There are team compositions with a certain playstyle that ensures their victory. If we look at the LCS, you can find a multitude of team compositions that we can use in solo queue. I’m going to be talking about 3 team compositions, their win conditions and how to play against them. Hopefully you will be able to use my example team compositions or think of some on your own! Just note that everyone should be on the same page when it comes to team compositions. This goes for every elo but especially in low Elos. Don't force picks on your teammates or pick champions you've never played to fit a composition. Sometimes in solo queue your teams don’t communicate well enough to play your composition to the fullest extent. The composition will not single-handedly make or break the game.

Poke

Poke compositions are my least favorite team composition because of they are so difficult to play against. If a team has little to no engage, then poke is a great way to capitalize on it. The poke composition strives on whittling down health bars over time. They damage your team's health down until you can no longer teamfight, at which point they take your turrets/dragons/barons, and if you didn't back, they can probably kill you because you’re so low. Poke compositions thrive off of champions who have no hard engage, because they can still kite you if you try to run at them. If you want to beat the poke composition, hard engage and protect the ADC are good comps. Hard engage can lock down the targets and start a team fight. Protect the ADC comps will give the ADC a strong front line to tank the poke.

The way you win as a poke composition is to play passively and poke. You should prevent teamfights for as long as possible. Once the enemy team is too weak to fight, kill them and then push if they haven't backed or push if they have backed. In other words, kill them and push. Poke does well against disengage compositions because if you do not have anything to engage on, it negates the disengage. Some notable poke champions are Jayce with his great damage with his Q, Nidalee for her good poke and assassination, Viktor who can clear waves and poke at a safe distance, Varus provides waveclear and long distance poke, and, finally, Janna who can peel for the poke champions and also has an empowering shield. Overall, the goal of a poke composition is to lower the enemy health bars and take objectives.

Pick

The pick composition is pretty self-explanatory and very similar to the poke composition. You pick out your targets. Pick compositions rely on their ability to be able to take out important targets to cause teamfights to sway in their favor. By taking out the strongest opponent, the teamfight becomes easier in addition to becoming a 5v4. Pick comps, most of the time, will have at least one assassin. Pick compositions for the most part cannot teamfight, so they must rely on taking out your biggest damage dealers early to win the teamfight. These pick composition champions are also decent at taking out split pushing champions, but struggle against engage and champions who make it difficult to get to a target. If you are trying to beat a pick composition, you should take out your priority targets (usually the ones that do the most damage) and then force a fight with your advantageous team fight and take objectives/push. If you want to win against a pick composition, hard engage and protect the ADC are good. Hard engage will allow you start the teamfight before they pick you off. Protect the ADC will protect the priority target and provide a strong tankline for the opponent to “pick” off.

The way to win as a pick composition is to simply get your picks. You have to coordinate with your teammate on who the priority target is. Most likely, this will be the ADC or the mid laner. Pick comps do well against split pushing because they can move around the map and take out the splitpushers fairly easily. Some notable champions are Lissandra because her ult can easily lock down any champion, Elise who can use her Cocoon to easily catch someone out of place, Zed or Leblanc who have similar playstyles where they can assassinate a target and get out quickly, Twitch who sneaks behind enemies and has a lot of damage to follow up, and Blitzcrank who is able to easily grab someone into your team, resulting in a kill. Your goal as a pick composition is to get your target, kill them and win the 5v4 or use the numbers to get objectives.

Engage/Wombo

If you are an engage composition, all you want to do is teamfight. Your composition is superior in teamfighting and upon winning a fight, you can push and win. It’s pretty simple. An engage composition will have great crowd control, a good frontline and great follow up damage. In my opinion, I think that it is the most well rounded composition and can be played in solo queue with the least amount of preparation. Engage compositions struggle against disengage and split pushing. Disengage compositions are strong against engage because they can defer teamfights. If the engage composition tries to engage, disengage comps are willing and able negate their engage. Splitpushing is similar due to the fact that you take away from their engage power. If the engage composition is strong as a 5v5, they still will need to find a way to take care of the split pusher without losing their strength. If the team needs all 5 members for their team fight win condition, then splitpushing will give your team time to move as the split pusher or for the rest of the team.

Image Courtesy: Joon K.

The way to win as an engage composition is to use your abilities correctly. You know your teamfight is strong, so force them and execute on them properly. Engage is good against pick and poke compositions. Against a pick composition, engage team should stay together and kill anyone who tries to come at you. Against poke, they don’t have many tools if you engage and you can easily lock down a target. Against pick comps, they will try to come in and assassinate your main damage dealer. Your team fight crowd control can lock down the assassin and kill them. One cool thing about engage compositions is that you can create some cool combination of abilities. A fun team composition is Yasuo top, Malphite jungle, Orianna mid, Kalista bot and Alistar support. If you want some cheese, you can add Janna for support for double tornados! All of these champions work together. Everyone has the ability to knock the enemy up which will enable Yasuo’s ultimate. Also Orianna can place her ball on any of her allies and have an easy ultimate set up. All in all, the engage/wombo compositions need to work together. It’s all about execution and getting it done.

League of Legends is a team game. You have to coordinate with your teammate and you all have to be on the same page. Try using some of these compositions in your next game and tell me how it goes! Whether you have a specific team composition or not, remember to identify your priorities in game and tell your teammates. Have fun, summoners and good luck on the Rift!

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