League of LegendsWorld Championships 2016 Primer

Part 4: How to Watch a Game of League of Legends

Prepared by: Luc Ryu

This Primer is meant for individuals who are interested in learning about the basics of

League of Legends – both as a game, and as a spectacle.

The 2016 World Championships are just around the corner (October 29, 2016), and

awareness of the game is at an annual high. With that, comes a large influx of individuals

who are interested in watching, but have no idea what the game is, how its basic gameplay

functions, or even how to properly watch the game.

This Primer will be comprised of multiple sections, each designed to explain a unique

component of League of Legends – be it its history and growth, its basic gameplay, or the

head-to-head matchup at the 2016 World Championships.

Altogether, the goal of this Primer is to help beginners learn the basics of League of

Legends, such that they can enjoy the experience of watching the 2016 World

Championships.

The biggest barrier to entry for any video game is the steep learning curve involved in

learning the fundamentals. It is my hope that this Primer will help to break down those

barriers, and help introduce the fascinating world of competitive League of Legends to new

viewers.

About This Primer

How to Watch a Game of LoL

Having come this far, and having learned this

much, it must be apparent by now just how

much information has to be organized and

processed during a game of LoL.

Even as a spectator, it’s important to be able

to separate the important information from

the extraneous. This will help make sure that

the viewing experience is still enjoyable, and

doesn’t become a struggle.

This current slide is a direct screen-grab of a

RiotGames production, and shows the Heads-

Up Display (“HUD”) that’s used on the

broadcast.

Now that you know the basics to the game,

it’ll be easy to simply walk you through the

layout of the HUD, and explain where certain

information is shown, and when you should

pay attention to it.

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

These are the most generic statistics, and can

be used to assess how well each team is

generally doing.

1

Quick Hits:• The icons directly under a team’s

acronym represent the different Drake

buffs that the team has acquired.

• The greyed silhouette to the side of

the acronyms will be coloured in when

the team has an active Baron Nashor

buff.

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The neutral buffs acquired by the team;

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The neutral buffs acquired by the team;

2. The number of towers destroyed by the team;

1 2

Quick Hits:• Each team has 11 towers in total.

• Comparing the number of towers

destroyed can help assess which

team has more control of the map.

• The less towers a team has

destroyed, the more “on-map” gold

exists (consider this when comparing gold

leads).

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The neutral buffs acquired by the team;

2. The number of towers destroyed by the team;

3. The overall accumulated gold by the team; and

1 2 3

Quick Hits:• Differences in gold are more impactful

in the early-game.

• Never look at this number in isolation (Try to understand why it exists. Differences in gold

can only exist through kills, assists, towers taken,

and creep score. Is the gold lead a function of

individual outperformance, or macro-play

outperformance?).

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The neutral buffs acquired by the team;

2. The number of towers destroyed by the team;

3. The overall accumulated gold by the team; and

1 2 3

If you ask me, this is the only statistic that

will change frequently, and will require your

attention.

With that in mind, you don’t really have to

pay attention to this part of the HUD all that

often!

This is the team score bar.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The neutral buffs acquired by the team;

2. The number of towers destroyed by the team;

3. The overall accumulated gold by the team; and

4. The number of kills secured by the team.

1 2 3 4

Quick Hits:• This number represents the most

basic indicator of a team’s

performance.

• It should never really be assessed on

its own.

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

This area highlights the key individual

statistics for each player.

Lane match-ups are presented side-by-side,

and move from Top Lane down to Support.

Checking this part of the HUD can help you

assess which lanes are being won by which

team. This may help you think about who the

priority targets on either team might be.

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The items owned by the player;

Quick Hits:• You can see the portraits of all items

owned by a player here.

• There are over 180 unique items in

LoL, many of which have multiple

passive effects, as well as over 25

items with unique activatable effects.

1

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The items owned by the player;

1

Keep an eye out for the following items,

though! Their activatable effects can really

change the course of a battle!

Shoots the player forward.

Great for quick positioning!

Hextech

Protobelt-01

Removes stuns on a selected

ally target.

Mikael’s

Crucible

Turns the user invulnerable, but

they also can’t do anything!

Zhonya’s

Hourglass

Removes stuns and slowing

affects on self.

Quicksilver

Sash

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The items owned by the player;

2. The player’s kills, deaths, and assists (“KDA”)

Quick Hits:• To see how active a player as been in

fights, add up their kills and assists,

and compare the number against the

teams total kills above.

• It’s important to not look at KDA in a

vacuum. For example, if a Support

player is getting all of the kills, that

means they’re taking away gold

earned from delivering the killing blow

to an enemy from their ADC.

21

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The items owned by the player;

2. The player’s kills, deaths, and assists (“KDA”);

3. The number of Minions killed by the player

(“creep score”, or “CS”).

Quick Hits:• Remember that killing a Minion gives

an average of 19 gold.

• During the beginning of a game when

players are less likely to roam out of

their Lanes, you can look to this

number to assess who is winning in

the Lane.

31 2

This is the individual statistics table.

Moving left-to-right, it highlights:

1. The items owned by the player;

2. The player’s kills, deaths, and assists (“KDA”);

3. The number of Minions killed by the player

(“creep score”, or “CS”);

Remember that all Champions in LoL are

unique and have their owns strengths and

weaknesses.

Some Champions are relatively ill-suited for

the Laning Phase (the time before

teammates start grouping up), but are

dominant in big team fights!

31 2

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

Make it a habit to check these boxes often.

They communicate some of the most

information available on the HUD.

Many of the visualizations here communicate

information involving timings (cooldowns on

Ultimate Skills, and Summoner Spells).

The more-informed viewer will have a general

sense of the cooldown times for certain

Ultimate Skills, and Summoner Spells, and will

therefore likely spend less time making sense

of this information.

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

Quick Hits:• If a Champion’s portrait is greyed-out,

that means that they’re dead.

• The red number beneath indicates

how many seconds are left before the

Champion respawns back by their

Nexus.

• You can quickly glance at these timers

to see for how long a team may have

a number’s advantage.

1

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

Remember that LoL is an objective-based

game that only ends when a Nexus is

destroyed. To ensure a game will eventually

end, the duration of respawn timers

increases as the game goes on.

Eventually it’ll take over a minute to

respawn!

1

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

2. Ultimate Skill cooldowns;

2

Quick Hits:• Every Champion has a portrait of their

Ultimate Skill on the top corner.

• The portrait will be greyed-out

whenever it is on cooldown.

• The relative time remaining on an

Ultimate Skills cooldown is indicated

by the clockwise re-colouring of the

portrait

• Note, how EDG PawN’s Ultimate Skill

is about a three-quarters of the

cooldown length away from becoming

usable again.

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

2. Ultimate Skill cooldowns;

2

Some Champions are heavily reliant on

their Ultimate Skills. As such, if a team

enters a fight with one of their main

Ultimate Skills on cooldown, they’ll be at a

huge disadvantage!

Professional players have many of these

cooldowns memorized, and will try to force

a fight if they know they have the

advantage in this regard.

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

2. Ultimate Skill cooldowns;

3. Summoner Spell cooldowns;3

Quick Hits:• Summoner Spells are often used to

enable high-impact outplays.

• An ADC under pressure can Flash to

safety, or Heal to stay alive.

• The cooldown indicator for Summoner

Spells is identical to that of Ultimate

Skills.

• Note, how Ezreal’s Flash and Heal

Summoner Spell cooldowns have just

started their cooldowns. This leaves

him vulnerable for the next little while.

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

2. Ultimate Skill cooldowns;

3. Summoner Spell cooldowns;

It should come as no surprise at this point

for me to tell you that professional players

have the cooldowns on Summoner Spells

memorized.

If they ever see one used, they’ll

communicate this to their team so that they

can all start timers in their heads.

3

These are the team status boxes.

There are a number of key

visualizations to keep track of:

1. Respawn timers;

2. Ultimate Skill cooldowns;

3. Summoner Spell cooldowns;

4. Health and Mana bars.

4

Quick Hits:• Players are able to see the Health

and Mana bars above all Champions

whenever they are in vision.

• If a Champion is low on Mana, that

means they will likely have to rely on

basic attacks, thus putting them at a

disadvantage.

• If a Champion is low on Health, that

means they are closer to death, and

must play cautiously, or retreat back

to their base to heal.

This is the key events notification

area.

There are three components to

items that pop up here:

Whenever any major event happens

(Champion kills, Epic Camp kills, Turret kills),

they will show up here for a few seconds.

When things on the screen start to get chaotic

and disorganized, use this area to act as a

summary of what’s happening.

Quick Hits:• Remember, that the Champion who

deals the killing blow typically receives

(bonus) gold.

• In case you forget which team the

specific Champion is on, you can look

at the coloured glow around the

portrait to see if they’re on the Blue or

Red team.

1

This is the key events notification

area.

There are three components to

items that pop up here:

1. The Champion who dealt the

killing blow;

Quick Hits:• Key events only revolve around

Champions, Turrets, Inhibitors, and

Epic Camps.

• During chaotic team fights, keep an

eye on this area to see if any priority

Champions have been killed.

2

This is the key events notification

area.

There are three components to

items that pop up here:

1. The Champion who dealt the

killing blow;

2. What was destroyed or killed

Quick Hits:• Any Champion that participates in a

key event will be rewarded with a

small amount of gold and experience.

• However, because the gold is shared,

sometimes it may be wise to funnel

the gold to Champions that need it to

scale.

3

This is the key events notification

area.

There are three components to

items that pop up here:

1. The Champion who dealt the

killing blow;

2. What was destroyed or killed

3. The Champions that assisted

This is the Epic Camp timer.

There really isn’t much to say

here. These visualizations help

keep track of when the next Epic

Camp will spawn.

You can expect big team fights to

happen when these are alive.

Now you’re all set to watch the best two

teams in the world go head-to-head at the

Grand Finals of the 2016 League of Legends

World Championships!

You may not totally understand everything

that’s going on…

…but don’t be discouraged – the more you

watch, the more you’ll learn!

And the more you learn, the more you’ll

understand.

And the more you understand, the more

you’ll enjoy!

https://www.twitch.tv/riotgames

https://gaming.youtube.com/user/RiotGamesInc

Visit one of these two

channels on October

29th, 2016 to watch!

Opening ceremonies

begin at 7:00PM EST,

and coverage of the

games start at 7:30PM

EST.

League of LegendsWorld Championships 2016 Primer

Part 4: How to Watch a Game of League of Legends

Prepared by: Luc Ryu