League of Legends

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) in a 5 vs 5 format created by Riot Games in 2009. It is part of the MOBA genre and shares similar traits with such games as DOTA 2, Mobile Legends, and Honor of Kings. LoL continues to be one of the most popular games in the world even after 16 years, and it has continued to expand into other areas of entertainment with its release of the show Arcane.

The Gameplay

As mentioned, LoL is a 5v5 game where the goal of the game is to destroy the enemy’s nexus. In order to do this, you must first destroy all the turrets in at least one lane all the way up to the nexus. In the process of doing this there will be enemy players trying to stop you while they attempt to destroy your nexus.

Each player chooses a champion and goes to a specific part of the map depending on what role they have. Once in lane or in the jungle, players will farm minions which give gold and experience to help the player level up, buy items, and progress the game. Minions will also tank the turret attacks, which allows you time to hit the turrets without taking damage.

Objectives which spawn in the space in between lanes will also grant you temporary or permanent buffs to your stats and help you defeat the enemy champions and eventually take down the nexus. While outside of your spawn area, your healing drops to extremely low levels. That means if you take too much damage, the only way to recover is to press the B button and wait 7 seconds until you recall back to your base, where you can heal up again. This is a core mechanic in the game and dictates a lot of the decisions that each team makes.

The Champions

Players are allowed to choose a champion to enter Summoner's Rift. Each champion consists of 4 abilities and one passive. You get 3 basic abilities in the form of your Q, your W, and your E. By killing minions, you can select which ability to gain access to in the early game, and when you have unlocked all your abilities at level 3, you can then choose to upgrade any of them up to five times.

At level 6, you receive your ultimate ability, which is your champion's most powerful ability and as a result can only be upgraded at specific levels up to 3 times. Your ultimate also has a higher cooldown as a result of its power.

The Roles

There are 5 main roles in LoL: Top Lane, Jungle, Mid Lane, Bot Lane, and Support. Top Lane occupies the uppermost lane of the 3-lane map, where champions specialize in dueling, skirmishing, and sometimes teamfighting. It is a role that is most focused on the 1v1 aspect, with little intervention from the rest of the team until later in the game.

Mid Lane takes up the middle lane of the map. Due to its position, the mid lane has a considerable amount of control over the game in general, where mid laners can easily move to either side of the map to help their team when necessary. Mid laners generally consist of control mages and assassins, although a variety of different classes of champions can be played mid. Mid laners excel at burst damage and using their abilities to zone the enemy team away.

Bot Lane actually consists of two players instead of one. The reason for this is because the Attack Damage Carry (ADC) of the lane is generally extremely vulnerable on their own. As the name suggests, they deal the most consistent damage on the team, but as a result they have very little survivability and can easily be killed alone. ADCs generally have high damage and higher range than most of the other roles (with the exception of some mid laners) and sacrifice health and resistances as a result.

Support is the role that ensures their ADC stays alive in lane. As a result, their gold income is significantly decreased and they usually don’t deal high amounts of damage. Supports excel at utility for their team, which comes in the form of crowd control (stuns, roots, slows, etc.) or healing and shielding their team and ADC. Supports have a variety of champion types, including enchanters, mages, tanks, and sometimes assassins.

The Jungle is the area in between lanes that has no towers or minions. Instead, there are jungle camps which give the jungler their source of gold and experience. As a result of there being no lane that the junglers have to go to, they have the freedom to go pretty much wherever they want, which gives them a huge amount of impact on games. Junglers are likely the most diverse role in terms of classes: you can play mages, assassins, tanks, bruisers, duelists, and even certain marksmen in the jungle.

The Items

You usually get two things from minions and jungle camps: gold and experience. Experience helps you level up your character, which gives you access to more powerful abilities. Gold allows you to buy items. Items give you better stats and passive abilities.

The only way to buy items is to go to your base. Once you leave your base, you cannot buy items until you come back. These items’ passive abilities and stats are extremely powerful and are crucial in deciding a game. A champion that has an extra item over another champion will most likely have a pretty easy time dealing with them.

Outside the Game

While LoL as a game is extremely popular, a lot of people know it more for its esports. League of Legends esports is one of the largest in the world, with its popularity garnering millions of fans (including myself). Even those outside of the gaming sphere have heard of its legendary players like Faker.

The Lore

League of Legends is perhaps one of the few games that is known almost as much for everything outside the game as for the game itself. This includes the lore. The champions in the game are all part of a planet called Runeterra. Each champion comes from one of Runeterra’s regions. For example, Arcane introduced us to Piltover, Zaun, and Noxus.

The lore and stories of the game are honestly incredible, and it is worth reading some of the stories or watching one or two of the League cinematics depicting stories from the lore.

The Community

The common stigma of everyone who doesn’t play League is that it “sucks.” The truth is that League itself is a pretty decent game; it didn’t go on for 16 years because it's bad. The League community is known for being incredibly toxic, and it really doesn’t help that the game is extremely reliant on team effort.

This, combined with each game taking about 30 minutes or longer, makes losing a slow, painful, and oftentimes frustrating experience, especially when you get blamed for it.