuff you will be having the edge in the final stages of leveling and going onto Ranked game.

Of course I should point out that you should make sure that you know what Runes you should be buying, whether its your champion or your favorite role and later on in this guide I will reveal my own Rune pages for different roles which some of you may find useful.

The Principle of Charity means that when you are up against an opponent you set your mind to give them the benefit of the doubt, to assume they are better than they may seem and not to underestimate their skills by assuming you are the superior player.

Now before I continue please be aware I am not saying to assume they better than you but to assume they are better than you think they are, even when they doing something unorthodox in the lane be aware that they might be merely baiting you in for something whether its that they have a combo ready or they know their teammates are in range and one false step would be curtains for you.

So try to play safe, take a second to evaluate your situation, use any knowledge you remember about the champion you are up against (have they used any dangerous combos or attacks in past games) and be aware of your surroundings, could there be an area for your opponents team mates to ambush you. a little bit of preparation can mean the difference between a won and lost lane in League of Legends.

Now I do understand that if you get alot of abuse from other players because of your "Poor performance" that when you come across somebody doing exactly the same that your instinct is to do the same to them because "Why should you be the only one to get it", However I actually beg you with a kind plea - Do NOT do the same as the others.

Try to take a step back and assess the situation as best you can

Did the player mention that they was trying the champion out for the first time at all? perhaps you know some good pointers for that champion that could help them tip the scales back towards their favor.

Is the player being a victim of some 2,3 or more on 1? should you actually go and assist them in their battle? Should someone else be helping them by any chance?

One of the biggest ones people tend to forget, Is the opponent champion the said player is fighting naturally a strong counter to their champion? Can you really sit there and blame them for not doing too well against an opponent who is designed to be stronger than them in the first place?

Raging against your own team mates doesn't help in any way shape or form, In fact people who rage generally cause most of the teams to fail because they sever the bonds of the team just to make sure everyone know that ONE player is sucking this game and to be honest players who have the time to message everyone to ridicule someone have more than enough time to sit down, think clearly and offer advice that can go towards helping their team.

So Don't be one of them, Think Smart and Help your team out

You will want to get to Level 5 as quickly as you can because then you unlock the whole reason behind League of Legends, Playing against other summoners.

This is a major part of learning how to play the game, once you get into PVP you will find the game is totally different compared to when you played bot previously... Other players will do things that bots won't do whether its something like moving into position for the kill to making elementary mistakes, either way you learn to adapt to these situations slowly but surely and in turn you know when to get out of their range to taking full advantage of their **** ups.

But as I said, just because you can now play PVP doesn't mean that bot games are no longer useful to you because they are in alot of ways, for example in a bot game you can practice more freely with a champion, learn the combos and strategy that you may not be able to learn in a fast pace PVP match and even if you have taken the time to master the champion theres still a good chance you may have one of "Those days" where you just can't win and nothing goes right (believe me we have all had those days from the newcomers to the guys you see in the esports competitions) but you don't want to miss out on the daily bonus so a quick game of Bots and you can quickly grab it and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

If you decide to give Support a go please be aware alot of times this role is the thankless task, you can go the entire match keeping your team mates alive as best you can and you may never get a single word of gratitude but you make one mistake and they could be all over you in a heartbeat but don't feel discouraged because the support champion may very well be the most important champion in League of Legends if you play them right.

Now when you first begin as a support it can be pretty easy, you stick with your partner in bot lane and you assist him as much as you can without putting them or yourself in danger and if you can you ward the bottom lane bush to make sure you are not surprised by Enemies hiding or using the bush as a means of escape or surprise attack.

However the support role can go from a casual task to a grand challenge very quickly and it can suddenly you have to learn about warding and being able to ward more of your area whilst still providing assistance to your team mate but always remember that the task of ward isn't something only you need to do, In fact the warding is something that should be split between ALL team mates and if anyone from top lane complains you haven't gone top to ward then you can ignore them.

Here is a map showing where sight ward and Vision Ward should go, although they are not shown you should also remember to ward the top left and bottom right bushes too and remember these are not all to be done by a support champion, if you are reading this as Mid, Jungle or Top Lane style player then you will want to check this out too because some of this warding is your duty believe it or not.

If you are struggling to get down to trying all the champions, maybe you still feel a hatred of a certain role or you just don't like the look of the champion for some reason (don't say you haven't seen that one champion you instantly take a disliking to cos we all have it), then ARAM is the place for you because the decision is made for you.

If you can help it don't reroll, instead just bit the bullet and go into the game because most likely you will be with other players who are using champions for the first time and also probably playing against people who are playing their champions for the first time so you are on a even play field in that sense.

If another player asks you to do a swap make sure you ask if they have actually played as your champion before because there is no point giving up trying a new champion yourself if the other player just doesn't want to use his own champion, in a way you might be helping them because then they might find out they enjoy the champion.

ARAM is also good training practice for summoners Rift and in particular the team fights at the end, you can start to learn more about Teamwork and how one champions abilities can help out your own abilities and visa versa or finding out how one well timed Heal or Ultimate can completely change the game for your team or their team.

The added bonus is if someone else plays as "Your Main" then you can watch them play too, I am not saying they will always be better than you but occasionally they might be or they could be better at certain aspects that may give you tips on how to better yourself with that champion in the future.

Its going to happen at some point, No matter what you will come across on these people who just have to make everyone in their own team feel inferior to themselves, proclaiming they will lead the team to their victory and that you or your teammates are useless and generally putting the rest of the team down but this player is merely bait on a fishing hook and you must do all you can to not bite at it because that is what they wants.

If a player is coming across angry try to read what he or she is trying to saying (Minus the possible swear words) because if they is a good player they will probably be trying to point out what mistakes are being made and is actually trying to help the team even in their raged state but if a player is spending all their time telling people they are s*** and don't deserve to play League of Legends then they have a special place for these people called "IGNORED".

You will also come across players that want the team to "Report" another player for some reason, now agreed sometime the player they mention does deserve to be reported but leave it until the end of the match, they may improve shortly afterwards you don't know but if the player who wants you to report start to spam I personally like report them only for @Negative Attitude'.

[*] If you decide to create a group game with friends, unless you have all 5 members for a team do not decide who is playing what whilst in your chatroom awaiting the match, this saves alot of trouble during the pick section because you would be assuming that the mystery 5th member would be able to do the role you are leaving out (in experience this is using Jungle or Support) but if they can't do this role or has their hearts set on another role then you and your team naturally get upset and try to use the old "We already decided the roles"...its my sad duty to inform you that that 5th player is in the right and you would be in the wrong because its not your place to decide someone else role for them so always bare that in mind.

I got to add this because I do feel alot of players new and experienced forget this simple fact, despite League of Legends have all of these massive tournaments around the world and people referring to it as an "ESport" let us not forget that under all of that, LOL is still a game and games are meant to be enjoyed.

I see too many people taking all of it far too seriously as if losing a RANKED match will bring their honorable family great shame and stuff like that but try to chill out because at the end of the day unless you are planning to join one of these super top teams like Cloud 9 and MYM then all of the stressing will turn a game into a chore and you don't want that.

Have fun playing...that is the most important part to League of Legends (No matter what anyone else might say)

*Please note that what I show here is the masteries that I use mainly for playing ARAM because its impossible to find out a mastery tree and put it up in the 60 seconds you have when you are on the champion draw section, these Masteries make the task so much more easier because you just need to know what type of someone is and you are set.

AD CARRY (Fighter and Marksman)

AP CARRY (Assassin and Mage)

SUPPORT

TANK

JUNGLAR (Note that pretty much any champion can really Jungle in the game but some are indeed better than others at this task including Fiddlesticks)
Please be aware these masteries are not as strong as the masteries designed for a set champion but these will give you Id roughly guess 70% of what you need for each role which is better than nothing

Finally I would just like to say Thank you first and foremost for taking the time to read my beginners guide, I really hope that some of you found it informative and useful as you start to play League of Legends.

Please feel free to leave any comments if you wish to, if any of the more experienced players feel I have missed something out that is important would you please let me know and I will make the effort to put it into the guild and if I have written anything that you may disagree with then of course let me know and I will explain why I put it and if I am wrong I will be sure to edited it.

May you all enjoy playing the League of Legends, hopefully this guide will help you towards a good start and motivate you to becoming a great summoner and who knows, one of you who is reading this one day might be in one of those ESports competitions around the world but whatever happens remember to always have fun, don't let people ruin your game and try not to become like one of those players yourself.

If you feel like getting in contact with me I play on the EUW server mostly under the summoner name "TheBigBadLee" or if you feel like it you reach me at my personal League of Legends fan page on FaceBook at Welcome to the League of Divas, I will be more than happy to discuss the game with people and try to help any as best I can.

Thank you all for Reading, This is MyBloodisBlack Signing out...