ARAM and SR

So, I have played a LOT of ARAM. Like, nearly as many games of ARAM as Summoners' Rift. And, I have come to learn a few things from playing ARAM that I don't think I'd have learned from an equivalent amount of SR. (And I am something like 302-284 in a game mode that is supposed to be exactly 50-50. I'm not saying it is super statistically significant necessarily, but it is definitely somewhat outside standard deviation.)

1. Teamfight (engage) comps tend to beat pretty much anything else.

Poke is good. Disengage is good. Both (if played superbly) can beat a teamfight comp, but neither wins if they are played to the same level of skill. That's a big deal when you consider that poke comps and disengage comps are pretty meta in many ways (professionally speaking) against teamfight (engage) comps.

2. Early game usually beats late game.

I'm not saying that late game team comps can't win. They can and do. But they don't win against an enemy team that has even the vaguest idea of how to close out a game. I've won games on ARAM with team comps that needed to win in 20 minutes with alarming regularity. I've not won games of ARAM with team comps that need 30+ minutes to win (or let those teams win) with any regularity when they are against such a powerful early comp. (Melee/ranged/poke/engage/disengage doesn't matter for this one. Early power is hard as fuck to overcome if executed properly against a late power comp.)

3. Absolutely no game mode helps with team fighting/skirmishing to the same extent that ARAM does.

There are so many reasons for this. First off, the entire game mode is basically one extended teamfight. Which means that you have to learn how to teamfight or you are bad at ARAM. Second, a lot of wins in ARAM are based in winning a bizarre 2v2 or 2v1 or 3v2 or 3v3 or something of the sort. Regardless of hp entering this sort of skirmish, it teaches you how to do those sorts of fights and that is invaluable early in the game on a map like SR. Whether it is winning a fight in lane, executing a gank, etc... The skills taught in those sort of high intensity fights that happen on ARAM with pretty high regularity is an invaluable skill.

4. ARAM farming is like SR farming on steroids. If you can farm well on ARAM, you will farm well on SR.

I seriously lack the ability to describe how much more difficult farming on ARAM is compared to SR. Whether it is a 1v1 or a 2v2, it is insanely difficult to farm on ARAM compared to SR. You are competing against 4 other people and have 5 enemies that want nothing more than to crush you between their teeth if you step even a single foot too far out. (And it is easy to step a single foot too far out.) I'm not saying that it isn't easier to learn to farm by playing bot games or spamming normals/ranked on SR, but from what I've seen, if you can farm in the Howling Abyss, you can farm on Summoners' Rift.

5. The team with the tank wins.

I'm sorry, I don't care what the complaints are against or for tanks. They win games. Having a champion with some ability to pick a fight on their own (or peel on their own as the case may be) is a HUGE advantage. I've played games on ARAM both with and against 5 champions that are "ARAM OP" and lost because we had no tank against a team of champions that are "bad at ARAM" but had a tank. If the tank can pick a fight and make sure someone (ANYONE!) dies, a 4v5 is usually a won fight. Especially if the enemy team is stupid enough to let the tank get another full rotation of abilities because then they can tower dive and then collect more kills and win even harder. Carries might deal the damage and make the flashy plays, but tanks win fights.

6. Healing is egregiously underrated.

I've played a lot of games with a lot of comps in a lot of modes (ARAM, SR, Dominion, Ascension, BMB, URF, etc)... And healing is always powerful. It requires some some patience to really use effectively, and the ability to engage and disengage fights effectively, but healing is good. It allows you to drag out a siege or drag out a fight and find a win condition or victory that shouldn't have otherwise been possible. Having said that, of the champions that heal, Soraka is awful for it. She doesn't heal. She displaces damage. I'd rather have Taric/Sona/Alistar/Nami/etc than a Soraka healing for me (her ultimate heal is a big "oh shit" button, but her standard heal just isn't enough unless she is played perfectly with her starcalls).

7. The teams that have more ways to win more often.

I've played a lot of ARAM games with teams that had one way to win against teams that had more than one way to win. Engage, poke, disengage, kite, etc. Teams with one win condition don't tend to win against teams that have more than one. If an enemy team can poke and disengage, they will beat an engage comp because HOW DO YOU GET A WINNABLE FIGHT? That's why certain champions are so ridiculously good compared to others. Their utility isn't because of how good their numbers are, but because their kits offer the ability to do more than one thing effectively. Alistar isn't good because his numbers are out of wack or anything like that, but because he can choose between hard engage and disengage at will. Varus isn't good because he is good at poking. He is good because he can poke and disengage. The ability to fit more than one comp is huge, and champions that do tend to be good regardless of their numbers so long as they aren't nerfed down to the EVe tier of old. (Remember Season 2 Eve? Thresh would need numbers like that to be bad because his kit is so good on so many comps.)

I'm not saying these things couldn't be learned on other maps. I'm saying that ARAM teaches these lessons faster than SR would because the situation is more pure. You don't get to split-push to victory. You don't get to play map movements or something like that. You get to fight (or try to avoid fights) as a team. The combat is based entirely on forced 5v5 combat, and that creates situations to see and test the value of a wide variety of comps (intentionally or not, and with ideal champions and not) in both great and awful situations. Seeing all of those things can teach valuable lessons about SR related to team movements outside of a single strategy (split-pushing). I'm not saying that SR isn't a great way to practice or that SR is bad or anything like that. I am saying that ARAM is a way to learn that is often undervalued because it seems so not serious. But it forces you to learn on champions outside your comfort zone, AND teaches you how to fight with a wide variety of team comps against a wide variety of team comps. In terms of ways to learn things about the game you otherwise wouldn't learn, I think it is hilariously undervalued.

There is no realistic way to ever play ranked on ARAM (oh how I wish there was a good way to do that), but it is still a good way to learn a lot about the game that has practical applications on SR.