We all know playing League of Legends with 4 of your friends is one of the most enjoyable experiences a person can have playing a video game. You and your best buds on coms with each other, synergizing your movements and macro play to overwhelm your opponent is a rewarding feeling. That wombo combo goes off in the last team fight of the 40 minute game, securing your team that last mid lane push that will flash that sweet, sweet VICTORY on your screen. What if I told you I could help make these games more fun and competitive? In my team composition series, I'll be diving into and explaining in depth team compositions used by professional teams (and maybe some funny ones I've cooked up on my own). Well, let's get to the juice shall we?

The Protect the ADC comp has been used by many professional teams throughout the years. It's "one of the oldest tricks in the book" if you will. The point of this composition is quite simple. Your 5 man team revolves around the ADC surviving late game with the help of the other 4 members of the squad. Plenty of heals, shields, defensive items, and synergistic abilities allow your precious ADC to farm up and wreak havoc on the late game, surely "netting" your team the victory if pulled off correctly.

First things first, the ADC pick is of utmost importance.

I would reccomend a late game hyper carry. My top 5 choices (in order) would have to be:

• Vayne
• Kog'Maw
• Caitlyn
• Ashe
• Twitch

Now, these are MY personal preference. I'm not saying one is currently better (Vayne) or stronger (Vayne) or even more fun to play (still Vayne) than the rest of the champions on this list, but it's definitely my top choice. There's just something poetic about a full item Vayne running into the enemy team with Lulu shield that can't be rivaled by any other feeling. Your number 1 responsibility is to do just what you're always supposed to do as an ADC. Survive and deal wicked amounts of damage after completing your core item build. Combined with correct positioning, you will be the driving force of this composition and the majority damage dealer on the charts. It should be VERY difficult for you to die in this composition. Positioning is everything. But, if you mess up you STILL shouldn't die because well, "Protect the ADC". You'll see what I'm talking about. Keep reading.

Now let's talk about Supports.

Which should you pick? Who is better than others and why? Well, here's my list of supports I would pick for this composition:

• Lulu
• Janna
• Nami
• Braum
• Soraka

Now, all of these champions do the same thing except some of them do it better than others. Lulu and Janna are my top picks on this list. If you're looking to win with this composition I feel they'll give you the best shot both in and out of lane phase. Lulu has 4 abilities. All 4 of which are a form of crowd control or a shield / speed up or in the case of her Ultimate, Wild Growth, both. Let's think about it: Her Glitterlance(Q) is a long range soft CC ability that slows all it passes through. You can do fun positionings with it in lane. If you use your E on a minion while the enemy ADC is going for a last hit, your Q range gets weirder so they'll never expect it. Now her Whimsy (W) is awesome. If you cast it on an ally, you speed them up. If you cast it on an enemy, you Polymorph them into some cute little forest creature for a few seconds. Her Help, Pix! (E) is the shield. You can cast it on an ally to shield them or you can cast it on an enemy to do damage. When you are shielding your ally your Glitterlance now shoots from You AND whatever is shielded. Cool right? Now her ultimate is Wild Growth (R). When you cast it on an Ally they gain a bunch of health. And I mean a bunch. Seriously, a lot. But the cool part is that you get really really big and knock all enemies around you up into the air.

Now Lulu and Janna are excellent for support. What about Mid Lane? How can you have a composition based around an ADC but still have your wicked damage dealing AP carry? Well, that's an easy question. Play whatever you want as long as it has some form of survivability. I've seen professional teams run all kinds of AP champions in the middle lane while using this composition. I've seen LeBlanc ran. Her only job is to blow the enemy adc up in the beginning of the team fights. That allows your ADC to wreak havoc among the rest of the team fight.

Now the Mid laners I would play in this composition are:

• LeBlanc
• Karma
• LuLu (If you aren't playing her in the bot lane)
• Fizz
• Syndra

Now the reason I would pick one of these champions is as follows: Leblanc, Fizz, and Syndra are assassins or burst mages. Their job is to do an incredible amount of damage to an enemy carry before a teamfight officially kicks off, netting your team a 5v4 advantage. But that doesn't only give your team a numbers advantage. If your Mid laner ends up killing their mid laner, now there's usually no one left to blow up your ADC. Pretty cool right? Now the other 2 on this list are Karma and Lulu. If you're not using Lulu as your support, I suggest taking her in the mid lane. Now it's going to be quite the boring mid lane battle if you pick Lulu. You're basically just a farm machine until team fights break out. But Karma on the other hand. Her Mantra Q is a huge source of poke damage. Her Mantra shield combo is excellent for engaging and disengaging if the situation is unfavorable. Now other than bot lane, your jungler should be visiting your lane frequently. This composition can still work if you're behind as a mid laner. But this composition works much smoother if you're strong enough to blow someone up. That being said, jungle is our next destination.

I give you the fearsome Jungler picks for this composition:

• Nunu
• Zac
• Gragas
• Lee Sin

Now, Lee Sin is always a viable jungler regardless of the situation and comp. Now getting past that, I'd personally pick Nunu here. Nunu has one of the best if not THE best abilities to control neutral objectives like Dragon and Baron. You're going to need the control and pressure around these objectives considering the late game team fighting is what this composition excels at. You don't want to get too far behind in the early game and end up being too weak to fight when the time comes. Not to mention, Nunu's attack speed buff in Blood Boil (W) is very nice on your Vayne come late game team fights. His ultimate, Absolute Zero (R), is an awesome zoning tool for said fights as well. If they're pushing and engaging on your team, your Nunu tosses up the Absolute Zero in the middle of the skirmish, then Lulu comes along and shields him so he doesn't get blown up all while your Leblanc is jumping the enemy AD or AP carry and your ADC is dealing consistent and well positioned damage. I hope you're picturing it in your head like I am. It's really quite beautiful. Gragas is on this list because he's meaty. His ultimate, Explosive Cask (R) is great to displace teams and peel for your ADC. Just because it's good to peel, doesn't mean it's not good for engage. You can easily help out your mid lane assassin by singling out an enemy using this ability! He's a great substitute for this composition if you didn't want to run any of the others.

Now the last part of this composition is the Top Lane (My Favorite).

Lets talk about champions that I would reccomend picking here:

• Darius
• Ekko
• Gangplank
• Kayle
• Shen
• Trundle
• Lulu (Seeing a pattern yet? Pick LuLu in at least one of the roles for maximum kill stuff)

Now the tank of this composition is a farm robot until the compositions strengths take off. When the late game team fights start breaking out, your job is to peel if your adc is getting engaged on or engage if you see a super perfect opening with your mid lane assassin. Now all of these top laners have unique abilities within this composition. Let me dive into a few. Darius is a great pick with this composition because even if your ADC manages to get blown up, your team fight still has a form of win condition for the fight. His ultimate resets if he gets a kill with it. His ultimate is called Noxian Guillotine (R). Your auto attacks and abilities put bleed stacks on enemies. Your ultimate is a HUGE True Damage smack in the face that deals 20% more damage per bleed stack on your target. Awesome right? That's what resets when you get a kill with it. So you can jump up and down over and over again laughing as you absolutely destroy the enemy. Now Kayle is on this list because she's absolutely fun to play(and she's my personal favorite champion). Her ultimate is called Intervention (R). At max rank her ultimate makes whomever she casts it on Immune to all damage for 3 seconds. 3 entire seconds of being invulnerable? That's insane for what you're trying to do in keeping someone alive. Gangplank is on here because he's fun and his ultimate is cool and can help get your team through laning phase, although I'd prefer a tank in my hands for this composition.

Now, all of these champions are interchangeable. Like I said above, the MAIN purpose of this composition is to get to the late game team fights, keep your ADC alive, and win fights. This composition also relies heavily on the positioning of your entire team. I would only play this composition with your friends if you planned on having some fun and communicating your every move with each other. A lot of these pieces of this well-oiled machine have to be working together to make the entire thing come together. ADC champions are considered to be fragile. So it's your compositions job to turn them into an unkillable monster.

Now last but not least, the DO NOT's of this composition.

- Do NOT fall behind early. Play safe and don't take risks that aren't super in your favor. If your lanes fall behind early, your shields won't be strong enough to protect. Your ADC won't be hitting as hard as their ADC. Your Mid Laner won't be blowing people up. Your Jungle will be under-leveled and your Top Laner will get blown up.

- Do NOT give the enemy team free objectives. You should at least contest the Baron and Dragons. Take fights and pick enemies off one by one if you the situation arises. But don't go all in over the 12 minute cloud drake and get aced, giving the enemy Caitlyn 4 kills. Hell, if you have NuNu, try and push the enemy bot lane out of lane with pokes. Then when they go back to base, go to dragon and take it before the enemy can position.

- Do NOT get tilted. Tilt is a real factor in this composition. Like I said, if you fall behind early it's devastating but not game breaking. No matter the situation of any game you can always come back and win. Someone is always going to try to 1v5 because they feel strong enough (Still Vayne) or someone's going to try to solo Baron like a goon. Take advantages of all their mistakes and come back and still it to them.

Now that's all I have for this edition of Team Compositions for You and Your Friends. Just keep in mind that Vayne is sick. LuLu is a sleeper broken pick for support. Lee Sin can be played in just about any situation no matter what but there are better choices. All in all, Play whatever you want. This isn't me saying you SHOULD play these champions. This is me saying try something different and maybe you'll have some fun. Maybe you'll hate it. Who knows? I have a lot of fun running this composition with my buddies and I'd love to pass that feeling on to you and yours.

Also as a final note, this is my first article I've ever written for Team Dignitas. I'm very excited to bring some other Team Compositions to your Ranked Flex games as well as other themed articles. Feel free to check my Twitter on my profile, shoot me a follow, and ask any questions or just shoot the breeze with me! Thank you for reading!

Don't Ever Tilt

-Will

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