Win or lose, after a long fought battle on the Rift have you ever thought to yourself, “Jeez, self! I should really try out another lane…”? If so, you’re definitely not alone. This week at the NA LCS, Lolesports got the chance to catch up with some NA LCS pros like Daerek “LemonNation” Hart, Lae-Young “Keane” Jang, David “Cop” Roberson, William “Meteos” Hartman, Lucas “Santorin” Larsen, and Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaha to see which role they’d migrate to if given the chance to start their pro careers anew and what advice they’d give players switching to their current role.

A Shining Star

According to Counter Logic Gaming’s top laner ZionSpartan, mid lane is where stars currently shine the brightest. If he could do things over again he’d head to mid, explaining how when he first started playing top lane it was great because everyone would play aggressively, taking Ignite instead of Teleport. It was all about who was better in the strategic 1 vs. 1. But now, even if you’re able to deal a lot of damage to them, they just TP right back.

In mid, there’s a lot more potential to make plays, says Zion. “[At mid lane], you have that chance to outplay and kill [your opponent], much more so than in top lane.” He’s also drawn to the variety of champs available to play at mid, noting how you can play as assassins and carry champions, whereas in top lane he finds himself to be playing a lot of tanks. “In my perspective you can’t play what’s more fun to play [in top lane] but in mid lane you have the outplay potential. That’s like the star lane. That’s the lane I’d want to play if I could do my career all over again.”

Cloud9’s support LemonNation would also choose mid, based around his love of mages. “Even in support, I’ve always gravitated toward mage supports. The long range kind like Zyra and Morgana, those types of supports,” he says. “I like these support mage-type champions, and a lot of these support mages are good at mid lane.”

Luckily for them, Gravity’s mid laner Keane, who admits he’d move to top lane if possible because he likes playing engaging tanks, has some advice for new mid laners. As someone known for pulling out unique picks, he thinks players should really just try to have fun with their favorite champion. “The meta right now for mid, you can play anything you want. It’s just about jungle pressure and support,” he explains. “So if you think you’re good with any champion, try it out [mid]!”

A Watchful Eye

Two players who know plenty about jungle pressure are Cloud9’s Meteos and Team SoloMid’s Santorin. Meteos loves the jungle so much that even if he had the chance to swap roles, he’d pick jungle all over again because he loves constantly being challenged in different ways. “I don’t have the mechanics to be a really strong laner, but I have pretty good game sense which makes jungle good for me,” he says.

“I like jungle just because it can have a pretty big impact on the game, and it feels strategic to me. I’m always trying to figure out what their jungle is trying to do and capitalize on mistakes their team is making,” he explains, going on to mention all of the mind games you can play in the role. “If their jungler is focusing top, I focus bottom and try to get kills while my top laner plays defense, or I can counter-gank him.”

He says as a jungler, you can get vision, deny vision, and put pressure on the map, especially if the other team doesn’t know where you are. “If they have no wards up they’ll all be scared and you’ll pull way ahead. If they do have wards you can go clear them. There’s just so many things you can do as jungler. It’s just so dynamic. So I have a really good time with it.”

As one of the most knowledge-based roles in the game, Meteos urges new junglers to get as much game experience as possible. “You have to know what to do in every situation, and granted how many different champions there are, how many different lanes there can be, lane swaps, all that stuff, there’s a lot of things you can do and you need to figure out what the best thing to do at all times is. And that just really comes from experimentation.”

The Glue That Holds Us Together

Santorin on the other hand had no hesitation when mentioning how, if given another chance, he’d swap from jungle to support. “I really love supporting,” he says with a big smile. “If I don’t get jungle in Solo Queue I play support, because I like roaming and I like playing with a guy in the lane. I like to have synergy going on with that guy.” He also feels support melds well with his current playstyle. “Roaming is the thing I love the most,” he says. As for what he’d love to do the most if got to play support full time? “Ganking and playing really weird stuff like Blitzcrank. That’s basically what I would love to do.”

Gravity’s AD carry Cop would also head to support, but he thinks of the role a bit differently than Santorin. “It’s extremely easy to get into,” Cop says, smirking. “You play Thresh non-stop until you’re a beast at him. [His mechanics] carry over into all the other champions. You learn how to ward, how to work with your team in a 2 vs. 1. It’s just like the easiest role for me to get into. Plus, it’s pretty fun to play if you go like 40% cooldown reduction Thresh, throwing hooks every two or three seconds.”

“You can play any champion as a support basically, so [I’d choose that] because it’d be the most relaxed, and I would sort of like to take a break and just chill, just play support.”

LemonNation however would scoff at the notion of playing as a chill support. “For someone just starting out as support, I would say, ‘Don’t play like a bitch.'” According to Lemon, supports really want to apply as much pressure on the enemy bot lane as possible. His reasoning is simple: if you’re the one the enemy bottom lane is focused on, then that means they’re not focused on your AD carry and he’s free to last hit perfectly. He’s free to just get harass in where he can. And if you’re drawing all the pressure to yourself, it makes life so much easier for your AD carry. Sorry Cop, no relaxing in this role!

Unfortunately, none of the players we spoke to were keen on heading to AD carry, but good guy Cop still had some advice to offer those of you who are interested in trying it! “The first step, which I tell everybody, is learn how to properly [last hit minions]. Try to play custom games and just [last hit] with no items. Have like 50 AD and just get CS under tower, in the middle lane, and just last hit. Don’t auto and auto, just last hit. And then try and hit like 90-100 at 10 minutes.” Then after that, he says it’s important to learn whichever three AD carries are performing well in the current meta. For those not keeping track, stick to Lucian, Corki, and Graves for now. “Also, duo with a buddy,” says Cop. “Duoing with a support is probably the best way to learn. You’re learning about synergy with your support and you’ll also know what your support is going to do so you can always follow-up effectively.”

No matter the role you currently play, never feel too scared to branch out and try something new! As you can see, even LCS pros have considered it from time to time. So get out there and experiment.