League of Legends: A Beginner's Guide

League of Legends, or LoL, was launched in 2009, and has not been left behind in relevance after 14 years. Currently, the game has around 2 million active players daily.

League of Legends (LoL) is a game in the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre, better known as MOBA. In its main game mode, we have a large arena known as Summoner’s Rift, where 10 players are divided into two teams of five, the blue team and the red team. The objective of each team is to destroy the main building of the enemy base, called Nexus, from where each team's basic troops, known as Minions, come from.

The Blue and Red bases are connected by 3 paths that we will call lanes. The upper one is called Top, the middle one is Mid and the lower one is known as Bot. Between these paths, there is a forest known as Jungle, with different types of monsters.

Among these monsters, the most important are Red Brambleback, known as Red, and Blue Sentinel, known as Blue. Both, when killed, grant the champion a buff. The red buff increases health regeneration and deals burning damage to attacked enemies, and the blue one increases mana regeneration and reduces skill cooldowns.

Dividing the map diagonally, we have the river which is home to the Scuttle Crabs, peaceful creatures that, once defeated, provide a view of the place and the epic monsters. Among these, we have the 6 variations of elemental dragons, the Herald and the Baron Nashor, which provide strong buffs to destroy structures.

Champions, Lanes and Roles in League of Legends

Even though there are only 3 Lanes, each team has a total of 5 roles, namely Top Laner, Mid Laner, Jungler, Ad Carry (Adc) and Support. Each one has a fundamental task for the the team.

The Top Laner, Mid Laner, and Adc make most of their gold by delivering finishing blows to enemy minions. The Support makes gold using their specific item, and the Jungler farms Jungle monsters and crabs. Epic monsters require a collective effort to kill, but they provide great advantages for the team.

League of Legends characters are called Champions and, in general, they have one passive and four skills, in addition to two summoner skills chosen by the player when selecting their champion. With the entry of the next champion, Hwei, League of Legends will have 166 different options for the player to choose from.

Champions in League of Legends, in general, amplify their damage in two ways, one of which is by purchasing skill power items, popularly known as AP, and the second is attack damage items, known as AD.

To find out if your champion scales with AP or AD, just hover the mouse cursor over the champion's abilities, if they scale with AP you will see something similar to a purple projectile. If they scale with AD, you will see an orange axe. Champions may have their specific ways of gaining damage, life or other attributes, but these ways are particular to each champion and will be described in their skills.

The Shop is located in the fountain corner of each base. This is the structure in which all characters appear at the beginning of the game and teleport using the return spell. When dying, a champion waits for some time to be reborn and reappears in the center of the fountain with full health. Each team has its fountain, and it is right behind the Nexus. If a champion enters the enemy team's fountain, it will cause great damage to them.

In each lane, there are 3 Turrets, also known as towers, and one inhibitor from each team, and it is not possible to take them down out of order. At the start of a match, only the tower closest to the river in each lane can receive damage, these are known as T1, after them come T2 and T3, which protect the inhibitors.

Each tower deals recurring and progressive damage to the target it is attacking, so avoid being targeted by them. Additionally, T1 receives 5 plating at the start of the game. For each one that is broken, the champions involved receive a gold reward and the tower becomes progressively more resistant. At the end of the last plating, the tower is toppled. When the 14th minute of the game arrives, the protections fall, but the towers remain standing and have as much life as they have left.

If there are no enemy minions nearby, the towers gain additional armor and magical resistance, making it difficult to take them down without their help.

When an enemy inhibitor is broken, your waves of minions in that lane receive an additional super minion, it has more health, resistance and damage and, in case no enemy inhibitor is standing, all lanes receive an additional super minion, totaling 2 super minions per wave. Destroyed Inhibitors regenerate after five minutes.

In the center of each base we have the Nexus, the game's main building and the birthplace of the minions, protected by two towers. To destroy these towers, any inhibitor must be destroyed. Destroying the enemy team's Nexus wins the match.

At the end of the tutorial, the new player is offered five champion options to choose from to enable, among them, we have Darius, Master Yi, Brand, Lux and Miss Fortune, in addition to 3000 blue essences, the game's basic currency, allowing the purchase of one or more champions in the store.

Darius is a champion played mainly in the top lane and his skill kit focuses a lot on interaction with his bleeding passive. He is a character with little mobility and short range, but he compensates with high damage and is quite resistant.

Master Yi is a swordsman and his skill kit is focused on basic attacks. He has excellent mobility and high damage, but lacks stamina and range. He is usually played in the Jungle, where he can kill monsters quickly and without much risk of dying.

Brand is a fire mage played mainly as a support, but he can also be chosen as a mid laner or, in some cases, as a jungler. He focuses on the burning mechanic, all of his skills apply it and receive improvements if the opponent is already burning. Brand is a mage with average range, low mobility and low resistance, however, his damage is very high, and his skills cause great damage against multiple enemies.

Lux is a light mage played mainly as a support or mid laner and whose main characteristic is the range of her skills. Even though she has little mobility and resistance, Lux can be very effective, disabling and causing great damage while remaining at a safe distance.

Miss Fortune is a shooter played mainly in the AD Carry position, and her biggest characteristic is her ultimate ability in which she fires a hail of bullets in a cone hitting all enemies in the area. Miss Fortune has high damage and range, her mobility is average, and she has very low resistance, depending on good positioning to be played efficiently.

Which Champion to enable first?

It is recommended to find a champion that you find most interesting and fun to play. Each character has unique gameplay and distinct strengths and weaknesses, and choosing the coolest one makes it much easier and more enjoyable to learn how to play.

Once the champion has been chosen, it’s time to enable them. With the 3000 blue essences offered at the end of the tutorial, if the desired champion is one of the most expensive, the player is already halfway there. Bearing in mind that, in League of Legends, champions are not released right from the start and some are expensive in blue essences, starting from level 11, there is a list of 20 characters that change weekly for new players to try out the champions that they don't have access to yet.

The simplest way to earn Blue Essences to purchase new champions is by playing the game, at each level of your account you earn a champion capsule, which contains fragments that can be disenchanted into blue essences or upgraded into permanent champions.

To participate in a ranked match, the player must have at least 20 enabled champions on their account. League of Legends has 10 Tiers, namely: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster and Challenger. Up to the Diamond level, there are 4 divisions, so each player must, according to their performance, go through all divisions until the next level. From the Master onwards, there are no more divisions

For each victory or defeat, your score will go up or down. If you are on a winning streak, you will earn more points and if you are on a losing streak, you will earn fewer points. To move up a division, 100 points are needed, if the player is in the division 1, and reaches 100 points, they will automatically move to the next tier.

Seasonal Rewards

Each ranked season lasts about six months. At the end of them, each player earns rewards based on their link. In general, the main reward is a victorious champion skin and the release of the champion to the account. This champion is chosen according to its relevance and impact on the competitive League of Legends scene that year, preventing one of them from receiving more than one victorious skin.

League of Legends is a very complex game and requires coordination between players, but like any other game, practice makes perfect. This guide does not intend to make the player immediately an excellent LoL player, but seeks to direct and introduce the player to the dense accumulated baggage and intrinsic systems of the game.

If this guide has helped you in any way on your journey into the world of League of Legends, or if you want to see any other specific topic, leave it in the comments, and it could be the topic of a future article.

Until next time, Summoner.