If you have a mother/father/significant other/dog that watches you play League of Legends constantly, they might get curious and want to learn the game. Trying to teach someone League can be really stressful. They will make some truly horrible mistakes, and you’ll just have to grind your teeth and explain why trying to hit a tower without minions is a bad idea. I’m going to attempt a feat many deemed impossible: to write a guide for League of Legends for the curious and uninitiated. If you’ve never picked up a controller, but still want to know what is happening on the screen, I got you covered.
Rick Fox, the basketball player turned LCS team owner, once described League of Legends as “five dimensional chess.” It’s a little more complicated than your basic board game, but still not as insane as a shooter like Call of Duty . The goal of the game is to destroy the opponent’s Nexus, which is that big crystal thing sitting on the other side of the map. Over the course of 20 to 40 minutes, you will try and acquire as much gold to buy items, which makes you stronger, which helps you kill your enemy and then their base.
The games take place on one map called Summoner’s Rift that has three lanes: at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom. In each lane there are three turrets, powerful obstacles that will attack you if you try to fight them 1v1. In order to attack them without receiving their wrath, you need to get those little minions to come with you. Minions aren’t just cute, they are also little piñatas filled with gold. You want to kill your opponents while yours stay alive to shield you from the turret blasts.
There are five people on a team, each with their own job. One player goes to the top, one to the middle, two to the bottom and one goes to the jungle. Don’t worry about bringing the right champion into the right lane, knowing who goes where only comes with practice.
Now that you know the basics, you should be ready to actually play the game. Create a new account on Riot’s website ; do not use someone else’s account especially if they are over level 30. You want to play with noobs, not people dicking around in an unranked match who will get mad when your CS at the end of the game is lower than my IQ.
Unlike other games, League requires teamwork with total strangers that all need to be on the same page. If someone starts a fight without the rest of their team, the whole game could be lost. That’s one of the reasons that people will yell at you when you play League . I recommend when learning to play that you press mute- which is that little speakerphone next to players portraits when you press tab- on every player on both teams. They will have nothing useful to say, unless you find racial epithets encouraging.
Here are a few technical tips:
- Play Co-op vs Ai until your account is at least level 20. Dying to a bot is a lot more forgiving then dying to a person.
- Buy the recommended items, there are a ton of items in this game and learning the difference between an Infinity Edge and an Ohmwrecker can come later
- Try champions like Lux, Annie and Caitlyn, they are easy to last hit with and don't have difficult abilities to land.
- Most importantly, have fun! This is a video game not a lecture series
