This article has been written by Changen from Reddit.
I am a 3 year player of LoL. Season 1, I was below 1k Elo, and such I was unranked. Season 2, I hit my peak at 1400 elo (silver). For Season 3, I am currently at Gold 2, and still climbing rapidly (although intermittent due to work).
My Goal since hitting lvl 30 was to hit Gold Elo, and today I am going to tell everyone some uncommon tip to reach this Elo.
Mechanics are overrated
Bad decision making will always lose you games, where as the best mechanics will only win you some games. Learn how the games plays out, not how to play the game.
Learn all the roles, but you don’t need to be good at them.
Learning the roles makes you understand your own playing style. The longest time I believed that I must learn every position and good at them (due people making this same suggestions online repeatedly). That is simply not true. I am terrible at ADC and support. I am confident that Bronze Elo players will be able to win against me in a ranked match. Concentrating on 1 or 2 roles (currently maining top and jungle) while understanding how the other roles operate is important to raising Elo.
Never surrender and never get complacent with a lead
Many times I have won games where it was 0-10 at 15 minutes, and have lost 10-0 games. ONE kill (especially the death of a jungler) at the 30 minute mark is worth infinitely more than 3 kills at 5 minutes. So never be complacent with a lead or give up. The game is not over until the nexus explodes.
Every Elo operates differently, don’t just copy streamers
I hate to say it, but in streams you don’t learn much of how to gain Elo. You might understand fundamental aspects of the game such as how waves push or how to protect and take objectives and you will become a better player, but you will never learn how to Elo grind.
Here some tips for different Elo ranges:
Bronze
STOP TOWER DIVING
I played on a friends account, and there were cho’gath and olaf running under towers trying to get a kill only to feed, get behind on XP, and then trying to tower dive again while under-lvl’d. Not Dying>>>Kills. A death for you usually means multiple assists for the other team. And your dive will usually end in failure.
Learn to build properly
I have see Olafs rushing BT and Caits rushing Static Shivs into LW. Learn the roles you are playing and build properly, even if it means simply memorizing a build (Rushing BT into PD into LW into GA into IE). These builds are not effecient for the individual games, but they will always work. Only when you understand how to build properly should make your own decisions on how to build.
Silver
PLAY DAMAGE Bruisers
I never got past silver by playing tanky. Either I was ahead and I became an invincible tank and my team simply didn’t do any damage, or I was fed to hell with damage as an ADC but I had no team for peel. (People still have troubles with builds at this stage, so gold is not used effeciently) This is where Bruisers come in. In low elo, most teams have a lot of trouble on team fighting. Most of the time the ADC is the first to go. Bruisers innately have lots of base damage and they usually come with some form of defensive ability and CC. They are able to carry with damage and yet be tanky enough to team fight on the front line. Build your bruiser with 2 damage items and then go all defensive items. My favorite bruisers are Monkey, J4, Xin, and Renek.
PUSH and ROAM (especially as mid or top lane)
People have really bad map awareness. And they rarely pay attention to chat MIAS or ward their own jungles or lanes. By pushing very fast, you are able to roam around and obtain kills from other lanes if your lane becomes a boring farm lane. Kills in this Elo is the most important thing. People are not as great in mechanics and CSing, so kills are the best way to snowball the game
How to rise in Gold
Play Tanky Bruisers
Your team needs a front line tank with CC. As mentioned above, Bruisers have damage, CC and defensive abilities. However, your primary job is now to protect the carry and survive as long as possible. Build almost ALL TANKY ITEMS.
Find the most GOLD EFFICIENT BUILD PATH
Say you are against a Xin top as Renek and the enemy mid lane is LB and bot is a Vayne. Even though Mogs, Randuins and Sunfire would do equally well against Xin, you need to be awareness of late game snowballs and choose early game items correctly. I would personally first get a Wardens and then get a mogs. Then getting an Aegis or finishing Randuins for late game team fight. You do not have the money to get all 3 items. Choose wisely and spend your gold efficiently.
Learn to Peel
I was stuck at Gold 4 for a long time as I continued my strategy of Damage bruisers: Going hard, kill the enemy carry, die and win the game. Sad truth was I was getting CC continuously and never even got close to killing the carry, especially in close games. Peeling is any diver’s greatest fear. Even with a hard engage tank as Xin, i have learned to peel with him. (Diving the carry, force CC from the other team, then run back to your carry to prevent divers from killing the ADC).
Obviously, once you mastered something from a lower Elo, it should become instinctive of how to incorporate the things that you learned from before into a higher Elo.
And the most Important tip:
Always have fun
Anxiety destroys mechanics, and decision making. It’s worse than playing drunk. (I know because I have done it before) Wow, huge wall of text, not really a short guide hmm…
