How To Fill: 101

So, I've taken to [in my normal games] trying to work around what my teammates enjoy playing and making sure they're actually able to do so without huge consequences. In norms, nobody really cares, so don't flame, don't argue, they're gonna pull some meta-breaking shit and die all over the Rift for a good story. No big deal. BUT. Learning to fill helps your norm suicides as well as your ranking.

So let's break this down into a few steps that I find to be most useful.

Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the positions and what works best there.

• Top: Fighters, Mages, and Tanks work best in this lane since this lane relies on holding an out of position lane all on your own. Strong CC, good sustain, and the ability to poke/farm are all good aspects of a good top laner.
• Mid: Mages and Assassins perform the best in this lane. It's in the perfect position on the map to roam and receive help if shit starts to sink. Bursting an enemy mid laner is good to really rush things your way towards end game. If you don't match up, the jungle can always be nearby to assist you.
• Jungle: Fighters, Assassins, Mages, and Tanks work best here. As long as you can sustain yourself and bring something to late game team fights or lane phase ganks, it can jungle.
• Duo Bot: Marksman, Supports, Tank, and some Mages can perform well here. The Marksman is necessary since they are squishy and need to be carried to late game so they then can carry the other 4 members of the game as a strong consistent dmg dealer. The Support/Tank/Mage's job is to protect and provide cc to set up easy kills and get the ball rolling for the marksman.

Step 2: Familiarize yourself with roles and what they bring to the game.

• Mage: Designed to bring strong bursts of magical damage to the fight. Mages can be strong at the following attributes: Poke, Burst, Assassinate, Kite, and some can sustain well. The main goal of a mage is to obliterate as much enemy HP as possible, focusing the squishies. Mages operate around medium cooldowns and are often equipped with strong CC to set up team fights/kills.
• Assassin: Designed to obliterate the enemy carries before they can get a single shot/spell off. Extremely mobile champions with short CDs or refreshing CDs. Their main priority is to kill and run. They don't perform well on the front line, and if they get caught without escapes, they're toast.
• Marksman: Designed to bring consistent physical damage to team fights. They dealt he most consistent dmg in the game and scale towards late game. Their physical dmg is useful for pushing, as well as mana-free pokes on autos. They are severely squishy and often lack mobility, so a secondary champ must lane with them.
• Tank: Designed to absorb damage from the enemy team to protect allied squishies. They are often equipped with strong CC to disable the enemy team while ally carries can explode them. They're the front line, and sacrifice damage for protection.
• Support: Designed to protect/buff/heal the allied team while disabling/debuffing the enemy team. A crucial role in the game, as they bring unrivaled utility to the playing field. Supports typically increase vision for objective success, as well. -** Fighter**: The role that can literally do anything effectively. They can tank. They can bring mass cc. They can bring consistent heavy damage. They can always escape. They can kill your whole fucking team. Seriously. Not much a fighter can't do. They are typically melee champs with good sustain as well as good dmg. These two attributes usually balance one another out, but not always. Riven.... >.>

Step 3: Recognize that a balance of damage needs to be constructed.

What do I mean? To put it simply, you don't want to coax the enemy team into buying a Thornmail or two Banshee's and an Aegis. There needs to be a balance of mixed damage so team fights can be more successful. Not to discredit full AD teams if they can successfully split push and wreck turrets, or full AP teams with maximum CC and AoE dmg, by any means. But it's more balanced to go for a 3:2 ratio for AP:AD or AD:AP. This ratio typically balances out your dmg and helps you scale better into late game without getting "counter itemed" too harshly.

But how do you make sure to do this? And what set ups are most effective? Well. I usually try my best to fill this up between the upper 3 positions: Mid, Top, and Jungle. The Duo Lane is almost always going to be 1 AD and 1 AP. (AP meaning they dish out magic dmg, not that they buy it). This is occasionally thrown off with Lee Sin/Gangplank supports, but these are uncommon. So bot lane is usually mixed dmg.

The best way to go about this is: Let Mid and Top be opposites. One goes AP, one goes AD. It might not always work out that way, but here is some good rationale behind the choice. Mid laners often roam, and if both Top and Mid deal the same kind of dmg, then it's likely that the enemy has built defenses against that kind of dmg.

For example: Ryze top, Kat mid. Enemy top built strong MR to counter Ryze. Kat roams top to try and kill, but the enemy survives and your mid laner has wasted time not bringing in income. Lost mid pressure and advantage in one fell swoop. So if the enemy top had built armor, than a gank from an AP dmg champion would be much more successful, and vice versa.

This being laid out, your jungler can usually pick whichever attribute he feels necessary to balance the kinds of dmg you're dealing.

Step 4: You need a tank. Always.

This cannot be stressed enough. I don't care how much cc or sustain you have. You need a designated champion to absorb the dmg and defend your squishies. As I've stated above, there are three positions that can really benefit from using this role: Top, Jungle, and Bot. Bot's usually good to go in whatever direction he wants, and should only feel forced to tank if there is no other tank. The primary two positions that should swap the Tank role are Top and Jungle. One goes tank, the other can freely go dmg. But why not Top and Bot? Why does Jungle have to be the other to swap?

If you know that the Jungle (aka the dude that is going to be running around and helping each lane) is going to be dmg or tank, you can play your lane respectively. If you know that you're getting a gank from a high damage dealing jungler, you can save your cc to set up some easy kills. If you know your jungler is bringing in some heavy cc, you just have to hold onto your dmg. The stats of your jungler should guide you through your laning phase, and you should set up ganks accordingly.

So the Top laner should pick their best choice in lane, and then the Jungler should fill the tank or dmg slot.

Step 5: You need, at minimum, 3 hard cc spells.

Stuns, Snares, Knockups, Taunts, Charms. Grab 3. Have as many Slows or silences as you want. But if you don't have at least 3 hard cc spells, your team fights are being handed over to the enemy. Without the ability to stop the damage your enemy is dealing, you can't peel for your carries, and they're going to get blown up. You can kite with slows, but if you can't physically stop that LeBlanc from jumping on your marksman, you have no marksman. And try to make as many of them as possible AoE. Amumu, Malphite, Orianna, Leona, etc. An AoE CC is the best thing League has to offer. And it becomes easy pickings for your Mage and Marksman.

And always be thinking about team fight synergy with abilities. Wombos, wombos, wombos!

Welp, that about wraps up the Easy 5 steps to filling for your team! There are some more in depth things that come with filling, but you learn as you practice. These are the basics and they should help you coordinate better with your team! Good luck and Have Fun, Summoners!