Solo queue mechanics #1: Preparing for the solo queue

I am starting this series in order to help new players not get overwhelmed when they join ranked games or help people who already play to improve their game and climb up the ladder.

This is the first article of these series in which I will explain the pre-ranked games things you need to know.

Normal games

You may think that normal games do not matter at all and they are just a stage that you must go through in order to level up your account and earn influence points in order to buy champions and runes. You are somewhat right, but you are missing the best point about them. Normal games matter and they do a lot, they help you learn the basic mechanics of the game before wandering into the solo queue adventure and also help you learn champions.

People tend to say that when you want to learn a hero that you have never played before, you should join a game with bots first and try him out for a bit, but I am pretty much against that. In my opinion, one should know the basics of every champion just by knowing which role you are going to take with him. Obviously you can’t be a master if you have never played him before but here the normal games get into our equation. You learn a lot more about a new hero if you play him against real players and not against bots. People have the ability to think, this is what makes them unique and you can never make a 100% accurate prediction of what someone will do in the following 10 seconds. This helps you adapt and master the different mechanics your champion possesses.

Basically, what you will want to do before taking a new champion into ranked games is to practice him a lot in the normal queue. You will need to know every mechanic in order to perform as good as you can when you join ranked games, because you cannot expect your team to carry you, that is a wrong mindset, you need to be able to win your lane in 4 out of 5 games in order to help your team secure the victory.

Champion pool

The first thing that you need to know is that you have to own 16 champions in order to be able to join a ranked queue. Riot has done this because if someone would have 15 champions or less, he could have ended up without any champion to pick in some cases (yes, that would be very rare but it would be a probability, so it is better to eliminate it).

I recommend you do not rush champion buys, like you will buy all the cheap champions just to achieve that number. First, try to have at least two champions for every position in the game, so you’ll want to have two top laners, two mid laners, two supports, two junglers, and two ADC. Ideal would be three, because one could be banned and one could be picked by the enemy team so you will end up having none left for that position with only two, but it is fine for the beginning (we will talk more about why you need to have champions for every lane in an another article). Also, champions that can fill up multiple roles are the best in my opinion (like Elise, she can be support, jungle, top or mid, also Zed can be mid or top and there are many more) but don’t let that be a factor when you choose a champion. The main criteria when you buy a champion should be the fact that you like it. If you enjoy playing him, that’s ok, it doesn’t matter if he is so S2, if you play him well and enjoy doing it.

Runes

Runes represent another important thing before joining ranked games because they give you an advantage over your opponents on low tiers. People tend to forget about them and this is a big mistake because runes are helping you a lot in the early-mid game. In the late game, runes aren’t that valuable anymore, but still, that 5 AD/AP or 10 AR/MR could mean a kill or could help you survive.

It would be ideal to have different pages for every champion you are playing or even more pages for a specific hero depending on your opponents. But that means a lot of farm, so if you're not prepared to do that you can just stick with a page for AD champions and a page for AP champions. Eventually, while you climb tiers, you will be able to get one or more pages for the champions you are playing.

Farming

Farming is a key mechanic in this game and it can really be a pain in the ass because it is not enough to only know that you must last hit a creep in order to collect the gold, you will need to learn how to farm under different environments and how to farm with different champions.

The thing that tells you how hard it is to farm with a champion is his attack animation, you need to get used with the attack animation of every champion you play. Some champions are easy to farm with (ex. Syndra, Zed) but some are pretty hard to master (ex. Rumble), you need to exercise before you can do it properly.

Another thing is knowing how to farm under a turret, but this is pretty straight forward, the melee creeps can take two turret hits, the siege minion (big one) can take a lot (you pretty much don’t have to count the hits he can take) and the mages (ranged creeps) can take only one hit from the turret. You just need to pay attention to those details and you will be good. There are occasions when you are forced to farm like this and and knowing these details is key for you.

This is all for today, I am looking forward to your comments and suggestions. I hope you like it and until next time, farm well !