Want to Step Up your League of Legends Game? Read this First

League of Legends is a fun and frustrating game. There are a lot of things that you cannot control such as the quality of your teammates, but there are some things that you can control that will help you win a lot more games. If you want to move up the ladder and win more games, there are a few things that you can start today that will make a huge difference. No matter what rank you are now, these few tips can help you get unstuck.

Pick a Role and a Champion That Compliments Your Personal Playstyle

With Riot continually releasing Champions, there are always new things to try. However, these will always fall into a couple of standard categories. In general, the champions are either Marksman, Bruisers, Tanks, Assassins, or Mages. There are variations of each but almost every LOL champ falls into these main categories. Find which types of champs fit your particular playstyle.

Once you have that locked in, you can select a role that will let that style champ thrive. As an example, if you find yourself playing really well with assassins, then you might find a home in the mid lane. You usually have another assassin or mage matchup and have access to roam to other lanes easily. If you are excelling with tank champions, you might find more success as a top laner, jungler, or support.

Reduce Your Champion Pool

Once you have found the champs you like to play, it is time to specialize. There is a direct correlation between time and proficiency. Simply put, if you want to get better at playing a certain champion, you must play that champion more. In almost all cases, win rate goes up with more games played.

With that in mind, you want to choose a few champs that you have some success with and focus on them. You need to have more than one in case your champ gets banned or the other team picks a hard counter to you, but you want to keep your pool as small as possible. This will maximize the amount of time you play each champ in your pool.

Learn How to Manage the Minion Wave

This is an important skill at every ELO. Wave management is probably one of the biggest skills that will help you just a rank or two immediately. Every last hit on a minion provides gold. So that means every missed minion potentially puts you behind. Going back to the platform at the wrong time could cost you hundreds of gold at a time and contribute to a losing lane.

Without any champion interference, the minions should stay in the middle of the lane. An even number of minions on each side will push to the middle and then stay there. Once one side has more minions then the other it will push in the direction of the least amount of minions. A “slow push” is when there are just a few more minions on one side. This will move very slowly in one direction. A “freeze” in when you have the wave set in a place that it will not move and stays stuck in that spot in the lane.

When you want to back to get more items or health, you want to have the minions pushing away from you. The ideal is that you push them all the way under the enemy tower. This resets the lane and allows you to back without losing many of your minions. You definitely do not want to back if it is going to cause you to lose a wave or two of precious minion gold.

If you have control of the lane and the enemy champ is having a hard time stepping up to get their CS, then you want to freeze the lane to prolong your advantage. The longer you stay in that position, the more gold you have over your opponent. They may even become desperate and make a positioning mistake that will allow you to increase your KDA.

Understand When You Can Tower Dive

Eliminating an enemy champ under their own tower can be a devastating blow to their morale. Tower diving is an incredibly champ dependent activity. Some champions like Ekko, Volibear, and Pantheon have abilities in their kits that make tower diving easier. Others like Akali, Katerina, and Zed perform devastating combos so quickly that they are able to finish off the enemy and make it back out in time.

Knowing when you can dive and more importantly when you cannot will help you swing more games into your favor.  

Itemize According to the Enemy Team Composition

One mistake a lot of players make is that they have a single “build” that they use in every situation. Having a core build is a good idea, but you need to be able to make changes to it based on the enemy teams composition. Building Ninja Tabis against an all AP team would not make any sense (we’ve actually seen this happen.) Customize based on the team composition and also the champions who are successful on the other team. Boot are a great example of this, but also consider items that provide AD or AP resistances, grievous wounds, armor pen, and others.

Watch Your Mini Map More Often

We guarantee you are looking at your mini map often enough. Top players glance at the map every few seconds. Knowing when the jungler is on the other side of the map can make a huge difference in how aggressive you play. Seeing lanes that have missing champions might give you an idea of a collapse or a dragon attempt.

Play Around Objectives

Why are you where you are? You should have a reason for the place you are on the map. Paying attention to objective timers and being on the correct side of the map to contest important items can really boost your overall win rate. The biggest obstacle in solo queue in keeping people from just running aimlessly around the map. Especially after lane phase, you need to work together as a team to be in the right place at the right time. At the end of the day, it is a game about objectives.

Learn the Transition from Lane Phase to Team Phase

There is a point in the game where certain players, such as the ADC, should never be alone in a side lane. Once you reach the mid game, especially if tier one towers are down, the team needs to begin to move together with a strategy. The most successful strategies at this stage are 5-man, 4-1 split push or a 1-3-1. Of these, 5-man is by far the most successful in solo queue.

If you do use a split push, make sure the one who splits is a champion that excels at the split push such as Jax or Shen. The split pusher should also have teleport up and ready so that they can join a critical team fight if it breaks out.

Stay Positive

This is not just about being a good sport. Staying positive actually wins more games. When you go negative, it affects your mental disposition and you are more likely to make a mistake. If you begin to express negativity in the chat, your teammates almost always play worse. It is best to must players when they begin to go negative and just focus on your game. Control the things you can control and let everything else go.

These are our biggest tips for climbing the ranked ladder in League of Legends. Hope you have a great time on the rift.

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