Tips and tricks to help you become a better ARAM player

Playing in the ARAM game mode is a vital part of the League experience, for new and experienced players alike. While most of the League player base enjoys Summoners Rift and the cycle of game modes, there is still a large community that is dedicated only to the ARAM game mode.

ARAM community

Contrary to beliefs, the high elo ARAM community is very developed, and the idea of a ranked queue for ARAM has long been discussed. Players usually know that to be good at League on Summoners Rift, you need a lot of practice and to learn a lot of stuff. ARAM is no different because it actually acts as a separate game from League in general. The balance changes you see on patches do apply to the ARAM game mode, but that’s not it.

If you have ever scrolled far enough to the end of the patch notes, you would see balance changes meant for ARAM, URF, Ultimate Spellbook, and the other modes. The truth is the meta that you know on Summoners Rift, the builds, the runes, almost all of it goes out the window on ARAM. If you want to join the higher MMR games on ARAM or just impress your friends with your gameplay this is the article that will teach you how to become better at ARAM.

ARAM Balance

One of the first things you need to take into consideration when playing ARAM seriously is drafting. Sure you should play champions that are fun or that you haven’t tried yet, but in the end, winning is more fun. If you play your mains you will of course win more games, but ARAM gives a random selection of champions. Champions like Lux, Sona, and Seraphine can feel oppressive because of their shielding, healing, AOE damage, and CC which is hard to dodge or counter on a map so narrow. That’s why they’re at the top of this list of most nerfed champions.

On another note, assassins greatly struggle on a map where everyone is grouped up, and they are usually harder champions to pick up. Players who will play for the first time stuff like Qiyana, LeBlanc, and Akali are more likely to lose on ARAM than on Summoners Rift. That’s why assassins and other champions that lack AOE dmg are adjusted properly to do more and take less damage in order to offset the inexperience factor.

What to pick

As we already mentioned, because the map is so small and narrow it really limits the factors that decide the game. Unlike casual League, warding, positioning, farming, and all of the other basic skills don’t hold that much value in this game mode. That’s the reason why enchanters, tanks, and marksmen usually dominate this map. Assassins and bruisers who split push have a hard time killing the backline or team fighting in general. These are the champions that hold the highest win rates among the best ARAM players.

On a map dominated by mages and other poke champions, it’s no wonder Dr. Mundo is dominating the charts. With his health regen and his tendency to stack health and magic resist, he often becomes unkillable at 2-3 items when facing more than three mages. Alistar is also similar with the damage reduction on his Ultimate making it impossible to take him down in fights.

There is Trundle to counter them by stealing their resistances with his Ultimate, and also enchanters like Sona or Nami who scale for free and buff and heal their entire team are very good in ARAM. Long-range marksmen like Varus, Ashe, Senna, and Jinx also do extremely well with their poke builds, easier passive stacking, and activation.

Most of the worst champions to pick at ARAM are often the highly skilled ones, who are dominant in pro play but require a lot of practice. Of course, most of the players that pick them in this mode rarely have enough practice and that’s why their numbers are this bad.

Fun stuff to try

Because of the special balancing, ARAM creates a lot of fun strategies that you can try and be successful with, that wouldn’t happen on Summoners Rift. Stuff like a tank or bruiser Akali, Sylas, Reksai, Hecarim, Udyr, and Tahm Kench. Unlikely champions that can poke are lethality Ashe, Khazix, Kayn, Sivir, Xayah, Miss Fortune, and Caitlyn. Most of their builds include Lucidity Boots, Manamune, Tiamat, and Serylda’s Grudge.

One-shot machines are hard to pull off on this map, but if you know how to play Qiyana she can wipe an entire team in one combo on this map. AP Kaisa and AP Blitzcrank can also be absurd, doing as much as 1800 damage with one spell late game.

Most overpowered runes on ARAM

On a map where the main objective is to constantly fight and scaling is faster, some runes outperform others by a large margin. Ultimate Hunter, Presence of Mind, Guardian, and Dark Harvest get more use of the constant action while scaling runes like Gathering Storm, Conditioning, and Overgrowth stack faster in ARAM than on Summoners Rift.