Growing up, I am learning about the importance of choosing people you to do life with. To deliver my thoughts on this, I'll use one of my favourite games; League of Legends (and a bit of NBA logic) to get my message across. When I was in high school I played a lot of League of Legends. I wasn't anything close to great but I had enjoyed playing the game and spent too much time on it. The game consists of two teams with five controllable characters each and the whole point is to destroy the other team's base. Today, I'll talk about those five controllable characters, better known as roles and how it would be nice to have these characters in our lives.
I'll start of by talking about the 'Top', my favourite champion to play up Top has always been Rumble. These guys go to the top lane to start off the game. The kind of top laner I loved having in my teams were the ones that would tank up and take majority of the hits. They would do no damage but they would get hit long enough for your team to win the fight. Yeah, is not a tank. In NBA terms, my preferred top laner is somewhat comparable to a Draymond. They won't be raining threes like Steph or Klay, but he'd do all the dirty work and be as important as everyone else. Always nice to have a mate who would take one for the team.
The Jungle role is distinctly unique early game because they do not start off in any of the lanes, my favourite champion to jungle with is Nidalee. Junglers start of fighting against jungle creeps and eventually visits/ganks lanes to try help their teammates get ahead. Junglers can very much be the difference on how far ahead someone has gone ahead or how far someone has caught up. Junglers with the right timing and scenario, can come out of the shadows and help their teammate kill their matchup. Junglers can also have a huge effect on how much control the team has on the whole map. It's always nice to have someone come by and give you a little boost.
The mid lane is my least played and favoured role, I rarely ever play mid but if I had to I would use Alistair. Mid lane is arguably the most impactful role in the team. When mid laners get a lot of kills, they most often can single handedly carry the team to victory. They have access to both top lane and bottom lane and gank other lanes themselves. The GOAT of League plays mid. In NBA terms, a mid laner can be compared to LeBron - he can control the game by scoring 50 or by getting 20 assists. It's always nice to have someone that can do it all when called upon or when you least expect it.
My most played and favourite role in the game is ADC. I play an alright Drave, Vayne, Ezreal, Pre-Rework Graves, Jinx, Tristana and Twitch. ADCs are destined carry the team to victory by dealing a lot of damage (per second). Naturally, ADCs are the top priority for the enemy team to kill first - as they deal a lot of damage and lack the defensive capabilites. In NBA terms, you can compare ADCs to a scorer like KD - he can give you 50 and they're going to get the best defender on him or send him a lot of double teams. From time to time, we are called upon to look after someone set them up for the late game/future.
Last but not least, we have the support role. I play Support a fair bit and I'm alright at Alistair, Thresh, Leona and Braum. Without the support role, there will definitely be no ADC. Long story short, supports hold the ADCs hand throughout the entire game while warding around the map. I'll keep it short and sweet, it's always nice to have someone set you up for the late game/future.
The two main things I believe is most important when choosing:
- Not everyone will make the team
- Fit matters, choose carefully
The bittersweet aspect of growing up is that the number of people that matter to you and vice versa gradually decreases over time. Eventually things like getting more responsibilities, starting a career, building a family will oversee everything else. Add on eating, sleeping, etc. and there is probably only enough time to give quality time to five people in a week rather than the twenty.
If you want to live life travelling the world - surround yourself with people who love travelling. Also, we can't have too many ADCs or too many LeBrons on the team. The damage ADCs will deal will most likely not compensate for the lack of defense. Alternatively, we wouldn't want to tell one of the LeBrons that you're the guy and other four that are not. We need more than a door to build a house.
Jonas,
