If you’ve played League of Legends long enough, you tend to know that there are different stages throughout the game and they provide their own strengths and weaknesses along the way. However, it can be tricky to know how to play these different stages.

Luckily for you, that’s exactly what I’ll be teaching you in this article. I’ll show you how to properly play each stage and what effect it will have on your entire team and the game as a whole. Playing one stage right might even be the key to winning the match in some scenarios.

So, what are you waiting for? You and I have a lot to cover before you can become an expert at the game since there are so many roles to cover and their playstyles vary. By the time you finish this, you should be a certified League of Legends expert, and that is exactly the goal I’m looking for.

What are the Early, Mid, and Late Games?

The early, mid, and late game are all stages of the game with drastically different playstyles. While it might seem simple, there’s a lot that differs the early from the mid from the late games of a League of Legends match.

For instance, early game is all about getting those early ganks or roams while mid game is focusing on getting picks (taking advantage of opponents being alone by either killing them or taking objectives) and small skirmishes.

Late game, finally, is mainly focused around the game-defining team-fights which can either make or break a team. It also emphasizes grabbing huge objectives like Elder Dragon and Baron Nashor so you can make that final push to their base to take them out.

Yes, it can be that simple, but it can also be more complicated than you think. For instance, the role of a tank in the early game varies drastically from an assassin or mage in the early game, and the same can be said for the late game.

That being said, I’ll explain in more detail on how you should play each stage of the game with the different roles accompanying it. That way, every player can benefit from this article due to the game having a large number of one-tricks (players who play either only one role or one champion).

Early Game

The early game is what sets the tone for what happens in the later phases of the game. That being said, you need to make the first impression, and it needs to be a good one. Early game is all about the laning phase (when you fight your opponent in one of three lanes: bottom, mid, and top) and early ganks.

That being said, the different ways that an early game can be played varies. Try to be aggressive if you’re a poke-heavy champion like Teemo or Gnar. This is whenever you’re strongest. If you’re a strong duelist, then you’ll want to look for that all-in whenever you reach your first power spike.

If you’re playing a champion that really revolves around scaling and farming up, then early game is much harder to win for you, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t attainable. You’re going to have to play extremely passive but, in the end, it will all be worth it.

There are more specifics as to how different roles should play, and this is what I’m going to start showing now. That way, you’ll be able to learn how to play your champions more efficiently and revolving them around their power spikes.

Fighters

Fighters are usually strong-scaling, all-in types of duelists who like to engage in fights as much as possible. Mostly melee and up-close, these champions can take on their opponents with brute force. A few good examples of some fighters are Aatrox, Jax, and Illaoi, all of which are dominant as duelists.

Every champion has their own power spike in their own way, but for the top lane, fighters are the ones who always have the strongest power spike. Whenever they reach their power spike, they typically tend to dominate the lane unless their opponent has their own power spike that counters it.

For instance, whenever Jax reaches level three, most players will choose to have all three basic abilities unlocked—his Leap Strike, Empower, and Counter Strike. If this is so, then from level three till about level six, he has the upper hand since he has an ability that can negate most damage for a given amount of time.

Plus, combined with a passive that gives increased attack speed, mobility from his Leap Strike, and a buffed auto attack with his Empower that lets him attack one more time as well, he seems almost unstoppable.

Not only does Jax deal more than half of your health with a full combo at level three, but he’ll also survive through most of it through the use of his Counter Strike. The only way to deal with this is to counter-pick him and choose a champion that specifically counters Jax.

This is the perfect example of a champion that shows the powers of a duelist during the early game. They become insanely strong throughout different patches of time. I can’t go through every champion, but once you play the champion enough, you’ll begin to learn when they’re strong.

As a fighter or duelist, in the early game, try to wait out the lane until you reach your power spike. Then, go all in if you’re in good health. This will easily give you the laning phase advantage and hopefully give the one-up to you whenever you transition into the mid-game.

Tanks

Tanks are essentially champions that are overloaded on armor, magic resistance, and health. They also have high base damage and a large amount of crowd-control to keep their carries alive. While playing a tank is fairly one-sided and easy to learn, there’s a strict path that one must follow to have the most impact during a fight or skirmish.

In the early game, tanks are almost non-existent. What makes a tank so strong is that they can absorb a ton of damage in one sitting and still be ready for the next round. They get this strength from having items that give them more health, armor, and magic resistance as well as other buffs to help them sustain a beating in a team-fight.

However, in the early, this isn’t so. They may have the abilities and kit needed to make an impact, but without the proper items, they really won’t have any effect till they reach their first item. This means that tanks usually need to sit still.

Most tanks have some type of health regeneration ability or something to keep them in lane. For Maokai and Malphite, it’s both of their passives, and for Sion, it’s the passive behind his Soul Furnace. The list goes on and on.

Use this ability to your advantage and, if your champion does not have a health regeneration ability, just grab a Doran’s Shield because it’s essentially an ability which gives you more health the longer you’re in lane.

Because this means that tanks will have the sustain, they can usually outlast poke-heavy champions and survive duels from fighters. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to engage on them. If you have the ability to do damage or go for the kill, don’t hesitate.

Your best bet is to try to freeze the wave off of an enemy laner’s mistake. Then, try to keep the wave in your favor as long as possible to make sure that you can deny the most minions possible in your favor and gain the advantage.

Assassins

Assassins are champions that have a large amount of damage in their kit and can essentially one-shot any player with low health. Like fighters, they tend to have really strong power spikes, but the difference is that one strong play determines how the lane goes.

If a Zed manages to kill an Ahri at level three when both of their power spikes are about the same, Zed will most likely dominate the rest of the laning phase if he plays it right and doesn’t let Ahri’s jungler gank him.

Assassins are largely based off getting kills and snowballing (getting ahead) to help their team win the game because they’ll be a large part of the damage later on. Therefore, playing an assassin really emphasizes one’s mechanics and skill.

As an assassin in the early game, look to poke and get off damage whenever your opponent is farming. However, be careful because they’re going to try to do the exact same thing. Freezing the lane here isn’t as important as it is in the top lane but still try to do it whenever you can.

Once you think you have the ability to all-in your opponent and secure the kill, do it. An assassin’s early game is all about getting that lead, and the easiest way to do so is either getting the kill or participating in a kill.

Also, don’t be afraid to roam around the map and gank the other two lanes. Since you’re situated in the very middle of the map, it’s equal game for going top lane or bottom lane if both lanes are even in power.

Plus, roaming to get kills means that you’ll be able to not only get yourself ahead but also your teammates. Look to do all of these things as an assassin because you have the most impact in the early game.

Jungler

The jungler is the only main role I’ll be incorporating into this article since it’s the most unique and important of the four roles in the game. Plus, all the jungling champions have the same goal in mind, meaning that tank junglers and assassin junglers will actually have more in common than they do different.

As an early game jungler, you want to be able to clear your jungle through an effective and efficient jungle pathing route (a set of camps that you do in a specific order). By doing this, you’ll be able to gank the other lanes faster, setting up potential opportunities for your teammates to get ahead.

In the early parts of the early game, most junglers will have a hard time looking to get a big objective like a tower or a dragon. It’s during the later stages of the early game where this becomes possible. Try to grab the first objective possible whenever you can and can. Doing so will greatly increase your chances of suppressing threats from the enemy team.

As a jungler playing the early game, you’re vital to the team doing well, so you need to know the ins and outs of your game plan and what you’re going to do. Whatever it is, make sure that it includes plenty of ganks, rotations, and securing objectives.

Mages

Mages are another part of the game that provide complex understanding and game knowledge in order to excel at the game entirely. Mages don’t have a lot of damage early-game, but as the game continues, they can be the single reason as to why a team wins a team-fight.

Because of this, you want to stay safer in the early game. Mages tend to have more control over the wave as they usually have more wave-clear and zone control. However, one down-side of this is that they’re weaker against assassins, meaning that if they don’t play it right, they can easily be killed by a good player.

Also, because mages don’t have the gap-closers (a mobility move to help them get closer to their enemy), it’s harder for them to really kill their opponent in a one versus one especially if they’re good at positioning their champion.

That being said, make sure that you’re playing safer as a mage in the early game but in an aggressive way. What do I mean by this? As a mage, you’re looking to make the mid to late game your most powerful stages of the game, and the easiest way to do this is through roaming to get kills.

As I’ve said before, mages don’t have the most kill pressure (some might, but it’s rare) so they need to be able to get ahead through other ways. One of these ways is roaming. However, when you leave to another lane, you leave your own lane open, and this could open chances for your opponent to get back into the game or follow you in hopes of getting an easy pick.

The simplest way to counter this is by shoving in the wave before you roam. Since most mages out-range assassins, you’re easily able to clear the enemy wave and push in your own wave so that it hits their tower.

This means that if your opponent follows you, they lose out on more than a hundred and fifty gold in CS (term for creep score) as well as experience for a fifty-fifty chance on getting a kill during the roam. Tactically, you almost always win the outcome.

To sum it all up, as a mage, you want to make sure that you don’t die early to any dumb mistakes. Try to get kills by looking for easy ganks or moves that can get your team ahead so you can make your statement in the later stages of the game.

Bot Lane

Bot Lane will consist of both the marksman and support roles. Marksman are all relatively the same, differing only by range and utility while supports have to main types: mages and tanks. Tanks focus on engaging and keeping the enemy off of you while mages provide buffs and de-buff enemies looking to get near you as well as providing crowd-control.

A marksman is nothing without his or her weapons, meaning that you need to play it safe until the first kill is given. The best way to do this is by looking to occasionally poke with your support duo partner and try to bring someone down to half health or less.

Once this is done, you can look for an engage. However, junglers tend to be more biased towards the bot lane since they have a bigger presence later on alongside the mages and since there are two players in the bottom lane, there are more prizes to reap there.

As an early-game support, if you’re a tank such as Nautilus, Blitzcrank, or Alistar, make sure you’re using the engage abilities at the right time. Don’t go in randomly because chances are; you will take more damage than you will output.

Instead, wait for whenever your jungler or mid laner comes to help. Your chances of getting a kill is much higher, and your abilities won’t go to waste even if your AD Carry fails to follow up with your engage.

Mage supports are used to buff up and empower the AD Carry, but they also provide strong early-game damage and utility that make them useful throughout the entire game. The only downside is that these champions can sometimes be extremely squishy, meaning that they can be killed easily.

However, once you overcome this one setback, mage supports can make or break a game. Champions like Janna and Nami have poke that is so strong it can force an AD Carry to back early in the laning phase (a part of the early game), and they give the power of doing damage to their AD Carries, meaning that they’re going to output more damage throughout the game.

Look to poke out your enemies while at the same time keeping your own self and AD Carry safe from damage or a possible engage by the enemy. Whoever does this more in the early game will ultimately dominate objectives and skirmishes that lead into the mid-game.

Mid-Game

Mid game is all about grabbing objectives and picks that help get your team ahead. This is whenever the somewhat big team-fights erupt and dictate who will have the stronger pushing power when it comes to taking towers that ultimately lead to one team’s Nexus being destroyed.

The smaller mistakes begin to add up around this time, and it’s extremely important that everyone works together to be able to overcome the obstacles in their way so that they can actually succeed in taking hold of the game and winning the overall war.

Fighters

Fighters are great, but whenever they’re cornered into a chain of crowd-control, they become utterly useless. They’re perfect when it comes to cleaning up a fight, meaning that for the first few seconds, they’re going to have little to no impact whatsoever.

In the mid-game, look to pick off key members whether it be the main tank of their composition or the AD Carry providing the damage—one kill can be the victory in a team fight. If your team doesn’t need you, then you should be rotating and looking to split-push a lane so that you’re exerting pressure without ever being with your team.

These two things will not only help you secure more gold and a larger advantage so that you can reach the late game quicker, it will make sure that even if your team is struggling, the enemy team can’t get as much as they want out of it since you’ll constantly be knocking on their door, trying to take some tower or structure away from them.

Tanks

Mid game is whenever the tanks’ strengths begin to show. This is whenever tanks begin to gain more health and armor, and magic resist so that they can soak up more damage and be a bigger threat when it comes to the team-fights.

Most tanks have a large amount of crowd-control in their kit, so whenever their first or second item is completed, they begin to show the true raw strength of their build. It’s here where you can lock down damage dealers or divers so that they can’t reach your teammates while also dealing significant damage that ensures you won’t be able to get away with poor positioning.

As a tank, make sure that you’re clearing waves that can threaten a lane so that you can keep a steady flow of gold. Whenever you’re not doing this, stay with your team because you’re the main frontline and with you, nothing can be done.

Assassins

Assassins also excel during the mid-game. Like tanks, the items that they purchase correspond directly with how much presence they’ll have in the team-fight. Once the mid game rolls around, assassins should have one or two items yet again, and this can help them one-shot that squishy damage dealer if the team can’t react fast enough.

That’s exactly what you should be doing in the mid-game. Because there are more skirmishes in the mid-game, there are more opportunities for you to get to the AD Carry. You should always wait in a place with no vision on you and wait for most of the crowd-control to be used.

Once this is so, you can use your full combo and take the squishy target out, and you’ve done your job as quickly and as easily as possible. When you’re not doing this, you should also be pushing another lane because assassins also have duel potential and can take on any other role besides fighters themselves.

Junglers

In the mid game for junglers, no longer are you trying to gank or invade your enemy jungler’s territory. You’re looking to establish vision control, start fights, and take objectives because these are the three keys to making sure that your team takes the lead in the mid-game.

No matter who you’re playing, whether it’s Evelynn or Sejuani, you need to have the same mindset of starting the fights, taking objectives, and establishing vision control. Sure, you can say that some jungler are squishier than others, but that hasn’t stopped anything.

Evelynn may be squishy but she can still engage and then disengage with her ultimate and Sejuani’s tankiness enables her to stay in the fight longer. Either way, they’ve started the fight, and that’s what is important.

However, making sure that vision is gone is also a crucial element. This helps you take objectives easier and forces a blind eye on your opponents. Once this is done, you need to do everything you can to take objectives because this is when the skirmishes are happening.

Whenever a skirmish is finished, there are usually casualties on one side—the losing side. This means that the winning side has free access to all the objectives on the map so you’d be silly not to try to take at least one of them.

Mages

As you begin to gain more items and stronger abilities, you’ll want to begin to clear side-waves and look to help your team in the big team fights that can lead to your team taking an objective or pushing and taking a tower.

However, you want to make sure that you always stay safe in the team fights. Stay behind the tanks or the support to ensure that the assassin or divers have a harder time getting to you and it also makes it easier for you to output your damage.

Near the mid-game, you start to become the team-fighting monster that you were meant to be. Here, the items and the empowered abilities begin to take shape and start really making an impact. However, you can only make this a reality if you stay alive in the team fights.

Simply put: stay alive in the team fights and consistently clear large waves in the other lanes to ensure that you have a steady stream of gold. This helps put pressure both in the team fight and after the team fight.

Bot Lane

The bot lane has the same goal as everybody else: win the skirmishes and picks. Don’t just look for kills. Look for the kills. What do I mean by this? Well, you shouldn’t always try to go for the support because they’re going to have a minimal effect compared to the AD Carry or the assassin/mage in mid lane.

As the marksman or AD Carry, your goal is to farm as much as possible. Whether this is stealing your jungler’s camps or taking large waves of farm, you need to farm whenever you’re not doing anything else because it gives you a gateway into buying weapons later on.

Whenever you’re in team fights, stay behind the tanks and output as much damage as possible. Once you get those few extra kills, you’ll begin to see your true damage take shape and you’ll be a determining factor in winning the match.

As for the support, your role in team fights is even more important. If you’re a tank support, you either want to look to save the engage ability for whenever a squishy player steps out of place or to keep champions off your damage dealers. You should be doing this while soaking up as much damage as possible.

For mage supports, make sure that you’re dealing damage from the backline and using your spells to give the opponents as rough of a time as possible while providing buffs and heals for your allies so that they can hopefully have the upper-hand in the duel.

When you aren’t fighting, make sure to follow your AD Carry around because in the mid-game, people are always looking to take out easy picks and when alone, the AD Carry is always one of the easiest champions to take out.

Both players go hand in hand and depend on each other to succeed. Knowing what to do in which situation can help but it also depends on how well you know your team and what you need to do after every step you take.

Late Game

Late game is one of the most hectic situations in League of Legends because it takes scaling, buffs, enemy composition, and wave control all into one crazy mess that leads to you either finishing the game within two team-fights or within ten.

One small mistake can lead to a domino effect that results in your team losing. Missing one ability or being too late to a team-fight can mean a loss. Every single action matter on a magnitude higher than ever, meaning that you have to be alert and ready at all times. The late game is perhaps the riskiest and hardest stage to get past.

Fighters

Fighters tend to scale well, but it’s hard for them to excel in team fights especially in the late game whenever everyone is almost full build, and everyone is harder to kill or duel to everyone being about the equal level.

Because of this, you really want to give yourself either an opportunity to relieve pressure off the game or flank the enemy whenever the team fight begins to wane. You can only fight effectively whenever the team is caught off-position, and whenever this happens, you’re set to win.

If the team fight goes bad, but you managed to open an opportunity by pushing in a lane, it’s still very hard for the enemy to do anything, so you’re basically giving your team a second chance. Second chances are what you’re trying to give, and when you aren’t giving those, you should be looking to end the game.

Tanks

Tanks begin to fall off in the late game because the carry champions begin to have all their items, meaning that they can shred through armor and magic resists if they’re given enough time and crowd-control to do so.

That being said, as a tank, you need to make sure that you’re attentive at all times. Whenever a team fight breaks out, there are always small gaps whenever an AD Carry or carry assassin/mage is exposed. This is when you should use any crowd-control or abilities you have to lock onto that champion and give your team an opportunity to kill him.

Your final job as a tank is to soak the damage and limit the effectiveness of the enemy carries as much as possible. It may seem mediocre but if played properly, can keep your carries alive long enough to do the damage needed to win the game.

Assassins

Assassins, once full build, really don’t have the explosiveness they had in the early and mid game. This is because, though they build damage, mages and AD Carries will always out-scale them, meaning that they’re very limited in what they can do.

You may still have the ability to one-shot someone, but the AD Carry as do the mages or assassins on the other side of the field have just as big of a shot at killing you as you do. Because of this, assassins are mostly at a disadvantage in the late game.

They have the least amount of presence in the team fights, but they can still perform how they need to when it comes down to it. You can’t engage head-on since you’ll take on the full load of damage from all the different champions opposing you.

Rather, you need to be sneaky with how you approach the fight. Wait off the major portions of their crowd-control and then, when the time is right, go in and try to do as much damage as you can. Even if you fail to kill the target, you might be able to wound them enough so that they’re forced to back off, giving your team time to recuperate.

This is the best that you can do as an assassin in the late game. Yes, it does seem oppressive, but that’s why assassins are meant for the early and mid game and not for the late game. However, it’s not impossible to make an impact.

Junglers

The fate of the game rests in the jungler’s hands. Since you’re the one holding the summoner spell, Smite, you’re in charge of killing the major objectives like Baron Nashor and Elder Dragon, the two objectives which can determine the difference between winning and losing.

Therefore, one wrong move by you can be the difference between winning and losing. If you miss the Smite, then the other team could get the buff, and this could result in them winning the next team fight and eventually, the game.

You want to have control over the vision because this is what will be the thing that keeps the enemy jungler from taking the big objective that could win you the game. Sure, you have an important role in team fights, but you’re basically doing what a tank or an assassin would do. It’s just based off of which type of champion you are playing.

If there’s one thing you need to always be able to do as a jungler, you need to be able to know when you need to take an objective and this is the one thing that you, as a jungler, need to know whenever you enter the late game of the match.

Mages

Like AD Carries, mages excel during this stage of the game since they’re powerful from the mid to late game with their large power spike that they get after getting their first two items. That being said, you need to be able to play aggressively while having safe positioning.

Essentially, that means that you should be looking to do as much damage possible without being killed by an assassin or diver-type champion. If done properly, you’ll be a threat in every single team fight no matter how well the other team plays.

In the end, a strong mage could be up to seventy-five percent of the team’s damage in a team fight, and this is what you should strive to get. Playing it right can help you be the main reason your team wins, and that’s something not everyone can do.

Bot Lane

The bot lane plays a crucial role in the late game. The damage that an AD Carry can have along with the utility of a support is important whenever the AD Carry needs to put the team on his back and start unloading the damage needed to help them win the game.

For the AD Carry, they need to do exactly what the mage does but in a more complex way. All a mage needs to do is use their abilities and cancel them by clicking to where they want to move. However, for the AD Carry, they need to click the target they attack and then move right after the attack animation finishes.

Because of this, an inexperienced AD Carry can mess up and ruin it for the team by walking into the team instead of attacking the desired target. Not only do you need to know which target to attack, but you also need to already know where you want to move. This means that you’re going to have to always think one step ahead and have the skills and mechanics to back it up.

As for support, you need to be able to micromanage the fight. You need to know where the crowd-control is coming from, where the carries are moving, and which summoner spells are burned while at the same time providing utility and crowd-control for your own team.

Each of the players in the duo of champions has their own responsibilities and not being able to fulfill them can result in your team dying and losing the team fight, so there’s an obvious reason as to why bot lane is the most crucial and important role in a team fight.

Conclusion

League of Legends is a game of stages and knowing how to play each stage is the most important thing you need to be able to win the matches. Each stage is drastically different from the other and brings with it its own set of strong champions in that stage.

Once you can master how to play the different stages with your different champions, you’ll find yourself having a totally different understanding of the game, and this will be the key to you climbing the ladder of League of Legends.