Do roles matter in League of Legends? Understanding intricacies of ranked solo queue

Solo queues are quite an exciting facet covering more than 90% of the League of Legends experience.

It matters not if a player is professional or casual; they all will play solo queues at some point in their lives. In fact, most League of Legends professional players spend most of their time playing solo as it helps sharpen their skills and try out new things.

However, one aspect that most players often ignore is that solo queue matchmaking is not always about skill. It is good to be skilled, and that is something that plays a significant part, but choosing the proper role also impacts the experience as well as the result.

This is because League of Legends makes it harder for some roles and easier for others.

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Understanding the core idea behind how League of Legends functions as a game

Understanding the basic idea behind matchmaking is crucial before selecting roles (Image via League of Legends)

To understand how roles function, it is first and foremost important to learn how League of Legends functions. The game ideally comprises five roles which include top, jungle, mid, ADC, and bot.

Each has its own function, and a particular set of champions are made to play that role. Gamers will need to pick any particular position and focus on that as champions in League of Legends are locked in the beginning. They need to play more games and unlock them as their level increases.

Therefore, if one particular role in League of Legends comprises ten champions, users need to unlock most of those and learn how they play.

Eventually, they will not only learn what they like but also learn the matchups and try to master a few champions that can dominate games. The pool of a player depends on how many they can master in a short period.

The process does not end here, as every player has to master two different roles in League of Legends to ease matchmaking. If the game cannot find a match in one position, it will try out the secondary role.

However, readers need to note that the way in which matchmaking works in League of Legends is that, once someone has mastered a primary and a secondary role, that account gets locked to those roles. In other words, if a player has mastered top and jungle, they will be unable to find games on the other three positions.

This is done to prevent users from switching roles repeatedly as the depth of the game is way too much to master everything, and it is hard, even for professional players. However, this is where the problem starts to arise.

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The basic functionality behind each role in League of Legends

The role of an ADC depends quite heavily on the support and jungler performing (Image via League of Legends)

Since the fundamental idea behind how League of Legends’ matchmaking works is clear, it is now time to focus on how roles impact the picture. As mentioned, there are five roles in-game, and each one has a different way of functioning.

Amongst these roles, mid, jungle, and support probably require less reliance on others to succeed. Jungle and mid depends a lot on the skill of the player and the map awareness.

This is because these are two roles that dictate how the other roles in the game will work. On the other hand, support has a lot of freedom and responsibility to enable the ADC and help the mid and top from time to time.

Toplane and ADC, however, are two roles that are always at the mercy of others. This is because the former relies on ganks from the jungle and the midlane. If the toplane does not get any support, it often becomes a dead lane leading to significant frustration.

The role of ADC, on the other hand, depends on the jungler and the support. If the support is not enabling the lane, the ADC will get pushed and eventually killed a few times. This often spells doom for the botlane, leading to a lost case scenario.

The number of dedicated support players below master rank is quite low (Image via League of Legends)

While players can argue that proper wave management and learning about pushing, bouncing, freezing, and crashing waves can help gain advantages without a jungler or support, that is often not the case in solo queue games.

This is because most players, even at the rank of Master or Grandmaster, do not worry a lot about wave management. Therefore, inherently, support is required, and not getting it can be very irritating to deal with.

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The difficulty of climbing ranks through ADC and toplane as compared to others

T1's Teddy gave up on botlane and switched to mid in order to rank up while practicing for the Worlds (Image via OP.GG)

The discussion above establishes that ADC and toplane are harder to play as compared to midlane or jungle. Therefore, it should not be hard to imagine that ranking up in these two lanes is also very difficult.

This is not just true for casual players, as even professional players often switch roles to rank up within League of Legends. Since the League of Legends World Championships will take place in Europe, several pro players are playing on the EUW servers.

However, certain players like Teddy and Ghost are all playing off roles. Teddy is one of the best ADC players globally, but he gave up on that role and switched to midlane to climb up.

In fact, several Korean ADC players refuse to play in that lane when they are trying to rank up in League of Legends. This is because both toplane and ADC are sort of a coin flip. The only time playing ADC becomes better is once users reach the ranks of Grandmaster or Challenger.

Most low-ranked supports and junglers fail to play well, and in truth, there are very few low-level players who enjoy those roles. The popularity of support is the lowest amongst all low-ranked players, and it does not rise until someone reaches at least the rank of Master.

This means that supports and even junglers are often auto-filled gamers forced to play this role. As a result, the toplane and ADC suffer on account of lack of proper team coordination.

The time support and junglers start performing well and the experience becomes much more streamlined is at the Challenger rank within League of Legends. However, rising to that rank is not easy, and users have to decide whether they want to rank up or stick to top or ADC and struggle.

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Closing note

Toplane and ADC are indeed two extremely tough roles, and even professional players avoid those at Master or Diamond ranks. However, this does not mean it is impossible.

The problem arises because of the lack of dedicated support and junglers, and this is something that has existed within League of Legends forever. Therefore, if players intend to rank up, it is recommended they learn about the role and make sure that the secondary role is as good as their primary.

This way, they can enjoy their primary once they are ranked up enough to find more like-minded players to enjoy.