League of Legends: 10 Champions that Can Make You a Better Laner

Becoming a better laner in League of Legends is much easier if you try out these ten champions!

7. Shen

Skill: Map Awareness

Laners tend to focus on the jungler and ganks when they think of map awareness (and check out our guide on tracking the enemy jungler if you want to improve on that), but that’s only one aspect of your map awareness in the lane phase. The other big skill is learning to be aware of what’s happening in the other lanes.

It’s easy to get hyper-focused on your own lane and matchup, but leveling up to become a great laner also means having an idea of the general state of other lanes so you can judge if there is a play to be made. Shen is great at this because his ultimate literally teleports him to another laner while also potentially saving his ally from death. As a result, you’ll have to keep an eye on the minimap and your allies’ health bars to maximize his kit.

Other champions: Karthus, Gangplank, Draven, Senna

8. Darius

Skill: Melee trading

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Trading is easy to do when you have a ranged ability to trade from a safe distance or multiple gap-closers to get in and out. But when you’re a melee champion that needs to win trades in order to win lane, you’ll find life is a lot harder.

This is the case with Darius, who needs to get up close and personal with his opponents, lest he risks getting poked down. Like Renekton, he has a simple trade pattern (pull in the enemy, auto, W, auto, Q as you’re walking away) but lacks the mobility to execute it safely. Playing Darius will let you learn how to play around cooldowns when you’re trading while maintaining proper spacing.

Other champions: Mordekaiser, Galio, Cho’Gath

9. Blitzcrank

Skill: Engaging

For some champions, the goal in laning isn’t just to win by getting a CS lead and zoning your opponent. You need to set up an all-in for your lane partner or for the ganking jungler. These champions, with huge crowd control ultimates, become critical so that you can learn not only how to engage, but how to anticipate what your opponent will do when you try to engage.

For instance, Blitzcrank has the easy engage with his Rocket Grab. Whenever it’s up, his opponent has to respect that. So when your jungler is ganking or the enemy mispositions, a Rocket Grab to start the fight will almost always be a win.

However, you need to be judicious because if that pull misses, the enemy now has a huge advantage. If they flash the pull or you miss, now they can turn the tide since your primary engage tool is on cooldown. With Blitzcrank, you’ll learn that the mere threat of the pull is sometimes more powerful than throwing the hook itself, as you can force flashes or dashes just by walking up to an enemy with your hook up.

Other champions: Ashe, Camille, Malzahar

10. Kog’Maw

Skill: Poking

The last key skill to learn for improving your laning is how to whittle an opponent’s health pool down with poke. Kog’Maw is great for this because of his massive range both on his autos and with his abilities.

On Kog’Maw and other poke champions, you’re looking to avoid the all-ins and trades, just maintaining a safe distance to harass the enemy whenever they walk too close. It’s a fine line to know how close you can walk to output the damage versus when you need to walk back to keep yourself safe.

Other champions: Xerath, Jayce, Brand