I’ve had another weird streak of losses recently, so I thought it would be good to cover one of the basic concepts that can have huge effect on the outcome of your games. Summoner spell selection can be the difference between a win and a loss, as perfectly illustrated in a Twisted Treeline game the other day.

On opening my team was two tanks and an Annie. I thought we’d be okay, because Annie can actually do quite well on Treeline with good backup. The problem was, she didn’t take Cleanse. With two tanks and Annie, who do you think the other team will pick first? If I remember correctly, our opponents included a Shen and a Warwick. Every fight went just like you’d imagine. Either Warwick would ult Annie or Shen would taunt and she would die, almost instantly. I even asked her at champion select to consider taking Cleanse, but she called me a noob and told me to “just watch.”

Next time you’re struggling for a win, take a look at your team comp and think about who the first target will be. If you’re running on TT, you should definitely take Cleanse. It’s incredibly rare to have a team without a stun, and you’d probably beat those teams anyway, so making the sacrifice for cleanse won’t seem so bad. On the flip side, take a look at the other team’s skills at the loading screen. Note the players with Cleanse or another escape skill like Flash/Ghost and try to focus the others.