8 LoL Terms to Understand Faker's Matches

8 LoL Esports Terms That Make Faker's Matches Click

A rundown of eight basic League of Legends esports terms — from laning phase to objectives, teamfights, and drafting — that help make sense of Faker highlights.

Watch a broadcast for a few minutes and casters will fly through words like laning phase, roaming, objectives, and teamfight. The plays still look impressive without the vocabulary, but knowing the terms is what turns a highlight into a reason.

Faker in particular tends to stand out less for raw kill counts than for lane control, rotation timing, and how a fight gets set up before it starts. The eight terms below are the basics worth knowing before following his games on broadcast.

Laning phase

The laning phase is the early stretch where each player farms minions in their own lane while jockeying for an edge. For a mid laner it's not just about gold — it's the setup for calling the jungler in or moving to help another lane later. Even without an early kill, watching minion positioning and health pressure shows who's actually ahead.

Roaming

Roaming is when a mid laner leaves their lane to swing the balance of a fight elsewhere on the map. Push your lane first, then move, and you can force an opponent to burn a summoner spell or give up the lane without landing a single kill yourself. The tradeoff is risk back home, so timing is everything.

Vision control

Vision control means placing wards to track the enemy while clearing theirs to deny information. A team that knows where the opponent is can play aggressively; a team the opponent can't see can set up an ambush. Watching the dark patches of the minimap on broadcast is usually enough to see why one side commits first.

Objectives

Objectives — dragons, the Rift Herald, Baron, towers — matter more than a kill because they connect directly to winning the game. Teams stake out vision and position around them well before a fight actually starts. A teamfight that looks spontaneous is often the result of positioning around an objective minutes earlier.

Teamfight

A teamfight is the most visible moment in a match, with several champions unloading abilities at once. Who commits first and who survives usually decides the outcome. These don't happen by accident — vision, objective timing, and ultimate cooldowns all have to line up, so watching where a player enters or holds the line matters more than the kill count.

Draft (ban-and-pick)

Draft is the pre-game phase where each team bans and picks champions, and it can look tedious to a new viewer even though it's where much of the match is already decided. Whether a player gets a stable mage, a playmaking champion, or gets their signature pick banned outright shapes the whole game plan. A player taking an unusual role often traces back to a decision made here.

Snowballing

Snowballing describes how a small early lead compounds over time, like a snowball picking up size as it rolls. A mid laner who wins lane can secure jungle vision, grab objectives, and pressure other lanes, and each small gain narrows the opponent's options further. Get an early kill without converting it into more, though, and a game can still slip away later.

Carry vs. playmaking

Carrying means dealing damage and getting kills directly to win the game; playmaking is closer to setting up the fight your team can win. The same player leans on both across a career, with the balance shifting by champion — an assassin pick reads as pure carry, while a champion built for setting up fights reads as playmaking. Recognizing the difference explains why a low kill count can still mean a huge impact on the game.

Frequently asked questions

What term should a new viewer learn first to follow a Faker match?

Laning phase and objectives cover most of it. Laning phase shows the early balance of power, and objectives show what actually leads to a win.

Why do teamfights seem to erupt out of nowhere?

They rarely are — vision, objective timing, and ultimate availability usually line up beforehand. What looks sudden on screen is often the payoff of positioning that happened a minute earlier.

Can you enjoy a match without understanding the draft phase?

Sure, but knowing it explains why a player ends up on an unusual champion or role for that game. Listening to the casters' draft breakdown adds a layer of context worth catching.

NEWSLETTER

Get new lists before anyone else

Once a week — only the new lists worth your time.

No spam · unsubscribe in one click

This page contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

Laning phaseUpvote

RoamingUpvote

Vision controlUpvote

ObjectivesUpvote

TeamfightUpvote

Draft (ban-and-pick)Upvote

SnowballingUpvote

Carry vs. playmakingUpvote