A guide to drafting in League of Legends (Part 1) – A general overview

A basic drafting guide is everything you’ll need to enter Clash with your friends, and we’ll provide you with exactly that.

In this two-part article we’ll be discussing all the tips and tricks you’ll need to know to prepare and compose the perfect draft for your team. First off, we’ll be going over how to prepare for the draft to win it before it has even started.

All about the meta

Before we start talking about anything team specific, we must first address a term: the meta. The “meta” is an acronym for “Most Efficient Tactic Available”, meaning what’s currently considered the best and most effective strategy overall. In League of Legends, the meta constantly evolves every patch, as champions and items get stronger and weaker, which is why it’s important for you to know what the meta currently is and what to do with it. Deviating from the meta is very much possible, and something we will discuss later on.

Knowing your Team

Now that we got the nitty gritty out of the way, it’s time to take a look and see what kind of composition you’ll be wanting to play. Every player and team has their strengths and weaknesses, so it’s extremely important to figure out what these are for your own team.
An easy way to do this, is to take every single name of the players on your team, and insert them all into a third party website like ‘op.gg’.

On these sites you’ll be able to see what champions your team plays often and perhaps champions they don’t do very well on. Another great way to go about this is to have everyone make a small list of their best champions, a top 5 for instance, so you can quickly figure out what champions suit your players best.

Priority and Plans

The next step is to establish your priorities. Ask yourself this: What champions does your team require to succeed? What champions should you be looking to draft around? For example, if your jungler is an incredible Sejuani player, it might be a good idea to try and pair them with melee champions that synergize well with Sejuani. If this is your plan, it means you have priority on that champion.

Of course, comparing the meta with your team’s champion pools is a very effective way to find other strong priorities. Sites like “gol.gg” will show you what the pros are picking in competitive play, and might give you a better idea of what the meta is. If champions from your team’s champion pools are on such a list, it’s definitely worthwhile looking into them as priority options.

However, as we discussed, deviating from the meta could also be an incredibly efficient strategy, if you know what you’re doing. Is your midlaner absolutely unstoppable playing Katarina? Don’t be afraid to pick it up, even when the pros aren’t doing it. When playing at lower levels especially, it’s often more important to play champions you’re comfortable playing than champions that the pros do well on.

Compositions

Now that you know what your team likes, it’s a good idea to think of some ideas for team compositions. There are a lot of options here, but some examples include: Front to back with tanks, dive with bruisers, pick with assassins, or perhaps poke with range. What composition you pick is up to you, but when choosing one, always consider the strengths of your team, and draft towards those. Picking the right composition is key, as certain compositions do better or worse against certain opponents.

Knowing your Enemies

Often overlooked but extremely important, is scouting out your enemies before the draft starts. There’s a reason you’re given time before the draft to scout out the enemy in Clash tournaments. On the scouting tab you’ll be given some information about what the enemy likes to play, however, sites like “op.gg” might give you more information than the client usually does.

From here, you reiterate the entire process, but for the enemy team. Figure out what their strongest picks are, and make a list of potential threats to your team. This will be useful later on when you’re entering the ban phase, something we will discuss in the next part.
Of course, this is also the best time to pick out potential weaknesses. Does the enemy toplaner play tanks exclusively? Is your toplaner a strong Darius player? Using this concept you can add to your list of priority picks, and quickly shut down the enemy team by exploiting every weakness.

Now that you have your Excel document with lists of champions and priorities of both teams, it’s time to put your preparation to the test. In the next part we will be discussing what to do when the go-button is pressed, and when the draft finally starts.

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