How a League of Legends draft works

A League of Legends tournament draft has twenty actions: ten bans and ten picks, spread over four phases that alternate bans and picks. Blue side opens the draft with the first ban and the first pick, red side closes it with the last pick.

This page describes the tournament draft, the one played between two teams. The soloQ draft follows a different sequence, covered at the end of the page.

The full sequence, phase by phase

Picks are written by side and rank: B1 to B5 for blue side, R1 to R5 for red side. The first pick phase gives B1, R1, R2, B2, B3, R3; the second R4, B4, B5, R5.

The point to remember: blue side has the first pick of the draft, red side the last. The whole balance of the sequence comes down to that trade.

What the sequence gives each side

The order sets what each team knows when it has to decide.

Blue side can get THE best pick of the draft. Red side sees before choosing and can line up more counters.

Blue side's price is direct: its B4 and B5 picks come before R5. When red side makes its last pick, the opposing composition is already complete.

→ Blue side vs red side details what each side gives and what the advantage depends on.

Ban phase 1: six blind bans

The first six bans are made before any pick. Nobody has shown their composition yet.

Who you ban depends on the players. Two cases come up:

1. An opposing player's profile revolves around one or two champions: banning those champions is worth it.
2. Otherwise, you prefer to ban champions your own team generally struggles to play against.

This criterion holds for every ban, whatever the phase. What changes in phase 2 is the information available.

Pick phase 1: the first pick and the pairs

Blue side opens with B1, then red side follows with R1 and R2, blue side with B2 and B3, and red side closes the phase with R3.

The first pick is a balance between three elements:

An OP pick cancels out every other consideration. When a champion is clearly above the rest, you take it and adapt the rest of the draft to make it shine.

→ The first pick covers each of the three elements.

Ban phase 2: closing an option

The last four bans come after six picks, and red side makes the first one. At that point, each team sees what the other is building.

A phase 2 ban closes an option made possible by the picks already on the board. How precise it can be depends on what those picks reveal:

• Some picks tell you exactly where they will be played.
• Others are flex and leave the opponent in the fog.

The better you know which roles are left to pick, the more precise you can be. Sometimes you know which pick is coming, sometimes only the role or the lane, and you make do.

Pick phase 2: the last word

Red side opens the last phase with R4. Blue side makes B4 and B5, then red side ends the draft with R5.

This is the phase where blue side has to reveal its final composition. There is only one way out: having several possible flex picks in the final composition. It is very rare, and you should not count on it.

Red side, for its part, can keep an ambiguous flex until R5: the opponent completes its composition without knowing where that champion will be played.

Between two games: side and fearless

In a series, the team that lost the previous game chooses its side for the next one. As a rule, it takes its preferred side.

Fearless changes that rule. In this format, picks from the previous games of a Bo are banned for the following games of the same Bo: the champion pool shrinks naturally with every game.

The fewer open picks remain, the more you prefer blue side, which secures the first pick instead of reacting.

→ Side selection details both cases.

Draft time

In a draft tool, everything is automated: the sequence applies itself and procedural errors are not possible.

One error remains: wasting time and running short of time to think a pick through. It often comes from the player who has not thought beforehand about which picks are interesting: they only start thinking when their turn comes.

So you have to optimise your time for each phase, and come to the draft already knowing what you have in mind.

Draft in soloQ: a different sequence

The Solo/Duo and Flex ranked queues do not use the tournament draft described above. They share their champion select with Normal Draft. Riot calls it the standard Ranked draft and sets it apart from Tournament Draft, which it keeps for Ranked 5s.

Before the queue: two positions

Before queuing for a ranked game, every player lists two preferred positions, a primary and a secondary, or picks Fill. Matchmaking favours the primary position and can fall back on the secondary.

It can also hand out a position nobody chose: that is autofill.

The steps of champion select

Ten simultaneous bans

Every player has one ban, and all ten ban at the same time. The opposing team's bans are only shown at the end of the phase.

Two consequences:

• Two allies cannot ban the same champion, and nobody can ban a champion an ally hovered during the declaration.
• Both teams can ban the same champion. The game is then played with fewer than ten champions banned.

Picks and swaps

Pick order is not fixed. During the declaration, ban and pick phases, a player can ask an ally to swap places in the order; the swap happens if the ally accepts.

Once the picks are made, the preparation phase lets allies swap champions.

What changes compared with the tournament draft

Everything said above about ban phase 2 therefore has no equivalent in soloQ: no ban is made after the first picks.

FAQ

Who bans first in a LoL draft?

Blue side. It makes the first ban of phase 1, then bans alternate up to the sixth. In phase 2, red side makes the first of the last four bans.

How many bans and picks are there in a draft?

Twenty actions in total: ten bans and ten picks. Six bans before any pick, six picks, four bans, then the last four picks.

Who gets the last pick?

Red side, with R5. It is the counterpart of the first pick, which belongs to blue side.

Why are there two ban phases?

Because they are not played with the same information. The first six bans come before any pick; the last four come after six picks and close an option those picks made possible.

What does fearless draft change?

Picks from the previous games of a series become unavailable for the following games. The champion pool shrinks with every game, which pushes teams towards blue side.

How does draft work in soloQ?

Each player chooses two positions before the queue. In champion select, all ten players ban one champion each at the same time, then picks are made turn by turn, 25 seconds per turn.

Going further

• Blue side vs red side — what each side gives, and what the advantage depends on.
• The first pick — what it costs, what it brings, and what cancels out everything else.
• Side selection between two games — when you take your preferred side, and when you do nothing of the sort.
• The draft glossary — all the vocabulary, by family.
• All our draft guides — the pillar page of the cluster.

Run the sequence instead of memorising it. Create a draft on uDrafter, share the link with the opposing captain and let the tool apply the order — it is free and no account is needed.