In League of Legends, we can say that solo queue and professional arena are two different games. Strategies, objectives priorities, or even the champions change between pro arena and solo queue. This situation doesn’t change in the drafting phase, too! But how League of Legends Pro Teams Draft?
In solo queue, drafting is mostly about picking the strong comfort picks or countering your lane opponent. Gamestyles, synergies, and team play don’t bring too much value for solo queue players. However, in the professional arena, creating compositions with the strongest picks of the Meta is the most straightforward win condition.
ProComps provides many answers to the questions might have about drafting. You can get live suggestions, counter/synergy information, last minute pre-game tactics, and many other cool stuff in the app. If you want to draft like a League of legends pro team, you should check ProComps.gg!
What is the Order of the Picks in League of Legends Pro Games?
Before we jump into the detailed strategies of the drafts, let’s start with the basics.
In every game, the Blue team both bans and picks the first champion of the game. Starting from the Blue team, each team has 3 bans in the first phase. After the bans are complete, each team picks 3 champions starting from the Blue team. In the second phase, unlike the first phase, the Red team has the first ban and pick. Both teams ban and pick 2 champions more in order. You can see a chart explaining the picks below:
This screenshot is taken from Draftlol. This is one of the two most popular websites where you can arrange your drafts easily in private games or scrims, along with Prodraft. As ProComps, we provide integration with both websites so you can get suggestions and find the winning formula in the drafts much easier and faster!
How League of Legends Pro Teams Draft?
Drafting is like a chess game when it comes to the pro arena. Although League of Legends pro teams have different approaches to each part of the drafting, the idea is similar for some parts. We will analyze each phase and pick of the draft one by one.
First Phase Bans
As we mentioned previously, each team has 3 bans in the first phase. Although they seem like doing the same thing, the Blue team and Red team need different strategies to get more advantage.
The Blue team mainly focuses on targeted bans, which means banning the best picks of the Red team. This makes the Red team players move out of their comfort zone and pick other champions. However, the Red team mostly prefers banning the best picks of the Meta to avoid facing OP champions.
First Phase Picks
B1 is one the most important pick of the draft Blue team. The team has a huge advantage to pick one of the strongest champions of the current Meta. For example, in the MSI 2021, whenever Wukong was not banned, almost every team picked him in B1.
After B1, the Red team has two champions to pick. There are several ways to go at this point such as picking a strong bot lane synergy, picking the remaining strong picks, and also countering the first pick if possible. Moreover, the larger the OP champion pool is, it is better for the Red team as the Blue team’s strong first pick can be responded to with 2 OP picks!
Picking B2 and B3 is where it starts to get harder for the Blue team. Although the team can see some options to counter as the red team previously showed 2 picks, the Blue team still in a spot in where you need to pick at least 1 blind pick. In this case, blind picking a support or jungler are the most common way to go. However, if a team likes to play around these roles, hiding the champions can be a good strategy, too! All in all, picking a soft/hard counter for either R1 or R2, and picking a safe&strong option are the best choices for the Blue team.
R3 is a one of the critical picks of the drafting phase. For the first time, the Red team has the upper hand. Picking one of the comfort picks of your carries and banning the counters of it is a power move that many pro teams use. With that pick, the Red team can also start building your composition and make it stronger with a R4 pick!
Second Phase Bans
Second phase bans are completely different than first phase bans. As I mentioned above, the Red team most likely to ban according to the R3 pick. Making R3 comfortable and also banning the strong picks of the remaining lanes of the Blue team is the main strategy.
On the other hand, Blue team needs to ban according to their B4 and B5 picks. The Red team has the last pick so Blue team’s picks can be countered. Because of that, banning hard counters of your B4 and B5 picks can be a wise move. Also, if there is any left, banning strong picks of the remaining lanes for the Red team also makes sense.
Second Pick Phase
For the Red team, leaving the win condition to the R5 pick is the best option. Because of that, picking a safe option here is a good move. Also, if Blue team champions banned some counters for a specific lane in the 2nd ban phase, picking accordingly can help the team to build a good composition.
Furthermore, this a good spot for the Read team if want to go for a ‘crazy pick’. Blue team will have only 1 minute and 2 picks to adapt against your pocket pick so that’s a great time to spice things up!
With B4 and B5, the Blue team is obligated to go ‘all in’. Picking the best champions for your composition, compensating the missing attributes of your team (such as damage, CC, tanks, etc.) is crucial. However, as the Red team has a clear counter advantage with R5 pick, being aware of the situation and try not to get countered hard is also important.
The Red team finalizes the drafting phase with the R5 final pick. As the Red team has the upper hand at this spot, finalizing the draft with a strong counter can provide a huge advantage. This advantage most likely should be used for a solo lane for finding a clear winning lane. Finding winning lanes is always important in League of Legends so with a good pick, the Red team can enter the game 1-0.
What League of Legends Pro Teams Focus on Drafting?
Besides the drafting strategies there more variables you should be considering in the draft.
Player Preferences
Every professional League of Legends player is obligated to train and learn the best picks of the Meta. Picking the strongest champions can provide a solid advantage for sure. However, pocket picks are also equally important at certain games.
For example, in this case, Aurelion Sol was not even close to be a champion in the Meta. In this game, Huhi went for this underrated pocket pick at R5 pick, found a hard counter and won the game for his team. As you can understand, player preferences are equally important as the Meta
Gamestyles
In League of League of Legends, there are many ways to win a game. According to the way your team prefers to play, you can try to beat your opponent with wombo-combos with an Engage composition, or you can melt your opponents health bars without even fighting with them with a Siege composition.
This concludes our blog. If you want to can learn more about drafting strategies, gamestyles and many other important things about drafting, you can use ProComps, or join many helpful discussions in our discord server!
Good luck in your games!