Captain I Follow You: Tips on Shot Calling

I’ve recently joined a 5s team with some friends of mine from college. We all know each other pretty well and all enjoy the game by playing solo q frequently so we wanted to try and put our keyboards together. We lost, pretty hard, which made us all feel down. I re-watched the gameplay, brought by LoL replay, and I saw our problem easily. We had no shot caller. Thus here I am with this guide to shot calling and some basics you should know to make your team gameplay that much better.

Knowledge

The shot caller is the coach, the big man on campus, the leader the whole team looks up to for direction. As the coach you have to know all about game. What’s important, when should we do this, what should we do, and how should we accomplish it. You call the engages, you call what objective is to be taken and when to pull back. It’s important for the shot caller to understand timers and to know where people are at. You have the extra job within the team. Call those dragons when the time is right and tell your team when to not engage a fight and just farm. To do all this you need a huge understanding of the game. I’m talking buff timers, dragon timers, baron timers, what do to when a certain player is dead, where to push, what can you take as a team? Don’t call for a baron after you’ve killed three enemy players, not including the jungler, and the death timers are low. Go for dragon or a tower you know you can take. Pay attention to everything and everyone.

Roles

Anyone can call the shots, but I prefer the jungler as the best shot caller. The jungler already knows the jungle times and is the one that can roam around the map more. This can be beneficial for deep wards. Another good role to be in as the shot caller is support, simply because almost 100% of the time support starts the team fights. They have the direct cc to start the engage and currently in the new Meta we see supports roam a lot.

It’s a Team Game

While having a shot caller is super important, it’s also important to be able to work with a team that will listen. This means as the shot caller you need to have decent communication. Don’t get mad when your team messes up, don’t call people out during game, and do not let your anger cloud your judgment. Be that coach that supports his/her team no matter the outcome of the game. Prepare to talk about mistakes, but do so after the game is over. Also be that team player, telling your teammates when they did well is a huge boost to players. It makes them feel wanted and that they are doing a good job. Be the parent for the team.

Don’t be Scared of Calling Plays

This is huge to note as the shot caller. You need to understand that you will never make 100% of the calls right, but you should focus heavily on the ones you do make right. Don’t let your bad calls ruin the mood of the team because that could end up costing you the game. Also don’t let one bad call prevent you from making any other calls. Times that are good for calling tower pushes are when you have the siege, they have players down with decent death timers, you have vision of the around the tower you want to push. Vision, as we all know, is one of the most (if not most) important key to winning games, it is also important to push key objectives when you have vision. See the enemy top laner pushing top with no teleport, you have vision in the enemy jungle and around dragon what do you do? You can take the free dragon and even push bot tower. There are many more situations like this you, as the shot caller, need to watch out for.

Rewards

Being the shot caller for a team is a really rewarding experience. You develop much more as a player and as a person. By learning all the roles and understanding each weakness and strength shot calling becomes like second nature. Keep a calm head, call them shots, and win those games as a team.