Winning in Champ Select: How to Build a Team Comp

Things are simple when you’re playing on your own or with a couple friends. You’re relatively free to pick whatever you want in champion select, and you’re usually able to get away with it if you play it well enough. Then a few more friends join and you decide to jump into the game as a full team, and everything changes. Suddenly you’re losing every teamfight no matter how far ahead you are, and losing game after game in general, and some teams are left scratching their heads as to what went wrong.

A major contributing factor into teams’ losses is that they were outplayed in champion select. When you’re dealing with an enemy team of 5, you have to assume they’re coordinated enough to make a team comp, right from the start, and immediately try to seize the advantage before the game even begins.

The most important thing to understand in making a team comp is understanding champion synergy.  For example, if Orianna and Wukong are on the same team, she can put her ball on Wukong, and have him jump in and ult as Orianna ults.  There are other factors to consider when building a team comp, as well:  Do you have enough tanks?  Enough damage?  Do you not have any peel for the carries?  Try to play out the team fight in your head, and try to figure out any problems with it before you put it into action.

Here are a few ideas for team comps, feel free to come up with variations and compositions of your own:

The Wombo Combo
The simplest way to take advantage in champ select is by picking multiple champions with AOE abilities. Teamfighting is common in most games, so by having enough lockdown and damage to shut down an enemy’s teamfight can secure victory after victory. Be wary of The Split Push, as that team is designed to take objectives even if you win teamfights. Try:

Top – Shyvana, Vladmir
Jung – Wukong
Mid - Orianna, Yasuo
ADC – Miss Fortune
Support – Sona, Leona

Poke Comp
By refusing to engage an enemy, and instead poking them from afar, you can weaken enemies by prolonging the period before the fight as much as possible, giving you a huge advantage when the teamfight does break out. Be careful when using this against teams with strong engages, like Wukong. Try:

Top – Dr. Mundo, Lulu
Jung – Maokai
Mid – Ziggs
ADC – Caitlyn, Corki, Kog'Maw
Support – Nami or Janna

The Split Push
The idea with this team is to go into a 4v5 and still come out ahead on objectives. This can be tricky to pull off, because if your split pusher gets behind, your team doesn’t have a lot of options. Your top laner or your ADC (whichever’s doing better) can soak up experience in an open lane, and become monstrous. Try:

Top – Jax, Nidalee, or Nasus
Jungle – Maokai
Mid – Lux
ADC – Vayne, Quinn, Tristana
Support – Janna

Dive Comp
When someone charges into the enemy team alone, they’re usually going to get focused down. By having multiple people dive them, the enemy team doesn’t usually have the resources to take everyone on at once. Try:

Top – Renekton, Shyvana
Jung – Vi
Mid – Akali
ADC – Tristana, Lucian
Support – Leona, Thresh

The Late Game Comp
If you try this comp, expect to lose hard in the laning phase. But as long as you can keep yourself from losing inhibitor turrets or worse, and stall the game out as long as possible, you can win any teamfight in the late game. Try:

Top - Jax, Ryze, Nasus
Jungle – Master Yi, Udyr
Mid – Ziggs, Orianna
ADC – Tristana, Vayne, Kog'Maw
Support – Leona, Thresh, Lulu

The Tank Comp:
Conventional wisdom states that if you can attack a tank or a non-tank, you should go for the squishy. Which leaves teams awfully confused when they don’t have a squishy target to focus. The positioning of the ADC is key here, because unless you’re going to play Urgot, there aren’t a lot of tanky ADCs, leaving them the most vulnerable target.  Team fights are the way to win with this composition. Try:

Top – Maokai, Vlad, Renekton, Shyvana
Jung – Amumu or Rammus
Mid – Swain or Cho’gath
ADC – Tristana or Lucian
Support – Leona, Thresh, or Braum

The Global Comp
One of the hardest situations to deal with is when 5 enemies suddenly show up in your lane and start tower diving you, or destroy your tower. With a team like this, you can start making huge plays anywhere on the map at an instant’s notice. Try:

Top – Shen
Jung – Pantheon
Mid – Twisted Fate
ADC – Jinx
Support - Thresh

These are all just examples, of course.  There are many more variations and styles of team comps.  Team compositions are designed to give you an advantage from the start of the game, but they can give your opponents an advantage too.  But so long as you know your win conditions better and execute them effectively, you should begin winning games as a team quite frequently.