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Description

Random Pick randomly assigns a champion to each player. Players accumulate re-rolls by playing multiple matches, which they can use to randomly select another champion for that match. It is available on Howling Abyss for ARAM games, and for all modes in custom games.


Champion types
There are currently 141 champions in League of Legends as of August 21, 2018. League divides its champion types up a number of ways. The most salient difference is the type of damage a champion deals; some champions deal largely physical damage, which is resisted by the armor stat, and other champions deal largely magic damage, which is resisted by the magic resistance stat. Some champions deal a combination of both and can choose which to emphasize; and some rare abilities deal 'true' damage which is not mitigable by either armor or magic resistance. Riot Games has classified all champions as one of six types to aid beginners. Not all champions perfectly fit their type, of course. The official Riot classifications are as follows:

Marksman: Marksmen, also known as "AD Carries", are ranged champions that usually deal physical damage. These champions deal sustained damage over time rather than in a short burst, and are usually the best at destroying objectives like enemy turrets or elemental drakes. They tend to have weak defense, though. Examples of marksmen are Ashe, Caitlyn, Miss Fortune, and Varus.
Mage: Mages, sometimes known as "AP Carries", are champions with powerful magic damage skills and support skills, but weak defense and low mobility. Mages are a diverse set of champions. Some emphasize killing single champions from range very quickly; some specialize in area of effect damage to multiple targets; some specialize in immense range to attack enemies safely from afar. Examples of mages are Karthus, Lissandra, Lux, and Swain.
Assassin: A champion who specializes in killing another champion as fast as possible, usually within melee range. These champions tend to go after the enemy's AD/AP Carry and other 'squishy' champions, but tend to have weak defenses themselves if caught. They are distinguished in having excellent mobility which allows them to reach and strike at priority targets. Examples of assassins are Diana, Fizz, Katarina, and Zed.
Tank: Champions who are hard to kill and soak up damage for their team. In exchange, they usually deal less damage, but can compensate with useful "crowd control" abilities to distract or disable enemies, or force enemies to fight through them first before they can attack the "carries". Examples of tanks are Malphite, Sejuani, Rammus, and Zac.
Fighter: Champions that blend the attributes of a damage dealer and tank, combining moderate survivability with damage. A common designation for close-range melee fighters, since they need to be able to survive long enough to close in on their target. Examples of fighters are Jax, Elise, Rek'Sai, and Wukong.
Support: Champions whose skills are meant to directly aid the rest of the team by providing healing, buffing allies, debuffing the enemy team, or a combination of the above. Support champions often are paired with another champion in the early laning phase of the game where the support doesn't attack minions, but instead focuses on aiding their partner and harassing the enemy champions. Supports are also expected to pay the most attention to the map as a whole, placing wards which grant vision and watching for surprise enemy movements. Example of supports are Alistar, Nami, Soraka, and Taric.Item choice plays an important role in the above, and can shift the style of a champion. For example, if the champion Jarvan IV purchases all damage items, he functions something like an Assassin; he can kill enemies quickly, but dies rapidly himself. If Jarvan buys all defensive items, he's a Tank focused on disruption and buffing his allies. Somewhere in-between, he's a Fighter. In the same way, champions like Morgana, Annie, and Karma can build item sets that are focused on high damage like a Mage, or item sets focused on disrupting enemies and aiding allies like a Support.


Special game modes
Riot Games, starting in 2013, has released a number of special limited-time game modes. These special modes would usually be accessible for two weeks, then retired. In 2016, Riot announced that "Rotating Games Mode" would be a recurring event, so that every weekend a previously released game mode would be made accessible again for that weekend. Game modes in the current rotation include Ascension, Ultra Rapid Fire , Hexakill , One For All , Nemesis Draft, Nexus Siege, Legend of the Poro King, Doom Bots of Doom, and Hunt of the Blood Moon. Special game modes not seen in the rotation include One For All , Hexakill , Black Market Brawlers, Definitely Not Dominion, and Snowdown Showdown.
The Ultra Rapid Fire mode was originally a 2014 April Fools' Day prank that proved so popular it became a proper rotating game mode; in URF, champion abilities have no resource cost and have their cooldowns reduced by 80%, double the normal cap of 40% that can be attained through items. Additionally, champions have increased movement speed, faster passive gold gain, and faster attacks.


Business model
League of Legends is funded through microtransactions using Riot Points , an in-game currency which can be purchased by players in the client store. RP can be used to purchase champions, champion skins, ward skins, summoner icons, emotes, and certain multi-game boosts. An additional currency, Blue Essence , is earned by playing the game and leveling up. League of Legends is free-to-play and all in-game purchases with a material effect on game-play may be acquired by either RP or BE; only cosmetic items are locked to RP-only.


Setting and lore
League of Legends takes place in the fictional world of Runeterra. In Runeterra, the champions of League of Legends are a collection of heroes and villains who have a variety of backstories, often related to the political struggles of the various countries of the main continent of Valoran. Additionally, some champions are extraplanar and come from worlds other than Runeterra, but are visiting for their own purposes. These champions sometimes clash with each other, roughly reflected in the gameplay of League of Legends.
The setting has gone through two phases: the "original" setting that was canon from 2009–2014, and the rebooted setting from 2014–present. The original setting was very focused on justifying the exact mechanics of a game of League in the world of Runeterra. The MOBA predecessor to League, Defense of the Ancients, featured two warring sides with two separate hero rosters; however, in League, any combination of champions was legal to create a team. To explain this, in the original setting, Valoran was functionally ruled by extremely powerful time mages who could intimidate the other nations into compliance with their whims. They created the "Institute of War", also known as the "League of Legends", to resolve disputes and act as something like an international sports league. In these disputes, "Summoners" could control any of Runeterra's greatest heroes or villains in their struggles, thus justifying why a team of 5 characters who all hated each other might form. Additionally, these time mages would actually power-down the characters to "level 1" before each match to make things 'fair'; some character's backstories even involved them explicitly having their powers sealed by the Institute of War due to them being too powerful otherwise, such as the demigoddesses Kayle and Morgana. This explained why characters might participate in multiple matches and have to relearn the same skills each time. After a match, a "Judgment" would sometimes be handed down, with the winning Summoners able to give land and privileges to those they favored.
The narrative team at Riot eventually decided this setup was too constraining, and "rebooted" the story behind League of Legends in 2014. In essence, the original story put too much emphasis on the faceless player stand-in Summoners and the Time Mages of the Institute; "the very idea of all-powerful Summoners made Champions little more than puppets manipulated by godlike powers." Any interesting champions the Narrative team created were rendered as secondary, mere servants to the Summoners, unable to influence their own destiny. Many champion's lore did not give them reason to join the Institute, such as serial killer fire spirit Brand or void monster Rek'Sai. Riot wished to let champions take the center stage and have stories of their own, pursuing their own unique goals. For example, Riot has since released a plotline about a lost empire in the Shurima desert and a plotline about a clash between the pirate Gangplank and the pirate-hunter Miss Fortune in the city of Bilgewater, both of which were driven by the champions of League of Legends, not Summoners. Riot compared this style of narrative to comic book characters and classic literature, where interesting characters can have many adventures over time and not necessarily have all of them make sense in the same continuity. A side effect of this is "that the game and story aren’t one-to-one copies of each other."The world of Runeterra consists of a number of countries and city-states, locked in a web of rivalry, alliance, and conflict. The two largest and most powerful entities are the states of Demacia and Noxus, who have fought wars in the past, and are in a Cold War-esque state currently, with each seeking to quietly undermine the other. Demacia is inspired by an idealized Medieval European kingdom, while Noxus is reminiscent of the Roman Empire. Demacian champions tend to value themes like chivalry and honor, while Noxus prides itself on vision, might, and guile. Piltover and Zaun are a city-state at the forefront of technology; Piltover, the "respectable" half of the city, has a "steampunk" style, while Zaun, the neglected undercity of Piltover, is a darker vision of the power of technology, engaging in ethically questionable research. The Freljord is an icy domain riven by a three-way civil war between rival claimant Queens Ashe, Sejuani, and Lissandra. Bandle City is a peaceful domain of yordles, a race of small humanoids unique to League of Legends. Ionia is an island nation with a strong connection to magic and features champions inspired by monk and ninja archetypes, as well the Vastaya, a race of animal-human hybrid creatures also unique to League of Legends. Bilgewater is a port town with a pirate theme. The Shadow Isles is an island chain that was magically corrupted, and has become haunted by a malign force known as the "Black Mist" which leeches life and empowers the undead. Targon is an ancient mountain peak with a Greek mythology theme. Shurima is a recently resurrected empire that was until recently lost to the desert, with a somewhat Egyptian theme. Icathia is another fallen and abandoned city where Void monsters from another dimension have crossed into Runeterra, with a Lovecraftian theme.Of the current maps, Summoner's Rift is set at the Institute of War from the 'original' League storyline; the Twisted Treeline is set in the Shadow Isles; and the Howling Abyss map is set in the Frejlord.


Development
The game's developer, Riot Games, was co-founded by Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, who were roommates while they attended the University of Southern California. They partnered with Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, the previous designer of the popular Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne custom map Defense of the Ancients, and Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, the administrator of the former official support base for the map, to develop League of Legends.The original inspiration for "DotA" was a 1998 mod for StarCraft created by community member Aeon64 called "Aeon of Strife". After the release of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its subsequent World Editor in 2002, DotA was created by another modder, Eul. He ported and expanded the "Aeon of Strife" mod to the new engine and named it "Defense of the Ancients". Guinsoo later made DotA Allstars by inserting his own mix of content to "DotA", greatly expanding the number of heroes, added recipes and items, and introduced various gameplay changes. Guinsoo then passed the mod to IceFrog after accepting a job at the newly formed Riot Games.The idea of a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients was that it would be its own stand-alone game with its own engine, rather than another mod of Warcraft III, began to materialize at the end of 2005. League of Legends was born "when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so much fun and so innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services."Riot Games officially opened its office in September 2006, and, as of 2013, has over 1,000 people working on League of Legends. According to Marc Merrill, when creating the various champions in the game, instead of leaving the champion creation to just a few people, they decided to open up the champion creation process to everyone in the company based upon a template where they could vote on which champions made it into the game.League of Legends was first announced on October 7, 2008. It was in a closed beta from April 10, 2009 to October 22, 2009. It then transitioned to open beta until release.


Release
League of Legends was released on October 27, 2009. Riot Games self-publishes and operates the game and all of its customer service aspects in North America. Riot Games has signed deals regarding the distribution of League of Legends in Asia, Europe, and North America. By July 2013, the game has been released and was distributed in Australia, the United States, Canada, Europe, Philippines, and South Korea.
The game is distributed in China by Tencent Inc., the largest Internet value-added services company in China best known for its QQ Instant Messaging client. The game has been distributed to Tencent's growing 300 million Internet user base through its leading QQ Game portal. The deal was one of only a handful of partnerships to bring a U.S.-developed online game directly to China.
In Europe, Riot Games initially signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, the video games department of Orange's Content Division and Europe's largest gaming portal. On October 13, 2009, GOA and Riot announced that they would start channeling server access for players located in Europe to GOA's dedicated servers. CSR Racing 2
. This partnership did not last; on May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of the game in Europe. slither.io
. To do so, Riot Games established a European HQ in Dublin. Star Wars™: Galaxy of Heroes
.On July 16, 2010, Riot Games announced that Garena would publish the game in Southeast Asia. PUBG MOBILE
. Additionally, Southeast Asian players had the ability "transfer accounts" to import their progress stored in North American or European servers into the Southeast Asian server. Happy Wheels
. The game has since been distributed by Garena in Taiwan as well.In March 2013, Riot Games released a beta version of an OS X client in addition to their Windows client. The Mac client was since moved out of beta and OS X / macOs players have had full access to League.
Riot has since expanded to many countries, after the initial North America / Europe / Korea / Garena's Southeast Asia launch. In 2012, a Brazilian and Turkish server were added; in 2013, Latin American & Russian servers; and a beta of a Japanese server was launched in 2016.