The Ultimate Guide to Ultimate Success in Solo Queue

I have been playing League of Legends since beta. That was a long time ago. No draft pick, no ranked matches, barely any meta, just 5 teammates trying to type their role in before anyone else.

Gaining ground in the solo queue rankings is, in general, the ultimate objective for every ranked player. Starting at bronze 5 and always dodging promotion series games is all the goal that some players need, but for most, the addictive progression in League of Legends is the reason to keep coming back.

This is how I have played the game for the last several years now. I have always strived for success in solo q and while I am no pro player, you can't go wrong by listening to the voice of experience. I still improve my gameplay on a daily and monthly basis and I still improve my elo on a daily and monthly basis. I cannot attest to being challenger tier, but these strategies will help you move up in the solo queue divisions, of that I am sure.

Do not be your team's cause of loss

Ultimately, in solo q, you need to focus on yourself: on what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right. If it was possible to remove yourself as a cause for a loss, you would win 20% more games. This is obviously impossible, but playing the right way puts you in a position to straight up win more games. It isn't rocket science. Most of the following tips deal with removing yourself from the losing equation for your team.

Pick your role

Either you already know what you're good at, or you have no idea and you need to pick 2 roles that you will play almost exclusively. For some this really is tough to pick out because they love playing all the roles, or they love playing a role that they in fact suck at. This is an important distinction to make though. Solo q is a competitive scene. It does not exist for everyone to mess around with new roles and try new things all the time. It is a place for players to demonstrate their skills against the nation, so be prepared and know your role

(photo courtesy of Welterz deviantart.com)

Pick your champion

More important than knowing what role to fill best in the solo q ranks is knowing what champions to play. There are 114 champions to choose from in League of Legends, and it cannot be stressed enough that to improve a players status in ranked games they have to pick 3-5. The pro's can pick any champ they want, but that is because they already know the matchups. The standard bronze through platinum player does not deeply understand every matchup with every champion they play, which is why limiting yourself to about 2 champions per role ensures you see all the matchups and then start dominating those matchups. This ensures you know what to do if you win lane as well as what to do if you lose lane to help your team get to that enemy nexus.

This part is one of the hardest for people to follow. The entire game encourages players to purchase new champions and new skins to show off. Also, many players would never admit that they could improve their gameplay with their favorite champions. Just try playing the same champion for 10 games in a row and see what kind of improvement you see.

Know how to play support

Practice in normal games or with friends and learn how to support. No matter what role you play, everyone gets carried once in a while. A good support player with a focus on enemy objectives will be able to affect the game positively enough for his/her team to get them a win, and everyone has last pick at some point. Also, since adc's usually scale well into late game, helping your adc get there without feeding the enemies adc is a statistically smart way to earn some LP.

(photo courtesy of Welterz deviantart.com)

Do not feed your lane

Everyone knows this, I know this, and yet I still manage to do it all the time. Losing a lane is ok when the alternative is losing lane while also going 1/5. If you give up first blood, take a deep breath and then play a little passive. If you are being zoned then hope your jungler knows what to do and just stay at the tower. The domino effect of dying multiple times and losing the game is so much easier to get going than the snowball effect from getting fed in your lane; but it takes kills and deaths for both. Creep score will rarely win the game outright, or get a champion too fed to handle, so let them farm a little and keep their kill score down.

Have a plan to help the team if you do feed your lane

Ending on another self explanatory tip seems appropriate. Can you split push? Can you engage and bait out some ultimates? Could replacing the damage build you originally planned on with a tanky build help distract the enemy from your carries who did not feed? Inevitably feeding occurs, and suddenly you are 1/5 and have no idea how it happened. There is always something to be done to help the team out, from backdooring a tower to dying for one of your carries.

Specifically, being objective focused and being aware of who the strongest people on the map are will improve the equation in your favor. Focusing on towers, dragons, buffs, baron, and the enemies strongest champion while recognizing who needs to be protected on your team will create the kind of winning behavior needed to advance in solo queue.

The most important part of improvement is to know absolutely what was being done wrong in the first place. Having 7 champions in your match history that is full of ranked games is probably a mistake, while seeing several wins with a negative KDA may show some signs of improving your late game and teamfighting ability. If a ranked game is worth it to swear at or get frustrated at or to tell other people they are bad because you lost, it is worth it to run through these basics before and during every game.