Team Compositions & Coordinated Strategy

Lets talk about team comps and coordinated team strategies, taking all of the principles weve talked
about up to this point into consideration (Id recommend you familiarize yourself with the Playing to
Win section if you havent already). Theres a lot of crossover in the following team comps, meaning
you can build to take in aspects of multiple comps and use their strengths to your advantage while
potentially covering some of their weaknesses.

Effective Team Compositions

The following are known, effective team compositions. Theres a companion video for this which
provides specific examples (several from major tournaments), so make sure you dont miss out on that.
Following this section Ill break down some of the elements that you can use to help create an effective
team.

Strategic, Flexible Early Laning

The most common playstyle in solo and duo queue involves running a heavy fighter at top lane, an
ability power mage at mid lane, and a support and physical damage carry at bottom lane. As weve
covered in this book, the idea behind this weighting is it gives teams more dragon control while giving
the ability power mage a safety and power advantage.
However, in coordinated team games this is becoming much rarer to see, because this is not always the
best way to take early objectives. I mention early lane swapping earlier in the Playing to Win section, so
if you missed it, go back and read it for a bullet point list of when and why its a good idea (and when its
not).
One thing to keep in mind is how well your lanes will allow you to control your own jungle buffs and
help deny your opponents. There are two attributes to this:
1. Can your champion physically block the enemy mid lane from using the most direct path to
defend their own jungler? (This implies positioning strength as well as the ability to bully
them off the path)
2. Can your champion provide a major benefit to quickly invading a major buff in the enemy
jungle?
A champion like Blitzcrank fits both of these roles fairly well, and works well as a duo lane partner. But
plenty of other champions performing other roles may work well for this as well.

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Dragon control is a very real thing. Even at the pro tournament level, pushing an early top can backfire if
the enemy team immediately uses your positioning to take out Dragon. Usually taking a tower out soon
enough, and while the enemy team is still attempting to defend it, can negate this risk. However, map
mobility in the form of teleport and champion abilities may also be helpful for this. Another thing to
keep in mind is that a 2v1 top lane may necessitate the jungler camping the lane for the team with only
one defender, which can actually help control the flow of engagements throughout the map.
In most situations, a tower takedown in your lane offers a good opportunity to fall back, recall, and
purchase new items. From there, you can go to wherever youre pushing or defending next. However,
think about when it may be a good idea to simply run across the map to quickly get to another objective
and help take it. In the second week of Season 3 Summer Split, Counter Logic Gaming managed to break
Cloud 9s unbroken winning streak in part by taking Dragon early on; this maneuver happened when
Cloud 9 had just taken top tower and began recalling to base, while Janna and Elise instead moved
across the map for Dragon.
Some very survivable champions, such as Singed, Shen, Renekton, and Nasus, are able to do well in a
2v1 lane by playing defensively at their tower. However, a jungler can help stop aggression by visibly
camping in the lane similar to an additional laner. If you simply need to buy time while your duo pair
takes another tower, this can be an effective way to tipping that balance towards your team.
Speaking of champions who can survive solo lanes, another team composition designed around flexible
laning includes multiple support champions (such as Janna and Sona). The idea behind these picks is not
so much that they can hold the tower (though ideally they can delay a takedown), but that they can
support other players on the team who enter the lane to help quickly push objectives. This setup allows
and requires strong damage dealers to move fluidly around the map, and allows for some interesting
team comps (such as jungle Ezreal).

AOE Disables/Damage
When a team has at least one very strong AOE disabler, such as Galio, Amumu, or Morgana, they can
line up devastating combos for additional AOE damage from other teammates. Watch out for a team
that contains one of these disables, along with any other damaging ultimate (such as Miss Fortune's
Bullet Time), as they can very quickly knock out an enemy team even if they're behind.
AOE teams only work if a team is grouped up tightly enough that multiple important targets can be hit at
once. To counter these teams, make every effort to keep your most important teammates away from
each other and from other teammates, but close enough that they can immediately engage after the
AOE team has initiated a fight. The jungle is a death trap when going against AOE teams, as the tighter
corridors can sometimes make it virtually impossible to avoid a strong ability combo.

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If you have teammates who can survive an initial round of burst from the AOE champions, having them
stay near each other can draw attention to them, allowing for effective counterplay once the initial
volley of abilities have been used. Another good counter is the use of champions such as Janna, Alistar,
and other disablers to lock down these champions as they try to initiate fights.
Finally, using split pushing (covered later) and other multi-faceted approaches that require their team to
split apart to deal with your team can very effectively counter teams that require their ability combo to
win fights.
Keep cooldowns in mind! Many of the more powerful ultimates have very long cooldowns, and it can
buy you at least a couple minutes to engage without fear of them. If you see an ultimate mis-used, or if
you recover from a bad fight quickly enough, take advantage of it by taking an objective or forcing them
into an unfavorable fight.
Getting a good balance of AOE in your team to pick up at least some of the benefits of this team comp is
a good idea in most match-ups.

Early Victory (Bruisers and/or Assassins)

When a team is disproportionately comprised of either assassins (including casters like LeBlanc) or
bruisers (tanky DPS with disables), this usually points to a strategy of winning the game early on. These
champions excel in the early game, potentially netting several early kills in each lane and gaining early
towers. In Season 3, Bruiser/Assassin teams have shown themselves to be very strong at early tower
dives, allowing virtually unavoidable ganks in each lane unless the lane has considerable advance
warning.
However, this is a strategy that relies on snowballing an unusually strong advantage over the other team
early, ideally leading to a team that will either surrender or stop trying as hard to win.
Countering these teams relies on playing it unusually safe and farming gold. You want a strong
marksman and/or mage coming out of the early and mid game -- damage in League of Legends is
designed so that it will always outpace survivability, given time and smart gold investments. Non-carry
champions should focus on surviving the initial burst from these champions to protect the carries.
Balanced team compositions will usually win over heavy assassin or bruiser team compositions once the
game reaches late game.

Double Assassins
Double assassin teams pose a unique threat due to their ability to snowball through a teamfight,
especially when at least one of them can reset some or all of their abilities with a kill or assast (Katarina,

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Khazix, Akali). For what its worth, this also goes for Master Yi and Tristana if theyre doing extremely
well.
Double Assassin comps rely entirely on singling out a single vulnerable player and destroying them, then
either falling back or moving on to the next target. This is especially brutal against teams who have
multiple squishy champions, and is capable of turning around games even when the other team is doing
fantastically well. If youre playing a double assassin team, its worth bringing in players with strong
long-range harassment (poke) to get people low enoughto be easily burst down by the assassins. On top
of this, at least one hard crowd control is helpful for easily knocking out the first victim.
How do you counter this? At champion select, picking champions who are very bulky or who can survive
through death (Anivia, Zac, Zilean, etc.) work provided they mesh with your team comp. In game,
vulnerable members should absolutely strive to build a Guardian Angel as their fourth item. Nothing kills
an assassins ability to teamfight like having to wait in the middle of a team for a core target to revive.
And if theyre relying on ability resets, they wont get them until the target is actually dead, not simply
put into a state of revival.
Beyond this, you need to worry about the individual survivability of your team. If youre playing as a
team, your goal should be to build enough effective health to survive the burst long enough for crowd
controls or disengage to come into effect.
When youre playing without a full team, it may not be possible to convince players that they need more
survivability. Thats where group survivability items such as Aegis of the Legion and Locket of the Iron
Solari come in.
And when all else fails, do everything you can to keep more vulnerable players out of the fight until the
assassins have already engaged.

Pushers
Teams with very strong pushers such as Master Yi, Sivir, or Tristana, may look for opportunities to break
away from their team to push lanes and structures around the map.
Ideally at least someone on your team has teleport or can otherwise immediately respond when a
structure is being pushed. In normal circumstances, this will usually cause the pushing player to burn
important cooldowns to escape, and may potentially net a kill for your team.
It may seem contradictory, but one of the best ways to counter pushers is to push down a lane hard as a
team while your own lane is getting pushed. Unless the other team's pushers are significantly ahead of
your own, this should eventually force them to back off the lane in order to defend.

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If you do this, you may be met with a team fight. To take advantage of their teammates absence and
keep the pressure on them, you will most likely need to engage in a fight with their team immediately
(while they're down a player).

Over-The-Wall Mobility
Teams which have mobility that allows them to go over walls as a group are very effective at surprise
engagements and escapes. Additionally, these teams are capable of entering both the Dragon and Baron
pits without being seen in the river. In two recent tournament games, teams with this make-up have
been able to unexpectedly take Baron Nashor without the enemy team even knowing they were
present.
One of the best additions for this team type is Thresh, due to his ability to pull himself over a wall, then
drop a lantern that can pull an ally in with him. With Thresh, at least one pick can be taken that doesnt
have strong mobility. On top of this, extremely mobile champions such as Lee Sin are ideal picks. Lessthan-ideal picks are champions whose mobility relies on ultimates, such as Ahri and Malphite.
The strength of these teams is overlooked, and in my opinion, they are one of the most powerful team
compositions available today. Notably, Korean teams are extraordinarily good at using this type of team
to their advantage and they were able to dominate the Chinese All Star team with this approach.
The analogy I used when watching the Korean team swarm over the Chinese team at the Shanghai All
Star match was this: The all-mobility Korean team was akin to modern drone warfare, whereas many
other strategies are akin to battleship warfare. Mobility teams expose themselves to very little risk and
dont rely on massive teamfights to pull out a victory by slowly breaking down their opponents and
split pushing, they can completely overwhelm their opponents.
How do you counter this team comp?
First, you cant afford to lose the early game, at least not by much, as mobile champions in the hands of
good players can quickly destroy vulnerable players. This is more difficult than it sounds, since the kind
of mobility that can put you over a wall also gives you huge gank potential in avoiding wards.
Second, the more targeted crowd controls you have, the better, as you will need to lock down your
opponents to kill them. Finally, you can counter it directly with your own mobility.
Third, you can use a Protect the Kogmaw comp, which were covering next.

Protect the Kogmaw

Protect the Kogmaw is a strategy that relies on building an entire team around a single champion. The
name was popularized with a Dignitas strategy that involved taking four supports to survive Counter

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Logic Gamings burst damage and prevent Kogmaw from being killed. Because of Kogmaws extreme
ranged damage, this comp wound up working well.
More broadly, the strategy does not require Kogmaw, nor does it require four healers. The best
protection comps will have one champion who is potentially devastating at a long range, both to
champions and to towers, which generally means Kogmaw, Tristana, and to a lesser degree, Caitlyn, will
work well. Other champions can fit this role fine, though the emphasis on tower takedowns is what
enables this kind of team to beat out high mobility teams.
There are two things this team comp should accomplish. First, to the degree possible, they need to
enable the damage dealing champion(s) to get as much gold as possible in the early game. This happens
to be when these champions are most vulnerable to harassment and ganks. Second, they need to create
the equivalent of a turtle shell around the champion when teamfights are occurring.
Again looking to Counter Logic Gamings victory over the previously-undefeated Cloud 9, CLG ran a
Tristana who soaked up an enormous amount of gold by farming and split pushing. Cloud 9 was running
Lee Sin, who wound up being completely incapable of initiating any fights effectively due to CLGs crowd
controls and Tristanas ability to jump away. Because of Tristanas range and the teams focus on letting
her gain as much gold as possible, CLG was virtually unstoppable as they pushed towers.

Global & Long Range Map Mobility

Abilities that allow a champion to travel across the map (Shen) or large areas of the map (Twisted Fate,
Nocturne, Pantheon) have a very real impact on how each lane must play. Other champions with strong
map mobility (ex. Kassadin) or extreme-range dashes (ex. Zac, Lissandra) can also fall into this category
without very strong ward vision and map awareness.
The idea of global presence is that you can react quickly to teamfights, initiate unexpectedly, push
nearby lanes while still being ready to help teammates, and in some cases, escape otherwiseunavoidable deaths. If youve played League even a bit at this point, this is almost certainly something
youve already come across.
Aside from playing safely and making sure you dont overextend unless you can handle a full teamfight,
there are three more direct ways to handle this kind of mobility:
1. Focus early and mid game pressure on the champions with the long range mobility. Shen may
be able to move across the entire map to add himself to any teamfight, but it doesnt do him
any good if hes the one being ganked.
2. Stay grouped as a team and force objectives to prevent split pushing. This is best done if you
have a strong pushing team.
3. Global ultimates have fairly long cooldowns. As soon as one has been used, immediately
apply pressure where they arent (ex. pushing mid tower after Twisted Fate has just used his
ultimate to gank bottom).

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Theres another great way to counter global ultimates picking a champion that hard counters them
and taking the Teleport summoner spell. Either kill them in lane or in the jungle, or follow them to
whatever fight they go to with Teleport. Here are some quick examples, though its certainly not an
exhaustive list:

Twisted Fate is countered by Fizz, Diana, and Ahri. Because Fizz can become untargetable and
completely avoid a gold card, he is one of the strongest counters.
Nocturne is countered in the jungle by strong duelists such as Olaf, Udyr, and Shyvana, or in
lane by beefy champions such as Nasus.
Shen is countered by generally strong solo laners such as Jayce, Teemo, Kayle, and Elise. In
addition to this, high sustain champions such as Yorick, Warwick, and Vladimir also do well.
Pantheon is weak to very bulky champions, particularly those with sustain, innate damage
reduction or survivability, or easy interrupts. Yorick, Udyr, Malphite, Chogath, and
coincidentally, Shen, all work for this.

One more thing to keep in mind: Shen is particularly vulnerable to being interrupted while channeling
his ultimate. Several tournament teamfights have turned because Shen was interrupted, preventing him
from joining his team when his allies were relying on him. A near-instant crowd control that can be used
from a range, such as Malphites ultimate, works for this.

Poking vs. Initiating

Teams with strong, long-range poke abilities, such as Kogmaw's Living Artillery or Xerath's Arcanopulse,
excel at saturating an enemy team with damage prior to an engagement. Teams with strong initiation
abilities, such as Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows, excel at getting full fights started.
Poke and initiation both counter each other. If a team can very effectively poke another team, initiating
a fight becomes increasingly less desirable as the fight is more likely to lose. However, if a team can very
effectively initiate an enemy team that is trying to poke, the entire advantage of poking is removed.
The effectiveness of poke is based on the range of the poke abilities and the effectiveness of team
crowd controls and escapes that can be used to limit incoming initiates (Janna and Lulu are excellent at
providing all three to their teams). As a rule, League of Legends has longer distance initiation abilities
than poke abilities. For example, Nocturne and Pantheon can jump into fights over large areas of the
map, and Gangplank can drop down a Cannon Barrage to slow opponents while allies move in.
Additionally, some champions have very strong gap closers that allow them to quickly break into fights
against opponents at a distance.
While there tends to be better initiation potential than poke potential in the League, this is no
guarantee that your team actually has a strong initiator against enemy poke, particular in Blind Pick
matches. In these cases you will need to look at effective counterwarding and flanking to get in position
and force fights.

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As a related note, some poke is fairly easy to heal through. Unless an Ezreal is particularly fed, for
instance, his sustained poke isnt terribly effective if the enemy team has a Sona healing everyone back
some or all of the missing health. The same goes for champions with shields, such as Malphite, who can
brush off extended poke. Though not necessary, it helps for poke comps to carry some burst (such as
Jayces Shock Blast).
On the flip side, poke becomes brutally dangerous with a level and kills lead. The siege potential for a
poke team that is ahead is enormous; for example, if a Nidalee spear is knocking out 60% of an
opponents health and forcing them back to the summoner platform, that spear alone has knocked one
player out of any potential engagement. This is particularly brutal if front line champions responsible for
initiating or peeling are the ones being knocked out.
In these situations you may lose the game if you constantly let yourself get harassed, and you may not
win a teamfight, but engaging in a teamfight or baiting one under your tower (or theirs) is often your
strongest chance for a comeback.

Double Hooks
Like double assassin teams, double hook teams are rare and specialized at control and initiates.
Specifically, double hook teams contain at least two of the three champions that can hook onto a player
and pull them towards their team, meaning Blitzcrank, Nautilus, or Thresh. Im not including Darius or
Diana as their pull-in abilities are not limited to a single target (counter this by keeping your distance, as
they have short ranges).
These teams are very strong at pulling an opponent out and locking them down (often with a follow-up
hook), but they are fairly easily stopped in teamfights by using bulky champions (such as Amumu,
Sejuani, or Alistar) as a front line. Having a survivable champion physically block the path of possible
incoming hooks can sometimes not only cause them to hook a player who can survive their burst, but
can also allow the hooked champion to open up with their own crowd controls more easily.
Of course, you arent limited to blocking with tanks. Simply picking champions who excel at a close
range, such as Karthus and Diana, limits the good options for who they can pull in during a teamfight.
Highly mobile champions such as Ezreal also tend to be fine around hook teams as they can more easily
dodge the hooks and, even if theyre caught, they may have a great chance of still slipping back out.
Still, these are strong team comps when youre able to catch people out, and theres a good deal of
strategy to flanking out of vision for clean shots.

Disengagement
Initiation stops poke. Even without initiation, the effects of poke can be mitigated by high sustain teams
that can heal or shield incoming damage.
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So what stops initiation? In other words, if that Malphite, Amumu, or Galio get into your team, how do
you get them back out? There are a few champions who excel at allowing their teams to disengage even
after an initiation.
Janna is arguably the strongest disengage champion in the League due to her ultimate. When timed
well, she can knock opponents completely out of a fight while causing them to waste their initiation
abilities. On top of this, her entire kit is fairly strong for a poke team, so shes an ideal all-around pick.
Zyra is another strong disengage champion, again largely due to her ultimate (though, like Janna, she
has a line-skillshot crowd control that also helps). When your team is falling back, dropping this ultimate
can prevent opponents from being able to travel over a very large area without being delayed by the
knockup.
As far as top tier disengagement, Gragas and Nami also fall into this category for their own ultimates.
Other champions do well in this role, though they tend to be less capable of stopping full team pushes.
Jayce can double as strong poke and decent disengage with his knockback and his acceleration gate.
Leona, Ashe, and Varus can potentially stop incoming players. Theres also a large group of champions
with very strong slows or area crowd controls (Karthus, Anivia, Karthus, etc.) that can control fights as a
team falls back.
How do you counter disengagement? There are a few specific options that work well:

Against Janna or other displacement champions, Zed offers a very strong counter due to his
ultimate placing a shadow clone he can port right back to after the disengage occurs.
Against strong slows, Evelynns high speed and her ability to remove slows allows her to get
back onto a target quickly. Both Master Yi and Olaf fall in this category as well, though the lack
of stealth makes it a little easier to quickly land hard crowd controls.
Against high movement speed and mobility (and most of the other disengage options),
Nocturnes ultimate and spell shield allow him to quickly get onto a target. This can be
coupled with Shens ultimate allowing for a follow-up taunt, which can allow slower team
members time to move in and engage as well.
Morganas Black Shield allows at least one player to remain unaffected by crowd controls.
Shes a situational champion but its definitely worth keeping in the back of your head.

Items such as Banshees Veil and Quicksilver Sash (as well as similar crowd control removal options)
work, but they are situational to the match youre in.

Chasing
Many champions excel at chasing down fleeing opponents, and ideally buying time for their team to
catch up. This can be due to movement speed, slows or other crowd controls, and mobility. Theres a

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long list of these, but some of them are Hecarim, Trundle, Kassadin, Vayne, Nunu, Kennen, Evelynn,
Rammus, and Volibear.
Teams with a lot of strong chasers can cause problems for disengage and poke-reliant teams, especially
if theyre in the lead. But to the degree that they aggressively chase after any opportunity they see, they
can be countered by AOE disable/damage teams that lure them into the jungle.
While it may sound silly that a team would chase right into a trap, tournament-level games sometimes
turn on exactly these kinds of plays.

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How I Analyze Tournament Team Comps (Example)

When watching tournaments and high level games, I look for the team compositions and traits discussed
here to get an idea how the game will play out. At the Season 3 World Finals I gave predictions before
each match on how the match would play out (and correctly predicted SKT1 would likely win each
match). This was the first match-up:

China ran Sona, Malphite, Elise, Orianna, and Vayne. This is a pure teamfighting composition. Korea, on
the other hand, ran Corki, Gragas, Jarvan, Jax, and Thresh, which is a pure mobility composition. Heres
what I wrote prior to the first match-up:
China has a full teamfight build, Korea has a super-mobility comp. These are both extreme
strengths, and Korea has repeatedly proven their strengths w/ this. Look for Korea to do just
about anything they want, so long as their reaction times are fast enough to avoid getting
caught out.
China is a battleship. Korea is drone warfare. Korea picks and chooses its battles but may have
problems with teamfights if they're not super-surgical.
On paper, China could go toe-to-toe with Korea. After all, in a teamfight, they had a Sona, Malphite, and
Orianna ultimate combination, and Vaynes close range damage coupled with Elises ability to break
towards critical targets, meant a head-on fight would likely break in their favor (at least so long as the
teams were roughly equal in gear and gold).
In practice, Korea never needed to engage in a fight they didnt want to. Time after time, Chinas
attempts to initiate fights on their terms were completely shut down as Korea simply backed away
(sometimes in epic fashion, such as with Gragas multiple escapes). And because China was running a
shorter-range Vayne as opposed to, say, Caitlyn (another champion they were very strong with), it was
much more difficult for them to run a Protect the Kogmaw strategy that allowed them to push
objectives.

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Earlier in this section, I mentioned one awesome little trick these mobile team comps can pull off: secret
Baron and Dragon takedowns. This was added to the e-book earlier in Season 3, and it was on show
once again at the world finals, as they took a completely uncontested Baron.
Now keep in mind, none of this means one champion is better than another or that theres a 100%
correct way to play. League of Legends is largely a game of countering.
Highly mobile compositions have huge advantages, especially for teams that understand how to fork
their opponents (covered in The Impossible Decision, the next section of this e-book). But these can
be countered, both with mobile chasing teams, and with Protect the Kogmaw team compositions.
When I look at tournaments, the single biggest thing I look at is mobility, both in terms of map
movement (Teleport, Shen, Twisted Fate, etc.), and in terms of champions (Kassadin, Lissandra, Thresh,
etc.). This broader strategic look is often a better indication on the outcome of many top games than
individual champion or lane match-ups, though these certainly do matter.

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Creating Effective Teams

Whether or not youre playing with an organized team, keeping the concepts of effective team types
and strategies in mind can help you make the most out of your champion picks. Your goal should be to
either cover the weaknesses in your team composition, augment the strengths of it, or both.
Let me use the example of an extreme mobility team. If youre looking for the most mobility, a
champion like Ezreal, for example, seems like an obvious choice after all, he is one of the most mobile
champions in the game, and he fills the role of a marksman. But the weakness for a mobility team is
handling structures, both in defending and destroying them, and a much stronger choice may be a
champion like Tristana, who has excellent long-range tower takedown potential with the perk of also
having some mobility with her jump. In one of the tournament clips in the companion video you may
have noticed Korea took a Ryze he lacks mobility, but he offered a massive localized threat that helped
cover the teamfight deficiency that all-mobility teams can have.
I mention this example in the jungling section as well, but another example is choosing an assassin or
limited crowd control champion, such as Khazix, on a team where the lanes also dont bring much
crowd control. This kind of mismatch can work early on but can fall apart as the game goes on, and its
the reason a lot of top teams take survivable crowd control junglers such as Jarvan, Zac, or Nautilus.
There are a lot of examples of ways you can augment your team:

If someone has picked Twisted Fate, Nocturne, Pantheon, or another globally mobile
champion, consider Shen.
If your team has a lot of crowd controls and heals/shields, either take a similar champion and
power through for an early game victory, or take a glass cannon champion with extreme
damage such as Kogmaw.
If your team lacks wave clear and your opponents may be able to easily push, consider a
champion like Lux or Orianna. On the flip side, take strong wave clear if your opponents are
choosing champions that lack the ability to clear waves quickly (Ezreals ability to push side
lanes with his ultimate can really come in handy here).
If you have a lot of close in damage but no effective way of initiating, especially against fast
opponents, pick a champion like Hecarim, Malphite, Leona, Ashe, or Varus, who can initiate at
a range.
Have an assassin? Pick a second, provided your team has the crowd control and ranged
harassment to engage while both of you wait in the wings for a takedown.

When possible, dont let your team go too heavily on glass cannon, all-in champions such as Master Yi
and Fiora (as well as most assassins). While it is technically possible to win these matches, not taking
strong crowd controls or other survivability options, as well as a decent ranged component, means
many teams with even moderate survivability will have no problem winning teamfights in the late game.

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