LoL Macro Patterns Map

The interactive map above is the heart of MOBA Trainer: 51 League of Legends macro patterns, each with a short video explanation and decision puzzles built by Challenger-level players. Open the full reference below for a definition of every pattern.

What is the LoL Pattern Map?

Macro is the layer of League of Legends decision-making that sits above mechanics: where you go, which objectives you take, how you use vision and tempo. It is too broad to train as a single skill, so MOBA Trainer organizes it into 51 named patterns across five categories. Every choice you make on the map traces back to one or more of them, which means you can isolate the exact pattern that loses you games and drill it directly.

Every macro pattern, defined

Every pattern below is defined by MOBA Trainer founder Vlad "Saviour" Dvoretskiy, a Challenger player from Season 6 through Season 15. Open the reference for all 51 definitions, grouped into the five macro categories.

Show all 51 pattern definitions

Economy (7)

Patterns that convert gold, experience and wave control into a lead, from recall timing to resource distribution.

Base timers: Base timers are about optimizing your recall decisions by considering health, mana, gold, upcoming objectives and power spikes. They are crucial for managing your resources: recalling at the right time lets you avoid overstaying, reducing your chance to throw a game for nothing.
Wave management: Wave management means controlling minion waves through fast pushing, slow pushing or freezing, based on lane strength and map state, to optimize your economy and pressure. It is one of League of Legends' fundamentals, and understanding it lets you create favorable situations with minimal risk. Freezing locks a wave in one place on your side of the lane, keeping you safe and forcing enemies to expose themselves to a gank or an outplay. Fast pushing is often used to finish a sequence of plays or to make a quick play yourself, though the window it creates is small, so moving far from lane can cost gold and experience over time. Slow pushing builds up a big wave for a momentary level advantage, creating just enough pressure to perform otherwise risky plays such as executing a dive, preparing an objective or finding a good base timer.
Jungle clear routes: Jungle clear routes are about planning your jungle pathing around lane priority, matchup dynamics and win conditions to optimize gank potential, objective control and overall map impact. This is one of the most important decisions you make as a jungler: if you mess up, the whole map can fall behind, while an optimal clear gives you more opportunities to gain an advantage.
Using Herald: Using Herald means deploying it at the optimal time and location to maximize gold, open up the map and create more pressure. It is not enough to simply secure Herald, you should also know how to use it properly: misplacing this crucial objective slows down your snowball potential, while finding a good window of opportunity accelerates your lead.
Objective prioritization: Objective prioritization means deciding which objectives to secure based on win conditions, game state and trade-offs, keeping optimal map control and resource allocation. Objectives hold different value for each team depending on their composition and situation in the game: incorrect prioritization reduces your mid and late game potential, while optimal prioritization can be game breaking for you and your foes.
Economy optimisation: Economy optimisation means distributing farm and resources efficiently in the midgame, often to maximize the strength of your key carries. As a carry, you always want to convert spare time into gold: the more items you have, the more impactful you are. Standing still rarely does you any good, because while you sleep, enemies are getting stronger.
Proxy farm: Proxy farm is a strategy of farming minion waves behind enemy lines, often between the enemy's tier 1 and tier 2 turrets, used to avoid bad matchups, gather information in the enemy jungle and apply map pressure. It is an advanced play that requires exquisite map awareness and wave management: a lot can go wrong, but when executed properly, proxying becomes extremely rewarding.

Vision (8)

How to see the map and deny the enemy theirs: warding, sweeping and setting up the next objective.

Early vision: Early vision is about placing and denying wards in the early game to track the enemy jungler, prevent ganks and secure lane control. It helps you avoid dying to ganks and gives your team crucial information about the first stages of the game. If you lack that information, your early game is lost.
Vision placement: Vision placement is about choosing your warding spots based on potential threats, lane state and matchup intricacies. It is all about optimizing your vision radius to give you enough information: suboptimal placement can leave you vulnerable, while good wards in good spots give you enough information to avoid danger.
Objective set-ups: Objective set-ups are about placing and clearing vision to prepare the area around the next objective for a potential fight. It is quite difficult to take objectives head on, they need some preparation: ignoring the set-up results in big throws and lost lives, while a proper set-up should put any fight in your favor.
Contesting vision: Contesting vision is about taking over vision by coordinating with teammates, controlling waves and avoiding unnecessary risks. Denying enemy wards and placing your own is a crucial part of macro gameplay, but doing so alone can result in many deaths. Consider wave states and enemy position, and coordinate with your teammates to contest vision successfully.
Trap set-ups: Trap set-ups rely on denying enemy vision, controlling key areas and making sure enemy carries get caught. Setting up and denying vision to prepare a trap is basically serving kills for your teammates on a silver platter. Predict your opponents' movement and goals to identify their blind spots and set up a play.
Shallow vs deep vision: Shallow vs deep vision is about placing wards at varying depths based on objective priority, enemy threats and the information you need, from river control to deep jungle tracking. Shallow vision gives you only a little information about your surroundings, while deep vision gathers more important intel and lets you play proactively.
Defensive vision: Defensive vision is about placing wards to prevent jungle invades, spot dives and protect sidelanes when playing from a disadvantage or reacting to enemy pressure. It protects your team from catches and traps: ignoring it lets enemies gain an advantage over you, while knowing how to protect yourself with wards gives you a chance to strike back.
Flank TP vision: Flank TP vision is about placing or denying vision to enable allied teleport flanks or prevent enemy flanks during key fights. Wards do not only give you vision, they also serve as anchors for flanking maneuvers. A lack of flank vision limits your fighting capabilities and diminishes your chances to win, while placing wards for your playmakers gives you extra tools to impact any teamfight.

Map Movement (14)

Where to be and when: teleports, lane priority, splitpush, roams and cross-map plays.

Using teleport: Using teleport means deploying it for lane advantage, teamfights, objective set-ups, flanks and more. Teleport is a versatile tool in your skill set that requires thoughtful usage: launching yourself in the wrong spot is inefficient and often counterproductive, while adapting your teleport to the situation at hand gives you one hell of an advantage.
Using lane priority: Using lane priority is the tactic of determining the best action after pushing the wave, such as recalling, roaming, invading, diving and many others. It is your bread and butter for map movement in League of Legends: disregarding this crucial concept makes your map fall apart from the get go, while understanding how to maintain and use lane priority properly unlocks numerous ways to accelerate the game for you.
Splitpush: Splitpush is the strategy of pushing a sidelane alone to take towers, create map pressure and build an economic advantage. It generates map pressure and economy, but disrespecting enemies and brute forcing sidelanes can lead to disaster. Find the balance between safety and pressure to stay one step ahead of enemy rotations.
Using Baron buff: Using Baron buff means using the temporary buff to push lanes and siege towers more effectively. It is best used to push waves and siege towers together with your team: non-synchronized decisions result in fiestas and throws, so push as a team to get the most out of the buff.
Opening on the map: Opening on the map means choosing where to go from base by analyzing the map. The direction you choose after leaving the fountain defines how the next sequence plays out: choose foolishly and the whole map falls apart, choose wisely and you raise your chances of being in the right place at the right time.
Invades & counter invades: Invades and counter invades are about contesting and stealing enemy jungle camps, or defending against such attempts. This is a big part of early game macro: misplaying an invade can lead to unfortunate deaths, so assess the situation properly before making this risky decision.
Contesting mid push: Contesting mid push means challenging the enemy's mid push through aggressive positioning or by forcing a fight. Getting mid push is the first step in most mid and late game macro sequences: allowing enemies to push for free hands them the initiative, while knowing how and why to contest the push gives you better map control and more consistent plays.
Crossmap: Crossmap means making a play on the opposite side of the map to counter the enemy's action. It is a strategy used to avoid enemies where they are stronger by moving to the opposite side of the map. There are countless situations where enemies take objectives without your team responding, and using crossmap as an answer gives you the opportunity to minimize your losses.
Reacting to splitpush: Reacting to splitpush means responding to an enemy's split push by matching it, taking objectives or forcing a fight. Splitpushing is one of the most used strategies in the game, yet many players fail to counter it: not finding the right response makes the map crumble and teammates panic. Choose the best tool to disrupt the enemy split pusher and relieve side lane pressure.
Lane swap: Lane swap is a strategy of changing lane assignments to gain an advantage in matchups, objectives or map control. It lets you avoid bad matchups and optimize map control: when you are tired of counter picks or feel useless in your lane, a lane swap addresses those issues.
Shadowing: Shadowing means positioning near an ally to protect them or enable aggressive plays without being directly seen. It is a mid to late game concept of covering your teammate without showing yourself on vision, most often used to impact volatile side lane matchups. If you can predict a fight happening on the side lane, move preemptively to surprise the enemy.
Fogging: Fogging means applying map pressure by going into the fog of war. Sometimes it is enough to step into the fog to disrupt enemy plans and force them to play safer, passively applying pressure by not showing on vision. If you stay on enemy vision, opponents have an easier time making proactive decisions, so hide in a bush to dissuade them from forcing aggressive plays.
Synchronizing waves: Synchronizing waves means aligning multiple waves to crash at the same time, maximizing pressure across the map, and is most applicable when using Baron buff. Synchronizing your waves during a siege multiplies the pressure you put on your opponents: crashing minions one by one gives enemies a chance to repel your siege with little effort, while coordinating your wave management for a simultaneous assault leaves your foes little room to breathe.
Shifting: Shifting means changing lane assignments in the mid and late game to balance map pressure and safety. It is an advanced lane assignment pattern, most often used in high elo games and the pro scene. Strict lane assignment in the mid and late game makes map movement very rigid, either slowing down the game or leaving a sidelaner exposed, while shifting lets you change team lane assignments smoothly for better preparation before the next objective.

Fighting (12)

Choosing, forcing and winning fights: trading, engaging, target priority and teamfight execution.

Trading: Trading is choosing between poke, short trades, long trades or all-ins based on the situation and win conditions. In League of Legends, different champions prefer different types of trades in lane, and using inappropriate trading patterns usually results in a lost lane. Acknowledge your champion's strengths and weaknesses and choose your trading strategy accordingly.
Traps & catches: Traps and catches are about setting up or exploiting vision and tempo to ambush enemies with sudden, decisive plays. Catching enemies off guard is one of the best ways to find easy kills: when enemies keep staying one step ahead, analyze their intentions and use that against them.
Target prioritisation: Target prioritisation is about focusing the right champion in a teamfight based on threat, positioning and win conditions. It is crucial in teamfights, and failing to identify the right target often leads to messy fights. Assess the situation and save your cooldowns for the right enemies.
Ganking: Ganking is attacking enemy laners with the goal to kill, burn their resources or fix the wave state. It's a great way to get an advantage in the early game: don't tunnel vision on clearing camps or farming. Use your map awareness to punish enemy mistakes in lane.
Positioning: Positioning is placing yourself optimally for safety and pressure in lane and in fights. It is all about finding the balance between safety and damage output in a given situation: adapt to any possible threat and try to predict enemy actions. Poor positioning makes you an easy target, while good positioning keeps you alive long enough to kill your enemies.
Forcing a fight: Forcing a fight means engaging or pressuring enemies into a fight when they lack key resources, are overextended or when you have a numbers advantage. Fighting is at the core of League of Legends, so knowing how and when to begin one is crucial: missing opportunities to initiate lets enemies play much more aggressively, while knowing what to look for helps you be ready when the opportunity arises.
Teamfighting: Teamfighting involves coordinating with your team during a fight through positioning and target prioritization based on your composition's strengths and weaknesses. As a concept it might sound simple, yet it requires a delicate approach every time. Beating your head against a stronger frontline, or diving deep instead of protecting your hypercarries, are the most common mistakes players make. Finding the best use for your composition and identifying enemy weak spots is the key to successful teamfighting.
Counter ganking: Counter-ganking is anticipating and responding to an enemy gank to turn the fight in your team's favor. It's about predicting enemy actions and assessing skirmish potential. Missing a good opportunity can set you and your laner behind, while finding a successful counter gank is even more valuable than ganking, because you get ahead and enemies are thrown back.
Diving: Diving is forcing a fight under the enemy tower. It usually poses significant risk and requires optimal map awareness and wave management: trying to kill an enemy under tower can be very risky, and flipping a dive is the easiest way to throw a game. Minimize the risk by gathering the necessary information about your opponents.
Baiting: Baiting is deliberately making a mistake or placing yourself in danger to lure enemies into a bad fight. It is a mindgame used to provoke enemies into a mistake, but there is a fine line between baiting and inting, so make sure your team is on the same page. Proper execution leads to enemies playing right into your hand.
Fight outcome prediction: Fight outcome prediction is about predicting fights by evaluating each team's power spikes, positioning, cooldowns and items. This kind of fortune-telling in League of Legends is not magic, but a skill you can improve on: misreading the situation at hand and committing to bad plays will throw you back over and over again, while understanding the possible outcomes of any fight lets you avoid unnecessary deaths.
Advanced teamfighting: Advanced teamfighting involves the use of terrain, vision setups and creative flanks. At the highest level it revolves around intricate details like objective approach routes, vision setup, engage locations and terrain advantage. Misreading the enemy team's preferred playstyle or win conditions can cost you a game, while treating every teamfight as a puzzle of its own and solving it well wins you more games.

Game State (10)

Tracking the information that decides every fight: levels, cooldowns, power spikes, tempo and win conditions.

Level up timers: Level up timers track how much experience a champion needs before leveling up, since a level advantage matters most in the early game. Tracking them helps you get kills and avoid deaths in lane: disrespecting a level difference can end your lane for good, while counting waves and minions helps you play around your strengths and weaknesses.
Tracking ultimates: Tracking ultimates helps your decision making, because ultimates are generally the strongest ability in a champion's kit. They can turn the tables in seconds, and disrespecting this big button usually leads to your demise. Playing around ultimate cooldowns, allied or enemy, gives you the space you need to carry the game.
Tracking powerspikes: Tracking powerspikes means knowing when a champion becomes significantly stronger due to completed items or ability levels. There is a point in the game when a champion is at its strongest from levels or items: if you forget about those, enemies can run you down easily, while playing around power spikes makes shutting you down one hell of a task.
Tracking skill cooldowns: Tracking skill cooldowns is about playing around the cooldowns of your teammates' and opponents' basic abilities. Those abilities have cooldowns, and playing around them is an important skill: make your move when opponents waste their cooldowns and be more cautious when the abilities are up. You will win trades and fights more consistently.
Tracking tempo: Tracking tempo means reading the game's pace by considering the time it takes for champions to get to a certain location. Knowing how long it takes to get back to lane is crucial information for proactive plays, and a wrong time assessment often results in catastrophe. Consider homeguards and the routes champions are likely to take to make the best decision.
Tracking spells: Tracking spells involves keeping a mental note, pinging and even timing the cooldowns of enemies' flashes, exhausts, heals and ignites. Summoner spells like Flash are the most universal, yet most valuable asset any champion has: wasting them results in dire situations, while knowing that enemies lack them gives you an opportunity to outplay them.
Tracking teleports: Tracking teleports involves keeping a mental note, pinging and even timing the cooldowns of enemies' teleports. Teleport is a spell that gives you extra presence on the map, and you will pay dearly for ignoring the teleports available to your enemies. Tracking them helps you avoid significant losses on the map.
Win condition identification: Win condition identification is the process of determining the most reliable paths to victory for both teams and choosing which one to commit to in a given situation. Win conditions differ from game to game and from patch to patch: metas and champions change, yet your strategy adapts to the situation at hand. In some games scaling is the answer, giving your late game champions room to breathe; in others snowballing is preferable, tunneling resources into your early game champions for a swift victory. Do not forget to deny enemies their win conditions, since making it harder for your foes to reach their goals boosts your chances of winning. And pay attention to your team composition, whether 1-3-1, 1-4, heavy teamfighting or poke, estimating your strengths and weaknesses correctly to achieve victory.
Tracking item cooldowns: Tracking item cooldowns is about playing around the cooldowns of your teammates' and opponents' items like Quicksilver Sash, Zhonya's Hourglass, Mikael's, Guardian Angel and Hextech Rocketbelt. Tracking cooldowns on enemy items is a very useful habit: disregarding them can land you in awkward situations, while knowing their cooldowns gives you the upper hand in any fight.
Tracking enemy wards: Tracking enemy wards means timing enemy trinket cooldowns and placement, and checking enemy support item ward counts on the scoreboard to create opportunities on the map. Controlling enemy vision is not only about clearing wards, but also about tracking them in the enemy inventory, since teamplay in the mid and late game relies heavily on vision. If you do not track the wards available to enemies, your vision control will suffer, while paying attention to the inventory lets you manage your Oracle Lens properly.

Example patterns in action

Wave management is where most solo-queue mistakes begin. Choosing to freeze, slow-push or fast-push a wave decides whether you can recall safely, roam, or set up the next objective, the foundation of the macro game.

Ganking turns a jungler's pathing into kills and tempo. Reading lane states, vision and enemy cooldowns is the difference between a free kill and a wasted gank. See the dedicated ganking guide for the full breakdown.

Teamfighting ties positioning, target priority and cooldown tracking together when the whole map collapses onto one fight. Learn how to execute it in the teamfighting guide.

Frequently asked questions

What is a macro pattern in League of Legends?

A macro pattern is a repeatable, trainable decision you make outside of direct combat: where to move after a recall, which objective to take, when to ward, how to manage a wave. MOBA Trainer breaks macro into 51 such patterns so each one can be practiced on its own.

How many patterns does the Pattern Map cover?

The Pattern Map covers 51 macro patterns grouped into five categories: Economy (7), Vision (8), Map Movement (14), Fighting (12) and Game State (10). Every macro decision in a game maps to one or more of these patterns.

Do I need to learn all 51 patterns to climb?

No. Most players lose games to just two or three recurring patterns. Identify the ones that cost you the most, drill them with the interactive puzzles, then move on. You do not need to master all 51 at once.

How does the Pattern Map help me improve?

It turns vague advice like "play smarter" into specific, trainable drills. Each pattern has a short video explanation and decision puzzles built from real scenarios, so you practice the exact reads that win games instead of grinding blindly.

Are the patterns tied to the current patch?

The patterns themselves are evergreen macro concepts that hold across patches, while the puzzles use up-to-date scenarios. That means the map stays relevant even as champions and items change.