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League of Legends is a massively popular MOBA video game. Here is a primer of the objectives and roles of each player in a League of Legends team.
Genre of game:
MOBA – Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
Map:
Summoner’s Rift
Two bases: Home base and enemy base.
Three lanes: Top lane, mid lane and bottom lane.
Jungle: Divided into four quadrants, sectioned by a combination of the mid lane and a river flowing through the middle of the map.
Teams own: Two towers for every lane, and five towers guarding the base.
NEXUS: Bright blue building towards the far end of each team’s base.
Objective
Destroy the opponent’s nexus.
Roles and Fantasy Implications
Each role has a different impact on the game at differing stages in a team’s ultimate objective to enter the opponent’s base, destroy their lane towers and ultimately the NEXUS.
Top Laner
Provides an initial line of defense by occupying the top lane. The top laner has to face the opponent’s most powerful members, soaking up as much damage as possible. A top will usually start the game solo or accompanied by the jungler.
Fantasy implication: Top laners, as a result, aren’t expected to draw a lot of kills. It’s very normal for a top to have more deaths than kills. Their intangible role is defense, while their tangible contributions are though assists.
Mid laner
Mid-laners, occupying the mid lane, are the most aggressive players in a game because of their proximity to any location on the map. They use a variety of attacks, such as bursts or even long-range attacks to inflict as much damage as possible.
Fantasy implication: Most mid-laners will have a high kill rate compared to other roles in the team. They also have several assists because of their advantageous position.
AD Carry (Attack Damage Carry)
Occupying the bottom lane, the AD Carry’s role is also to attack the enemy’s defenses. Along with mid-laners, ADCs are the most powerful aggressive weapons for a team. They usually have a high damage output.
Fantasy implication: Almost similar to mid laners. They will usually have lower death rates because their attacks can primarily be from long distance. They are also accompanied by support players due to their vulnerabilities.
Support
As the name suggests, support players are required to accompany ADCs and assist other teammates wherever possible. Support champions don’t usually inflict damage. Instead, they use their available skills to buff allies and debuff enemies.
Fantasy implication: Support players don’t rack up kills. Instead, their KPI is assists and the efficiency with which they protect ADCs. It’s highly unusual for a support champion to have more kills than deaths on account of their role in an LoL team. They aren’t the stars of an LoL team, which is why their fantasy salaries can often be inexpensively priced.
Jungler
A jungler’s main objective is ganking, which is to help your ally ambush an enemy player. Often, junglers will convert disadvantageous 1-on-1 matchups into advantageous 2-on-1 matchups. Junglers begin games by killing monsters in their domain, which is the jungle area of the map. Junglers will then assume a more flexible role as the game progresses, providing additional offense or defense depending on the situation.
Fantasy implication: Junglers have a fairly well-rounded KDA ratio because they contribute with kills through ganking too.
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Nikhil Kalro is the Founder and CEO of Altletics Esports.