Home » Gaming » LoL Beginners Guide 2022

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Everything you need to know to get started in League of Legends in 2022

Updated: Jul 1, 2022 11:42 am
LoL Beginners Guide 2022

WePC is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more

League of Legends known, also known as LoL, is a huge game that has been around for over 13 years. It’s not necessarily the most welcoming and accessible game ever. It has a lot of items, characters, mechanics, and unwritten rules that make it hard to start, especially now in 2022. The premise of this guide is to make it a lot easier for newcomers. We’ll also provide pointers, tips, resources, essential phrases, and tactics in this LoL Beginners Guide 2022.

League of Legends Vi Jinx

Basic Premise of the Game – LoL Beginners Guide 2022

League of Legends has multiple game modes. The main, and most popular, one takes place on the Summoner’s Rift map. You can play ranked, normal, and draft games there.

Two teams are involved in the game, five players per team with each playing as a unique character, except in Blind Pick where you can play the same champion as your opponent.

The goal of the game is to destroy the enemy’s team Nexus. It’s the base structure and the only win condition in a ranked game of League of Legends.

The map consists of three lanes and a jungle. Every team has eleven turrets: 3 outer turrets, 3 inner turrets, 3 inhibitor turrets, and two 2 turrets. In addition, every team has three inhibitors and a Nexus. The outer turrets have plating, which, when destroyed, grant additional gold to all players on the opposing team.

Turrets are structures that do damage if the enemy comes too close to them with no minions nearby or if someone attacks the enemy under their turret. You don’t need to destroy all outer turrets to win the game. However, you need to destroy the outer turret in one lane to be able to attack the inner turret. You need to destroy the inner turret to attack the inhibitor turret and so on.

In order to win the game, you need to destroy at least one outer turret, one inner turret, one inhibitor turret, one inhibitor, two nexus turrets, and finally the Nexus.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022- Additional Mechanics

Minions

Minions are a very important part of League of Legends. In order to earn gold, you need to last hit minions. This means delivering the final, killing blow. Different minions give different amounts of experience points and gold values. You also earn gold over time, so you can wait in a base for a couple of seconds if you need ten or twenty gold to purchase an item.

In order to gain experience, you don’t need to last hit minions. You just need to be close to them dying. Most of the roles rely on last-hitting minions but not every single one. More on that in the support section below.

While selecting the game mode you can choose your positions. There’s the option of a main position and a secondary position in case you don’t get your desired role. This system prevents waiting too long for a game. In addition, there is an auto-fill system. If the client can’t find a game with your preferred position, you might get auto-filled to another position. You can always ask in chat to swap positions with a teammate. You can’t get auto-filled several times in a row and it happens rarely either way.

Monsters

Monsters are different from minions. These are jungle camps that are located around the map. Killing monsters serves the same purpose as minions. Junglers gain experience and gold from killing monsters instead of minions.

Killing minions or monsters is not limited to one single position, but junglers mainly kill monsters and other positions kill mainly minions.

There are also Epic Monsters. These are the more significant creatures in a single camp. For example, the Big Wolf is an Epic Monster, where two smaller wolves are just typical monsters. Some characters gain bonuses from killing Epic Monsters.

There is also a crab walking on either side of the river. It grants experience, gold, and also a vision circle for a couple of minutes.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Objectives

There are also different creatures on Summoner’s Rift. Five dragons, the Rift Herald, and the Baron Nashor. You can treat them as AI bosses that give your team significant buffs.

Dragons give permanent buffs. There are five different dragons in League of Legends.

  • Infernal Dragon – gives more damage
  • Cloud Dragon – gives movement speed
  • Hextech Dragon – gives attack speed and ability haste
  • Mountain Dragon – gives armor and magic resistance
  • Ocean Dragon – gives health regeneration

Dragons give different souls if you kill four dragons as a team in one game.

  • Infernal Soul – damage explosion upon hitting an enemy
  • Cloud Soul – additional movement speed while using your ultimate ability
  • Hextech Soul – chain damage going to several enemies upon hitting an enemy
  • Mountain Soul – a shield above your health bar
  • Ocean Soul – a lot of health regeneration in combat

Baron Nashor is a late-game objective that boosts your team’s statistics, buffs your minions, and helps push (see dictionary at the bottom for the definition of push).

Rift Herald spawns up to two times. Defeat the creature to obtain a special trinket. You can then use the trinket to spawn the Rift Herald as your ally. It’s particularly useful for pushing objectives, mainly turrets.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022- The Draft

Once the client has found a game, the Draft stage starts. It only applies to ranked and draft games.

The draft consists of a couple of rounds. There is the first pick, then two people from the other team pick, and so on. If the red team had the first pick it means the blue team has the last pick.

Bans

Banning is meant to prevent you from playing against a specific champion. There are different reasons to ban a certain champion. It might be an overpowered champion at the time or a champion that counters directly what you want to play.

With time, you’ll learn which champions you dislike playing against. Some of the universally good bans in the current meta are:

  • Yasuo
  • Yone
  • Zed
  • Lulu
  • Soraka
  • Jhin

Counter Picks

See the bottom of the article for a website that helps you find the best counter to the champion your opponent has picked.

Counter picking is a basic concept where you just pick a champion that has a winning match-up against the opponent’s champion.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Items

Itemization is one of the most important aspects of the entire game. The recommended section in the main shop menu is a great way to start. You learn the use and function of different items as you play more.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Champions

There are currently 160 champions in League of Legends. It’s impossible to go through every single one of them here. They are divided into categories like mages, assassins, tanks, and more. There are position-specific champions, better suited to different roles such as jungle or support. You can utilize the tabs in champion select to see which champions are for which position.

The most important thing to note is that some characters are ranged or melee, more and less complex, tanky, or squishy (see dictionary below).

Every character has five abilities. Four active and one passive. Some skills also have several layers to them. One ability can have a passive effect and an active one. Every champion also has an ultimate ability which usually has a longer cooldown but is much more powerful than the others.

Ranks

Ranks in League of Legends are your typical ranks where you’re placed for playing ranked games based on your skill. League of Legends is divided into two ranked queues. Ranked Solo/Duo where you can play alone or with one friend and Ranked Flex where you can play alone, with one, two, or four friends. You can’t play Ranked Flex games with a party of four.

The divisions available in League of Legends are:

  • Iron (lowest rank)
  • Silver
  • Gold
  • Platinum
  • Diamond
  • Master
  • Grandmaster
  • Challenger (highest rank)

You have four divisions in each rank. For example, Gold II or Diamond I. Gold I is better than Gold IV. The ranks go up and after you get 100 LP (League Points) you go to another rank. After pushing through the Tier I rank, you’ll play a series where you need to win three out of five games to climb to the next division. From Gold I to Platinum IV, for example.

Trinkets

You can select one of three trinkets. They are free in the shop. If you don’t purchase a trinket, one is automatically assigned to you. It’s yellow by default.

  • Yellow Trinket – works like a ward
  • Blue Trinket – reveals an area around it instantly, but is visible to enemies
  • Red Trinket – reveals all wards and invisible units around your player for a couple of seconds

Runes

Selecting runes is a key aspect of playing League of Legends. We recommend using outside apps or websites to see what runes to pick for a specific champion. Some allow you to import runes directly so you don’t have to set everything up yourself.

We don’t recommend wasting money on rune pages. It’s better to set up runes before each match or import them from an app.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Current Meta

The meta changes constantly so this section might be somewhat outdated in a couple of months, but we’ll try to update it if anything big changes.

As of writing, the meta relies heavily on fighting, team fighting, and winning by simply pushing each lane. It’s easier than ever to end the game after winning a team fight. Much more gold comes from killing enemy champions than minions. Bounties are a big part of that and also allow teams that are losing to make a comeback.

The stronger the enemy champion, the bigger the value of the bounty. The same applies to structures and objectives. If the enemy team has a big advantage, taking an enemy turret or a dragon, for example, results in your team getting more gold than normal.

In the durability update, many champions are more durable and tanky. Assassins tend to be weaker and fights last longer than before. Tanks are playing a big role in winning games, so it’s good to have at least one in your team. Not every role can play as a tank.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Learning and Getting Better – LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Using Pings to Communicate

An important aspect of the game is using pings to communicate. You can warn your allies of nearbydanger , let them know you’re on your way, or ping that a specific place is warded. You press the “G” button by default to ping.

Utilize Practice Tool

If you purchase a new champion, get to know them in the Practice Tool. It’s a custom game mode where you can play and test out different builds by yourself or see what abilities do.

Watch Streamers and Pro Play

One easy way to learn mechanics and get to know the game is by watching other people play. You can check out various gameplay videos of different characters on YouTube, for example. Watching streamers is also a good option to learn.

League of Legends has also a huge esports scene and watching professional players play can be very helpful as well.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Map Awareness

The map is an essential part of League of Legends that allows you to have more control over what your or the opposing team is doing. Always keep an eye on it. Never forget about the map.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Mute Negative Players

Every gaming community can be toxic. Feel free to mute negative players.

Vision

Vision is an important aspect of League of Legends. It allows players to control the map. Supports get role specific items that grant free wards. Place them whenever possible.

There are also Control Wards. They reveal other normal wards and stealth units like champions.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Game Phases

While playing the game you will be presented with general three stages of the game: early game, mid game, and late game.

Early Game

In the early game, it’s mostly about winning your own lane and lasts until about 14 minutes. Junglers tend to farm and potentially look out for ganks while the other lanes are just focusing on last-hitting minions. There are a lot of aspects to that, but all you need to know is that the early game is quite calm. You mostly fight in your lane and try to get a gold advantage by killing more minions or monsters than the opposing player. There is also a focus on early dragons as objectives. One or two dragons spawn early game. The Bot lane puts pressure on the opposing team and then helps the jungler take the dragon.

Mid Game

Mid game usually starts when one lane wins their lane hard or when turret plates drop off. Players start roaming around the map to push different lanes. For example, if the mid lane outer turret has low health, players might group there and take it if possible. Some mid game objectives include other dragons, sometimes risky Baron plays, and team fighting.

Late Game

Late Game usually starts around 25-30 minutes. Players have most of their full builds with at least four or five items completed. It’s all about the big objectives and team fights. You usually move as a group, put pressure on a specific side of the map, or group at objectives. After winning a team fight, a team pushes to destroy the Nexus and win the game.

LoL Beginners Guide 2022

LoL Beginners Guide 2022 – Role and Position Tips

Top Lane

The top lane is arguably the simplest lane. You usually farm minions and occasionally fight with your opponent for most of the early game. You need to watch out for ganks from the jungler around the 4-minute mark. Top lane champions are usually tanks or bruisers. Their role later in the game is to act as the front line in team fights.

Recommended Picks:

  • Garen
  • Renekton
  • Malphite

Recommended Bans:

  • Darius
  • Camille
  • Irelia

Recommended Streamers:

  • TFBlade
  • TheBausff

Jungle

A jungler’s main responsibility is to gank other lanes to help them win, farm jungle camps to get an advantage on the enemy jungler, and look out for objectives like Dragons, Baron Nashor, and Rift Herald. The champion pool is very varied from assassins to mages and even tanks.

Recommended Picks:

  • Sejuani
  • Rammus
  • Master Yi

Recommended Bans:

  • Kayn
  • Kha’Zix
  • Lillia

Recommended Streamers:

  • Jankos
  • MikeYoung

Mid Lane

The mid lane is the place for mages and assassins. They tend to fight in the early game and then look for roams to other lanes to help them get an advantage. Some mid laners can also be more focused on control like providing shields for the team but also crowd control and damage.

Recommended Picks:

  • Ziggs
  • Ahri
  • Talon

Recommended Bans:

  • Yasuo
  • Yone
  • Zed

Recommended Streamers:

  • Nemesis
  • KayPea
LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Bottom Lane

Bot lane is usually the place for ADCs (attack damage carry). Their role is to provide a lot of DPS (damage per second) in the later stages of the game. These champions build a lot of AD (attack damage) and armor penetration. They are squishy and need to be protected, especially in team fights. In the current meta, mage and melee champions are sometimes played in the bottom lane.

Recommended Picks:

  • Ashe
  • Tristana
  • Ezreal

Recommended Bans:

  • Jhin
  • Vayne
  • Caitlyn

Recommended Streamers:

  • Rekkles
  • Doublelift

Support

The role of the support is to make the game easier for their team and to provide vision. Usually supports provide some sort of peel or crowd control for the team. They often provide shields and heals to assist allies. Vision means placing wards on the map to track the position and movement of enemy players.

Recommended Picks:

  • Janna
  • Alistar
  • Karma

Recommended Bans:

  • Lulu
  • Soraka
  • Leona

Recommended Streamers:

  • Alicopter
  • Lathyrustv
LoL Beginners Guide 2022

Resources and Websites

LoL Dictionary

  • AP – ability power, magic damage dealt by champions
  • AD – attack damage
  • Ability Haste – is responsible for your cooldowns on abilities
  • MR – magic resistance, resistance for magic damage
  • LP – league points, your points in ranked games and divisions
  • TF/Team fight – fights between multiple members of both teams
  • Tanks – champions that are hard to kill with a lot of health, armor, and magic resistance
  • Squishy – champions that are easy to kill, assassins for example, with a low amount of health
  • Bruisers – champions that are not like tanks, but thrive in extended fights
  • Push – kill minions fast and go for the turrets trying to go deeper into enemy territory
  • Roam – going to help other lanes
  • Surr/FF – to surrender, forfeit the game
  • SS/MIA – enemy missing for your lane
  • Swap – switch positions, roles, or champions with another player
  • Ganks – jungler comes to help their teammate to kill an opponent, usually to one of three lanes
  • Proc – to activate something, like an ability for example
  • Frontline – champions standing in front of the team, protecting them
  • Poke – champions having long-range attacks or abilities to attack enemy team and weaken them before the fight
  • CC/Crowd Control – effects that limit your character’s movement
  • ADC – attack damage carry, champions with focus on auto-attacking the enemies
  • DPS – damage per second
  • AS – attack speed
  • Diff – difference
  • Peel – helping out the team, making sure they stay alive

Learning League of Legends isn’t easy for beginners, but don’t be discouraged by how much there is to learn. It all comes in time. The more you play, the more you learn. Stay polite and spread positivity, mute negative people, and enjoy the game.


Trusted Source

WePC’s mission is to be the most trusted site in tech. Our editorial content is 100% independent and we put every product we review through a rigorous testing process before telling you exactly what we think. We won’t recommend anything we wouldn’t use ourselves. Read more