We're back here in my Picking For The Part series to talk a bit more about the things you want to include in those nice little bundles of champions you pick to climb in ranked with. Now, while it's completely possible to climb with pretty much any champion if you're good/consistent enough, the nature of the game tends to favor the better team comp (or rather the comp with the stronger teamfight) after around 30 minutes - assuming the gold difference isn't massively one-sided. This being said, here are some of the things you want to look to have in your comps so that you can stomp at all stages of the game and have an answer to pretty much every possible issue that could arise.

I should note that while all of these qualities are important, you can get away with not having specifically all of them on every single team you play on. It should also be noted that not all of these roles have to be filled by separate champions. Some champions may possess some (or all) of these qualities. It's really good to have what I like to call "compound champions" in the mix. It'll make your comps all the more potent.

Without further ado...

Sivir is one of the champions that generally come to mind when debating the ability to clear minion waves.

Waveclear

The last thing you want is for your team to get a gold lead early only to get stalled out and potentially beaten because the enemy kills minions faster than you and there's nothing you can do about it. You also don't want to run into situations where you're on the backfoot and it takes you forever to clear waves of minions, so you find yourself either stuck at your tower all lane or stuck at your towers (as a team) all game while your opponents frolic around the map taking all of your stuff. Not cool, right? I know.

Simply having waveclear is a good way to both mitigate and apply heavy amounts of pressure without having to directly attack the enemy. In lane, this can open windows for you to assist teammates and even recall to buy items whereas your opponent must deal with the minions constantly pressing on them. Waveclear can even allow you a guaranteed way of accessing farm without putting yourself in danger most of the time. Champions with high waveclear also serve a purpose in that generally their damage can hit lots of targets in a teamfight, but I'll cover that in a later section.

Waveclear in most team compositions will come in the form of the midlaner and the AD Carry, but there are champions in the other roles (especially if you like playing mage supports) who bring just as much, if not more, waveclear to the table.

Crowd Control

Let's take a look at a the definition of crowd control provided by Leaguepedia:

Crowd Control - (n.) (abbreviated as CC) The term used to describe an ability or spell that temporarily reduces a unit's ability to fight. The term comes from the ability to control the enemy team during fights, by either restricting their contribution or means to escape.

While the game is about being simply better than your opponent, crowd control gives you a direct way of making your opponent worse than you! You can trap people in things they would otherwise be able to avoid, force cooldowns out of the fear of death, or even turn their screen gray! You can stick to the softer forms like slows, blinds, silences, and nearsights, or even up the ante with the harder stuff like knockups, knockbacks, stuns, fears, and the dreaded suppression.

Crowd control is designed to make the fight unfair, with the reason being so that you can win it! So use it to your advantage! Mix and mash forms together and learn how to overlap specific types and watch as the enemy team tilts in frustration at how powerless they are to stop you.

Tanks like Amumu, Nautilus, Zac, and Maokai are some of the more notoriously hard to kill champions in all of League of Legends.

Tank(s)

Yes, a tank. Or multiple tanks. Sometimes they're broken, sometimes they're underwhelming, but they're almost always necessary- even in poke comps. The ability to zone simply by existing as well as soaking up huge amounts of damage (think those valuable cooldowns that the enemy has that you absolutely don't want to get hit by) that a tank brings to a team comp is everything except minor. Some tanks even deal a reputable amount of damage! Have you ever been hit by a Sion ult? It's not pretty. Long story short, most high-damage dealers are fragile and need something bulky to hide behind, maneuver around, or rally with in order to make the most of your comp. So get a tank.

Plus, there's always the mildly satisfying feeling of watching people struggle to kill you as you roll over them.

Hard (Dis)Engage

I often call these your "go button" and "stop button" respectively.

Your engage, or go button, is the thing you use to start fights! Go, go, go! Take no prisoners! Burn it all down! DEMACIA! BLOOD FOR NOXUS! These guys allow you to not only press an advantage but to also force the enemy to play your game when you want to play it. This style of champion generally excels in comps that like to snowball or grab an early lead and push it over and over.

Your disengage, or stop button, is the thing you use to prevent stuff from happening. Like a failsafe or a safety net. This could be in the form of moving or incapacitating an enemy when they make it to you, or simply preventing them from making it to you and/or your teammates altogether. They work extremely well in compositions that look to stall the game out and in comps that revolve around protecting a priority target.

These guys can be both invaluable and also annoying in the right comps. Most of them are either tanky or pose a threat through huge amounts of crowd control. They also make for great playmakers if you're looking for those highlight reel clips.

Mixed Damage

This is a really important section, as it takes two forms - mixed in terms of type of damage dealt and mixed in terms of ability to hit one (or more than one) target.

While it is completely possible to stomp games with all AD team, one of the worst feelings in the world is the dreaded feeling of uselessness that comes after about 25 minutes or so when the entire enemy team has Ninja Tabi, the tank is working on like his/her fourth armor item, and it takes you literal years to kill the enemy team. The same could apply to AP teams also. Having a single source of damage on your team just makes it easier to counter, as the enemy knows what to expect from all fronts and doesn't have to vary their build in any way.

The second part is single-target versus area of effect damage. If your team comp can only focus down one target at a time, you're going to struggle against a comp that excels at not only hitting one target, but also dealing damage to those in the area that are trying to help. I don't think there's really anything wrong with having a full team of AoE damage dealers except for the fact that most of them are tailored towards sustained fights and may not offer the burst you're looking for when trying to quickly remove someone from the rift.

Even without the cool skins, this is actually an example of a really solid team composition.

Conclusion

So, there are a lot of elements here that I went over and I hope that you take note of all of these and use them when playing your games. Games become a lot easier when you have a solid comp, and your team becomes all the more harder to deal with if they carry multiple ways of winning. So explore them all! Some comps will do it better than others, but keep a bit of all of these in mind and you should find yourself worrying less about "is their comp better than ours" and more about "how do we use our fantastic team comp to win this game?"

As always, best of luck guys. I'll see you on the rift.

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