With more and more players getting into League of Legends, Senior Staff Writer Chris "Pwyff" Tom went back to being a level 1 summoner to experience it all again.

With League of Legends' (Season One coming to an end in just two short weeks (I hope everyone made it to the new gold ELO cut-off!) and Dominion set to hit the stage soon, there's no better time than now to introduce yourself to this mega-popular free-to-play game. For players who are unfamiliar with the LoL genre, however, starting your journey to level 30 can be a daunting task. League of Legends' player community can be quite abrasive to new players, and the unique learning curve of this game can dissuade some from enjoying their early experiences. Believe it or not, levelling up League of Legends can be an enjoyable experience, so I've decided to write a little bit about how to get the most out of your climb to the top.

Try Before You Buy

Every time you go against a champion that destroys your whole team, the first thought you'll have is "I've got to have that!" This is a huge mistake in League of Legends, where almost any champion, in the right setting, can wipe a team off the map. Whenever I play with low level friends, I can usually get fantastic scores with silly builds like AD Janna, tanky Soraka or full AP Teemo (I just like to lay down 500+ damage mushrooms…). The reason I do well, however, is rarely because my champion is "overpowered," but because I know how to bait novice opponents into making mistakes, and I know how, exactly, to capitalize on those mistakes. I play my champions with custom rune pages, full masteries, and unique play styles to cater to my strengths and weaknesses. If you lack any of those, you may find yourself disappointed in playing the champion you saw going 35-2-10.

My best advice is to wait to try a champion out on weekly rotation before you really commit your hard earned Influence Points. IP-wise, Riot tries to price their champions in terms of how easy they are to learn, although, given the ever-changing nature of the game, there are a few champions that might be difficult for a new player to pick up. Regardless, the champions priced at 450 RP and 1350 RP are all very good, and most are played even at high level games (Annie, Ashe, and Soraka to name a few). If, however, you want to spend some RP to try out a few champions, you should consider getting the Digital Collector's Pack, as it gives you a nice 1380 bonus RP for your 3900 RP purchase, and the champions you unlock are perfect for learning every nuance of the game.

Learn One Champion or One Role

It is usually recommended that you master one champion so that you can really understand the underlying mechanics of LoL, but sometimes diversity is a good thing. Learning specific roles, like playing a mage with different champions, will give you a lot of insight into how you role is meant to be played. Playing Annie, for example, is a lot of fun with her high up-front damage, but her mobility is poor and she has to rely heavily on her Pyromania stun as an escape mechanism. After a few days of playing Annie, if you move to another mage champion, like Le Blanc, you'll find that you have a new appreciation for Le Blanc's escape and control tools, like Mirror Image, Distortion and Ethereal Chains.

The other great benefit that comes from sticking with one role or one champion is the knowledge of how to play against it. If you play only mage characters for a while, when it comes time to try out some melee DPS champions, you'll be able to easily spot when an opposing mage is at his most vulnerable. If you spread yourself too thin trying to learn every role and every champion at the same time, you may find yourself forgetting with each game, so consider that.

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