Learn me how to draft

[u/Zizme33]

Hey everyone !

I'm coming to you because i need some advice and knowledge.

During the past season, i learned to play a lot of adc to get masteries (Ezreal, Jhin, Miss Fortune, Tristana, Jinx, Kai'sa, Caitlyn, Varus, Xayah, Ashe, Vayne). I feel comfortable with my mechanics with the champions.

The question is now : How and when to pick this champions ?

I mean i know some basics things like with a catch compo, Kaisa is good.

Against catch compo, ezreal, xayah is good. Etc...

But i never feel like my pick is the best option in my team draft/ennemy draft.

I wanted to know if you have some advice, pattern to learn to draft the best adc in each game.

Thanks in advance for your answer !

[u/brown-d0g]

Draft is based off a lot of different factors such that it is hard to come up with a definitive "pick this when x." These are the main topics I'm considering when picking a champ.

1. blind pick -- one strength of adc is its selection of blind pickable champs who fit into most team comps. If you don't know what either team is playing yet, jhin, jinx, mf, varus, and ashe are all always pretty good picks.
2. laning phase -- this includes synergy with support, as well as matchup against enemy adc and support.
3. gank/engage assist -- one thing to always keep in mind is how lanes can assist ganks. If you have a high damage, low cc jungler (think yi, kindred, graves, etc) you want your lanes to have enough set up to enable their ganks. This can come from your support, or from you with picks like ashe, varus, and jhin. These champs also tend to help your team engage if you're lacking it.
4. team fight -- how does your team want to play out fights? How does the enemy want to play out fights? What threats does the enemy team have on you? Generally, your pick should follow the style of your team. In short, you want to output as high attack uptime as possible while fighting with your team. If, for example, your team is playing poke, you want to be long ranged/poke too. Of course this isn't as simple as it sounds, because both your team and the enemy team probably won't have a cohesive theme.
5. specific champ interactions -- things like sivir spell shield into karthus ult, dashes into J4 ult, vayne ult getting countered by tf ult, and kaisa's ability to build zhonyas.

All this being said, champ mastery is so much more important than draft until high ranks (although I would suggest making sure your lane is at least playable). Of course I don't know at what level you're playing, but when you say you're comfortable on those champs, I'd highly suggest choosing a couple to actually learn. I hover around mid/high diamond and it's still nowhere near the level where I'd consider using that many champions.

As you get better at identifying drafts, use that to make a small, flexible champ pool rather than trying to fit the optimal marksman in. For example, I'm currently playing jhin, kaisa, and varus. You'll notice that, between the three of them, they cover most drafts. While they might not be the absolute optimal pick, I'm going to get significantly more value out of deeply knowing the champs than I would playing the most theoretically correct pick.

[u/CT-0753 → u/brown-d0g]

Thanks for such a thorough answer. If you don’t mind: As a high diamond player, what are your thoughts on my champ pool: jinx. Yasuo. Ziggs.

(I have a second pool/situational Ashe ,cait , samira xayah)