Of course, as with most other popular MOBAs, the main lure for League of Legends would have to be its five-on-five matches played across that ever-familiar three-lane map. The colorful and bright map is the very one known as Summoner's Rift, which then differs in the way that it allows for play because of its thick brush to enable hiding and ambushes of enemies. Among my favorite bits is the strange jungle about the rivergoing central, which is cluttered with NPC monsters, from where players can obtain their pick-me-up buffs anytime they snooze off from battle and go toward hunting. This is the constant temptation of going into the enemy's territory to try and steal their buffs.
But then quickly attaining access to all the Champions—without spending a dime—just made it even more unfulfilling, putting League apart from the kind of free-to-play game that is purposely impractical to play at a competitive level for free. Having a lot of people stumbling around for extended periods playing completely free makes it even more exciting with changes in rosters, as it forces everyone to try new characters and new strategies.
When the match begins, participate and keep in mind that most of the champions in League possess a lot of low-cost area spells that make murdering minions a matter of a moment. The same is true for other battle arenas online; it's just that in this particular game, there are some areas where your heroes can do much more than just the last hit but without worrying about attacking your own minions to deny your opponent from getting some experience and gold. In some sense, these denial strategies are definitely less competitive in League, but most of the time end up being very annoying.
It is really worth winning and losing for experience and Influence Points, which will unlock and customize Champions. There was also a good build towards a permanent profile beyond the game that was excellent motivation to keep playing because, along the road towards leveling to 30, one would eventually unlock some relevant Summoner spells to be used in-game. Flash, for example, teleports you a very short distance that sometimes may give you just enough range to either lash out or dodge a killing blow.
On the flip side, League's just-wonderful tutorial will very slowly ease you into the whole MOBA thing while its AI bot players would be great to learn new characters on without any judgment. It does, however, miss one critical thing:
True, the gameplay itself is intensely fun, and the champions are really nice. However, one of the main things that keeps League of Legends from performing at full throttle is the Adobe Air client. Good for those moments where one might want to have a beverage, being some pretty long load times, but finally waiting for 120 seconds before each match really grates on the nerves. You can hardly set your options in the game before jumping into the match. The update client and server would probably take some very brilliant tech work to pull off, but then again, that's probably the weakest link in what is otherwise a tight, most robust chain.