As a League of Legends newcomer, it can get overwhelming deciding on what champion to pick because there are 146 champions to choose from. All of them are unique and require their own skill sets and degrees of knowledge on the game. Hopefully this guide can help you decide on who to play.

Malphite

Malphite is an excellent champion for beginners. He is a Vanguard, which is a tank that goes into the middle of the fight during teamfights. This allows him to do a decent amount of damage for a tank. You can queue up for four positions while still being viable (Support, Top, Mid, and Jungle) and Malphite has two different builds (AP and Tank). For beginners, I'd recommend tank because, in my opinion, tank does enough damage by itself and, while you don't get "one shot" potential, you're less reliant on your ult, which is the most important part of your kit.

The Tank build is usually Sunfire Cape, Abyssal Mask, Iceborn Gauntlet, and then some other options such as Righteous Glory, Thornmail, Frozen Heart, Adaptive Helm, Randuin's Omen, or Gargoyle's, These items are pretty situational! Even the core can be changed out depending on the situation. The AP build is usually Protobelt, Zhonyas, Morellonomicon into some tanky AP items and Rabadon's Deathcap.

Malphite's passive is a shield that scales with his maximum health that stays until it's broken by getting damaged enough. It regenerates after a couple of seconds of not taking damage. Your Q deals magic damage to an enemy and steals movement speed from them. This is excellent to use when you need to escape or when you want to continue chasing. Your W is a passive and an active. Your passive gives your bonus armor if your shield is up, while the active gives your auto-attacks a cleave that deals bonus physical damage, scaling with your armor and AP. This ability makes it very easy to farm, so even the people with the roughest time farming can do it. Your E is an AoE spell that hits the ground, dealing magic damage to all enemies nearby, also scaling with armor and AP, while also slowing the enemy's attack speed. This is good for slowing the DPS down of those who auto attack a lot. Your Ult makes you unstoppable and hit a targeted area, doing massive damage to that area. This is your best engage method and escape method, if needed.

Garen

Garen is a Juggernaut, a champion that can tank damage while doing damage at the cost of being immobile. He is as simple as a champ can be. But while he's simple, he can still be fun! You, again, can go top, mid, and possibly jungle. He can also go bot, but that requires a set up with your support, who picks Yuumi, a support champion that gives Garen an edge and the potential to be great there.

Your builds vary! You can go Black Cleaver into tank items, such as Thornmail, Dead Man's Plate, and Spirit Visage. You can also go Trinity Force into bruiser items, such as Sterak's, Guardian Angel, and Maw of Malmortius. If you are feeling risky, you could go a critical strike-focused Garen. Thanks to his new rework, his Judgement spin scales with attack speed. Be careful though, you will be more squishy than usual!

Garen's Passive heals Garen out of combat, scaling with level. Your Q empowers your next auto for 4.5 seconds, making that first attack deal bonus damage and silence. Upon casting it, you also get a movement speed buff for the duration and you cleanse any slows you have. Your W helps you take damage by giving you a shield and damage reduction, as well as tenacity for 0.75 seconds. Your E makes you spin for 3 seconds, allowing you to move through units. This ability is useful for shredding armor so you and your team do more damage to enemies. And finally your ult does true damage that is good for finishing off enemies that are low, because it deals increased damage against enemies with a lot of missing health.

Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune is a bot lane Marksman who does a lot of ranged damage, but she is squishy like most attack damage bot laners. She is a nice beginner bot laner due to how well she outputs damage. She does have a mild amount of skill shots, yet these are AoE spells, which makes them quite easy to land. Her two main builds are lethality and crit. With the lethality build, you want to go Blade of the Ruined King, Youmuu's Ghostblade, then build Duskblade of Draktharr and/or Edge of Night. For crit, you want to build Infinity Edge, Essence Reaver, then Zeal items, usually Rapid Firecannon and Statikk Shiv.

Miss Fortune's Passive gives you bonus damage on your first attack on a target. Your Q is a targeted spell that shoots one enemy and then hits an enemy behind them. Your W gives you movement speed passively, until you are hit. Activating your W increases her attack speed and brings your movement speed back, even during combat. Your E rains bullets down in a small circle for 2 seconds, dealing magic damage to all those in the area and slowing them. Finally, your ult fires waves of bullets in a cone towards a target direction for 3 seconds. These bullets can crit for 20% bonus damage, 25% with IE. Your ult can carry teamfights, so make sure you position it correctly.

Janna

Janna is an Enchanter support champion that can support players by using shields and heals to keep them safe, while she herself applies crowd control to keep her and her fellow teammates safe. She is an excellent and exciting support.

For Janna, you want to build Forbidden Idol items to increase your healing and shielding, and then Athene's to increase AP ratios and give even more healing everytime you shield, when you deal damage. Janna's passive grants you bonus movement speed and gives your allies movement speed. This helps your teammates and yourself run away.

Your Q is charged spell that increases its range, damage, and knock-up duration when you use it, This allows you to help save your teammates when they're getting chased by enemies with good catching tools. Your W passive grants you more movement speed and makes you able to move through units, while the active slows an enemy, also dealing magic damage, with the downside of you losing your Ability’s passive buffs for that time being. This is also excellent for poking in laning phase. Your E is a shield and attack damage buff that you can target champions or turrets with, so if you put it on an ADC (attack damage carry) you will not only be giving them a shield that soaks up damage, but also makes them more of a threat! This shield also goes on a lower cooldown if you slow or knock up an enemy. Your ult knocks backs enemy champions and heals our allies. Use this in sticky situations when you need to save your ADC and when your whole team is low. Just be careful of knocking back enemies that are going to die, as you may save them as well.

Annie

Annie is a Burst Mage can kill people before they can even think about running. She is an excellent mid laner and can also be flexed in support with no worries at all. She is the icon for all beginner champs out there due to her simplicity, her decent skill ceiling, and her great damage output.

For Annie, you always want to buy a Luden's Echo. It gives you everything you want! You'll also want to buy magic penetration items to increase your damage output. The rest is situational but, if you're going to get killed a lot, go Zhonya's and Banshee's veil. If not, go Spellbinder and Rabadon's. If you're playing support Annie, buy a Spellthief's Edge and upgrade it when you can. Then go the same build as mid lane Annie. You can also go Twin Shadows if you need to slow down champions for your team, for defensive or offensive reasons. Annie's Passive is that every four spells, your next damaging spell will stun any targets hit. This is useful for so many reasons. It allows your teammates to easily follow up on the stun, it catches people out, and it helps you hit the rest of your spells.

Your Q is a point and click spell that does magic damage on the enemy you click on. If you kill a unit with this spell, you get its mana cost refunded and half its cooldown reduced. This spell is useful for farming due to its passive. It also is useful because it is the most reliable use of your passive, with you having no way of missing it. Your W is a coned skillshot that does magic damage on cast. This spell more damage than your Q and it's your only basic spell that can stun AoE. Your E gives you a fiery aura, giving you damage reduction, movement speed, and dealing damage to whoever auto attacks you during the duration. Your Ult summons a bear named Tibbers, dealing damage to whoever is in the area of summoning and then passively deals damage to nearby enemies. He can also auto attack, dealing magic damage on hit. Tibbers enrages when summoned, whenever Annie stuns, or when Annie dies. When enraged, he gets bonus movement speed and bonus attack speed and is able to move through units, the movement speed decays over the duration. When you die, Tibbers also gets revenge, restoring 50% of his health, and targets the killer. If the killer isn't in range, he targets the lowest health champion instead. While in revenge mode, his health will decay over time. Out of combat, Tibbers will passively regenerate health. Tibbers also receives the effects of your E.

I hope you enjoyed my guide, and I hope you think about picking up some of these champions! To those starting: I hope you can have nice and fun games on the rift!