The Basics of Mid (basic guide)

 

Mid Lane is my favorite lane. As a mid laner, I only have to trust in myself and my ability to play the game. Nobody can be responsible for my actions but me. This puts the mid laner under a lot of pressure to perform well. In this guide, I will go over how to be a mid laner during the early, middle, and late game in League of Legends, with a specific focus on the early game. Then, I will list my favorite champion for the role.

The Early Game

The whole point of the early game is to not die and hopefully kill your lane opponent. You want to "last-hit" as many minions as possible to gain gold and creepscore, commonly referred to as CS.

As it says in the above picture, you want to hit the minions only once, when they are low enough to kill with one shot. Doing so will save you time and effort better spent doing something else. Usually this something else is harassing your opponent with your abilities. This is commonly referred to as poking them. Poke is a great tool for a mid laner to have in their kit. Poking an enemy can put some early damage onto them and zone them away from the minions, putting pressure on them to be more aggressive to get their CS, or making them more defensive. Both of these scenarios make your enemy lose CS because they are being too defensive or it can get them killed because they are too close to you just so they can get their CS.

 

Good Champions for Poke (in no particular order):

Lux

Nidalee

Ziggs

Xerath

Jayce

Ahri

Gragas

Orianna

Zed

 

These champions are great for being lane bullies with their poke. The best pokers are also the ones that can all-in their opponents early on (often at level 2 or 3) and get an early lead.

 

Assassin type champions are the ones you want, however, if you are going to go in for an early kill. These are high-risk-high-reward champs who can establish dominance from very early on in a game if played right.

 

Assassins:

LeBlanc

Kassadin

Kha'Zix

Zed

Talon

Riven

Fizz

Akali

Ahri

Katarina

Yasuo

 

Play these champions aggressively but safely during the early game. If you can get an early kill or even two on your opponent, the lane will become easy and you will most likely be able to roam and snowball in the mid game.

The Mid Game

Let's assume that you did well in the early game. An average of 10 CS per minute was your aim for the early game, and you did fairly well. You have your first core item built as well as some boots. However, you can't seem to get that pesky tower down all by yourself. If only there were other lanes that you could stroll on down the river to to help out. Wait! Top and Bot! Let's GO! But, we need to be sneaky so we don't let the enemy mid laner know where we're going. So, you head on through the jungle towards bot lane, which is usually the easier of the two to gank. The enemy ADC is busy playing whack-a-mole with their minions, and you sneak up on them in the bushes and your support lands some form of crowd-control. You and your AD Carry go ham, and boom! you guys get a kill. You pocket the cash and put significant damage on their turret. Bot lane says thank you, and you go to buy a shiny new item. The item gives you an advantage over your opponent who did NOT get a kill recently, and you can run them over or at least push them back a bit with your poke/harass. Suddenly, you get visitors from bot lane! The ADC and support came to thank you for helping them earlier, and you take down towers and secure dragons. Good job!

 

Disclaimer: Not all games will go like that. In fact, most won't. Mid game is all about sieging towers and securing objectives.

Stay behind your front line so you don't get melted, and try to make the enemy team's carries explode. Roams are very powerful as a 2v2 can easily turn in your favor by adding a 3rd person. If the roam is unforeseen by your opponents, it usually will result in a kill, leaving one person to defend their tower and three people trying to knock it down.

The Late Game

Essentially this is your job. Most people call you the mid laner, but really, you're the APC more often than not. Today's meta has shifted towards the mid laner being the focus of the team as well as their ability to instagib a squishy target http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_23_XxaHQ and carry your team to victory like Faker.

 

My Favorite

This is Lux. She was the first mid laner I ever really enjoyed playing. Her kit comes with a snare,

which is great for catching out a target for your team to kill, as well as stopping your lane opponent from running away from you in the early game.

Her W I max last, only because it doesn't do damage. Her W provides a shield to yourself and any ally it hits, and is a boomerang-type spell that returns to the caster, providing the shield up to the max value again.

Lux's E is the first ability that I max, as it is great for poking/zoning your enemies with a slow. The ability creates an area that slows any enemies that pass through it, but comes with a small surprise at the end of its duration or upon activating the ability again. Upon reactivation, lucent singularity will explode and deal damage to any enemies still inside the affected area.

ULTIMATE!!!!!: Lux's R is one of the most overpowered ultimates in the game, some say.

This ability has an immense range and extremely high amount of damage associated with it. Once a direction is chosen, a small red laser alerts enemies that they're about to take a laser to the face.

But, once the little laser disappears, a larger, more powerful laser that loves to snipe people from across the map appears and blows up in your face.