All about League of Legends: rules, heroes, instructions, tournaments

League of Legends is one of the most popular MOBA games in the eSports industry right now. MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena – League of Legends is inspired by the MOBA, DotA and later became its primary rival in the business. League of Legends has over a 100 million players worldwide and many League of Legends betting sites under its belt – and it’s still expected to rise in the following years.

Like most MOBAs, A player commands a character that’s called a “champion”. Players are also most commonly referred to as Summoners. Summoners then battle it out in an arena, with an objective to level up with an experience system from Level 1 that caps up to Level 18 and buy items to one’s advantage with a Gold currency that champions could use to pick up helpful items along the way.

With that said, the main goal to win is to destroy your opponents Nexus, the most important structure in the game, that, as destroyed, will end the game and reward the victory to whoever destroyed their opponent’s Nexus first.

Freshly-created accounts will be set for a tutorial and mandatory AI (Artificial Intelligence) matches, or most commonly known as Bot Matches, in order for newbies to get a grasp on how to play the game. Normal Queue games will be unlocked once a player’s account reaches Level 5. With the mandatory games, come fixed set of Champions that’ll be free for the moment, to be used by new players until they unlock the Free Champion Rotation at Level 6 of their accounts.

Accounts also have a leveling system that caps at Level 30. Over time and level, more things become available and players get to learn and experience the game.

League of Legends also has many champions, although, a new player will not be able to unlock it at first. Champions are bought by the use of Influence Points (IP) and Riot Points (RP), both of which are the in-game currency that is to be used in the League of Legends Client Store. But as aforementioned, the Free Champion Rotation is always available for the needy and it always changes the offered champions every week, so players who don’t have that many champions to play with have a chance to play other Champions if available. However, players could always save up Influence Points to but their desired champions, given that they meet the Champion’s IP price.

Influence Points is gained by playing games and it can be used for most simple of tasks in League, like buying Champions, Runes, Occasional Summoner Icons, etc. On the other hand, Riot Points can only be obtained by real-life purchase/top-up. This unlocks every item in the League of Legends Store and can also be used to by Skins, the in-game purchased aesthetic accessory made exclusively for Champions.

Champion Roles

Champions all have different roles. All Champions also have two roles associates with it. Most specifically, they’re called Primary and Secondary roles. Roles are given to every champion best suit their skillsets and overall play. Summoners may then choose their lane of their choice (Top, Jungle, Mid, Bot). However, League of Legends does have a meta for laning and champion distribution that most new players could follow. Champion Roles are the following:

• Assassin – Assassins are Champions that deal a lot of damage in a short span of time. They easily take out other champions because of their high-damage output. They are also usually escape artists with skills that let them escape easily.
• Fighter – Fighters are Champions that rely on close combat to damage enemies. They usually have high damage outputs but some fighters have a somewhat low sturdiness unless their secondary role is Tank or they’re built with armor items.
• Mage – Mages are Champions that rely on spells to produce damage. They are almost always skill-oriented and have to carry the game because of their damage capacity. More often than not, they are extremely dependent on the Mana, Energy, etc. resources to produce skills.
• Marksman – Marksmen are the Champions who rely on damaging long-range basic attacks and/or skills that have dependency on skill shots or targets. Marksmen are almost always fragile and must place themselves well in a fight and be protected for them to fully relay their damage.
• Tank – Tanks are the sturdy Champions that can take a lot of damage from enemies. Their main purpose is to literally "tank" the enemies so that the other Champions may be able to damage enemies freely.
• Support – Supports are champions who are fully dedicated to helping their team out. Their primary role in the game, more often than not, is to heal allies, ward the terrain, disable enemies, etc.

Runes & Masteries

Runes and Masteries are some of the ways that give players an advantage in-game. Runes are bought with IP and are placed into one’s Rune Page. It boosts a player’s base stats, depending on what rune a Summoner bought and placed into the Rune Page. Players may opt to build Attack Damage, Ability Power, Armor, etc. It could all be bought in the League of Legends Client Store and done once player out the runes in a Rune Page and opt for the said Rune Page in the Champion Select phase.

Rune Pages are given by default when creating an account. Every starting account gets two Rune Pages for players to put their bought Runes in. However, with the option to buy Runes in the Client Store, players may also buy another Rune Page or Pages by the bundle for more Rune Pages to use and more combinations of Runes to use to one’s advantage.

Masteries are almost of the same thing. They’re designed to give an edge to players and up their stats of champions. Every account is entitled to have a maximum of 20 Mastery pages and a player gets to choose the combination of every page he creates. Leveling up entitles a player to get a Mastery point to level up their Mastery pages. Masteries are also completely free-of-charge.

At Level 30, they can fully upgrade their Mastery pages as they have all 30 Mastery points. Masteries are made up of three sub-pages tow which players could invest their points in: Strength, Defense and Utility. Given enough investment in a sub-page, a player could opt for a Keystone Mastery of their choosing.

Keystone Masteries are masteries that is considered one of the most helpful masteries in-game. They help out Champions in a huge way when used in the battlefield if used correctly and viably. They can be obtained at Level 18 and is only available if one chooses to invest 18 points in one of the pages.

Summoner Spells

Summoner Spells are two extra spells that’s an option for players to use in-game. At first, every spell isn’t available yet to low-level accounts. But as you level to Level 10, you’d be able to use every spell in-game. In the Champion Select phase, one may choose their two Summoner Spells to use in-game. These spells are used to the advantage of champions, but it’s used solely at the discretion of the Summoner.

Objectives (Neutral Camps)

Since League of Legends will cover almost all of the basics once you start and anyone could necessarily get the hang of the game immediately, it's just really important that we cover the parts of the game that they don't teach. Objectives are extremely vital to a team's success. They either would mean victory for a team or defeat, whichever shifts to one's favor. We'll tackle the 2 important camps you must secure as objectives – besides the objective of pushing turrets.

• Dragon – Dragon is the second most powerful neutral monster on Summoner's Rift in League of Legends. The Dragon is placed on the lower-right middle large camp adjacent to the river and Lower Rift Scuttler. Killing the Dragon, whichever was spawned in those times, will give the slayer and his teammates a buff worthy of its prize. That is, of course, depending on which type of Dragon a team has slain:
• Cloud Dragon – Slaying the Cloud dragon will entitle you to the abilities it has to offer to the team who slays it. "Stratus Walk": obtaining this gives 15/30/45 bonus movement speed while out of combat to all team members. This effect has a chance of stacking and the bonus would be based on stacks, the highest of which would be 3. Having slain the Elder Dragon would up the potency of this by 50%.
• Infernal Dragon – Slaying the Infernal Dragon will entitle you to the abilities it has to offer to the team who slays it. "Infernal Tribute": obtaining this gives 8/16/24% empowered attack damage and ability power. This effect would also be based on stacks, the highest of which would be 3. Having slain the Elder Dragon would up the potency of this by 50%
• Mountain Dragon – Slaying the Ocean Dragon will entitle you to the abilities it has to offer to the team who slays it. "Earthen Arms": obtaining this gives 10/20/30% additional damage as true damage to Epic Monsters and turrets. This effect would also be based on its stacks, the highest of which would be 3. Having slain the Elder Dragon would up the potency of this by 50%
• Ocean Dragon – Slaying the Ocean Dragon will entitle you to the abilities it has to offer to the team who slays it. "Heart of Oceans”: obtaining this restores 4/8/12% of missing health and missing Mana over 5 seconds for every 8 seconds while out of combat. This effect would also be based on stacks, the highest of which would be 3. Having slain the Elder Dragon would up the potency of this by 50%.
• Elder Dragon – The Elder Dragon is the toughest Dragon there is that spawns 35 minutes into a game. The Elder Dragon has a wonderful bounty to the team that slays it, with a long-lasting true damage buff/modifier on every skills and basic attacks against Champions, Minions and Neutral Monsters over 3 seconds. As aforementioned, all Dragon buffs obtained beforehand by the killer’s team will have an increased effect of double its potency.
• Baron Nashor – Baron Nashor is the most powerful Neutral Monster in League of Legends. It's also one of the most important objectives, especially late game. The team to have slain Baron Nashor would reward Hand of Baron to all those still alive at the time of Baron being slain (dead teammates aren’t awarded the buff). Hand of Baron gives bonus attack damage and ability power, as well as an aura that greatly increases the power of minions in the vicinity of a champion and an ultiimately-empowered Recall.

When Baron is slain, each champion on the killer's team is also granted 600 experience, dead or alive, to each team member; 800 experience to every champion in the Baron Pit (shared between nearby allies) and 300 gold to each champion of the slayer’s team plus 25 more gold to the slayer himself.

Player Lane Roles – This is one of the most important things that every player must know before taking League of Legends seriously. Players may choose their own lane to which they could dominate or feel comfortable in. Once you’re new, try and figure out before you’re Lvl 10 what lane you actually want play in. That said, here are the Player roles that follow the League meta:

• Top-lane
• Jungler
• Mid-lane
• AD Carry
• Support

Ranked Games

Once a player reaches Level 30 in their accounts, they are given the option to play Ranked Games, the pinnacle of competitive matches in-game. For first time Ranked players, they shall be placed in Provisional Games of 10 that’ll determine their starting Division and where they should be placed depending on their performances in the Provisionals.

This could brand players in a Division, which places a player in a League that’s suited to their skills. There are currently 7 divisions in League of Legends (from Lowest to Highest Ranked): Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Challenger. But first time players needn’t worry about that for now, they should worry more about honing their skills for them to set a goal on which division they think they could take.

Pro Tip: Once you feel comfortable in a lane, try and play in that lane every chance you can in order to improve in League of Legends. Good luck on the battlefield, Summoner! But of course, don’t forget to have fun too. That’s also one of the main objectives of the game, after all.