Working as a five man team: when the game starts

 

Now that you are at the point of the game to start, the mechanical teamwork part steps in. Almost every role has to do something different than in normal SoloQ games. I have listed down few things I find really important for the laners to do and how you should form your teamfighting.

But first I want to cover the shoutcaller and his importance. You should have one, but it is only optional. He/She has to be in many games, and he/she has to have experience on being a shoutcaller. An inexperienced shoutcaller can have bad calls in the beginning and it is very important that she/he should give some time to learn how to be a good shoutcaller and you should not judge them for making bad calls. They will learn in time, but it will take many games before they're able to recognize good and bad calls. The benefits from having an experienced shoutcaller is that he/she can keep your team together and recognize when is the best time to take important objectives.

Laning Phase

I will go through the differences of the roles in a team game, as opposed to normal SoloQ, as well as some important warding places. 

Top:

I don't really think top has to change many things. You have to to keep proper timers for when the wards expire and you have to give information to your team about the enemy top laner's moves; and for that I have one tip, use smart-pings to time wards and objectives. For example, when you see the enemy putting a ward in the bush, use one of the smart-pings. This leaves a timestamp in to the chat and you can do the math then (wards expire in three minutes).

You also need to think about the enemy team's jungler and what his early game plans are. For example, at what buff does the jungler start, how are his/hers early ganks, how much damage does he/she have at early levels etc. This should affect your starting items by thinking, should you risk starting without any wards (like Doran's Blade/Shield/Ring), or should you start with a defensive item build which considers wards (Rejuvenation Bead, pots, and a ward)?

Another thing to think about is your jungler's moves. Is he/she going to gank your lane, and when? Is your jungler's countergank strong enough to beat the other jungler's gank? These are all important keypoints that you need to have an eye on.

Jungler:

I think jungler has the most difficult part in a ranked team. The jungler has to get information about the lane he is going to gank before he is able to gank. Is the enemy's flash down, is his/her ignite down, is the lane warded, has anyone seen the other jungler etc. Also, if the lane happens to be warded, the map above shows some gank routes that you can use to avoid wards with Champions that have a leap/dash/jump ability (like Sejuani/Shen/Kha´Zix). These paths often get enemies caught easily when they are overextended.

Although I say it is the most difficult role, I really think it is the one role where you can improve your gameplay the most. When you play as a jungler for a team for a few months, you start to develop more game knowledge and better game awareness.

The jungler should be communicating all the time with the team and try to gather as much information as possible to get easier ganks. Also, the jungler must know the location of the other jungler if you are looking to take dragon. For example, if their jungler is in top lane, you get a huge advantage from their smite not being available.

Mid: 

Mid lane has to make few variations to his/her gameplay too. You are probably sitting in the most contested lane in the game, since you usually have the highest impact on the game later on.

The most important thing you need to start doing (if you haven't started already) is WARDING. You should be doing this even when in SoloQ, but in ranked fives, warding is essential. You cannot push or play safe if you don't have wards. Either way, the map above has highlighted areas to remind you where the best places are to do this.

Bottom lane:

Bot lane does have few things that you need to apply, but not as many as the other laners. Especially ADC doesn't have to make any huge changes, since he/she only benefits from having voice communication with the support. Only thing the ADC really has to do during the laning phase at least is to stand there, look menacing, and farm.

But about support's job in the team. Support has to be aware of few things, which are enemy wards, enemy jungler's position and ward control. You should use the same tip as I gave you earlier and smart-ping the enemy wards and calculate the expiring time.

In early game you don't have to have a dragon ward, since dragon fights usually start when either one of the junglers are close to hitting level six. These fights usually break down after the seven minute mark. After the first back, you should always have a dragon ward as a support.

Summary: There are only few things that you need to change in the laning phase, but those few things are super important. To win, you need succesful ganks and ward control. 

The best advantage as a team using voice communication, is that you get the information you want by just simply asking verbally. This allows you to do better in lane, since you only waste a small amount of time typing in the chat.

Mid/Late Game

On the map, I have marked down the things you need to take care off. You should push mid all the time when you have upper hand, and your top lane/bot laner(s) should always have an eye on whether the lane is getting pushed or being pushed. The green marks show things you should try to take.

Your team should start gathering around at this point, but I want to go through some mistakes that are commonly made throughout the mid and late game, and the ones you should try to avoid doing as a team.

1) Your first dragon is at the 25 minute mark. This is the biggest mistake in low elo. What you really should do is try to make a succesful gank to bot at roughly the ten minute mark, get dragon, and Víola! Enjoy your free gold.

2) ADC has 150 farm, or less, at the 30 minute mark. This is the most common one I see in the games. When you are not trying for a teamfight and your bot is pretty much pushed to the tower, just go and take the farm. It takes 30 seconds to go bot, clear lane, and head back to mid. You should learn to time this correctly and try to go farm bot whenever possible. You have to remember that if your lane is pushing to turret, you need to go and take care of it, otherwise you'll end up losing 200 gold.

3) Forcing teamfights. This is the hardest one to understand. You should not force teamfights all the time. Especially if you are losing. If you think you cannot fight, just back off. Your team suffers gold loss if your only goal is to get back and fight after coming from base. You should do your fighting only when you are sure you can get on top of the team.

4) Splitpushing without ward coverage. If your team has a splitpusher, she/he should carry at least three wards all the time and he should be warned every time even one enemy leaves mid lane.

5) Chasing over kills. You should try to think which one is more important. Getting a shutdown out of a Rammus that is running away from you or the possibility to get one or two turrets down spreading the gold for your team.

Summary: Teemos die daily for stupid mistakes made by your team or you.

Teamfighting in late game

When the teamfighting starts, you should always try to gather youself into one steady group that is not in a tight bunch. You should strategically move forward to the enemy team, or try to bait them in to a trap, and as you are doing this, the one that initiates should be able to give specific information on his/her moves.

Some important places to fight:

I think it's very easy to execute a fight in the dragon pit area. Your ultimate objective is to get the enemy team trapped to the dragon pit area, even one or two trapped people makes the teamfight easier. The way you should do this, is that you go all in with preferably your team's assassin (if you have one) or ADC. He/She isolates one high priority target to the pit, making the enemy target unable to help with the teamfight. While your teammate is doing this, the rest of the team should concentrate on fighting. This should be played so that your ADC moves towards the rest of the fight when he/she has killed the isolated target

You have to remember two things. First is that you do not isolate targets if you are losing. This is the thing that can lose you the fight. If your Vayne is 0/7 and their Lux is 3/0, we can pretty much assume what the outcome of the isloation will be. Second, when you try to force a fight around dragon pit, you should do it when the dragon is nearly low. This means that your jungler will be able to try and smite steal it before going all in, and secondly, their team loses HP if they fight a dragon, and if the enemy actually gets the dragon, you will still win the trade, getting a few kills and in best occasion a tower.

Then is the chance that you are being attacked. This is simple to go over. There are two rules. First one is: If you are winning, go for the fight. If you have equal, or even a small lead, you should try to fight till the last man alive. Rule number two is this: If you are losing, run as fast as you can and try to slow their way to your high priority teammates. This might sometimes be hard, but if you lose one person and you get the dragon, it is totally worth the shot.

This is another place where you can try and execute a fight. This place is pretty dangerous, since there are many outcomes like; you get the Baron and win the teamfight, you get the Baron and lose the teamfight, they get the Baron and win the teamfight, they get the Baron but lose the teamfight etc. This place is really two sided, since you have to be careful when you are going to take the Baron. The later the better. One thing is that if you are pretty even, you can end up throwing by taking an unsecure Baron.

You should know when to start a Baron and when not to try a Baron.

Bad time for Baron: Their whole team is alive, you don't see anyone on the other team and you don't have any ward coverage in their jungle, then this definitely is not the right time for Baron!

Good time for Baron: enemy team is aced (All Champions Eliminated), you have got an inhibitor and you see at least a couple of people defending their base, or they don't have any kind of ward coverage around Baron area, or anyone other than support is taking farm in bot lane (which means that their team has only four members to contest Baron).

Summary: The main thing in teamfights is your team should be following your initiator, otherwise your initiator dies and your team loses all the advantages you might have. You have to time your teamfighting so that everybody can get on the board. The two best places to arrange teamfights are Baron and Dragon pit.

Thanks for reading my two part guide to the Basics of Five Man Ranked Team. Hope you enjoyed it!