Snowball

For the summoner spell, see Mark.

Snowballing refers to a team's successful completion of an objective resulting in one or more successful objectives in quick succession, and the advantage that team gains over the enemy due to it. Snowballing may also refer to the systems that enable it.

Because the amount and rewards of minions and non-epic monsters spawned on the map are symmetric, two teams' or role counterparts' income of experience and gold is expected to be exactly equal when farming at the same rate. Systems, kills, and objectives instead all provide an additional and immediate reward that breaks the equilibrium and progresses the game. Snowballing rewards aggressive play and results in faster games. It is meant to contrast the power champions get from passively scaling, which does not progress the game, but can become equally as decisive for the game's outcome eventually.

Snowballing is conceptually balanced around the existence of two map halves, which may grant equivalent (but not necessarily equal) opportunities for both teams to acquire rewards. In single-lane maps, snowballing is mostly or entirely sourced from successful teamfighting.

The term is derived from the metaphor of an actual snowball rolling down a hill, continuously picking up snow (= resources) and momentum (= tempo).

Qualities[]

Game progression encompasses advantages in map resource acquirement and map tempo:

Resource acquirement refers to experience rewards, gold rewards, and permanent buffs. These may come from takedowns, monster kills, minion kills, turrets, etc.
Tempo refers to the time advantage (in seconds) of one team or player reaching and successfully completing an objective first. Tempo is therefore very closely tied to respawn timers, item prices, recall timers for shopping and regeneration, out-of-combat movement speed, and time-to-kill of minion waves and monsters.

By definition, snowballing does not exist when two teams as a whole or two role counterparts individually have the same XP and the same active gold (= gold actually spent on items). It may begin at any stage of the game when a team or a specific champion starts to have more XP and active gold than the enemy for a prolonged period of time and across multiple objectives. It may stop when both teams or role counterparts are in equilibrium again. A successful snowball is an advantage that is sustained until the game is ultimately won.

The rate of snowballing has a hard cap due to the strength and rewards of objectives as well as the maximum power that champions can possibly gain at a given time. Snowballing itself is immediately and permanently removed from the current game when all champions — especially all carries — reach the maximum level and complete their inventory with Legendary-tier items and an Elixir, as this implies they have acquired the highest power possible through experience and gold. However, certain champions that have infinitely stacking effects can break this rule.

Snowballing systems[]

These effects' purpose is to incentivize a greater power advantage than one gained by simply farming, and usually through champion kills with a further inherent risk attached. For example, some of the stacking effects may lose stacks upon death, highlighting the greatest form of risk-and-reward. Snowball items are meant to have exceptional gold efficiency when stacked.

Abilities[]

Items[]

Runes[]

Buffs[]

Dragon Slayer and Dragon Soul
Touch of the Void and Hunger of the Void

Active snowballing[]

Snowballing involves successfully completing objectives, which may include acquiring more champion takedowns than the opponent. Killing enemy champions gives access to dynamic rewards that do not exist purely through largely unchanging creeps and objectives. Entire teams, a group of players, or a single player may take an opportunity that arises from their lead in tempo in order to gain a lead in resources through kills and objectives. Tempo and resource leads can be accelerated by pressuring the enemy team with even more kills and objectives, therefore creating a snowball.

Snippets of active snowballing that may be encountered in a game include:

The jungler consistently taking away camps from the enemy counterpart during invades, thus leaving them at a deficit.
Ganks or 1-on-1 (solo) kills helping a player get fed and they in turn roam or split-push, to kill more enemies and advance minion waves.
Using Hand of Baron and Aspect of the Dragon to push lanes very quickly and kill enemies more easily.
Slaying Rift Herald and then summoning her to nuke potentially many turrets or turret plates in succession.
True Form rewarding Bel'Veth with multi-stat bonuses that she can overpower enemies with, as well as pushing power with swarms of summoned remora.

And others.

Anti-snowballing[]

There are some systems in place meant to inhibit or reverse snowballing, which allow the losing team to narrow the gap in resources:

Kill bounties
Objective bounties
Earlier respawn timers being significantly shorter than later ones
The Homeguard buff after respawning.
Comeback XP:
- Generic
- Kill bonuses on over-leveled champions
- For jungling ( Gustwalker Hatchling, Mosstomper Seedling, Scorchclaw Pup)

Finally, momentary opportunities such as catching and killing off an important enemy champion, or stealing a major objective ( Rift Herald, Elder Dragon, Baron Nashor) can potentially greatly turn the course of the game for the losing team.

Anti-carry[]

"Anti-carry" is a term that applies to a number of champions that may or may not be a carry themselves, but they are explicitly given multiple different tools meant to inhibit or prevent carries on the enemy team from functioning and snowballing, while remaining relatively safe themselves. The combination of damage output, range, potential tempo (usually due to superior wave-clear), and disruption through crowd control or position manipulation renders them a specialized threat. Anti-carry champions naturally punish carries and greatly benefit from it.

Examples of Anti-carries

League of Legends Wiki