LoL: Guide to Team Compositions, Part 2

You can have any five champions on your team to play a game of League of Legends, but the right team composition can have a huge advantage when it plays the game the right way. In this guide, we will go over typical team setups and how to use them.After we discussed picking the right champion in the first part of this comps guide, it’s time to get to the team level. Different team compositions have different sets of abilities to (hopefully) use together. At the same time, however, they need to be played in diverse ways to have the best chance to win the game.

Every composition needs some frontline that can withstand some damage and keep the enemy from getting to its carries and a backline that provides damage and crowd control. However, the exact makeup and how they will play together will vary. By the time you get in a game, you should have some idea of how your team wins and what your role is.

Depending on what your team has, you might be looking for massive team comps to land that sweet, sweet wombo combo - or play a slow game of bleeding your enemy out, chipping at towers and playing the map. Here are some basic types of compositions:

1. Wombo Combo

Also known as the attack or teamfighting composition, this is a setup you will often see in solo queue or lower ranked team games. It is reasonably easy to execute successfully and quite effective, relying on area of effect (AoE), damage and crowd control (CC) to crush the enemy in teamfights. This is also why this composition needs some good engage tools so you can start the fight when you want it.

Something like Malphite top, Wukong jungle, Viktor mid and Miss Fortune and Leona bot would be a typical wombo combo composition.

2. Pick

The pick or catch composition is all about getting uneven fights by picking off exposed enemies. It is not as strong as a wombo combo composition in 5v5 teamfights, so you have to look for picks. The best champions for it would be those that bring mobility, hard CC (charms, stuns, roots, etc.), and burst damage to the table so you can isolate and delete an opponent.

Maokai top, Skarner jungle, Ahri mid and Ashe and Thresh bot can be a nasty catch composition.

3. Poke

The poke composition (or siege as it is sometimes known) is all about bleeding the enemy at range. Unlike the catch composition, where you try to win objectives by eliminating enemies before the fight, with the poke composition you try to whittle down their health so they cannot contest. Ranged damage and disengage are crucial for such a composition, as is skillshot accuracy.

4. Protect

With this composition, you build the entire composition around keeping one or two carries alive so they can demolish the enemy in teamfights. It works best when you have “hypercarries”, champions that scale very well and can output insane damage if they are not killed quickly. The rest of the team buffs them and keeps the enemy at bay so the carry can kill everyone.

Poppy top, Nunu jungle, Cassiopeia mid, and Twitch and Lulu bot, can make up a nice two-threat protect composition, but you can substitute Cassiopeia for Orianna or Karma mid for more protection for Twitch.

5. Split Push

Everyone who plays ranked has seen games where a carry just goes solo, dies, and flames the team. However, split push compositions (also known as 1-4 and 1-3-1 compositions) can be quite potent, pushing the enemy to split and make mistakes. They rely on having one or two strong solo laners that can quickly push and fight 1v1 and a main group that can both pressure and disengage if the enemy focuses on it.

Jax top, Gragas jungle, Ahri mid, and Tristana and Janna bot, can be a good 1-4 split push comp. You could pick Leblanc or Twisted fate for a 1-3-1 composition.

Play Your Way

Of course, in real life, you will seldom have a composition that is 100% oriented towards only one thing. Sometimes, one or two champions will have a slightly different focus. However, they can still contribute to the team goal. What is more important is that you play the game in a way that favors your composition. If you play a catch composition and try to force 5v5 teamfights, you will often lose. In general:

• Wombo Combo comps want to engage on the enemy as five and land a lot of area damage.
• Protect compositions want to scale and teamfight by empowering and protecting key carries.
• Pick compositions want to control vision and punish enemy greed or over-extension.
• Split push compositions want to pressure across the map, force the enemy to choose what to defend and what to abandon and make mistakes.
• Poke compositions want to bleed the enemy so they eventually cannot defend key objectives.

READ MORE:

• LoL: Guide to Team Compositions
• LoL Patch 11.7: Yorick and Morde Mains Rejoice! [UPDATE]
• LoL: Beginner’s Toplane Guide

What is your favorite composition? Are there any team comps you just can't beat? Let us know on Instagram or join the convo on our Discord channel!