Playing Safely in League of Legends is a concept that many new players have difficulty understanding. LoL is such a highly intense and competitive game, meaning much of the enjoyment comes from crushing your opponents and winning in dramatic fashion, but appreciating the value of staying safe and making smarter decisions in game is a much more effective way of ensuring success in your games. Let's dive in and have a look at how to play safely across 3 different stages of the game, to give you a better concept of how it's done.

Playing In Lane

The Laning Phase in League of Legends is arguably the most important stage in any game on the Rift - while anything can happen as the match goes on, gaining early control over your opponents is vital in ensuring the best results. There are several contributing factors to your success in lane; CS, trading with your opponent/s and ganks from your jungler are just a few examples, but none of these matter if you can’t keep smart and play safely.

Think about it - the Bounty System in League of Legends acts as a comeback mechanic to prevent a player from snowballing out of control. If you’re bloodthirsty in bot lane, constantly picking up kills and enjoying some free farm, you’re going to attract attention from the enemy jungler and mid-laner as they try to shut you down and get their team back on track. Unless you can play safely to hold on to the lead that you worked so hard to create, you’re going to be gifting a huge chunk of gold back to the enemy team. Let’s look at how you can create the safest situations possible in laning phase to prevent your enemies from locking you away in the early game.

First and foremost, warding is the key to playing safely in any and all games of League you’re likely to be in. Shocking, I know, but it’s absolutely vital to play around the vision that you have rather than risk it all on a play with no vision. There are a few essential spots in lane that you should fight to keep vision control over to ensure your own safety, as you can check out in Ahrivve's guide to warding here.

The next thing to consider is your positioning - this is going to be a recurring theme throughout this article as we explore it in different contexts, so keep this in mind moving forward. In the laning phase, your position should always be determined by as many factors as possible; by this, I mean that you need to consider multiple things when deciding on your next move, starting with the enemy champion/s.

As an example, in bot lane the jump from level 1 to level 2 is one full wave + 3 melee minions and being the team that levels up first gives you a significant advantage over your enemies. Tracking not only your experience but the enemy team’s experience is difficult, but vital in avoiding a level 2 all-in. Champions like Thresh and Leona that can access a CC-heavy combo at level 2 should be respected enough to back off if you see them take an experience lead early on. This can be demonstrated in the video below:

Lastly, playing around turrets is a super important feature of the early game. At level 1, the average health of champions in League of Legends is around 550hp, while outer turret damage starts at 152 damage, scaling up by 9 every 30 seconds. Unless you’re a tankier champion that builds armor (considering that turrets deal physical damage), you shouldn’t consider diving enemies under a turret in the early game. Once turret damage stops scaling upwards at 13:30, it becomes a lot less scary but before then make sure you give turrets the respect they deserve. Besides, forcing someone out of lane can be just as good as taking the kill in relation to the farm you can gain in their absence.

Playing Around Objectives

When you’re playing around objectives, the rules change and your priorities will shift. As players move away from the laning phase, there are different ways to ensure your safety and give yourself the greatest advantage when taking down Dragons, Rift Heralds/Barons and pushing down those lanes.

Wards around the Dragon and Baron pits are essential - that being said, their specific placement isn’t as important as actually maintaining vision in the first place. That is why our favourite neutral monster on the Rift, the Rift Scuttler, is such an important feature of any game of League. The 90 second Speed Shrine that the Rift Scuttler creates is the best form of vision that the game can provide, as it cannot be removed or destroyed and is placed perfectly to capture rotations around objectives. Knowing that the Rift Scuttler allows for 90 seconds of vision once killed, you should ensure that you pay close attention to the respawn timers for major objectives and time it so that you have control over the area when the objectives are live.

If your team holds control over the objectives then the best way to play safely is to, surprisingly, look for a pick and then move to an objective in a 5v4 situation. This reduces the threat of the enemy team when your team is focused on Dragon or Baron/Rift Herald, while you're going to try and do the opposite if you're attempting to steal an objective under enemy control. Wait for them to engage the monster before you jump in and then throw your whole team behind your attack; 5 on 5 becomes a lot easier if your opponent is being beaten down by a neutral objective and taking your team's full force at the same time.

Playing In Teamfights

Playing safely in and around teamfights is unique, as it’s all about who to kill and when. Typically teamfights will break out in the late game and determine the outcome of the match, more so than earlier in the game, so making sure that you play as smart and safely as possible is vital.

Identifying your position in a teamfight is essential - while teamfights can get chaotic, finding your place and holding it can be the difference between a win and a crushing defeat. The frontline of a teamfight needs to be made up of your tanks, to soak up as much damage as possible and apply their CC as effectively as possible. Behind them, off-tanks and squishier supports need to find their place and contribute to the teamfight as the next line of defence before the damage dealers (rangers, assassins, casters, etc.). It might seem simple, but an organised team has a far greater chance of finding the right moment to engage than an unorganised team. Take a look at the following clip:

CG wins this fight thanks to a much more organised and well positioned team taking advantage of the overextended Azir, highlighting the importance of effective grouping.

Once the engage has been made, targeting becomes the priority. Your team’s CC and damage should ideally start on the damage dealers and work their way back to the tanks, which is made more difficult by an organised/well positioned team. This is not without exception, as champions such as Yasuo should make the most of a huge knock-up whenever possible, even if it misses one of the damage dealers. As seen in the above clip, the Azir is focused and then Sona quickly after, but since the team is positioned better to kill Sejuani rather than run down and catch Jayce, she becomes their new focus.

If your initial engage fails, or the enemy team is positioned far better than you, it’s time to disengage. While it is a difficult concept for the kill-crazed beginner to grasp, disengaging does not necessarily mean losing! Moving back to a more advantageous position can often lead to greater success than committing to a risky teamfight, so identifying a bad engage and warning your teammates away from it is a necessary skill to have. The most telling sign of when you should disengage is if one of your key team-fighters misses their engaging ability- if Thresh throws out a hook and it misses everyone or hits a tank instead, back off and reset! Following that hook gives the enemy team the advantage, causing you to fall apart and crumble at their feet.

With these tips and focuses throughout the game, you will be able to play more safely in your games and ensure you're not giving away any unnecessary deaths to a hungry enemy team. It might not always be the most glamorous style of play in the early game, but playing safely allows you the best chance to build yourself into a mid-late game powerhouse and dominate your matches on the Rift. GLHF!

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