The Value of a Team Composition

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction: Why it matters

1.1 What is a standard composition composed of?

1.2 Initiation and why it's important

2.0 Analyzing a poor composition

2.1 Analyzing an effective composition

3.0 Common team compositions

4.0 Tips

 5.0 Analysis of a teamfight and composition

1.0 Why does team composition matter?

One thing that makes League of Legends different from other games is that it is a 5v5 player game. Each champion has their own unique place on the team and you need to take in account what champion your allies have chosen when you are choosing your champion. Having balance along with synergy between the champions in a team is generally overlooked. But think of it this way, having a good team composition isn't that difficult and it is one way your team can get an advantage before the game even starts!

1.1 Standard composition

So what would make a good team composition?

A standard team composition would have an AD carry and support in the bottom lane, a AP carry in the middle lane, and a off-tank at the top lane, with a jungler. Of course we do see the occasional team compositions such as having a AP carry in both the top lane and the middle lane, or having two brusiers at the bottom lane, but basically the standard comp, is having an off-tank, AP carry, AD carry and support, and a jungler. One of the members should also have some means of initiation. Basically, what a good composition has is variety.

Basic goals to have in an ideal composition:

1. Minimum of one tank

2. At least one attack damage source but no more than three

3. At least one magical damage sources but no more than three

4. An initiator

5. Some form of crowd control(s)

There is a more in depth part in a team composition. As a team, you should always have a goal. Do you want to be quickly pushing down towers? Do you want to actively counter-jungle and steal buffs to make their jungler behind? Do you want to be forcing barons and control objectives? Do you want to force lots of trades early and try to snowball off early kills? Or do you want to play passive and farm to the late game when your champions scale better.

The goal of your team comp, for example, may be to focus on poking the opponent’s health down and slowly take towers through split pushing. In this case, you would want to pick certain champions that favor this plan. Nidalee, for instance, would be a fantastic pick, with her spears and her ability to split push. If a poke team composition is your strategy, you also want the other 4 champions in your team to be able to supplement each other. Perhaps you could have a Trundle as a jungler, which can use his pillar to stop engagements or to help stall time to poke, Janna as a support to stop initiations, and Caitlyn as an AD because of her long range.

 

1.2 Initiation

Initiators are very important to have. It doesn't matter if your team is ahead in kills and creep score if your team gets caught out of position. Initiators are crucial to winning a fight. They are the one who starts off the team fight. Catching the AD or AP carry off guard will often turn the fight into a 5v4. A good initiator is someone who can start off the fight by engage onto the fragile champions or dislocate the enemy team.

Here are a few common initiators:

Supports

- Sona (Crescendo)
- Alistar (Headbutt/pulverize)
- Blitzcrank (Rocket grab)
- Leona (Zenith blade - Solar flare)

Junglers

- Malphite (Unstoppable force)
- Rammus (Flash – Taunt)
- Wukong (Flash – Cyclone)
- Nocturne (Paranoia)
- Fiddlesticks (Crowstorm)
- Sejuani (Glacial Prison)
- Amumu (Bandage toss – Curse of the Sad Mummy)
- Warwick (Infinite Duress)
- Maokai (Twisted Advance)
- Nautilus (Dredge line – Depth Charge)
- Skarner (Flash - Impale)

AP Carry

- Gragas (Explosive Cask)
- Kennen (Flash – Slicing Maelstrom)
- Orianna (Command: Shockwave)
- Galio (Idol of Durand)
- Morgana (Flash – Soul shackles)

AD Carry

- Urgot (Hyper-Kinetic Poison Reverser)
- Ashe (Enchanted Crystal Arrow)

Top Laners

- Irelia (Flash/Bladesurge – Equilibrium strike)
- Fizz (Chum the waters)
- Jarvan IV (Cataclysm)
- Rumble (The Equalizer)
- Chogath (Rupture)
- Gangplank (Cannon Barrage)

With initiators comes anti-initiators. Anti-initiators are important to  Let's look at some champions who can fend off initiations.

Support

- Sona (Crescendo)
- Alistar (Headbutt/pulverize)
- Janna (Monsoon)

AD Carry

- Tristana (Buster shot)
- Ashe (Enchanted Crystal Arrow)

AP Carry

- Gragas (Explosive Cask)

Junglers

- Malphite (Unstoppable)
- Trundle (Pillar of Filth)

2.0 Composition Example 1

Team composition: (Heavy focus on magic damage to complement the magic shred from Soraka and Fiddlesticks with a strong AD hyper carry)

- Annie (AP carry)
- Kennen (AP carry as well as providing forms of crowd control)
- Soraka (Support and healer)
- Fiddlesticks (Jungler and magic damage)
- Vayne (AD carry)

Strengths:
- Strong aoe damage
- Soraka's magic shred and Fiddle's magic resist reduction synergies with each other

Weaknesses:
- Anti-initation
- Easily counter-jungled
- Hard to initiate fights
- Strongly relies on ultimates to win fights
- Mostly magic damage output besides Vayne
- Can be counter-itemed to shutdown 2 solo lanes

How it works:

Let's see the following team composition and see what problems we can find. On your team , there is an Annie in the middle lane, a Kennen in the top lane, Fiddlesticks in the jungle, and you are playing as Vayne in the bot lane with a Soraka supporting you. At first, it may appear to be a strong comp, Kennen would rush ultimate and chain stuns with Annie and with Fiddlesticks's ultimate would deal massive aoe damage along with Soraka with her starcall and Fiddlesticks's passive to lower the enemies' magic resistance.

However if you look more in depth, if the opposing team just built magic resistance, it would, for all intensive purposes, minimize the damage output of 3 members on your team, two of them being solo lanes. Furthermore, there is no real tank to soak damage or to disrupt the back line of the opposing team.

Another problem this team would have is in the late game, they have no initiation. The only kind of initiation in this team comes from Fiddle's or Kennen's ultimate however, if the opponents' team just had a Janna, for example, she could easily push back your team with her ultimate. This composition is not very flexible and easily countered.

2.1 Composition Example 2

Team composition: (Concentrated aoe damage/Protect kogmaw)

- Gangplank (AD carry/Offtank)
- Morgana (AP carry as well as providing forms of crowd control)
- Leona (Support, tanky, cc and initiation)
- Kogmaw (AD Carry)
- Amumu (Jungle and initiation)

Strengths:
- Strong aoe damage
- Multiple initiators
- Ability to catch people out of position
- Balance of AD and AP damage

Weaknesses:
- Strongest when as a group
- Requires use of ultimates for 100% efficiency

How it works:

We want to make a heavy aoe-centered team composition. Perhaps we chose our top lane as Gangplank. Gangplank is a very safe top laner with nice utility from his E which grants surrounding move speed, and has a aoe ultimate that slows. In the jungle, the first thing that comes to mind is Amumu. Amumu's initation is incredible when combined with the slow from Gangplank's ultimate which Amumu can follow up with his own ultimate.

In the middle lane, a Morgana would be the obvious choice with her ridiculous aoe ulti stun. In the bottom late, a good choice with be an ad carry with long range, perhaps Kog'maw or Caitlyn. As for the support, Leona would supplement the rest of the team nicely. This composition has a lot of potential throughout the game.

3.0 Popular team compositions

Poke

Goal: Abusing long range abilities to weaken the enemy. Never fully engages but instead splitpushes or takes objectives on the map. The goal is to gain enough of an advantage in gold and poke the opponents' health down enough for you to engage and win the fight cleanly.

Champions:

- AP: Nidalee, Lux, Ziggs, Xerath, Gragas, Kog'maw, Twisted Fate
- AD: Corki, Caitlyn, Kog'maw,
- Support: Soraka, Sona
- Jungler: Trundle, Dr Mundo,
- Top lane: Nidalee

Counters: Strong initiation, burst, focus fire, sustain

AOE

Goal: Chaining ultimates in concentrated areas for high outputs of damage. Extremely effective use of aoe damage.

Champions:

- AP: Kennen, Morgana, Galio, Gragas, Brand
- AD: Caitlyn, Graves, Sivir
- Support: Sona, Leona, Nunu
- Jungler: Fiddlesticks, Amumu, Wukong, Nunu, Malphite
- Top lane: Wukong, Kennen, Malphite

Counters: Counter initiatiors

Invasion/Counter Jungling

Goal: Abuses a fast clearing jungler, and a mobile top laner with strong pushing capabilities. Allows for invasion of enemy jungle and control of river

Champions:

- Top lane: Shyvana, Leesin, Skarner, Udyr
- Junglers: Shyvana Leesin, Skarner, Dr. Mundo, Udyr

Counters: A top laner who can push back fast and a fast clearing jungler of your own

Double AP

Goal: Abuses the power of double Will of the Ancients for massive spell vamp and ap bonuses.

Champions:

- Top lane: Kennen, Vladmir, Rumble
- AP Carry: Kennen, Vladmir, Ahri,

Counters: Counter initiatiors/disengage

Protect Kog'Maw

Goal: Abuses Kog'maw's powerful late game. Kog'maw is the primary source of damage, the other four champions act as a barrier to protect Kog'maw.

Champions:

- AD Carry: Kog'maw
- Support: Alistar, Janna, Taric
- Top lane: Shen
- Jungler: Shen, Mundo, Shyvana
- AP Carry: Morgana

Counters: Split-pushing, abilities that dislocate the team leaving Kog'maw vulnerable.

 

4.0 Tips

Additional tips for a solid team composition

- Having a good initiation is important, for example, an Irelia jumping in onto their ad carry and bursting him/her down early in the fight can win the game.

- Have a variety of different types of damage (Balance between AP and AD damage in your team, don't let your whole team be countered by the enemy stacking armor)

- Have a good balance of tanks and damage (Don't have 3 AD carries on one team, but don't have 3 tanks either.)

- Consider all stages of the game, judge how well your team composition works in the early, middle, and late stages of the game and play accordingly. (For example, if your team has a lot of assassin champions, it is wise to try to end the game early before the late game comes where they are significantly weaker.)

5.0 Analysis of a pro-game team-fight

1. World Elite vs Taipei Assassins - World Elite's team composition is very standard, there is a good mix of attack and magical damage with Udyr serving as a tank. However you can see they lack in the initation department. The only real initation they have is a flash-ult from Cassiopeia or hope to catch TPA out of position with Shurelias.

Compare this to Taipei Assassins's team composition. Morgana is an exellent initatior if you catch one of the squishy champions in a Dark Bind. Alternatively Morgana could flash-ulti or Alistar could flash-pulverize.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCWc0VXSN6s

In this teamfight, you can see how perfect the champions in Taipei Assassins's team composition synergies with each other. Morgana catches the enemy Cassiopeia, a high-priority target, in a Dark Binding. Seizing the opportunity, Morgana flash-ultimates into the middle of WE's team. Alistar uses shurelias and follows up with a beautiful headbutt and pulverizes the whole team. Lulu follows up with her ultimate on Morgana, knocking up the enemies around her. Taipei Assassins are able to take the fight unscathed.

Let's look at some of the problems World Elite encountered. They had a solid team composition but they lacked any means of initation and counter-initation. Once Morgana flash-ult'd, they could not disengage and were forced into a disadvantageous team-fight. Alternatively, they would not be able to initate into an advantageous position for a time-fight. Their team composed of very short ranged characters.

Now lets try switching out some of the champions in their composition and see if they could have a easier time if they had a initatior and anti-initatior. Instead of a Udyr in the jungle and a Soraka support, we now have a Nautlius in the jungle and Sona as a support. We still have adequate sustain from Sona and a solid tank in the jungle, but we've gained the ablility to initate or catch people off with Nautlius's Dredge Line and his ultimate Depth Charge. For Sona, she can use her ultimate defensively to stop an initation or offensively by flash-Cresendo. By adding an initator and anti-initator we've open many opportunites to catch the enemy of position, initate, deter initations, and counter-initate.

Thank you for reading my first article. Any comments and questions are welcomed. You can add me on the NA server, username: Musical.