What is League of Legends?

What is League of Legends?
•	By definition:
o	League of Legends is a fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of a Real-Time-Strategy-Game with Role-Playing-Game elements. Two teams of powerful champions, each with a unique design and play-style, battle head-to-head across multiple battlefields and game modes.
•	Simplistic definition:
o	A game where two teams of 5 players are fighting against one another to destroy the opposite team’s base by capturing mini-objectives while struggling to secure each objective by pressuring their opponents and vice-versa.
•	Note that in the competitive scene (as well as what you will watch today) professional players only compete against one another on a single map called ‘Summoner’s Rift’.

Items that have been italicized constitute they are terms in relation to league of legends.

Main Objective:
•	Destroy the enemy team’s nexus located at the back of the enemy’s base.
•	The main objective of the game is to destroy the enemies’ nexus or in better terms the structure inside the enemies’ base that spawns minions that are attacking you, your structures, and your nexus.

Mini-Objectives:
•	Provide gold to champions to purchase items that improve your team’s ability to destroy the enemy’s nexus.
o	Enemy champions.
	Killing a champion will put them out of the game for a set amount of time (each death incurred increases this time) and reward the killer gold as well as any other champion whom assisted in the kill (assists yield a lesser value of gold however).
o	Lane Minions.
o	Jungle Minions.
o	Turrets.
o	Inhibitors.
o	Dragon.
o	Baron Nashor.
See Key-Terms on the next few pages for explanations of the mini-objectives.
Key-Terms

•	 Nexus: This is a structure inside a base that spawns minions that attack enemy champions, enemy turrets, enemy inhibitors, and eventually the enemy nexus.
o	Located in the back of a team’s base, the nexus is protected by two turrets directly in front of the nexus in addition to 3 inhibitors that prevent the nexus’s turrets from coming under attack so long as all 3 inhibitors are “alive”. Once a single inhibitor has been destroyed the nexus’s turrets are vulnerable to attack and then the actual nexus itself.





•	 Minions: These are spawned every 30 seconds beginning at 1:30 in-game-time (time is seen at the top center of the screen) from a nexus and march down each lane in a single-file line (for a total of 3 lanes) until they reach either an enemy champion, enemy turret, enemy inhibitor, or enemy nexus and begin to attack. When a champion kills a minion they receive gold that can be used to purchase items.




•	Champions: These are the characters that each player controls, with 5 on each team. There are a total of 121 unique champions that each have 5 separate abilities that may or may not be used offensively/defensively towards another enemy champion or structure. When a champion kills/assists in the killing or destruction of an enemy champion, minion, turret, or inhibitor they receive a set amount of gold for that given mini-objective.



•	Items: Items can be purchased only while a player’s champion is standing at the re-spawn point of their base (the very back behind their nexus) or while a champion is dead. Each item has a unique statistic (so many that cannot be listed in this document) such as additional health, a boost to certain damage-types, or other status effect. Items can improve the offensive and defensive capabilities of every champion and icons of these items are displayed at the bottom left corner of the screen while each champion can have a maximum of 6 items.
o	Wards: This is an item that every champion buys. Its purpose is to provide vision on areas of the map that you can’t normally see called the “fog of war”. Wards by your team grant vision for the entire team for set amounts of time. Wards can be destroyed by enemy champions if they find where you have placed them. Vision assists in knowledge of when a champion should play aggressive or defensive and is brutally important in the strategies of your team.

•	Lanes: There are a total of 3 lanes, these are paths from the entrance/exit of a team’s base that lead to the enemy team’s base. Each lane along the way has a total of 1 outer turret, 1 inner turret, 1 inhibitor turret, and 1 inhibitor. Champions and minions constantly fight along these paths as well as in the jungle to gain gold and strategic advantages against their opponents.
•	Jungle: This is all area that is not part of a base or a lane and is also in the “fog of war”. The jungle has several minions whom stay in place on the map and have re-spawn timers that make them favorable for one player of each team to constantly be roaming the jungle gaining gold while their teammates remain in lanes. Players whom are strictly killing jungle minions will every so often leave the jungle to ambush and kill unsuspecting enemy champions in lanes with their teammates to gain an advantage in that lane.
o	Dragon: This is one of 3 highly contested objectives that many players die from attempting. Dragon is a minion that is large and stands in place in a horseshoe shaped area of the bottom half of the map in the “fog of war”. If any team/player of that team kills Dragon a large sum of gold is granted to each member of that player’s team including themselves. Dragon will re-spawn every 6 minutes.
o	Baron Nashor: This is one of 3 highly contested objectives that many players die from attempting. Baron Nashor is a large purple worm-like minion that stays in place in a horseshoe shaped area of the top half of the map in the “fog of war”. Killing Baron Nashor grants your entire team a large sum of gold and a huge limited boost to their offensive/defensive capabilities for 5 minutes. Baron Nashor will re-spawn every 7 minutes beginning from its original spawn time at 15 minutes in-game-time.
•	Turrets: There are a total of 11 turrets each team owns from the very start. There are 3 in each lane and two that protect the nexus. Turrets will attack enemy champions and minions but prefer minions if both are present. Turrets will however attack champions that are attacking the turret if no minions are present or if that champion is in the turrets range and has attacked an allied champion belonging to that turret.

•	Inhibitors: These are structures that cannot attack anything but are protected by the third and final lane turrets. There is a total of 3 inhibitors in each team’s base, one for each corresponding lane. An inhibitor prevents enemies from being able to attack the nexus’s turrets as well as prevents the enemy’s nexus from spawning super-minions in each lane. Inhibitors will re-spawn 4 minutes after being destroyed.

o	Super-minions: These are spawned after an inhibitor is destroyed and are minions with additional health and damage that can even give champions a hard time. Super minions march down the lane with normal minion spawns and add power to that minion spawn until the inhibitor re-spawns.