After months of hard work, and many a Sunday evening parked in front of your computer, you have finally acended from the noob dregs and are ready to start ranked play.
Congratulations! Are you ready to have all of your hopes and aspiration crushed in an instant? Good, perhaps you are ready after all. Many players who have recently reached level 30 have found that ranked play is on a whole different level than what they are accustomed to. So how can you hang with the big boys? Here are ten things you can do to get started with bringing your game up to gold or possibly even platinum.
1) Increase your CS (creep score)
Without a competitive creep score, many new players get overwhelmed by their opponents ability to put together a strong opening build off of minion farmed gold. Most pros say the same thing: if you aren't getting last hits, make a game with bots and practice until you are getting every last hit possible. The best players aim to have a CS of 100 by the ten minute mark. It is a difficult feat to pull off, but with as much gold as 100 creeps give, the likelyhood of you snowballing your way to victory will skyrocket.
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Don't get left out in the cold
2) Proper Skill Progression
Most casual players simply go with their gut when it comes to leveling up skills. This is fine for the lower levels of play, but it is far from ideal if you are climbing the ranks among highly skilled players. Make sure to consult detailed guides on Mobafire, and give a little thought and consideration to where you place those valuable skill points.
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skillshots are key
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Welcome to hell!
3) Harassing
While focusing on your own creep score is crucial, so is denying the enemy champ the ability to farm gold at his or her leisure. LoL really is a multi-tasking game, so make sure to divide your focus evenly between increasing your own gold farm, and limiting your opponents. Push them back to the tower as much as possible and deny, deny, deny.
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Blitz is a great harasser
4) Good use of Masteries
Having a mastery page tailored to the champion of your choice is not something you can do without at the upper levels of LoL. Simply following a guide is good, but it is no replacement for having a page that matches exactly what you are trying to accomplish, customized to your play style. If it has been a while since you last touched it up, spending some time and energy on really tweaking your pages may give you the boost you need to bust out of bronze.
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An offensively stacked tree
5) Lead your Team
Bad organization and a lack of leadership loses more games than anything else. Too many people refuse to communicate, and simply roam where they please without a teamwork strategy in mind. While you don't want to be bossy, being active in communicating can help put together the kind of push that can drop a couple of turrets and win the game. When your allies are all roaming other parts of the map, try calling for a precision strike or planning an ambush- just don't be passive when it comes to putting teamwork into action.
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Mord leads us to victory
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Teemo is a cuddly little mushroom chomper who it pays to play once or twice at least
6) Know the Champs
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Pick your poison
The free weekly rotation is your friend. Since focusing on a few champions to master is highly recommended, many people play for years without learning what all of the champions are capable of- which makes countering these unknown enemies nearly impossible. Take some time every week with the rotation and play a few bot games, as the more you know about various characters the better you will be prepared to counter them. A platinum player will know the abilities of nearly every champ in the game.
7) Playing Conservatively
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The pros always wait for the right moment
So many players simply feed their way to a loss. Don't be that person. If you notice yourself losing exchanges, don't be afraid to back off and focus on last hitting creeps. It is way better for your team if you hang back, get behind a level and guard the turret than it is for you to feed ziggs 12 kills in 25 minutes (gg).
8) Be Willing to Switch Lanes
Sometimes you will find that you are simply mismatched. It may be a skill imbalances, or simply that the champ you've have chosen doesn't have a very effective counter for your lane opponent. In these cases, switch lanes. Do it early, and don't look back. Too many people are stuck on the meta (tank/fighter top, ADC bottom etc.). While it serves a purpose, the meta is useless if you are feeding your lane opponent, and there are other ways to skin a cat. Be willing to improvise and try new things if you are finding your kill/death ratio is getting embarassing.
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Top champs need support too
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She is certainly master of that outfit
9) Learn to master a particular Role/Champ
Most great players have two or three champs that they "main". Why? Because your muscles only have so much capacity for memory, and sometimes your reflex to hit that W key on Brand when you are actually playing Gangplank will get the better of you. If you really must branch out, a five character rotation should be the maximum by the time you get to ranked play. This is your roster, your go to guys, your main entourage.
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We all have our favorites
10) Focus
LoL is all about combining several different mini-games into one cohesive effort. You have the CS minigame, the build minigame, the harass minigame, the dragon/baron minigame, the "making sure your allies don't have a hissyfit" minigame. Balancing so many things is difficult to start with, but when you've got the TV on and your other monitor is on reddit cat videos, performing well is going to be simply impossible. A type of meditation session before a big match may help you to zero in on the game and give your best performance.
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Summon your Chi
LoL is a game, and it is supposed to be fun. However, for some people the thrill of victory is the fun. If you are one of these people, then you owe it to youself to constantly improve your game. Keeping up with pro videos will have you at platinum in no time at all.
