Gold (League of Legends)

Gold is the in-game currency of League of Legends. It is used to buy items in the shop that provide champions with bonus stats and abilities, which in turn is one of the main ways for champions to increase their power over the course of a game.

At the beginning of the game, champions are given starting gold based on the map being played on, and can receive more gold through various means. Actively, champions acquire gold through last hitting minions and monsters, destroying enemy turrets, and killing enemy champions (or assisting in kills). Champions also passively generate gold, which can be increased by runes, masteries, and items. Passive gold gain does not activate until minions spawn.

Starting Gold

• Summoner's Rift: Champions start with 500.
• Twisted Treeline: Champions start with 850.
• Crystal Scar:
  • Champions start with 1300 while playing Ascension.
  • Champions start with 1400 while playing Definitely Not Dominion.
• Howling Abyss: Champions start with 1400.

Passive Gold Gain

Gold earned automatically, without requiring direct action from the player, is considered passive gold gain. It is typically quantified in terms of the amount of gold gained over 10 seconds ("gold per 10" for short). Passive gold gain can be increased by runes, masteries, and gold-generating items.

Base Gold Generation

Every champion passively generates gold at a rate that varies from map to map. This gold gain does not begin until minions spawn (or on Crystal Scar, at 1:30).

• Summoner's Rift: 20.4 per 10 seconds.
• Twisted Treeline: 16 per 10 seconds.
• Crystal Scar: 56 per 10 seconds.
• Howling Abyss: 55 per 10 seconds.

Items

Gold Income Items

Certain items are categorized as gold income items, of which champions can only carry one of at a time.

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Selling Items

• All items can be sold back at the shop for 70% of their total cost.
  • The exceptions to this rule are returning only 40% of their original cost:
    • Gold generating items:
      • Favor's line:
      • Spoils of War's line:
      • Tribute's line:
    • Consumable items:
      • Potions:
      • Vision items (except Tracker's Knife):
      • Elixirs:
    • Starting items:
      • Doran's items:
      • Guardian's items:
    • Guardian Angel
  • When you undo an item purchase, you are refunded the full cost. Gold generation items also return any gold they generated.

Runes

	Type	Tier 3	% of Highest	Price
Gold
	Seal	0.25	75%	410 Influence Point
	Quintessence	1	100%	515 Influence Point

Active Gold Gain

Gold that is earned through direct action from the player is considered active gold gain. It can be increased by masteries, and items.

Killing Minions, Monsters, and Pets

Gold can be earned by dealing the killing blow ("last hit") to enemy minions and neutral monsters.

• The gold earned from minion kills is dependent on the game time. As the game progresses, each minion is worth more.
• The gold earned from neutral monsters also increases over time, depending on when the monsters were spawned. In addition, the largest monster in a minor camp will slowly increase its gold value to a modest cap after approximately two minutes.
• Pets and summons such as Annie's Tibbers, Malzahar's Voidling, Shaco's Jack in the Box, and Zyra's Plants grant gold to the champion who kills them.
• Certain epic monsters give gold globally, providing gold for the entire team. The champion who lands the killing blow receives an additional 25.

Champion Kills and Assists

Gold can be earned by killing or assisting in killing enemy champions. The gold gain is determined by how many kills the slain champion has recently accumulated (champions that have killed many enemies without dying are worth more gold).

• Gold bounty stages are formally classified into Bounty Tiers.

• A champion's bounty increases as he accumulate kills without dying, starting at 2 kills (tier 2).
• Shutdowns now reduced your current Bounty Tier by 3 changed rather than fully resetting it.

• Gold granted to the killer is 300 at all Bounty Tiers.
  • 400 in case of first blood.
• Assist pool is 150 at all Bounty Tiers.
  • 200 in case of first blood assist.
• Assist pool is shared evenly among all people who get an assist.
• Champions are worth global gold based on Bounty Tier. This is granted in full to all allied champions -- living or dead -- on top of the gold earned for killing/assisting.
  • Tier 1: 20 Note that it is only possible to enter Tier 1 by being shutdown from Tier 4.
  • Tier 2: 30 (2 kills).
  • Tier 3: 60 (Killing Spree, 3 kills).
  • Tier 4: 70 (Rampage, 4 kills).
  • Tier 5: 90 (Unstoppable, 5+ kills).

Death sprees reduce the gold gained (kill/assist) from champions by a set amount based on their consecutive deaths without getting a single kill (starts to take effect once a champion has their Bounty Tier reduced to 0).

• 1st death: 300 (assist pool is 150)
• 2nd death: 274 (assist pool is 137)
• 3rd death: 220 (assist pool is 110)
• 4th death: 176 (assist pool is 88)
• 5th death: 140 (assist pool is 70)
• 6th death: 112 (assist pool is 56)
• 7th death: 90 (assist pool is 45)
• 8th death: 72 (assist pool is 36)
• 9th death: 58 (assist pool is 29)
• 10th death: 50 (assist pool is 25)
• Every 1000 gold earned from minions / monsters reduces the death spree by 1 death

Destroying Structures

• Destroying a turret grants varying amounts of gold (refer to the specific wiki page).
• Destroying an inhibitor or nexus grants the player 50, but the latter is irrelevant as it also causes the game to end.

Destroying Wards

• Destroying a ward will grant the player Gold.

Favor

Favor grants gold and heals each time a nearby enemy minion dies that you didn't kill.

The following items grant Favor:

• Ancient Coin – Template:Item data Ancient Coin
• Nomad's Medallion – Template:Item data Nomad's Medallion
• Talisman of Ascension – Template:Item data Talisman of Ascension
• Eye of the Oasis – Template:Item data Eye of the Oasis

Spoils of War

Spoils of War: Melee autoattacks execute minions below a certain amount of health. Killing a minion by any means heals yourself and the nearest allied champion and grants them kill gold. These effects require a nearby allied champion and consume a charge.

The following items grant Spoils of War:

• Relic Shield – Template:Item data Relic Shield
• Targon's Brace – Template:Item data Targon's Brace
• Face of the Mountain – Template:Item data Face of the Mountain
• Eye of the Equinox – Template:Item data Eye of the Equinox

Tribute

Tribute: Damaging an enemy champion or structure deals additional damage and grants the wielder gold. Tribute can be triggered up to three times every 30 seconds.

The following items grant Tribute:

• Spellthief's Edge – Template:Item data Spellthief's Edge
• Frostfang – Template:Item data Frostfang
• Frost Queen's Claim – Template:Item data Frost Queen's Claim
• Eye of the Watchers – Template:Item data Eye of the Watchers

Masteries

•  Bandit: Gain 1 for each nearby minion killed by an ally. Gain 3 / 10 when hitting an enemy champion with a basic attack or an ability that applies on-hit effects.

Champion Abilities

Some champions have abilities that grant them additional gold under certain circumstances.

• Draven's League of Draven : When Draven catches a Spinning Axe, kills a minion or monster or destroys a turret, he gains a stack of Adoration. In addition, Draven generates 2 bonus Adoration stacks if he kills 6 minions in a row without dropping an axe. When Draven kills an enemy champion, he consumes all of his Adoration stacks and gains 25 + (2 × stacks). Draven loses 75% of his Adoration stacks upon death.
• Gangplank's Parrrley grants 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 if it lands the killing blow on an enemy unit.
• Twisted Fate's Loaded Dice grants him 1 to 6 for every unit killed. The chance of getting 6 is 33%, while the chance of getting 1-5 is 13% each, making the total average 4.

Seizing Capture Points (Crystal Scar Only)

• Players gain 100 for neutralizing a point, and 100 for capturing a point. This number is dependent on the number of champions involved in the capture of a point: two champions will each gain 75, and three champions will each gain 63.

Capturing Altars (Twisted Treeline Only)

• When someone on your team seizes an altar 80 is globally earned for each member of the team.

 Trivia

• Most gold possible from a single teamfight : 8535 (abilities and items that increase gold income excluded)
  • Requires 1 champion on winning side to be very negative in KDA, 1 champion must get all 5 max shut downs, the 3 remaining must have 4 assists over kills before the fight.
  • Everyone but the player getting the shut downs must get an assist on every shut down. Everyone on the winning side must survive the fight.

See also

• Gold efficiency