League of Legends Beginner Tips: Everything I Wish Someone Told Me Before My First Game

Here’s a wild stat for you — League of Legends has over 150 million active players worldwide, and yet the game somehow still feels impossibly confusing when you first load in. I remember my very first match like it was yesterday. I picked Garen because he looked cool, walked straight into the enemy tower, and died within two minutes. Twice. If you’re just starting out, trust me, these League of Legends beginner tips are gonna save you a lot of embarrassment.

The learning curve in this game is honestly brutal. But it doesn’t have to be as painful as my early experiences were, and that’s exactly why I’m writing this.

Start With Easy Champions (Seriously, Don’t Be a Hero)

I know it’s tempting to lock in Yasuo or Lee Sin because you saw some insane highlight on YouTube. Don’t do it. Those champions have incredibly high skill ceilings, and you’ll spend more time staring at a grey screen than actually playing.

Instead, stick with beginner-friendly champions like Garen, Annie, Miss Fortune, or Warwick. These champs have straightforward kits that let you focus on learning the actual game mechanics instead of fumbling with complicated combos. Riot Games actually has a great champion browser where you can filter by difficulty — use it!

I spent my first three months playing nothing but Annie mid, and honestly? That’s where I learned the fundamentals that carried me later.

Last-Hitting Minions Is More Important Than You Think

Okay so this one took me embarrassingly long to figure out. When I started playing, I thought the goal in lane was to fight the enemy champion constantly. Nope. The real money — literally — comes from last-hitting minions, which is called “CS” or creep score.

Every minion you kill gives you gold, and gold buys items, and items make you stronger. It’s that simple. A good benchmark for beginners is aiming for around 6-7 CS per minute, though even pros sometimes miss a few.

Try practicing in the Practice Tool for about 10 minutes before your games. Just go in there and focus on nothing but last-hitting. It’s boring, I know, but it made a huge difference for me when I actually committed to doing it regularly.

The Minimap Is Your Best Friend

If I could go back and give my newbie self one single piece of advice, it would be this: look at your minimap every few seconds. I can’t stress this enough. So many of my early deaths were completely avoidable if I had just glanced at that little corner of the screen.

The minimap shows you where your teammates and visible enemies are. If you notice the enemy jungler heading toward your lane, you can back off before they get to you. This is called “map awareness,” and it’s honestly what separates decent players from ones who keep getting ganked over and over.

A trick that helped me was setting a mental timer — every time I finished killing a minion wave, I’d check the map. Eventually it just became habit.

Don’t Chase Kills Into the Fog of War

This is a classic beginner mistake and I was absolutely guilty of it. You get an enemy champion down to low health, they start running away, and your brain screams “GET THEM!” So you chase. Into unwarded jungle. Where three of their teammates are waiting.

It’s called getting baited, and it happens to everyone at first. The general rule is if you can’t see the other enemy champions on the minimap, don’t chase. That kill ain’t worth dying for, especially if it gives the enemy team a numbers advantage for an objective like Dragon or Baron.

Use Your Wards — Please

Vision wins games. Period. Your free trinket ward is there for a reason, and I was probably level 30 before I actually started using it consistently. Place wards in river bushes, around objectives, and in the enemy jungle entrances when it’s safe to do so.

Good warding spots can be found on guides over at sites like Mobafire, which is also fantastic for finding champion builds and strategies as a new player.

Your Journey Starts Now

Look, League of Legends is a complex game with a ton of depth, and nobody masters it overnight. These beginner tips are just the starting point — take what works for you and adapt it to your own playstyle. Be patient with yourself, mute toxic players without hesitation, and remember that everyone was terrible at some point.

If you’re hungry for more gaming tips and guides, make sure to check out the rest of our posts over at Voltzora. We’ve got plenty more where this came from!