When the game was first released, it featured merely 40 champions. Today, players have more than 150 champions to choose from. Every year, it gets harder for new players to pick up the game due to the constant new releases. Casual players are not an exception either. New patch gets released every two weeks which shakes the game up, more or less. It can be tiring and hard to keep up with all of the changes. And on top of that, you want to improve and get better at it. The following tips will surely help you achieve that and get better rank and higher MMR in League of Legends.
Table of Contents
Play to improve, not to Win
While many don’t want to admit it, League of Legends is one of the grindiest games out there. It takes a lot of games to rank up due to quite low overall LP gains. Furthermore, the whole process of playing one game, going from lobby, to champion select, and finally to the game can be quite lengthy. It doesn’t come off as a surprise when players complain they wasted their time on the game. Playing for a 40-60 minutes just to lose your hard-earned LP is the worst feeling league player can experience.
This is why our first tip is to play to improve, not to win. While destroying enemy nexus is the ultimate goal, there are many smaller steps in order to achieve. In order to improve you will have to play many games and stressing over a lost game, or a bad teammate will just slow your progress down. Furthermore, it will decrease your performance because your mind won’t be clear. Always try to enter the game positively and focus on your play and what you can do to play better.
This is one of the hardest things to do as a gamer, and as a competitor, because many of us play exclusively to win. But, if you play to improve you will naturally get better than your opponents which will lead to more victories. It might not look like that at first, but stick with it and after some time you will feel better playing League. As well, you will also play better!
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Decide your role
Once you feel like you are ready to experience ranked side of League of Legends, make sure you have decided your role beforehand. On the other hand, if you are not sure which role is your best, or the one you like the most try different ones in normal games. Same can also be applied when talking about your favorite champions. Unless you try different ones, you won’t know which one you like the most.
While there are fill players, ones who play different roles depending on what the team needs, it will substantially slow down your learning process. Focusing on one role will let you learn it’s ins and outs, both basics and intermediate processes that come with it. Also, there is much less information that you need to learn for 1 more compared to 5 different ones.
Another tip to getting better at LoL, is to choose one to three champions and stick with them. When we are playing there are things that we do subconsciously, such as right clicking and moving the camera. Farming and controlling your champions mechanics will require you think of them, until you master them and they become part of your subconscious. If you reach this level, you will have more time to think about the game, and improve at the game itself, rather than focusing on your own champion.
Practice Farming
Generally, in League players that have most items are stronger than the others. Building items requires gold which is gained passively, by killing enemies, from neutral objectives or farming. Passive gold is the only constant income that every player has. But, it is extremely low so we can’t count only on it to fund our future items. Not every game there will be many towers taken, nor will the enemy want to fight us and we won’t be able to get kills. But minions will always be there for you.
Having high CS per minute numbers is not only cool, but it’s extremely beneficial. Players who can outfarm their opponents strictly on farming mechanics are generally the ones who tend to make more impact in the game. When it comes to practicing csing, there are 2 steps to it.
First, you will want to increase your CS, or minion, numbers. One of the ways to do it is to go to the Practice Tool, choose your favorite champion and go to your lane. Once you are there try to kill as many minions as you can in the first 10 minutes of the game. Maximum number of minions that you can have at that point is 107. Once you start getting more than 80 regularly, try adding a bot which would represent opposing player.
Secondly, once you improved your csing numbers, you will want to make it part of your passive mind. Like we have explained earlier, having less things for our active mind to focus on gives us a clearer picture of the game. Don’t expect to achieve this fast. Although, once you do you will see instant improvement in your gameplay.
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Learn about Lane States
Six, or 7 (when counting cannon) minions are spawned every 30 seconds. Unlike their spawn times which are consistent, there are different ways they can interact with each other and form different lane states. Most common one is freezing. Look to always set yourself up for success by having optimal lane state depending on the next game’s objective. Here are some most common positions your wave should be in when a certain action is about to happen.
Baron/Dragon – Push mid lane. If you have teleport push bot lane. On the other hand, if you or anyone on your team doesn’t have teleport available set up a slow push on the opposite lane of the objective. To do that kill enemy caster minions and just leave the three melee ones. Same concept can be applied when it comes to taking baron, but just do it on top lane instead.
Enemy recalled – If you have enough mana and damage always try to push the wave into enemy tower. But if you don’t think you’ll be able to do that before enemy minions come try to freeze the wave.
Ganks – Try to have a freeze so that enemy has to overextend
Roam – When you are trying to go for a roam, it’s important to push your wave first so you won’t lose any minions.
Learn your Match Ups
Since there are more than 150 different champions, each game is different. Even if you are a perfect player, there are some match ups you will not be able to carry the game in. But there are still ways for you to impact it. Furthermore, if you have extremely favorable match up you should know how to take full advantage of it.
Here is an example, Zoe vs Irelia. Naturally, Zoe struggles against champions who have gap closers such as dash. Also, she doesn’t have push power of other mages such as Xerath or Ziggs. This leads to her having an extremely unfavorable laning phase versus Irelia. In order to minimize the damage enemy can do to you, you should check what pro players do in such situations. When it comes to this example, Zoe will want to kill caster minions on level 1 with her Q. Then she will crash the wave and let it slowly push to her until she forms a freeze under her tower. There are tons of different concepts depending on champions involved.
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Think about Win Conditions
Every game consists of you and 9 other players. But not every game is on you to carry. Every champion provides their team with its strengths and weaknesses. When we evaluate these, we can come with a game play which revolves around our, and enemies’ win conditions. It’s hard to explain it, so let’s look at the example.
Team A has Malphite, Lillia, Orianna, Ezreal, Lulu and team B has Jayce, Lee Sin, Zed, Jinx, Senna.
Team A wants to survive early game pressure from Lee Sin and strong enemy laners and transition to the mid game where they should have an advantage in 5v5 skirmishes. Malphite is super strong versus full ad teams so he will be tough to deal with. Also, they will outscale the enemy so they always have a plan B.
On the other hand, Team B is at big disadvantage in late game, as well as by being full AD. Only way they can win this game is by getting a huge advantage in the early game and finishing the game quickly. Preferably before 25-minute mark because everything after that favors team A.
By knowing these things, you can adjust the way you play. So, if you are team A you will take less risks in the early game and give windows of opportunities to the enemy. By doing you take away their only win condition and you are bound to win.
Watch Replays
Just like with sports, or instruments, or pretty much anything in life, most of the time there is someone better than us. This can be a sour feeling, but also extremely helpful. You don’t have to go through tough process of learning everything on your own and spending hundreds of hours just to learn something you could have seen other person do in 10 minutes.
Watching professionals, as well as one trick ponies can skyrocket your knowledge of the game and your favorite champion. Many people recommend watching your own replays, but that is not entirely beneficial. Because, if you don’t know what to look for, you won’t know how to spot your mistakes and errors. It is true professional players do it, but they are the best players and they have rarely someone else to watch except themselves. We compiled a list of best lol streamers to watch, but you can search for more on your own.
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Be Self Critical
Admitting that something is your fault and trying to fix your mistakes is a healthy way to constant progress. Shifting the blame onto others and ignoring yourself is extremely toxic behavior. You are the only constant between your numerous games. Everyone else is changing. And yes, maybe you will have a troll, or an afk player. But such games don’t determine who you are as a player.
Conclusion
League of Legends is an extremely hard game and a process of learning is long. There are multiple ways to getting better at League, but you should try to combine all of them for maximum efficiency. Don’t forget to focus on yourself and your improvement. Wins will come on their own