Game Review: League of Legends

League of Legends, also known as LoL, is one of the most famous video games in the world. This title belongs to the MOBA genre and hundreds of millions of people have played it. In case you’re new to it, this guide will let you know everything you need to know about it.

What Is League of Legends

League of Legends is a free to play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena that was released in 2009. Developed by Riot Games, the same company that created Valorant, LoL is an excellent competitive game that has a thriving professional circuit. Many people bet on LoL using both crypto and fiat and follow its major leagues: LCK, LPL, LEC, and LCS.

If you’re an esports fan, you’ve certainly heard of this game. But learning how to play it is a completely different story.

How LoL Is Played

LoL is played in a team versus team format. There are 5 players on each side and the map is divided into two somewhat symmetrical parts. Unlike other competitive games, this one does not feature a wide variety of maps. There’s only one and the variety comes from the characters you pick and the items you buy.

Being a MOBA game, LoL combines RPG elements with RTS elements. There’s a pool of more than 150 champions that you can choose from and every single one of them is unique. A champion can only be picked by one player at the start of the match and that player cannot change his choice throughout its duration.

All champions start at level 1 and become stronger over time by gaining experience and gold. The more experience you gain by killing minions, jungle monsters and enemy champions, the more you climb in level. You also get gold by doing this, which can be used to purchase powerful items from the shop.

Each time you level up, you receive a skill point that you can use to unlock or upgrade one of your 4 abilities. The first 3 of these abilities are available to you from level 1 (but you still need to unlock them first using a skill point), while the 4th becomes available at level 6 and it’s called the ultimate.

Team Roles

In League of Legends, you can play one of 5 roles: Carry, Mid, Top, Jungler, or Support. The first 4 of these roles tend to be involved in a lot of the team’s kills, while the 5th has a different kind of job. Instead of farming non-stop and becoming very powerful, this champion makes sure that his carry and midlaner are safe and can grow unobstructed.

Playing Support requires a selfless attitude and the desire to see your team win the match regardless of your personal experience. Supports often feel insignificant during the mid and late stages of a game, but their impact is still extremely important. Playing this role poorly can easily result in your team’s defeat.

The most important two roles are Mid and Carry. The players who have these roles usually become the strongest and get the highest number of kills throughout the game. However, playing them is not easy.

Gameplay

The goal of a LoL match is to destroy your opponents’ Nexus. This is the main building located inside their base and it dies very quickly when attacked. However, getting to it is not easy. You will need to destroy numerous towers along the way and fight the enemy team.

Only by destroying an entire lane of enemy structures and by killing at least a few enemy champions will you get the opportunity to finally attack the structures located inside the base.

A game of LoL usually lasts between 20 and 35 minutes. The two teams constantly try to outsmart each other and grow faster than their opponents. If a champion reaches level 10 while his counterpart is only level 7, that creates a huge power gap that can be utilized to force favorable fights and reach key objectives such as destroying a tower.

Teams usually snowball once they gain a significant advantage, which is why the first battles are very important. If the opponent is more than 2-3 kills ahead or more than 2 towers ahead, the match will be hard to win.

Two key elements of any LoL match are the Dragons and the Baron located in the middle of the map. These monsters are usually hard to kill, spawn at intervals, and offer important buffs to the team that kills them. Because of that, they usually represent highly contested objectives.

Items

LoL items constitute ways to empower your champion. These items cost gold and the better they are, the more gold they cost. There are hundreds of them and you can buy whatever you want. However, certain items are better suited for certain champions.

If your champion’s abilities benefit a lot from attack speed, you’ll probably want to invest in items that give you attack speed. If they benefit from Ability Power or AP, you’ll want to invest in AP-giving items. 

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what you want to do. But in general, a carry will need as much damage as possible, while a tank will need survivability items that can help him to stay in front and absorb a lot of damage from the enemy team.

Ranks

In League of Legends, there are many skill levels or divisions. When you first start playing, you will be required to invest more than 100 hours in learning the basics and you won’t be allowed to play ranked matches. 

This is a highly sophisticated game with more than 1000 notions that you need to grasp before you can jump into a ranked battle. And when you finally do, you’ll play with people of your caliber.

The great part about LoL is that the system is built to allow you to rank up based on your skill level. The stronger you become as a player, the more often you’ll win and the higher you’ll climb on the ladder. For every victory, you get LP points. For every defeat, you lose LP points. Your goal should be to win as often as you can.

Keep in mind that LoL is not a Steam game, which means that you will need to download and install Riot Games’ client if you want to play it.