Something that I’ve seen while giving lessons is that very few people have good map awareness. This is something that can be applied to all MOBA games but it is very easy to learn in League of Legends.

What this means is keeping a constant track of where champions are as well as positioning yourself. The key to successful map awareness is proper camera positioning on your character but there’s another technique that people do not do. I have noticed this in higher ELO play, but I do not think players actually consciously concentrate on this fact. The basis behind this “hidden” technique is similar to those of speed reading. As those of you who have taken speed reading courses or have taken the time to learn such techniques know that the concept behind speed reading is taking advantage of the power of your brain.

Your brain has a lot more processing power than you think it does. I can’t offer a full class on speed reading as I have not finished a complete course, but I understand it well enough to help people improve their game. In order to do this successfully, you need to be a very good visual learner. While it is not limited to visual learners, it definitely helps. The technique I learned is centered on visuals and it really helps. What you need to do is get very good at picturing things in your head.

These are the spots on the map you should always be concentrating on in your lane. Red is creeps. Green is bushes. Blue is entrances to the bushes. These spots should be second nature when playing. Try to get as many of these spots in your lane in your camera for best information gathering. Don't get too focused though, because it will lead to tunnel vision.

This exact strategy is used in many MOBA games. As you are laning, people have a tendency to tunnel vision. This is the part where you adapt to map awareness. As soon as you are in the laning phase, you should look at the minimap constantly.You see this all the time in professional streams. Players in lanes will move their cameras to scan the other lanes to see what is going on. However, most of the time, they move the camera too quickly so that you can’t see what is really going on. This is because they are subconsciously burning the image into their mind and reviewing the details in their mind. The reason they do this is for efficiency. You can’t allocate all of your time into analyzing the other lanes while you are worrying about your own. This saves a lot of time and creates a close to perfect image to the game status.

The most important sites to keep track of are the enemy jungle, river, and any wandering laners. If you can keep a ward at every entrance in the jungle, then you should be able to apply this technique and never get ganked by the jungler. The following image indicates hot ward sports in order to watch for junglers. Using the technique of quickly locating the jungler on the map along with intuition let you know when to play safe and when to play aggressive.

Also, it is very important to keep track of missing people. You should always be able to see at least 4 enemy members on the map during laning phase. If you scan the minimap and there are only 3 red dots, then something should go off in your mind that tells you a gank is incoming. Using experience and proper visualization of the minimap without tunnel vision will lead to a much safer laning phase.