League of Legends is a team-based game. Riot has made a very sure of that through tweaking the game and balancing it in such a way that you need 5 players playing together as a team to win the game.
However, over the course of the game’s history, one lane has always been at the center of League of Legends explosive growth. It’s the one in the center – the mid lane. That’s not to say that mid is the most important position in League. Like I said riot has bounced in such a way that they’re all equally important but somehow, the growth of mid has always tied directly into the growth of League of Legends.
Have you ever wondered why so many teams have superstar mid laners? Why the players often credited with pushing the game forward historically play mid? Damn, it’s because mid has so often been the place where the best of the best pop off.
“I think Peke’s had something to prove against everybody. Peke is a player that always shows up when the pressure hits. He is probably the most popular European player and has been for a very long time”.
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So here’s a fun fact: If you didn’t start watching League of Legends until 2015 like me, you probably didn’t know that in the earliest days of the game there wasn’t really a mid-laner, per se. In the earliest days of the game preseason 1, even there were differing opinions on what kind of champions should be played in which lane. Prevailing opinion early on was a team should send their range ad carries, the characters needed the most farm, the middle lane, which was the shortest late and that’s the easiest to get farming, just like in DOTA. Of course they didn’t realize that mid is also the most gankable lane in League thanks for the bushes on either side.
So, the ad carry was sent bot to be babysat by support who keeps them alive while they farmed. There was also a growing understanding of macro in the League of Legends team, as people got to understand the game. They realized that the mid outer turret was extremely important since it unlocks both sides of your opponent’s jungle, unlike the one side offered by the sidelines.
Staying alive and defending mid started to become incredibly important and so, we’ve started seeing mages go mid. Most mages offered either mobility or crowd control to help escape ganks and burst damage to help them capitalize on ganks themselves. By the time season 1 worlds rolled around, we pretty much had the standard lane set up with a tank or bruiser top, mage mid, ad carry and support bot, and a jungler in between.
In Europe, which eventually became known for pumping out some of the best mid laners in the world, we had Froggen, Alex Ich, Ocelote, and xPeke. At NA, TSM always played around Reginald and at season 2 worlds, the Taipei Assassins took 1st place thanks, in part, to Toyz and it’s incredible Orianna play. But by season 3, there was a shift in the kind of champions we saw played mid. Mages were already popular, but assassins began to take over the meta. Assassins were the source of some of the flashiest – those incredible plays – in season 3, and their strength in the middle lane meant that you knew that strong, mechanically talented mid laner would take advantage of their power.
That change was happening at the same time that League of Legends was undergoing explosive growth. leagues were popping up all over the world with the NA and EU LCS in the West and the LPL in China. Both OGN champions continued to showcase high level gameplay from Korea and of course fans got to see incredible mid laners tearing it off on a high-risk, high-reward mechanical champions like Ahri and Zed.
From 2013 to 2014, assassins ruled the League of Legends meta. Sure, there were other viable picks, but the best players were playing assassins and styling on their opponents, which meant that some of the very best teams in the world were playing around a skillful mid laner. It also meant that the very best mid leaders in the world were pushing the limit of what people thought was possible in the game.
They were in advancing the meta with incredible play, which made them into some of the game’s most famous players. Guys like Bjergsen and Faker.
As the years have gone on, though, the mid lane has gotten a little less flashy. Assassins are still playable, but like any role, their power fluctuates depending on the meta. Mid has settled down. It’s still an important spot on the map given that the whole game literally revolves around the mid lane, but it’s not the place where everything happens, the way it was just a few years ago. Even so, we’re still seeing a new era of exciting mid lane talent among us.
Not all teams are exclusively playing around mid but when it came time for G2 to rebuild their roster, they only kept their star mid laner Perkz, and built the team around him. Europe’s other top team has often played around there star ad carry, Reckless, but they’ve recently seen success when they play around their young, rising star in the middle, Caps. Over in China, Invictus Gaming mid laner Rookie has been a powerhouse for much of his career but that year he’s come into his own as the de facto strongest mid laner in the world. While KT Rolster 17-year-old rookie new talent helped the team earn a 1st place play-off finish for the first time since the summer of 2014.
A new era of the mid lane is done, and hopefully as new talent grows, League of Legends can grow along with them.
