5 Best League of Legends Champions for Beginners in Each Position

Published: March 19, 2020

League of Legends is an incredibly popular game, with tens of millions of active users monthly and new players joining all the time. If you have recently started playing or are interested in playing, this guide is for you! We cover the five best LoL champions for beginners in each position. This won’t be an overly in-depth guide. It’s meant to get you up and running and having fun quickly! Feel free to jump right to the position you’re interested in most.

Top Lane Beginner Guide

The best top lane champions for beginners are usually tanks. Because new top laners need to be relatively self-sufficient, champions with extra defenses will suit you best while you are still learning the ropes. In the early laning phases, your goal is to farm. Only try for a kill on your opponent if you feel confident. Once you are in the mid to late game, you will shift to a team focused playstyle, focusing on initiating team fights and protecting your allies. As you begin to master the top lane, feel free to explore other champions, including bruisers, which mix both tank and damage.

Garen

Garen may be the best champion to start learning how to play LoL with in any lane. He combines excellent mobility to engage or escape, decent AoE damage, and a lot of tank. Garen will even passively gain lost health back between fights, which is very forgiving of mistakes and allows you to stay on the front lines much longer.

Early Game: Farm as efficiently as you can. If you face a ranged champion that keeps poking you, use the speed boost from your Q Decisive Strike to get the last hit without overexposing yourself. After you hit level 3 and have one point in each skill, trade blows with your lane opponent to keep them off balance and to prepare for a friendly gank.
Team Fights: In team fights, your goal will be to charge into the enemy lines, spinning your blade to damage multiple foes at once. If you can get on to the enemy team’s carries (highest damage dealing champions), do so. Even if you don’t get the kill, you will distract them, soaking up their damage with your ample tank.

Dr. Mundo

Dr. Mundo is one of the best LoL beginner champions to play in the top lane. Like Garen, he combines mobility and AoE damage with a massive tank. Mundo also passively regenerates health, yet unlike Garen, Dr. Mundo regenerates health continuously. This passive heal will be a little week in the early laning phase, but late game it is very powerful. If you can manage to max out his items, he is nearly unkillable. As a new player, don’t overuse Dr. Mundo’s abilities; they cost health to activate, and unless you’ve built up enough health regeneration, you could do more damage to yourself than to your enemy.

Early Game: In the early game, Dr. Mundo is incredibly squishy. Not only that, but your abilities cost you your health. In the early game, focus on farming. Don’t overuse your abilities until you have increased your passive health regeneration by increasing your HP.
Team Fights: In late game team fights, you are a formidable tank once you have a few completed items in your inventory. Screen for your ADC or distract your enemies by going for theirs.

Nasus

Nasus belongs to a special class of champions known as hyper carries, meaning he can scale infinitely strong. His Q Siphoning Strike lets him deal massive damage that permanently increases each time he kills with it. This allows Nasus to focus on gaining tank items while building his damage through successive minion kills using his Q. Once you have built up a couple of tanky items and gained more than 200 stacks, start hunting down your enemies. You’ll be surprised by how formidable you’ve become.

Early Game: Beginners playing Nasus should hold off from engaging until they have built up a good number of “stacks” on their Q. This is a great opportunity to practice last hitting. Gaining stacks on your Q is so important that the possibility of dying and loosing potential stacks is rarely worth the risk of trading in the early game. Purely focus on your farm and last hitting with Q.
Team Fights: In the late game, Nasus is a beast. Lay down your E Spirit Fire to reduce the defenses of your enemies in a large area and then engage your Ultimate Fury of the Sands before running into the ranks of the enemy team. If you have been building tank items and stacking your Q, you will deal massive damage while being able to tank a lot of damage.

Singed

There’s a universal rule in League of Legends, and that’s “don’t chase Singed.” Singed’s unique ability set allows him to leave a trail of poison behind him that deals significant damage over time to those that pass through it or continue to stand in it. As a Singed player, you will want to secure a large mana pool while also building up your tank and mobility. If an enemy chases you, lay down a trail of poison, and your enemy will usually have to give up, lest they take too much damage chasing.

Early Game: Like most tanks, Singed should start focusing on farming. If your lane opponent is a melee champion, try to catch them in a cloud of your poison when they run forward to last hit minions. This will cause them to take damage and potentially miss out on gold. If you are more adventurous, you can try to level one proxy. Proxying is beyond the scope of this guide, but if you’re interested, a good tutorial can be found here.
Team Fights: During team fights, run around with your poison and fill the battlefield with toxic fumes. If you combine this with Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, you will slow all your enemies in the area.

Malphite

Malphite is a fantastic tank with potentially the best team fight initiation ability in the game. In your first game, you can even start making game-changing plays with his ultimate. Malphite’s ultimate ability is what makes him an awesome champion to play with. For a more in-depth guide to Malphite, check out our Malphite Strategy Guide.

Early Game: Mana is an issue for Malphite in the early game, so don’t overuse your abilities unless they can help you secure minion or champion kills. Try to set up a gank with your jungler when you hit level 6.
Team Fights: Use your Ultimate Unstoppable Force to dash a long distance, knocking up all enemies at your destination and dealing damage. This allows you to dive right into their team, causing chaos and pinning down their carries.

Malphite Guide to Destroying in Top Lane of LoL

Jungle Beginner Guide

The jungle position is one of the most difficult positions to master in the game, yet there are a few starter champions that make the learning process much easier. We will cover these below. Your job in the early game is to ambush enemy champions in their lanes (referred to as ganking), helping your teammates get ahead. When you aren’t ganking, focus on killing jungle monster camps to gain more gold and experience.

As a new jungler, try to kill either the red buff or the blue buff first, whichever is on the bottom side of your map to start. The reason for picking the buff on the bottom side of the map is that you can get both allies from your bottom lane to assist you in taking it down. Roam the jungle, focusing on killing jungle camps until one of the enemy teams pushes your allies up onto their turret. At that point, head over to that lane and try to turn the tables on them. In the late game, don’t worry about clearing the jungle as much, focus instead on fighting with your team and winning big fights, and you’ll do well.

If you are new to jungling in League of Legends, check out our jungle path guide to help you get started!

Rammus

Rammus is a relatively easy jungle champion for beginners due to his high mobility and relatively simple role in fights. He packs a great tank and a taunt which forces the selected champion to auto attack for a few seconds. As an early Rammus player, you will want to focus on positioning and improving your jungle pathfinding. His mobility is forgiving and will help you take advantage of last-minute ganking opportunities you may otherwise not have been prepared for.

Early Game: Rammus’ mobility with Q Powerball makes him an excellent champion to gank with early before other champions gain a lot of movement or vision. Look at for lanes where the opponent uses their flash. An enemy without flash is a great target for Rammus, but watch out you don’t accidentally hit a minion when charging into lane.
Team Fights: Your job is to head straight for their biggest and baddest champion and taunt them. While you soak up their hits instead of your carries, your team is free to unleash on their best champions.

Skarner

Skarner is similar to Rammus in that he is a tanky champion with great mobility whose role is also to lock down the enemy team’s most dangerous champions. Skarner will drag his targets around with him with his Ultimate Impale instead of taunting them, but the idea is the same. Playing Skarner causes Crystal Spires to appear all around the map. These significantly increase your mana regeneration, movement speed, and attack speed when in range.

Early Game: Use the Crystal Spires scattered throughout the jungle to help you clear waves quickly. When ganking, use E Fracture to slow and stun your opponents, securing a kill.
Team Fights: As with Rammus, your job is to head straight for their strongest champ and take them out of the fight using your ultimate

Amumu

Amumu has great wave clear with two AoE abilities, allowing you to rapidly clear camps, so you can get back to supporting your lanes with ganks. His Q Bandage Toss allows him to dash forward and pin down an enemy champion which is great for ganking and initiating team fights. With Amumu, you will want to practice landing his Q. The key is to anticipate where your enemies will be going, as it doesn’t instantly hit when used.

Early Game: Use your AoE abilities to quickly clear camps, so you can get back to ganking. Be aggressive with Amumu. Ganking often will help your teammates get ahead.
Team Fights: It will be your job to initiate the team fights with your Q by locking down one of their better champions. When several enemy champions are in range, use your Ultimate Curse of the Sad Mummy to trigger a large AoE stun. If you manage to stun their carries, you will often guarantee your team the win. During team fights, Amumu is an exciting champion to play due to the large impact you can have during team fights. Once you have used your Q and ultimate, run around damaging enemies with your AoE abilities.

Udyr

Udyr is a very versatile champion. You can play him as a tank, a glass cannon, or as a bruiser somewhere in between (preferred). Additionally, depending on which skills you choose to level up, you can build him either AD or AP. With one of his abilities, you can even stun your opponent after closing on them.

Udyr is an interesting champion in that he has no ultimate. He instead has four different fighting stances that you level up. When you change into a new fighting stance, you get a temporary bonus, and while you stay in that stance, your strikes gain another bonus. The key to fighting with Udyr is quickly changing back and forth between 2 or 3 stances during a fight to continually refresh the temporary bonus gained on entering a new stance. As you get better with Udyr, you will learn how best to time your stance changes and how to adapt your stance/kit selection properly to the enemy team composition. Udyr is a great beginner jungle champion because he is very hard to counter jungle andd and can make use of many different items, making planning your item build less critical and more forgiving of mistakes.

Early Game: Focus on clearing jungle camps, but if one of your lanes gets pushed back under their tower, gank that lane using Udyr’s superior speed and stun from his E Bear Stance. Udyr is also great for securing Dragon and Rift Herald objectives early by himself.
Team Fights: Unless you are building to be a tank, your job is to dive their backline and take out their highest damage dealing champions. If you are building to be a tank, protect your team by stunning and attacking anyone that targets your carries.

Jax

Jax is a melee duelist that can stand up to almost any other champion 1:1 in the late game. His mechanics are also not that hard to master, making him an excellent choice for beginners looking to learn a new jungle champion. Jax is strongest in the mid/late game once he’s picked up a couple of completed items. In the early game, focus on farming your jungle. In the mid-game after you’ve gained an item or two, seek out the enemy team’s highest damage dealers and any lone champions. Jax destroys enemy champions 1:1 due to his massively overpowered E Counter Strike ability. In the late game, feel free to roam, looking for any open objectives.

Jax is an amazing champion to play as a new LoL player

Early Game: Focus on farming. Jax is weak until he accumulates a couple of items. In the late game, Jax is one of the best hyper carries.
Team Fights: Try to engage and lock down the enemy carries.

Mid Lane Beginner Guide

With the middle lane only a moderate distance from the other lanes and most jungle camps, mid lane champions can have a huge affect on the game. Destroying the opposing mid turret also means opening a significant amount of the enemy jungle to your team. Mid lane is also a dangerous place, as ganks can come from either side of the lane. A lot hinges on the mid laner, which is why beginners should play more cautiously at first. Always keep at least one of the side bushes warded and favor that side, so the enemy jungler will have to travel farther to gank you. If an opportunity arises for you to sneak out of your lane to gank another lane, take it. Ganking the opposite lane as your jungler at the same time as your jungler can be a great way to catch the enemy team unaware, potentially grabbing three kills at one time.

Annie

Annie is an excellent beginner champion for aspiring mid laners. She has both excellent crowd control and phenomenal burst damage; however, she has very poor mobility, so be careful with your positioning and don’t overextend. Annie’s ultimate summons Tibbers, a demonic teddy bear that follows your orders and deals both AoE and single target damage. Once Annie has cast four spells, her next damaging ability will stun her opponents. When Annie has used four abilities, your enemies will be able to see that your stun is charged with a glowing aura around Annie. To hide that you have a stun ready, only stack three abilities. Before you engage, quickly use your E Molten Shield to prep your stun.

Early Game: Use your Q Disintegrate to ensure you get the kill on minions when farming. Securing a kill with your Q refunds the mana and reduces the cooldown by half.
Team Fights: Try to stun using your ultimate to disable multiple enemies at once from far away.

Malzahar

Malzahar is a summoner mage and another great mid-lane beginner LoL champ. He is incredibly hard to counter and has only one skill shot; the rest of his abilities will strike his targets as intended. Your passive provides a shield which will mitigate the first instance of damage and crowd control from the enemy champion in each fight. Malzahar’s unique kit allows him to play back, supported by lane and summoned minions without putting himself in too much danger. For a more in-depth guide to Malzahar, read our Malzahar strategy guide.

Early Game: Use your E Malefic Visions to to quickly clear waves and play from the back lines. This deals damage over time, directs your pets to your desired target, and passes from one target to another on death.
Team Fights: Pair your E with Rylai’s Crystal Scepter to maintain a slow on your enemies during team fights. If you find yourself engaged with a carry, use your Ultimate Nether Grasp to instantly suppress and deal significant damage to them.

Heimerdinger

Heimerdinger is another great beginner League champion. He’s a crafty genius who can erect up to 3 stationary gun turrets at a time. Increasing Heimer’s AP increases both the health and damage of his turrets. Don’t group all your turrets, or an enemy AoE champion will easily be able to take them out. A good basic arrangement is to place them in a triangle around you, with their ranges overlapping in the center where you stand in case a melee champion tries to attack you. Heimer is incredibly powerful when surrounded by his turrets, especially with Zhonya’s Hourglass available to make you temporarily invulnerable, but he can be very fragile if caught roaming while his turrets are on cooldown.

Early Game: You can play very aggressively with Heimer, pushing your turrets slowly up through lane; however, don’t place them in the enemy turret’s range, as they are killed in 1 shot from turrets.
Team Fights: Heimer’s Ultimate Upgrade!!! will supercharge one of his other abilities. Many new players are tempted to use this on this turret during team fights; however, his upgraded stun grenade is often a better choice, bouncing through the battle stunning anyone near it on each bounce.

Lux

If you are looking for a versatile mid laner with crowd control to learn, [Lux](/champion/lux/build/) is a great choice. She excels at both mid and support. Her Q Light Binding sends out a burst of light to root the first two enemies hit while her E Lucent Singularity creates an AoE slow that she can detonate to deal damage. Each of Lux’s abilities, including her Ultimate Final Spark, have very long ranges, making her an ideal choice for new mid players that want to learn the ropes from a safer distance. Lux’s damage-dealing abilities leave her enemies marked for a brief time. If you can, follow up with an auto-attack to consume the mark and deal extra damage.

Early Game: In lane, farm minions while poking the enemy champion with your E. Most players retreat when they see the orb coming towards them, so direct it a little behind them to hit more often.
Team Fights: Root enemy melee champions in place while shielding your allies. Don’t forget to follow up on your abilities with auto attacks to deal extra damage.

Morgana

Morgana is another great mid lane choice for new LoL players. On the surface, she is very similar to Lux. She has a Q that roots and a shield for your allies; however, she has her own unique, more aggressive, play style. Morgana’s main source of damage is her W Tormented Soil, which lays down a large AoE ability that deals damage over time that increases as your enemy loses life. Pairing this ability with Rylai’s Crystal Sceptre will also slow all enemies in the area, prolonging the time they spend on the field.

Early Game: Her abilities are weak in the early game. Don’t waste mana trying to poke your enemies with your abilities. Focus on farming with auto attacks and try to coordinate with your jungler for a gank.
Team Fights: Morgana’s Ultimate Soul Schackles is very powerful, dealing damage and allowing you to stun all of those around you; however, it takes time for the stun to take effect, during which she is vulnerable. It would be best if you took Zhonya’s Hourglass to make yourself invulnerable while you wait for the stun to take hold.

ADC Beginner Guide

The ADC (a.k.a. AD carry or attack damage carry) role is usually taken up by physical damage dealing marksmen in the bot lane. What sets ADCs apart from most other champions is that they scale very well, often carrying their team in the mid to late game once they’ve built up a few items. As an ADC, you will be a glass cannon, dealing massive damage but with little defense. Don’t get ahead of your teammates. The most difficult part of learning to become an ADC is learning how to best position yourself during fights so that you can deal damage from behind a protective screen of your allies. If you move to engage ahead of your teammates, you will be quickly killed. Most ADCs benefit from building a mix of damage, attack speed, and critical hit items.

Ashe

Ashe is a great ADC to start with because she mixes damage with crowd control to help her stay alive and chase down fleeing enemies. Her auto attacks slow her target while critical hits increase the damage and slow amount. Because her attacks slow her enemy, she can take full advantage of kiting (walking backward between attacks) to maximize her survivability. A guide covering a few beginner skills, including kiting, can be found here.

Early Game: Farm in lane early. As with all ADCs, you need lots of gold to be effective in the mid to late game. Try to poke with your W Volley and scout for the enemy jungler using your E Hawkshot.
Team Fights: Your Ultimate Enhanced Crystal Arrow can be a great initiator with its stun. Once the battle commences, target their most threatening opponents. If an enemy tries to run at you, try to kite them using the slow effect from your auto attacks.

Caitlyn

Caitlyn is one of the best League of Legends champions for beginners. Her rifle gives her a long range, making the task of firing from behind the cover of your team much easier. Her abilities are relatively simple so that you can practice your farming and positioning without the distractions of a complex ability set.

Caitlyn’s W Yordle Snap Trap and E 90 Caliber Net abilities both mark her enemies while allowing you to disengage if needed. Both marks increase the damage on your next auto attack, so they can also be used offensively. Her Ultimate Ace in the Hole is a very long-range shot that tracks her enemies. Be careful though, as enemies will try to intercept your killing blow.

Early Game: Farm as best you can. Due to Caitlyn’s long-range you are freer to poke without facing retribution. Place traps in your bush where you think enemies will enter to get some extra damage off.
Team Fights: While auto-attacking their most valuable targets, place traps to hinder your enemies’ movements around the battlefield. Don’t use your ultimate until no one is near you or the battle is all but won, as it makes you vulnerable while casting.

Jinx

Jinx has a great mixture of damage and CC, which can help you stay a little safer while learning what it takes to be a great ADC. Her W Zap! allows her to deal damage and slow from a great distance while her E Flame Chompers! can root or zone your enemy away from you. Additionally, she gets great wave clear by switching between attack speed and explosion radius bonuses on her auto-attacks using Q Switcheroo!

Early Game: Focus on farming minions. Use your W and E to zone your enemies away from the minions they are trying to last hit.
Team Fights: Switch between your chain gun and rockets depending on if the enemy is grouped or are spread out. Use your E as a protective screen to make it more difficult for enemies to get at you.

Sivir

Like many of the other ADCs on this beginner’s list, Sivir’s abilities allow her to play from farther back while you learn how to be an effective carry. She is an extremely mobile champion, gaining movement speed when she hits enemies. Her Ultimate On the Hunt also provides a large movement speed bonus to her allies and herself for a good amount of time. She also can cast her E Spell Shield to block the next incoming ability which is particularly useful against supports and other champions with a lot of crowd control. It’s very hard to pin Sivir down!

Early Game: Farm up and poke using your Q Boomerang Blade and W Ricochet.
Team Fights: Many new players prefer champions with large damage-dealing ultimates; however, Sivir’s mobility boost means your team can disengage, engage, and chase down enemies effectively, which is incredibly powerful. Use it to in each time fight.

Varus

Varus is another ADC that can dish out large amounts of damage from a good distance. He can charge up his Q Piercing Arrow to hit all units in a line in front of him. It’s great for poking in the lane or before a team fight. You can also use it to take down fleeing enemies before they get to safety. While his Q provides a nice poke, it’s not his best source of damage. Varus deals most of his damage by detonating stacks of blight on enemies that are built up when he auto attacks them. To detonate blight stacks, hit your enemy with an ability. Your combo should be: 3 auto attacks -> ability -> 3 auto attacks -> ability. It is his W Blighted Quiver ability which scales with AP that allows you to build him as a hybrid AD/AP champion if you wish.

Early Game: Farm minions and poke using your Q.
Team Fights: Try to land your Ultimate Chain of Corruption on any enemy charging your backline to root them in place. It will also start a chain reaction, rooting other enemies in place.

Varus firing an arrow with red shards around him

Support Beginner Guide

The role of a support champion in League of Legends is very simple. You support your teammates (your carries in particular) to ensure that they get kills and farm to be able to dominate the game. It is not your role to deal the damage personally nor to engage alone. Learning the ropes from behind the front lines makes supports some of the best champions for new players in League of Legends. If you can keep your team’s best champions alive and feed them plenty of gold, you will likely win. For that reason, you should take a lane trinket that lets you accumulate gold early without taking any minion gold. All the minion gold in lane should go to your ADC.

Soraka

Soraka is one of the best support LoL champions for beginners. She supports her team primarily through healing her teammates. You may choose to dash forward at times to use either Q Starcall or E Equinox, which both damage and inflict CC, yet you will spend most of your time healing your teammates from the back of your lines. Soraka also has a rare global Ultimate Wish, meaning that it can affect champions anywhere on the map. Use it to help heal teammates engaged in combat far away. You will also get an assist for any kill through an ally healed by your ult, granting you extra gold, so don’t be stingy with it.

Early Game: Keep your ADC above 80% HP. Land your Q to keep your own health up.
Team Fights: Stay in the back-line and heal your teammates. Try to place the nullifying field from your E amid battle to prevent enemy champions in its area of effect from using their abilities.

Janna

Janna is another great support champion for beginners. She has CC for her enemies and shields/heals for her allies. Janna’s signature move is to summon a tornado capable of knocking up all enemies in its path. You must define the path when you set down the tornado to charge; however, once it’s set down, you can walk away while it charges up to full power.

Early Game: Vary your patterns with your tornado and keep firing them off to keep your enemies off-balance. Remember that you can also set them down in the brush for a surprise! Janna can also cast her shield on turrets to protect them during sieges.
Team Fights: Protect your teammates using your shields and crowd control during team fights. If things get desperate, use your Ultimate Monsoon to give your team some space.

Leona

Leona is an excellent support champion. She is a tank who also packs considerable crowd control. In fact, three of her four abilities stun her opponents. Her tankyness and her CC mean that she is excellent at both starting fights and protecting her ADC.

Early Game: Don’t be afraid to be aggressive with her. Leona is best played on the offensive, keeping your lane opponents second guessing when next you’ll pounce. Rely on her CC and tank to keep her alive when you attack, just make sure your ADC is ready to follow you in.
Team Fights: Protect your ADC in team fights by stunning anyone who tries to dive your back line.

Tahm Kench

Tahm Kench, a ridiculous catfish with a Sothern drawl, is a great choice for new support players looking for a champion that excels at protecting their carries. He can swallow friends under fire, regurgitating them safely when he’s back behind friendly lines. He can also choose to consume enemy champions and minions, damaging them and spitting them out where he chooses.

Early Game: Try to zone your enemies away from their targets using your Q Tongue Lash. Be ready to take your ADC to safety if a trade goes south.
Team Fights: Play aggressively, poking with your tongue, but stay close to your ADC and be ready to whisk them to safety if pummeled.

Taric

Taric is one of the best champions in the game for new support players. He offers a tremendous amount of tank, great crowd control, and an ultimate that can make his entire team invulnerable for a brief time.

Early Game: Keep the pressure on your enemies using your E Dazzle to zone them away from the lane minions.
Team Fights: Time your Ultimate Cosmic Radiance well during team fights. When you’re sure the enemy team has committed to the fight, use it right away, as it takes a couple seconds to activate.

We Hope You Enjoyed this Guide to the Best League of Legends Champions for Beginners!

We hope that this guide to the best LoL champions for beginners was helpful to you. If you are still undecided on what champion to play, you may want to check out our other guide on "What champion should I play?"

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Images Courtesy of Riot Games.