Climbing The Ladder With An Aggressive Play Style By Your Average Platinum Player

Overview (A little about the player):

As a player who recently reached Platinum V, I've had my own set of tricks and gimmicks that have been more or less successful in helping me climb the elo ladder. I began playing in Season 2 at the champion launch of Leona almost two years ago. What happened was my friends wanted me to play with them so they would have a fifth for a full team in normals. Upon reaching level 30 the first thing I wanted to do was get into the ranked queue and climb the ladder to be recognized as 'good' at the game.

Well, in Season 2 I ended up playing in Bronze elo only to slowly climb my way up to silver and stay there for the remainder of the season and the majority of the next. Season 3 I hit my peak at Gold II and once the reset came in for Season 4, I had to work my way back up from Silver 1 after placements. Now that Season 4 is officially underway, I've managed to climb to Platinum tier primarily through having an aggressive (perhaps almost reckless) playstyle.

 

How to play aggressively and why it works:

Having an aggressive playstyle carries more thought than one would think in terms of how you initiate and decide to follow through. The main idea of playing aggressively is to catch your enemies off guard and to overwhelm them by forcing them to go back to base and miss out on gold and experience, or to actually kill them and put yourself in an even more favorable situation than the former. Playing aggressively opens oneself up to a decent amount of risks if done at the wrong times. Recklessness turns on the player and thus makes this strategy ineffective and even detrimental. In order to play an aggressive playstyle and to succeed off of it, conditions must be met.

 

Playing aggressively requires a player to know the following things:

- How effectively one can trade in a match-up
- Deciding when is a good time to play aggressive
- Being committed to one's decision to play aggressively
- Executing and following through in order to secure the kill/objective

Benefits of playing aggressively (if done correctly):

- Causes opponent to miss out on experience/gold
- Catches enemies off guard
- Can lead to snowballing if one gets a kill 2-3 times

Cons to playing aggressively:

- Makes one vulnerable to counter-play if opponent is ready (ganks and such)
- If it fails, you will be put behind and trying again will be much harder
- Requires the confidence and decisiveness some may not feel comfortable with

 

Some Champions That Fit The Playstyle:

These are just a few champions (one for each role) that fit that playstyle naturally but playing aggressive and having it work effectively can apply to a much wider variety of champions. What they all have in common is that once they commit to playing aggressively, they are able to quickly eliminate or follow up on their opponents who are caught off guard. A full Riven or LeBlanc combo can have a huge effect on an opponent by forcing them to play passively or die as a result. Each of the following five champions have some sort of soft or hard crowd control that can give an advantage in trades. 

Top: Riven - High damage, trade potential and mobility

Jungle: Lee Sin  - High mobility, trade potential and follow -up

Mid: LeBlanc - Insane burst damage

AD Carry: Draven - Heavy damage and follow-up

Support: Leona - Hard committed initiation 

 

Conclusion:

Playing through Gold and Silver tiers with some of these champions and an aggressive playstyle allowed me to snowball my lanes and eventually transition into becoming an important and effective member of my team. Using the advantages you get in lane snowballs and propels you into a better situation during the mid game. Catching your enemies off guard and committing to the fight will more often than not force your opponents to play more passively, lose out on gold/experience or quite simply get you kills and snowball. One note, however, is that overaggressiveness leads to recklessness and eventually the opposite of snowballing, so if a player wants to play aggressively, they must assess their situation and decide which is the best road to take.