If you’ve ever hopped into your first few League of Legends matches and seen teammates spam “focus CS” or “you have terrible CS” in chat, you’ve probably wondered what does CS stand for in League of Legends. The term is one of the most common core gameplay phrases you’ll hear across every rank, and mastering it is the single easiest way to climb out of low elo faster than 90% of other new players. I’ve been playing LoL on and off for 8 years, and I still see even gold-rank players ignore CS to chase meaningless kills that set their entire team behind. Veteran players also often call CS “farm”, so if you see that term thrown around, it’s referring to the exact same mechanic.
What Does CS Stand For in League of Legends, Exactly?
CS is short for Creep Score, and it counts the total number of non-champion units you land the final killing blow on during a match. That includes melee minions, caster minions, siege minions, super minions, and every monster camp in the jungle. I remember my first 10 matches, I thought CS was short for “combat score” and kept running into team fights to pad my stats, wondering why my teammates were yelling at me for being underleveled. That’s a super common mistake for new players, so don’t feel silly if you made the same assumption.
Every CS kill gives you gold to buy items and XP to level up your abilities, two things that matter far more than early kills for long-term success. A single kill on an enemy champion gives you around 300 gold on average, but missing three waves of minions to chase that kill loses you close to 400 gold and two full levels of XP. That means you might get the kill, but you’ll be too weak to win any fights against the enemy laner when you get back to your lane. Even pro players prioritize CS over silly early fights 90% of the time, because they know the gold and XP lead adds up fast.
How CS Calculations Work Across Different LoL Game Modes
CS works slightly differently depending on what game mode you’re playing, but the core rule stays the same across all of them. On Summoner’s Rift, the standard ranked and casual 5v5 mode, melee minions give around 25 gold each, caster minions give around 20 gold, siege minions give 60 to 90 gold depending on how long the match has gone on, and jungle camps give between 40 and 100 gold per clear. Super minions that spawn after you take an enemy inhibitor give even more gold, so you never want to leave those unattended under your tower.
You only get the full gold and XP reward for a unit if you land the final killing blow, not if you just deal damage to it. Even if you hit a minion for 99% of its health, if your allied minion or turret gets the last hit, you’ll only get a tiny fraction of the gold and almost no XP from it. That’s why last hitting is such a critical skill to learn, even if it feels tedious when you first start practicing.
In ARAM, the random 5v5 mode on Howling Abyss, CS still counts but you get a higher rate of passive gold to make up for the constant team fights. Even so, missing too much CS in ARAM will still leave you underleveled and underitemized compared to the enemy team, so it’s worth taking a second to land last hits between team fights. For rotating game modes like URF or AR Clash, CS matters far less, but it’s still a good habit to practice whenever you can.
Pro Tips to Improve Your CS Score Fast
Even if you know what CS stands for in League of Legends now, getting consistent 8+ CS per minute (the benchmark for high-rank play) takes a little practice. I’ve pulled together the easiest tips I teach all my new friends who pick up the game, none of which require you to grind 10 hours a day to master:
- Practice last hitting in a custom game for 10 minutes before you play ranked matches. Turn off all other bots, just play your usual lane and focus only on landing killing blows on minions without using abilities unless you have to. You’ll get a feel for your champion’s auto attack damage and attack speed really fast this way, without the pressure of an enemy laner harassing you.
- Use your abilities to clear waves only when you plan to roam back to base or gank another lane. Wasting mana on wave clear when you’re just staying in lane will leave you with no resources to fight if the enemy laner jumps you, and you’ll still miss CS if your abilities don’t land killing blows. Save your abilities for fights or for clearing waves fast when you need to leave lane.
- Adjust your rune page for easier CS if you’re playing a champion with low base attack damage. Runes like Adaptive Force or Manaflow Band can give you extra damage or mana to land last hits without wasting resources, especially in the early game when minions have low health and you don’t have any items to boost your damage.
Most new players hit around 4-5 CS per minute when they start out, so don’t beat yourself up if you’re not hitting 8 right away. Even getting to 6 CS per minute will put you ahead of 70% of low elo laners, since most of them will abandon their lane to chase fights across the map after the first 10 minutes. I still only average 7.5 CS per minute in my platinum ranked games, and that’s more than enough to carry most of my matches.
Common CS Mistakes to Avoid As a New Player
The most common mistake I see new players make is dropping 3+ waves of CS to chase a single low-health enemy champion across the map. 9 times out of 10, that enemy will get away, and you’ll lose hundreds of gold and multiple levels worth of XP that would have let you win fights later anyway. If the enemy is running back to their tower and you don’t have a clear way to kill them without dying, just turn around and farm the minions in front of you. You’ll get way more value out of that choice almost every time.
Never leave a full wave of minions under your tower unless your team is taking a dragon, turret, or Baron Nashor that will give your team more total value than the CS you’re losing. Those objectives give your entire team gold and buffs that make the lost CS worth it, but running across the map to help a teammate win a 1v1 fight that doesn’t get an objective is almost never a good trade. I used to make this mistake all the time when I first started playing, and I couldn’t figure out why I was always two levels behind the enemy laner until I started tracking my CS per minute.
Another common mistake is spamming auto attacks on minions the second they enter lane, which pushes the wave into the enemy tower and makes it way harder to land last hits. Turrets deal high damage to minions, so you’ll have to time your attacks perfectly to get the kill before the turret finishes them off. You also leave yourself open to ganks from the enemy jungler, since you’re positioned far away from your own tower. Only auto attack minions when you’re going for the last hit, unless you’re intentionally trying to push the wave to take a turret or roam.
If you play jungle, don’t forget that your monster camps count towards your CS total too. Junglers have a slightly lower CS per minute benchmark of 6-7, since you spend time ganking lanes and securing objectives, but abandoning your camps to gank nonstop will leave you underleveled and useless for team fights later. Try to clear a full camp or two between ganks to keep your CS and XP up, and you’ll be way more effective when team fights start.
At the end of the day, understanding what does CS stand for in League of Legends is the first step to building a solid gameplay foundation that will let you climb ranks with ease. You don’t have to be a pro player with perfect CS to have fun, but even small improvements to your farming will make every match feel less frustrating and more rewarding. Next time you load into a match, take 10 seconds before the minions spawn to remind yourself to prioritize those last hits, and you’ll be shocked how much faster you get better at the game.