Responsibilities of the Mid Laner

Whether you're a beginner looking for advice or a veteran of the position, you're probably reading this because you are interested in playing the mid lane in League of Legends. The mid lane is one of the most fun and rewarding positions to play. As the mid laner, you get to be highly involved in the flow and outcome of the game, and even your smallest decisions can have large, lasting impacts.

While anybody can decide they want to play mid, I believe there are certain qualities that allow some mid laners to stand out from the rest. Your mechanical skill level aside, I believe that your ability to be successful as the mid laner rests heavily on your ability to obey the L.A.W.S. of the mid lane. L.A.W.S. stands for Leadership , Attitude , Warding , and Specialization .

Leadership

Leadership is one of the most important qualities of the mid laner. As the mid laner, you are often expected to lead your team, whether your teammates express this or not. For many teams, the mid laner is the team captain. Case in point, Team Dignitas' William 'Scarra' Li. Sometimes, another player is comfortable calling the shots, however, if no one else steps up to the plate, you should be willing to take on the leadership role. This is especially true if you are interested in playing Ranked Solo Queue. Leadership has many aspects, but the two that I will cover in this section are Shot Calling and Awareness.

Shot Calling is one of the first things that people think of when they think of Leadership in League of Legends. The shot caller is the player who tells his teammates what to do, where to be, which fights to pick, where to apply map pressure, and which objectives to go for. Of course, calling the shots is not as simple as just telling people what to do. Your delivery is important. Try not to just yell orders at your teammates. Instead, try telling them confidently what your plan is, or asking them politely to do something. For example, if you are a mana thirsty mid champion and would be greatly benefited by blue golem buff, instead of telling your jungler "give me blue", ask "May I have the second blue?". Of course your jungler may let you have blue regardless of what you say, but it never hurts to be nice. Think about how you receive instruction and use that as a measure for how to talk to your teammates.

An important aspect of shot calling is making the right calls at the right time. Knowing when to make certain calls can be difficult, but experience playing the game will help you improve. In general, you want to be trying to take objectives whenever you can. However, blind aggression is not often successful. If all 5 members of the enemy team are in the bottom half of the map, for instance, it would probably not be smart to tell your team to attempt Dragon. Instead you could call for them to set up for a fight to contest the Dragon. Assuming you win the team fight, you could then take the Dragon safely. Making the right calls at the right time is key to assuring victory for your team.

One of the huge mistakes that causes many teams to lose in solo queue is attempting Baron at the wrong time. Defeating the Baron grants your team an incredibly powerful buff that can give your team a large advantage in team fights. But if you try to fight it at the wrong time, it could spell disaster for your team, and even cause you to lose the game. I cannot count the number of times that late game rolls around and one teammate calls for his team to do Baron. They are in the middle of attacking it when the enemy team comes around the corner, catching them all nearly defenseless. Most of them scramble to get away or fight whoever is closest to them while the enemy team takes them all down one by one and proceeds to either finish the Baron themselves or simply push to win the game immediately. This is a very familiar scenario for many players. For this reason, Baron is often more dangerous than it is helpful. In order to make sure you are safe while attempting Baron, the best idea is to wait until directly after you have won a team fight and gotten an ace or killed at least 3-4 of the enemy team. You could also attempt it if you have spotted all 5 of the enemy team near bot lane or inside their base, and you are sure that they don't have wards at Baron and that they cannot get there in time to contest you.

Besides Dragon and Baron, enemy towers are also important objectives that you should focus on destroying. Taking down a tower allows your team to control more of the map, and puts more pressure on the enemy team. You should almost always look to follow up a successful fight with an objective of some sort. For example, if your team just pulled off a successful gank in the bot lane, you could tell them to destroy the enemy's bot tower, place wards in the enemy jungle, go take one of their buffs, or kill the Dragon. Following your successes with objectives in this way ensures that you constantly apply pressure to the enemy team and gives your team an advantage that you can continue to play off of.

The other part of leadership that I want to cover is Awareness . Awareness goes hand in hand with Shot Calling because it is necessary in order to call shots correctly. You should try to always be aware of what is going on anywhere on the map. This means looking at the minimap constantly. A very basic form of awareness is recognizing when your lane opponent leaves the lane. Make it your goal to notice whether he recalled, went to take his blue buff, or left to gank the top or bot lane. This will allow you to react appropriately. For example, if they recalled, you could either push your lane, or you could use that time to recall and buy items yourself. If they went to gank one of your other lanes, you could follow them and attempt to force a fight in your team's favor.

Also try to be aware of what is going on in your other lanes. If you notice that the enemy jungler is ganking top lane, you might tell your bot lane that it is safe to push up or take Dragon. If you notice that the enemy team is taking Dragon, it may be possible to destroy one of their top or mid towers, or call for your team to converge on Dragon and force the enemy to fight there. If you took the summoner spell Teleport, you can even set up ganks in your other lanes if the opportunities presents themselves, but only if you are aware enough of what is going on all around the map. By being aware, you open yourself up to receiving a lot of information about the enemy team that can help you call the shots by reacting to enemy movements and playing to their weaknesses.

There are many other aspects of being a good leader that I cover in the next section.

Attitude

Your attitude is another extremely important quality of being a good mid laner. Everyone should have a good attitude, but since you are your team's leader, this is all the more true for you. There are many ways that you can show a good attitude, and one of the most important is remaining optimistic. Take a hint from Lux and "Stay positive!". If you tell yourself and your teammates that you are going to lose or that the game is impossible to win, chances are you will lose. However, as the mid laner, you have a responsibility to keep a positive outlook, because almost any game is winnable, no matter what the odds are. A 1% chance of winning is still a chance of winning. If your team is playing poorly and the enemy gets fed, tell your team to wait for the late game. You can still win. At the very least, who knows? One of their players may disconnect and give your team the chance they need to get back in the game. Anybody can surrender, and you may consider that a better use of your time. But don't complain about losing if you forfeited and didn't even see the game to the end.

Besides staying positive, always be courteous to your teammates. Nobody likes to communicate with a jerk. Nobody likes to be told that they suck, or to uninstall the game. Saying things like that is completely unnecessary and will never lead to positive results. And remember, you make mistakes too; everybody does. Nobody plays perfectly, and there is always room for improvement. I would go so far as to say that making mistakes is the only way to improve at the game. Chances are, if one of your teammates made a mistake, they know it. It's not your job to point it out to them again. If they are completely oblivious, you can inform them of the mistake, but do it gently and don't take an accusatory tone. Instead, tell your team how you can correct the mistake and get back in the game. For example, if your AD carry has fed the enemy carry, instead of harassing them, simply tell them to try to play safely and farm passively if they can. Maintaining a good attitude in game is one of the qualities of a good leader, and invaluable for the mid laner.

Warding

You knew there would be a section on warding, so let's knock it out. Warding is one of the most important aspects of playing League of Legends, and no less the mid laner. Warding is not just the support's job. If you want to stay safe in your lane, it's your responsibility to ward it. The mid lane can be a complicated lane to ward because there are so many entrances to the lane from which enemies can enter. When warding your mid lane, you should consider which wards you want to place. Different placements can be more risky to achieve, but provide you with more information regarding the movements of the enemy jungler. Let's take a look at some of the most common ward placements.

The picture below shows 3 wards labelled A , B , and C on the top side of the mid lane. Each ward offers increased vision that may give your team more information as to the enemy's movements, but comes at the cost of increased risk in placement. In order to place wards farther out, you have to move farther out and risk getting caught and possibly killed. The safest ward to place is A , because you can place it from over the wall while inside your lane.

The next picture shows the mirror of the 3 wards pictured above, on the bottom side of the mid lane.

If you are unsure of which wards you should place, or are hesitant to risk placing a deeper ward, just place a ward in each of the side bushes of the mid lane, both labelled A in the pictures above. This will be enough to keep you safe from ganks by the enemy jungler as long as you don't over-extend. I like to buy 2 wards every time I recall, even if it means waiting until later to buy another item. Green wards are fine. You don't need to buy pink wards unless the enemy team has a stealth champion that you are worried about, such as Evelynn, Shaco, Rengar, or Twitch.

Wards are without a doubt the most gold efficient item in the game, and their importance cannot be overstated. The information they provide your team in the form of vision is invaluable. It allows you to control the map by observing enemy movements and responding to them, even before they can react. So do yourself a favor and buy wards.

Specialization

By specialization I mean champion specialization. It is important to specialize in certain champions because it is always better to pick into a counter, but with a champion that you are skilled with, than to try a new champion that you have never played before because you saw that they counter your opponent on championselect.net. Ask yourself, is it better to be great at a few champions or mediocre at many? Imagine that the enemy mid picks Ryze. You quickly google "Ryze counter" and see Orianna mentioned. You have never played Orianna before, but you pick her anyway. You don't understand how to play her or how her skills work.

Even though she theoretically counters Ryze, the Ryze player is more skilled with his champion and is able to overcome his disadvantage and win his lane. It may even cost you the game. In fact, it would have been better to pick one of your main champions, even if Ryze theoretically counters them. That way, you can at least farm passively during the laning phase, but still be a huge help to your team late game because you understand how to play your champion.

To begin with, pick 1 or 2 champions that are your absolute favorite and master them. You don't even have to be good with them to start off. Some of my main champions I picked because I liked their lore, or I was able to relate to them. If that's not important to you, pick a champion that you are skilled with and that you understand. Play a lot of games with that champion. Custom games, normal games, and ranked games all help you practise and get better. These champions will be your main champions, the champions that you are comfortable playing with in almost any game.

After you have your main champions, pick 3 or 4 more champions that you would be comfortable playing if they enemy picked or banned your mains, or if your main was heavily countered. Finally, make it your goal to learn 1 or 2 additional champions that you can add to your pool over time. Maybe try to learn 1 a week, or even 1 a month. By practising and learning new champions you can discover new matchups and counter picks by yourself, and actually be able to play them well, helping you improve as a player.

Of course these qualities are not exclusive to the mid laner. Anybody can have them, and they are good qualities to have. However, I believe that it is the responsibility of the mid laner to have these qualities, and if you are interested in playing the mid lane, you can't go wrong by having them.

I will leave you with a few tips that I stick to when I play mid:

-Always buy 2 wards each time you recall. This allows you to constantly keep up vision of your lane and the surrounding area.

-Consider taking the summoner spell Teleport to help set up ganks and apply map pressure. A well-timed Teleport can change the outcome of a game.

-Focus on last hitting and farming equally or better than the opposing mid laner.

-Failing to kill your opponent, but pushing them out of lane is usually better than killing your opponent but dying yourself. The reason for this is that, if you both die/kill each other, you both get some gold at the cost of losing out on farming gold and xp. However, if you simply force your opponent out of lane, you can still farm, gaining valuable gold and xp, while denying it to them. Do yourself a favor and save your Flash for when you need it.

-Map awareness is key. Look at your minimap. If you have trouble with this, try forcing yourself to look at the minimap once every 10 seconds. But don't just glance at it without gaining any information. Look for where each enemy champion is and where they are going. Look at the minions and try to spot any huge waves that could threaten your tower or that you could use to push the enemy's tower.

-Always be kind and courteous to your teammates.

-Never participate in harassment or flaming.

-Don't use championselect.net as the only deciding factor when picking your champion.

-Believe that every game is winnable, no matter what situation you are currently in.

-Try not to play when you are very upset. This can greatly affect your performance. Take a break, drink some water, and come back later.

Thank you for reading! I hope you have enjoyed this article, and maybe even learned something from it. By no means have I included everything that you should do when you play mid. These are just observations of some of the qualities that I believe are required to be successful in mid lane. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Please leave a message in the comment section below. I read every single one.