What happens during the laning phase?
Riot·7/26/2014, 1:34:08 AM·0 votes·2,698 views
Now that you know the roles, it’s time to talk about the point of the game where they’re the most stringent.
During the laning phase, League of Legends is more or less about one thing: Getting a ton of money. More often than not, teams are going to do that by killing armies of creeps, but there’s also the option of slaying opposing champions if they’re feeling a bit more bloodthirsty.
Of course, there’s a ton of ways to go about this. We’re going to go ahead and highlight some of the most popular ones.
Classically, the best way to get a bunch of gold is to simply sit back and farm. Team compositions with champions that are fairly weak early, but strong late - think Jax, Kayle, or Vayne - will prefer this strategy. If champions are too hard to kill, focus on killing the mostly defenseless minions, right?
To achieve that goal, you’ll see teams who have decided to farm extensively sitting back, avoiding fights at all costs, and generally playing defensively. They might poke away at champions from afar, but they won’t give up a minion kill to do so.
If the call to be passive is made, watch for supports and junglers to look to protect the other three members of the teams. Wards will be placed in locations most likely to spot the aggressively wandering members of the opposing team, and spend more time protecting their squishies.
Passive lanes tend to struggle with teams fighting them head on early, as they don’t get much time to power up, so let’s talk about how to shut them down.
Some teams find that sort of sit-back-and-wait strategy to be rather boring. They’d rather make things a bit more exciting with an early aggression strategy.
There’s two ways to go about this. First, and most simply, is to just choose champions that are strong in the early game. If you see a composition with the likes of Renekton (top), Syndra (mid), Caitlyn (ADC), or Thresh (support), you can bet that the team playing them is looking to simply take an advantage in every lane. If they can successfully do so, the rest of the game should be easy.
Alternatively, they can look to members of the team to wander around and help out their buddies or force the other side to make mistakes.. By utilizing champions with high mobility or lockdown, the aggressive team can wander the map, looking to pick up kills wherever they can.
Heavy aggression compositions are extremely high risk, high reward. Because many champions that are strong early struggle as the game drags on, early leads are key to being relevant in the late game. Plus, by spending so much time trying to kill their opponents, they spend less time picking up more reliable gold from taking down minions. Sure, getting kills is more lucrative, but if the team fails to do that, they’ll find themselves in a very bad spot.
In most games, teams will play with the standard lane setup: One top, one jungle, one middle, and two bottom. However, there is one major popular variation on the standard.
The lane swap sees one team sending their ADC and support to the top lane and their top laner to the bottom lane in order to gain a quick tower advantage by taking advantage of the man advantage that is created. A lone champion struggles mightily against two, particularly in the early game.
Remember that destroying a tower gives the entire team extra gold, rather than just those who destroy it. So, if they take one, the entire team gets a small lead. However, if the team who executed the swap has their own top laner unable to defend the bottom tower, the advantage turns into a wash. It’s all about execution.
The lane swap has opened up some new, slightly more complicated strategies. Notable among them is the double jungle, which we’ve covered before. Don’t worry too much about those, though, as they’re far less common.
That’s the laning phase! Got any questions? Let us know!
Next time: What happens during the mid game?
Last time:What are the roles?
The farm
Classically, the best way to get a bunch of gold is to simply sit back and farm. Team compositions with champions that are fairly weak early, but strong late - think Jax, Kayle, or Vayne - will prefer this strategy. If champions are too hard to kill, focus on killing the mostly defenseless minions, right?
To achieve that goal, you’ll see teams who have decided to farm extensively sitting back, avoiding fights at all costs, and generally playing defensively. They might poke away at champions from afar, but they won’t give up a minion kill to do so.
If the call to be passive is made, watch for supports and junglers to look to protect the other three members of the teams. Wards will be placed in locations most likely to spot the aggressively wandering members of the opposing team, and spend more time protecting their squishies.
Passive lanes tend to struggle with teams fighting them head on early, as they don’t get much time to power up, so let’s talk about how to shut them down.
Kill ‘em
Some teams find that sort of sit-back-and-wait strategy to be rather boring. They’d rather make things a bit more exciting with an early aggression strategy.
There’s two ways to go about this. First, and most simply, is to just choose champions that are strong in the early game. If you see a composition with the likes of Renekton (top), Syndra (mid), Caitlyn (ADC), or Thresh (support), you can bet that the team playing them is looking to simply take an advantage in every lane. If they can successfully do so, the rest of the game should be easy.
Alternatively, they can look to members of the team to wander around and help out their buddies or force the other side to make mistakes.. By utilizing champions with high mobility or lockdown, the aggressive team can wander the map, looking to pick up kills wherever they can.
Heavy aggression compositions are extremely high risk, high reward. Because many champions that are strong early struggle as the game drags on, early leads are key to being relevant in the late game. Plus, by spending so much time trying to kill their opponents, they spend less time picking up more reliable gold from taking down minions. Sure, getting kills is more lucrative, but if the team fails to do that, they’ll find themselves in a very bad spot.
The variations
In most games, teams will play with the standard lane setup: One top, one jungle, one middle, and two bottom. However, there is one major popular variation on the standard.
The lane swap sees one team sending their ADC and support to the top lane and their top laner to the bottom lane in order to gain a quick tower advantage by taking advantage of the man advantage that is created. A lone champion struggles mightily against two, particularly in the early game.
Remember that destroying a tower gives the entire team extra gold, rather than just those who destroy it. So, if they take one, the entire team gets a small lead. However, if the team who executed the swap has their own top laner unable to defend the bottom tower, the advantage turns into a wash. It’s all about execution.
The lane swap has opened up some new, slightly more complicated strategies. Notable among them is the double jungle, which we’ve covered before. Don’t worry too much about those, though, as they’re far less common.
That’s the laning phase! Got any questions? Let us know!
Next time: What happens during the mid game?
Last time:What are the roles?
