How to create team compositions?

thatoneasianguy·4/15/2019, 9:01:28 AM·3 votes·3,492 views

Hello all,

I have a general question for people who play in 5 v 5 games/tournaments/etc...

How do you make a team composition?

Recently, instead of watching the LCS/LCK/Collegiate LoL/etc as a spectator, I started trying to understand it from the teams perspective. Trying to find out what to ban/pick/expect enemy to pick/etc and I realized I had a VERY basic idea of HOW to make a team that is good. Sure I understand that you should have CC/Tank/etc but I guess what I'm trying to say is how do they know WHICH champs to choose.

Is there a model you try to follow? Do you just throw some champs together and see if it works? Is there a certain amount of tankiness/cc/dps/poke/etc you're trying to achieve with each team comp? At what point is it OK to give up something like tankiness for additional dps/CC/etc?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

7 Comments

The Ecdysiast4/15/2019, 9:32:54 AM4 votes

I accidentally clicked the back button on my mouse after typing up most of a great comment for you. So I am extremely sad.

Basically, you as an individual want to pick depending on your position in the pick order. Don't pick anyone who can be hard-countered easily if you're first or second. 400k Mastery on Ryze means nothing against even a 50k Mastery Sion. If you're closer to the end of pick order, check what the enemy team has and what your team needs. Often, it comes down to whether or not you need to make absolutely sure your team has at least some targeted hard CC, because the champions who can easily dodge other forms of CC are the most difficult to deal with. Luckily, this is possible in every role.

For example:

Enemy team has: Katarina MasterYi Tryndamere Draven Zyra Your team has: Akali Jax Sion Lucian and you're last pick Support.

You can see that they have three champions who are very susceptible to hard CC. And your team already has a Sion and a Jax. But neither of them have targeted hard CC, which is a problem since Yi and Kat are incredibly mobile and will be able to dodge both Sion and Jax. You don't want a healer, since their entire team has enough damage to render even a Taric's healing useless. And you don't want an artillery mage support, since they'll easily get to you if you pick Brand, and they don't have the CC to make Morgana's black shield useful.

You could risk them dodging your stuff too, and go with Leona or Braum. You definitely don't want Thresh against Yi since your lantern can give him an extra dash if he hitches a ride on an ally.

But your best choices would be supports with relatively high damage for a support, and hard CC that is either instant or targeted. That means you want Lulu , Fiddlesticks , or Annie . Since they all have targeted hard CC and can supplement damage to make up for Sion's relatively low damage. (Lulu can build Ardent)

Zero Shingetsu4/15/2019, 9:19:57 AM1 votes

LCS is... questionable. You probably won't find great advice in general from League's pro scene, but maybe I'm wrong.

In theory, I would think it comes down to knowing the champions and picking for synergy. For example, if you know you'll have a Yasuo that's really good, picking one or two extra champions with knockup (Gallio and Sejuani, for example) might be a good idea. If you're bringing someone like Blitzcrank, Thresh, or Nami as support, an ADC that can immobilize like Vayne or Jinx is smart. Conversely, if you have a stun-driven champion like Leona, it might be a great time to pick Jhin or Jinx.

The idea is picking for kits that complement eachother or cover for one another's weaknesses, and some of that just comes down to knowing the champions well and improvising based on that knowledge.

DontLewdOrianna4/15/2019, 4:12:30 PM1 votes

Try to get as many busted champs on your team as possible: Top: Kayle
Jungle: Hecarim Mid: Zed / Sylas Adc: Vayne Supp: Thresh

I call this the "even if we're 0 - 20 at 16 minutes we auto win the game at 20." comp