Getting First Blood in League of Legends isn’t just a flex. It can greatly improve your odds of winning your ranked games. However, knowing exactly how to secure First Blood can be a battle in itself. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach here, there are a few strategies you can use — I’ll discuss some of the best tactics below.

Is First Blood Important?

While you don’t need to secure First Blood to win your games, it certainly helps. First Blood is the equivalent of 400 gold (potentially more if teammates assist). This can put you at a major advantage for the rest of the game if you use the lead wisely. First Blood also applies psychological pressure on the enemy team, which can give you the ‘mental’ upper hand.

While Riot hasn’t released any official data on how much a First Blood can increase your odds of winning, results from League of Graphs show that teams who secure First Blood have a 56% to 59% win rate, with the exact percentage depending on elo, ranked queue, and whether you’re on the red or blue side.

How to Get First Blood: Top Tips and Tricks

From picking the right champions to managing your level ups, there are plenty of ways you can increase your chances of getting First Blood.

Pick for Early Game Dominance

While some champions excel in the late game — looking at you, fully stacked Nasus — others are famous for their early game dominance. If you’re looking to secure First Blood, you’ll definitely want to consider picking up one of these champions. They’ll have the kit, playstyle, and damage needed to carry out aggressive plays and dish out first-blood securing attacks.

Some great early game champions include Darius, Talon, Draven, Renekton, Caitlyn, and Blitzcrank. Blitzcrank may be a support, but his long-ranged hook is the ultimate “First Blood” tool. He can use it to catch an enemy target and draw them right into his ADC’s clutches.

Once you’ve decided on which early game champion to pick up, the next step is to familiarize yourself with their abilities and win conditions. Read champion guides, watch professional streams, and practice laning against different matchups in the dedicated LoL practice tool. You should also become familiar with their damage output, attack range, and power spikes.

Hit Level 2 First

Yep, don’t underestimate the power of a good ol’ level up! By hitting Level 2 first, you’ll be significantly stronger than your lane opponent — you quite literally have double the amount of spells at your disposal. If you time your level up correctly and position carefully, you can catch your target out, all-in, and secure First Blood (or at least blow through their Summoner Spells).

Hitting Level 2 first is especially effective in low elo, where players often overlook just how significant this power spike can be and position poorly. Generally, to hit Level 2 you’ll need to kill the first wave of minions, followed by 1 melee minion (or 3 melee minions if you’re in the bot lane). However, be careful not to farm too aggressively and push the lane to your opponent’s turret. This will allow them to play safe, and prevents you from making full use of your Level 2 spike.

It will take time and practice to understand the optimal time to engage and how to path effectively. Our guide on how to manage the laning phase can help.

Learn Your Opponents’ Weak Spots

While at times it may not feel like Riot “balances” champions fairly — remember the good ol’ days of 95% ban rate Kassadin? — every champion does have their share of strengths and weaknesses. While loading into the game, take the time to research your lane opponent’s champion and learn about their vulnerabilities. You can then use this information to inform your plays, and in many instances, to secure First Blood.

For example, let’s say you’re playing against a Nasus in the top lane. This champion is notorious for their weak early game, lengthy cooldowns, and low mobility, meaning an all-in engage at Level 2 will likely give you a kill. This is especially the case if you’re playing an aggressive champion like Darius.

Play to Invade

Jungle mains, this strategy is for you. Looking to invade is a high-risk, high-reward approach, but it’s one of the most effective ways to secure First Blood.

It essentially involves tracking the enemy jungler’s movements, infiltrating their jungle, and arriving at their camp before they do. You will need to ensure your health bar is topped up and you’re positioned accordingly. Once they arrive — likely at low health from killing other camps — you can then catch them unprepared and force them into a fight. If you play correctly, you’ll walk away with a kill under your belt (and potentially some free camps if the enemy team doesn’t react in time).

Now, there’s a lot more that goes into invading, and it can be difficult to get to grips with. You need to have excellent macro to predict your opponent’s movements, be familiar with typical jungle pathing, and also know how different matchups play out (e.g. you wouldn’t try to invade a jungler that thrives at early-game dueling).

You also need to be wary of the enemy team and whether any vision control has been established. If they spot you in advance or have the pressure to react to your invade, you’ll be the one looking at the gray screen of death. While we can’t cover the nuances in further detail here, this in-depth guide on early invades covers the fundamentals.

Commit to the Cheese

Okay. Cheesing the enemy, aka catching your opponent by surprise, probably won’t work in high elo. But if you’re in low elo? There’s a pretty high chance that the enemy won't be able to react to your cheese, let alone see it coming.

You can “cheese” your opponent in a few ways, and the best approach will vary depending on your role and the matchup. In general, though, it involves hiding in an unexpected location (like a bush) and ambushing the enemy when they path by. To increase your odds of success, it’s best to pick a champion with a strong early level 1 and encourage your teammates to help.

Cheesing is particularly effective just before the laning phase begins, and securing a kill early will throw off your opponent entirely; they’ll be late to lane, miss out on farm, and become incredibly tilted.

Snowballing Your Way to Victory

Getting First Blood is one of the fastest ways to snowball your team to victory. However, it can be difficult to pull off consistently. While our strategies above can help increase your odds, it’s important to take the time to master your mechanics and practice the laning phase. You should also hone your macro and learn the right times to engage and play aggressively.

By improving as a player overall, you’ll be earning First Blood after First Blood (and a whole lot of LP). Best of luck on the Rift!