How to improve your play and grind the ladder

Have you ever felt that you weren’t improving? Have you ever been told that you reached your true elo (or division in this case)?

I’m sorry to disappoint you but this is rather untrue. If you think you won’t improve and that you reached your ‘true elo’ then you will stay in the same place forever, which includes everything in life. You need to take those words and blow them up out of your mind, tell them that it doesn’t matter if you aren’t improving but you will eventually move up.

If you feel like you will never get out of your division, then wipe that mindset out of your brain, because you are not. You're approaching the problem in the wrong way! You aren't stuck, you just haven't starting improving yet.

Psychology is a part of the game, and the most important one. If you believe you can do it, then you will do it, you just need to find the way to do it and I will help you with that.

First: You need to acknowledge that you have a problem in your play, if you aren’t going up then you’re doing something wrong. No it isn’t about the trolls and feeders on your team. Forget about them, they will only stress you and make you play worse in the games you play.

Second: Find your problem regardless of what it is, you need to find it. The better ways to do it are;

- Record your games and re-watch them; this will help you understand what are you do wrong. Watch the games as you’re watching someone else but yourself, criticize yourself and write down what you see. Am I not warding enough? At what time do most junglers come to gank me? Am I building wrong? Am I trading around his minions? What do I know about jungler paths?

- Stream and ask a higher tier player to help you out find your problems.

- Check your PC. Do you have ping issues? Is your mouse working as intended? Any FPS issues? Are you feeling uncomfortable while playing?

Third: Once you’ve found your problem, go fix it.

Is your problem a gameplay issue?

If you want to improve your last hitting mechanics;

- Open a custom game and practice. Remember to always practice in custom games, each champion has a different auto attack animation, so be careful! They’ll feel and be different.

- Once you’re used to someone’s auto attack animation, join a normal and practice your trading ability while last hitting, if you want more deep knowledge you can check UNSWLOL’s channel where he explains how trade in every lane.

- Always remember, CS means gold, so even if you don’t get a kill, is good as long as you make the opponent miss CS. This means you’re passively getting further ahead.

If you want to improve your overall game knowledge;

- I recommend you to look at guides to help you, but don’t make them your own, remember; you don’t have the same play style as whoever created the guide!

- Builds are one of the most important parts of the game and one of the most impactful. It won’t matter how much gold you have if you aren’t using it correctly.

- Always build accordingly to the match. Yes, sometimes you will find yourself using the same build over a couple of matches but analyze what will help you to win the game even if it doesn’t directly appeal to the strengths of your champion.

- Think as a detective trying to watch a criminal, What will my opponent do? How will they react to certain actions? Always study their reactions throughout the match and find their pattern, that way you will know what to do at every moment of the game. It's a really helpful thing to do when in lane.

- Use yours team composition's strength, analyze how strong you really are, and drive the game to the flow you want. If you are playing a splitpush champion, Tryndamere for example, force them to come to you, and remember be decisive, never hesitate, if you’re going to splitpush, go all the way even if your team gets engaged on at baron, you recalling back won’t help unless your team comp is able to stall until you arrive. REMEMBER, IF YOU DON’T DO ONE THING OR ANOTHER, YOU WON’T GO ANYWHERE!

- If you have a problem with your PC, low FPS with low rates (20ish), really high ping (300+) then you may want to upgrade your internet or your PC, it really helps you when you’re playing in a smoother PC (I recommend Alienware PCs!).

Is your problem a psychological problem?

A common mindset is to blame your teammates for everything and flame them for every mistake they do, but what people don't realize it's that even if you don't flame them, it is affecting your play because you're changing your focus and mood while thinking about what they did wrong and how they could make such a mistake (yes I used to do that a lot).

Another important thing is; never play out of frustration, it will never end well, it turns you into a bomb really easy to trigger, and that will make you lose not only the game but even your mood in the day.

Once you’ve done this, one step is left. Use this in Ranked and remember, you will always find trolls and feeders in your team, but this doesn’t mean you have to become one. Always try to do your best regardless of the situation, never give up, the other team is also human, and if you’re behind wait until they make a mistake to win the game.

Are you 10k gold behind at 20min and they are doing baron? No problem, practice your smiting ability by stealing away the baron and coming back into the game. Even if you fail, there will always be another game after that, don’t blame the trolls and don’t make excuses for your mistakes.

“Excuses are the tools of the weak and incompetent. Used to build monuments of nothingness and bridges to nowhere. Those who use them seldom excel in anything else but excuses.”

Hope it has helped you, best luck summoner!