Staying Ahead - When to Stop and Hold Your Rank

Hello, my name is Robbie ‘RobsterMonahan’ Monahan and I’ve been playing LoL for several years now and have found myself in the moderately high ELO rating of mid to high plat. Therefore, I have found a system of gaining, and more importantly retaining, my ranked gains. In this guide, I hope to share a few methods for you to keep your LP or season ranking gains.

But first, I just want to say that none of these changes are drastic but they are still changes and so it is up to you to make them. If you want to get a better rating, then you have to remember this is about you.

Perspective

This one more applies on how you look back at the game you just played and how you felt during the game. I now do this after every ranked game. Personally, I do this by looking back in my mind at each death I had in a game of LoL and a few other stats (my Kill Participation Percentage [or KP%] and ward score). Now if I find that I’m dying solo too often or my KP/ward score are too low, I need to look at my play in a new light or, as some would put it, a new perspective.

But what is this new view? Well it’s simple. Am I in a mental state where I am playing to the best of my ability and does my play show this? (Remember this is me and me alone I’m looking at, not my ‘teammates’.) If not, it's time to stop with the ranked. Go play an ARAM, or whatever fun game mode your game offers, if you want to keep playing, but what I personally recommend is going and knocking a ball around. For me it’s a hockey ball, but a football or even bouncing a rubber ball against a wall or ground can reset you and make you regain your focus. The result of this is that you play in a better mental state, meaning a better quality of play which in turn means you are less likely to lose precious ranked progress (or sweet, sweet LP for me).

Hunger

Now I know this may seem like common sense to most of you now, but think back to how many times you’ve put off something with that old line of "One more game". Now think have you played on an empty stomach as a result. The answer is probably yes. Now when we play on an empty stomach it is going to have a few effects on our body and mind. The first being that our brain is now also taking in extra information from our body saying "LOW FUEL, LOW FUEL!". This means we are going to be slower to react as our motor functions are running on fumes but not only that, our brain is now having to process extra information, processing power that is being wasted on non-gaming thoughts.

That extra bit of thought to place that ward, to check that hold, or to hold your ground can be the difference between victory and defeat. So the point is if your hungry, don’t ignore it for ranked. Your body is smart enough to alert you, so get your grub on and raise that energy meter so you don’t lower your rank.

Priorities

Remember how I said our brains are smart. Well this even goes down to the subconscious. If we know we should be doing something else it will linger, eating at the back of our mind. This will prove to be one hateful thing... a huge distraction. Now we all know distractions can pull your focus away in that key moment whether it be a teamfight, hitting that key shot, or securing the objective. So how do we stop these distractions? Well I’m sorry to say, you got to face your demons here. Whatever it is you should do first, you got to do first. For me this issue was university assignments. But once you get that cleared, you’ll feel better and sharper and, as a result, potentially play better. So, keep you head clear and there’ll be no ladder loss to fear.

Rest

Now let’s face it, ranked is a mentally strenuous task. We need to be taking in information, processing it and making decisions depending on it at an optimal rate to get that W. Yet many gamers choose to overuse and push the part of our body that completes this action: the cortex container, the grey matter, the brain.

Now the human brain is a big muscle in theory and like every other muscle it gets worn out and needs to recover. You wouldn’t run a marathon then go do a 400m relay. Of course not, you would barely be able to do it so (and not to a good standard by any means). You have to let your legs, heart and lungs rest, right? So why would you push your brain to do the same thing with those extra games of competitive? There is no reason that makes sense. All your going to do is play to a sub-par level and probable lose, costing yourself some if not all of your progress from earlier. So keep your gains and get that sleep. Happy dream state as you let that gaming muscle recover for more ladder climb pursuits.

Conclusion

To conclude, this is about one thing: Are you setup, healthy, and able to play ranked? If not, can you be? Again no? Then keep your gains, be happy with what you have, as when you prep sub-par, you are sub-par, and rank will drop to reflect this. So set up right, HF GL, and GG.

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