The Art of Mid is the second guidebook in a five-part series.

The first book, The Art of Support,

was published in December 2014 by Pseudonaut. After receiving an exceptional response from
the community, Pseudonaut decided to approach a few professional League of Legends players
to work on developing a guidebook for another role. Bigfatlp, currently a substitute for CLG,
agreed to begin collaborating and started working with Pseudonaut on a new addition to the
series. After compiling Bigfatlps vast knowledge over the span of two months, The Art of Mid
came to fruition and is now available for players all around the world who wish to further their
understanding of mid.
Whether youve just started playing League of Legends, or youre a seasoned veteran, this book
contains a wealth of knowledge applicable at every level of play. Bigfatlp and Pseudonaut will
attempt to breakdown the inner-workings of mid-lane and explain concepts, strategies, and
dynamics in a clear and concise way to help you build a strong, foundational understanding of
the role. This book was written during Season 5s Pre-Season and is thus subject to the fastpaced changes that occur during multiple patches and updates. The majority of information
found in this book tackles a non-meta-centric viewpoint, meaning that the information will still
be applicable even after the game is updated and the meta inevitably shifts.
To succeed in the mid-lane, you will need both a mechanical understanding of how your
champion operates and a strong theoretical understanding of how a typical League of Legends
game progresses. The Art of Mid aims to strengthen your theoretical knowledge so that you
develop your mechanics under a well-thought out and structured ideology of what it means to
play mid-lane properly. Bigfatlp, the uncontested god of mid-lane during Season 1, is the perfect
player to provide insight into this role. Pseudonaut, author of the previous book, will bring his
artistic and literary geniousness to ensure clarity in Bigfatlps explanations and observations.
This guidebook is a reference manual first and foremost. Reading through The Art of Mid in one
sitting is not recommended. As your skill progresses and your knowledge strengthens, words will
begin to take on different meanings. Players ranked in Gold may interpret a section differently
than a player ranked in Bronze, so we encourage you to refer back to The Art of Mid whenever
you encounter difficult questions throughout your journey to the top. We also encourage you to
occasionally take breaks and digest what youve read try to avoid overloading your brain.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us here:
John Pseudonaut Quarnstrom
Michael Bigfatlp Tang

pseudonautlol@gmail.com
jiji@bigfatlp.net

Starting a roam is a two-step process: First, you must leave lane at the appropriate time, as discussed in
the previous section. Second, your destination and route must be planned out in advance or thought of
immediately before leaving lane. Picking a route ahead of time and sticking with it will reduce the amount
of time spent wandering and hesitating. You will return to lane faster and lose less experience and gold
from minions. We discussed before that the best times to roam are - immediately after shoving a wave,
immediately after recalling, and when your opponent is gone from lane while the wave is frozen.

Pay close attention to the position of the minion waves in both top and bottom lane. When the minion
wave is approaching your teammates turret, your target will have to position farther up the lane to farm.
With more distance between your target and the safety of his turret, youll have more opportunities to
chase and kill him before he escapes. Your first observation when determining where to gank is the
position of the wave, as this has the most impact on the success of the gank (with success being defined as
either killing someone OR forcing the use of a summoner spell).
When the minion wave is shoving into the enemys turret, you have the option of diving your target.
Communicate with your teammate that you intend to dive - an easy way to set this up is to type, Dive?
as this both insinuates that you want to dive and confirms whether or not your teammate is willing to
follow up. If your teammate confirms that hes willing to make an attempt, head over and try to dive the
enemy. Ideally, attempt this on players with less than half health as theres a huge chance hell outplay
you if he can survive under turret for long enough while the turret shots shred your health pool.
When the minion wave is frozen in the middle of the lane, you will have a terribly difficult time catching
your target unless your teammate has reliable CC. You could communicate with your laner to let the
opponent shove the wave out or shove the wave into his turret. Its extremely difficult to dive a person
without any minions around to tank the early turret hits. Ignore lanes in which the lane is frozen in the
middle as youre wasting your time unless you are 100% certain that one of your teammates has the CC to
lock down someone long enough for you to deal your damage or provide additional CC.
Lanes without crowd control arent automatically excluded from the list of potential places to gank. Its
highly unlikely that both you and the lane you're ganking has absolutely zero crowd control - at the very
least one of you should have a slow of some sort to prevent the enemy from escaping too fast. Most
champions that dont have much crowd control usually make-up for this with high amounts of damage
(Zed, Vladimir) or with remarkable sustained damage (Nidalee). The only requirement for ganking a lane
without substantial crowd control is that the minion wave be particularly close to your teammates turret
to give you more time to kill the target.
After taking into account both the position of the wave and the amount of crowd control available, look at
the health bar of both your teammate and your target. Ensure that the difference is, at most, 30%. If your
teammate is too low to fight you may end up baiting him, so its necessary to allow him to make his own
decision to recall instead of forcing him to stick around while you try to gank his lane.
The last factor to take into consideration is the ward coverage the enemy has in other lanes and their
current summoners. Try to extract information from your teammates by asking either, Top
summoners/wards? or Bot summoners/wards? If your teammates dont respond and give you any
information, you may have to make an educated guess and go for the gank anyways. If they do, then shout
hallelujah at the top of your lungs and use whatever information you have to make a decision. When
laners dont have flash, your success rate is obviously much higher, but knowing whether their secondary
summoners are up or not will aid in your decision making when you do finally arrive. If you know where
the enemys wards are, then you can alter your pathway to remain undetected for as long as possible.

The next step is to plan your entire route from start to finish including how you will leave lane, how you
will navigate through the jungle or river, and how you will approach the lane once youre there. Before
presenting any diagrams that detail pathways for you to roam, we must stress the importance that vision
plays on your decision making. For example, if the right side of mid-lane is warded here,

leaving through this location will immediately cause the enemy to go on the defensive. They will begin
signaling danger pings and, assuming youre headed bot-lane, both the support and marksman will
position passively to prevent you from successfully ganking.
Your first goal is to leave lane undetected. The enemy mid-laner may ping to alert his team that youve
begun to roam, but you want to avoid wards to indicate which lane youre headed towards. The following
images will demonstrate all of the possible ways to leave mid-lane for both red side and blue side. Before
leaving lane, consider which spots the enemy may have warded and take a pathway that prevents any
wards from spotting you.

As you travel down these pathways, youll need to take a few factors into consideration:

Sometimes a jungler will appear and zone you from continuing down a pathway.
In these cases youll either return to lane or fight the jungler. Fighting someone when youre halfway through a roam is bad news bears unless you have teammates to back you up. The enemy has
an easy time rotating and cutting you off more often than not, its wise to avoid these situations.
Even if you dont fight, youve already been spotted. Lanes will respond to your presence and
play safely until you return to lane. Back off and wait a minute or two before roaming again.

Pay attention to which way the wave is headed. Roaming to either lane
takes anywhere from fifteen to twenty seconds depending on which pathway you take. During
this time, the wave has the potential to shift from one side to the other. Part of timing a roam well
is being able to glance at the lane for one or two seconds and deduce where the wave will be in
twenty seconds. After making a prediction, you can determine which pathway to take to position
yourself properly. In some cases, a wave will be pushed in too quickly. The enemy isnt low
enough to dive so youd be wasting your time if you kept going. Its just as important to
recognize when a gank wont work as it is to recognize when it will work.

Notice those hexagonal hands at the end of each

pathway? Upon arriving at these spots, youll need to reevaluate how you will approach the lane.
Sometimes running into lane isnt the best option it either gives too much time for the enemy to
respond or they are positioned far away. Use these three strategies once youve arrived:
1.

Waiting is a viable strategy if the enemies will soon be in a gankable position

within the next five to ten seconds. Any longer and you risk losing too much farm and
experience. Pay attention to how the enemies respond once you begin moving the bush may
have been warded the entire time. If you know, or are highly suspicious, that one of the
hexagonal areas is warded, consider waiting just outside the vision range of that ward. Wait
until the enemies are far enough up the lane they wont have enough time to react and
make a full retreat to their turrets.

2.

This is fairly straightforward just charge on through and take no prisoners

alive. Youll want to charge forward when the enemy is within range of your burst or crowd
control, and preferably when your teammates are close enough to follow-up, although if you
have enough damage theres no need to wait for them.

3.

Instead of waiting, you can simply wrap around and flank the enemies.
You run the risk of wading through more wards along the way, but if youre bot-lane initiates
a fight and distracts them momentarily (or lands C.C.) then this strategy gives you more time
to dish out some damage. Wrapping around means you move from one hexagonal point to the
other, as indicated by the different colored pathways in the following pictures.

Upon successfully picking off one or more enemies, you will inevitably take an objective afterwards.
Whether thats a turret, dragon, baron, or a buff depends entirely upon where your team is currently
distributed and who is willing to step up and voice their opinion. As we discuss how to prioritize
objectives, you must keep one vital rule in mind: A team working together to accomplish one goal
will always have greater success than one working individually, accomplishing different goals. If
your teams heart is set on taking a specific objective and everyone is in agreement, dont go against the
grain, unless its an extremely bad call. Place some trust in your teammates and expose yourself to their
mercy. With that being said, lets start the list:

- Turrets are the safest objectives to take after picking off the enemy. They dont
deal any damage to your team (as long as you have a minion wave) and are killed relatively
quickly when your team is grouped. Not only do they provide global gold, but once a turret is
destroyed, your team has access to more pathways in enemy territory. Turrets are prime targets to
take when your team is already in position to shove a wave, otherwise dragon and baron are better
options that provide more utility to your team.

- An interesting conundrum arrives when you have to decide between taking an

inhibitor and taking baron (inhibitors should always be prioritized over dragons). When your
team takes baron, the next objective will be an inhibitor. When your team takes an inhibitor, the
next objective will be baron and possibly more inhibitors. You should ask yourself - if we decide
on one objective, how difficult will taking the next one be? Some teams have wave clear and can
defend a siege indefinitely. Some teams are specifically built for team fighting and can dominate
any team that decides to start baron. Taking an inhibitor against a team that has wave clear is
smart. If youre against a team that excels at team fighting, take baron instead of an inhibitor to
prevent the enemy from using the strengths of their team composition.

- Oddly enough, teams dont contest dragon as aggressively as they used to. With the
global gold changes, dragon doesnt attract the same attention anymore. If you have picked off at
least one enemy, most teams will withdraw and allow you to take dragon without any hassle
However, some teams will still contest dragon especially if your teams overall health is
relatively low. These situations offer you the ability to continuously pick off enemies as they
filter in. Ensure that youre in position to deal damage to any incoming enemies. Mid-laners
arent the primary damage dealers for dragons unless a few of your teammates are missing.

- Baron is probably the most sought out objective overall. It provides a tremendous gold
boost to your team, a buff that enhances your recall time, physical damage, magical damage, and
enhances your minions when in proximity. Aside from inhibitors, prioritize baron over all other
objectives. How do you know if your team is capable of doing baron? Well nearly any time can
take it given the right circumstances - this is why strengthening your ability to analyze your
teams capabilities and ordering your team to attempt baron when you believe its fully within
your potential to do so is an extremely valuable skill.

Never be afraid to try baron if you have the slightest belief you can take it - you will strengthen
your knowledge and confidence this way. Baron will always be contested by teams so if you start
it, be prepared to contest unless your team has already cleared vision. Often times your team
doesnt even need to start baron. You can simply clear vision and wait for the enemy to come
after youve made a pick. They will, similar to dragon, filter in and you can fight them with the
numbers advantage. After picking off more enemies, baron will be even easier to take.

Only take buffs and jungle camps as an afterthought. Once

youve secured an enemy turret or dragon, feel free to take any of them. If you focus on buffs or
jungle camps first however, you may run out of time to take more important objectives. When
taking these camps, you also have the chance to place deep wards in the enemy jungle - you have
been buying wards right?

If your team cant accomplish anything after a pick or team fight, the best option
is to base immediately. If you stick around too long, the enemy will eventually respawn and can
head straight to an objective. Your team wont be able to contest the objective because they still
have low health.

Your team may not have the same knowledge you do. After picking off an enemy, they may be perfectly
happy returning to lane and not capitalizing on their advantage. Dont let them just farm the next minion
wave and recall. Lead your team to victory by shot-calling these objectives and taking the initiative.
When your teammates are acting like lazy sheep, treat them like lazy sheep and order them around. Guide
your flock of sheep into the grazing areas of dragon, baron, or wherever else you want to see them. You
are the shepherd with the staff of righteousness - wield your power with strength and wisdom.

Your map awareness game needs to be ON POINT while splitting. We cant emphasize this enough - you
need to pay attention to the mini-map constantly while splitting. Of course, youll need the necessary
ward coverage before you can even begin splitting well. You could skip this step altogether and simply
pressure without any vision but this is highly dangerous and not recommended. In the following images,
well show you which locations you need to ward. There are a few ways of placing vision in the enemy
jungle: Shove the minion wave past a ward spot and ward while enemies farm the wave, or sneak into the
jungle and place some wards down beforehand. Assess the situation and determine which method of
placing vision is most suitable for your game. Whichever method involves a lower chance of dying is the
best method.

Once youve warded these spots, keep scanning them for any potential enemies. This doesnt include the
lane opponent youre currently facing, just additional reinforcements the enemy sends over. As soon as
someone walks into sight, start pinging objectives for your team to take while you run away. Having pink
wards placed in these locations helps your team control vision in the jungle and gives your team more
opportunities to make plays elsewhere or secure objectives. As enemies shuffle towards you, its not
always necessary to leave. Depending on how far off the incoming attacker is and how much burst
damage your champion can deal, consider all-inning the player currently laning against you, and killing
him before reinforcements arrive. This is the more aggressive tactic, as opposed to retreating and playing
passively. After vision is in place, you even have the option to sit inside the enemy jungle and look for
picks as the enemy rotates players back and forth to deal with your presence.
When more than two players are sent to deal with you, consider fighting them and delaying their return to
base. While occupying the time of three enemies, your team has the potential to pressure objectives in a
4v2 scenario. With enough damage, you may even trade one for one. This strategy works well when your
teammates are already in a position to secure the next objective. If they arent fully grouped, decide to
recall, or stop pressuring a turret, then suiciding may not be the best option since your teammates cant
capitalize on the distraction. We cover alternative ways to juggle pressure in the following section.