A Brief Essay on why League of Legends is Tantalizing
League of Legends is a fairly simple game. Five players sidle alongside one another to combat five others in a small arena to play a little match of tug-of-war (x3). It's easy to learn the macro structures within the game and the sheer competitive nature of playing with a team keeps players coming back to that small arena. Time after time the chance of victory (crushing or marginal) and even just the thrill of competition make this humble game fun and popular.
But what makes League fun is not what makes it _tantalizing_. The further I have gone down the League rabbit-hole and discovered new champions, new synergies, and quirks that have revealed to me why I find this game not addicting (although it very much is) rather I find it delicious: League allows the player to utilize every major tenant of warfare simultaneously and ,in fact, makes them necessary.
 First: strength. The oldest (and simplest) form of all fighting. Giant armies amass and either slaughter each other, or select their champions to battle each other to determine the victor with less bloodshed, soldiers line up neatly to shoot at one another with muskets, or dig themselves into trenches to outlast each other (you get the idea). This also translates into League very simply: tanks and adc's are often proponents of raw strength and the ones with the most of 'it' are the victors.
 Second: intelligence. As made famous by Sun Tzu's "Art of War" the understanding of the upcoming battle is often more important than the battle itself. Mr. Tzu (can I call him that?) also stipulates that those that know the enemy and know themselves shall win every battle. That in mind, it's endlessly important to know what your champ is capable of versus what the enemies' champ can do. But that's only step one. This must be repeated for every champ on your team and the opponents. If everyone has a firm grasp on how the upcoming fight could play out then each team is more equipped to try and sway the battle in their favor.
Also: most of the resources that one can use also fall within intelligence. Most notably: vision. In League, as in real life, knowing where the opponent is and where they are going gives a team the opportunity to collaborate and respond accordingly. Whether the answer is to peel away from the lane and hunt the stray champ or turtle up till they go away, it is impossible to be prepared if you cannot see what's happening.
 Third: mobility. In real life mobility as a form of warfare only bloomed on a handful of occasions (Genghis Khan's riders in particular) until technology allowed being mobile to be more successful than sheer might. Fortunately for League, operating under a set of parameters that contains magic or fantastic possibilities and characters the environment of the game is not limited by technology (although if your CS is low that might not be quite true). This contrasts severely with other games. Age of Empires, for instance, is a game that I love dearly and took many years of my childhood, but as I return to play it now I've discovered the chore that is technology. One must go through several steps to have the tech to defeat the enemy and these steps are largely identical no matter what civilization you play with; so the first 10 minutes of every game are roughly identical and only result in horse drawn cannons and some slow boats.
But! For League champions can teleport and flash right from the get-go! Sure many champs just walk around, but other hope, skip, scamper, waddle, leap, dive, etc! The sheer multitude of ways that a champion can move or be moved around the map is staggering and results in an infinitude of combinations (not literally but pretty close!). There is only one resource (not 2 or 4 or 8,153: StarCraft, AoE, Civ 5, respectively) which hurdles the gameplay forward as unencumbered as possible with its infinitude of mobility options for the unsuspecting humans who have stumbled onto League (for better and for worse, till death do us part).
Lastly: teamwork. These three concepts of war alone are not that impressive. Oodles of games have one or two of them and occasionally even all three. But what makes League incredible is the rapid and concordant fashion that all three come together but ONLY through the human player. Every team fight is laden with a plethora of minute details that are rooted in all three forms of fighting. So the team that wins that fight is the team that harmonizes its strengths and weaknesses. A successful team fight is a stunning display of communication and execution down to the tiniest point. I dare to say that I find these moments in League some of the most beautiful moments of my video gaming life (yes, I have played Skyrim) because the human element to this game is so raw and important that it demands to not be overlooked. That is why I love playing League, win or lose it took a team to do it.
Sincerely,
A Nerd with an English Degree
