Preparation tools for Ranked Play

No matter how much or how little experience you have in League of Legends there are always steps to take before queuing up for solo ranked on Summoner’s Rift. There are a lot of tips out there that are in one or another way valid in terms of climbing the ranked ladder, but this is my own list of tips that I think are most effective.

1. Have 1-3 champions you consider yourself an expert on.

If you ever look at old “how to gain ELO” threads or trivia facts about professional League of Legends players, you might know that they used only one or two champions to climb to the top of the solo queue ladder way back in Season 1. For example, Xpecial from TSM was known for his Kennen. Scarra was known for his Katarina, TheRainMan climbed the ladder with Teemo and Westrice “invented” Akali and hit #1 on the ladder with her. Even now we have players who hit Challenger because they play only one or two champions and they are very good at them.

At the end of last season Annie Bot hit challenger with around 2000 games on Annie. Just recently someone hit Challenger by playing Soraka mid lane as well. The strength of knowing your champion in and out is that you are most likely able to outplay many solo queue players who only have some experience on flavor of the month champions (notable examples in the current meta: Mundo, Shyvana, Ziggs, LeBlanc). They are most certainly strong champions but there is no guarantee that playing a strong champion will win a game for you.

Also, when you’ve played hundreds and hundreds of games on the same champion, your overall mechanics will improve as you’ll find that you can take the fundamentals of mastering one or two champions and apply them when learning any other champion. For example if you play hundreds of games on Ezreal and are good at him you are likely to be able to learn the skillshot projectile properties (such as missile speed, width and prediction) of other champions and use them as effectively as Ezreal’s skillset.

Strength: Specialty/Mastery in a champion means you are able to push a champion to its limits more than someone playing a champion for the sake of the pick.

Weakness: In the event your champion(s) that you specialize are all taken from you, will have to play champions you are foreign to.

 

TheOddOne's ranked stats in Season 1

2. Be familiar with FotM champions or other champions.

Yes, I just got through saying that mastery over popularity is better but in the off chance that your champion that you’ve mastered is unable to be picked by you, you’ll need a backup plan; especially if your role with said mastered champion has been taken from you. Furthermore, if you have that mastered champion set somewhere you will be able to pick up new champions and learn them faster than others.

Strength: Know what is strong in the current meta. Knowledge is important for playing that champion and against the champion.

3. Watch streams of high ELO players that play your champion.

While you might enjoy watching streams like Boxbox for his entertaining reactions or Aphromoo for being entertaining overall, you can also watch the streams that feature champions you’re trying to learn. That isn’t to say you can’t watch entertaining streams at all but you can learn a lot from people who have mastered champions you are trying to learn.

As a personal example, I used to watch Bischu’s stream whenever it came on because I wanted to learn Nidalee and he would consistently play her Bruiser top, AP Mid or Support bot lane. The number of tricks and knowledge he has in every single situation he is put in on Nidalee was just a goldmine. Nidalee is one of my most played and most successful champions from playing her so often and trying out tricks here and there that I’ve seen on screen. It’s simply monkey see monkey do. Almost every high elo streamer has these champions they are known for.

Notable examples:
Boxbox = Riven and Lee Sin
Trick2g = Volibear and Udyr
Bischu = Nidalee, Zed and Gragas (used to play a lot of Twisted Fate and Ahri)
Bjergsen = Syndra, Leblanc, Zed… but honestly he can play a lot of the high level mids at an insanely high level.
Ninjaken = Nocturne
Xpecial = Thresh and other support champions like Annie
Imaqtpie = Ezreal, Jinx, Draven
LMQ Vasilii = AD Carry in general

Also for any champion you plan on playing do some research on what runes and masteries they run! And remember to check item builds. I for one learned that Ninjaken almost always gets one or two doran blades in the jungle.

Strengths: Learning material is easily accessible as League of Legends is almost always the most watched game on twitch.tv
Weaknesses: Streaming schedules may not work around yours and takes a lot of effort to use streams educationally and effectively.

4. Knowing when to play and when not to play.

Most veterans will tell you that any time of the day of ranked is the same as any other time of the day. I think that’s true but at the same time there are specific times of the day you are more alert/awake than others. So this is something physical and mental you can control. Play ranked when you are in the mood and you are in your best mood/shape. Don’t play when you’re upset or tired. That being said, if a game upsets you or you are on a losing spree, you should stop playing ranked and either play another game or play some normal with friends to relieve the tension and stress before hopping back into the fire.

Tilting is a solo queue warrior’s Achilles Heel.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. “
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

5. Use other game modes to practice for Ranked.

This area might apply to more people than you’d think. Normals can be a very good tool in sharpening your game sense if approached properly. Each game mode has its strengths and weaknesses so I’ll walk through each of the modes we have on League of Legends right now that I personally believe are relevant.

Normal Blind Pick:
- Normal blinds are my favorite and most played mode. You’ll hear a lot of hate for normal blinds because people consider it a hellhole for trolls, bads autolocks and most of all, lack of a ban/pick phase. After all, who wants to get into game against your hard counter in a solo lane and just prepare to lose? However I personally welcome these kinds of situations (even though I groan for about 20 seconds in loading screen) because I never want to assume that I’m going to be able to counterpick someone in mid or top. I never want to have the excuse for losing lane in ranked be: “Well, I got counterpicked what can I do?” or “Well they didn’t ban X what a bad first pick, they don’t know how to ban…” I’m not saying the ban phase is a weakness or a fault, but rather I personally don’t want to get soft.

I want to be used to the possibility of playing in a lane that I’m weaker in so that I know exactly what to do in these situations. If I know how to win a matchup where I know is favored to the enemy, it only helps me. I may not succeed all the time but it gives me a lot of motivation to get better. Also I find this to be more common in blind normals but if you have a high normal mmr you’ll often see yourself matched with lots of platinum and diamond players who are playing blind normal because of the fast queue times and how fast you can get into a game. The downside to this is you have to win a lot of normal to get to an excellent MMR for normal games, in both blind and draft. (It always helps to queue up with friends!)

Normal Draft Pick:
-This is a handy simulation for ranked since there’s the pick/ban phase in here. The similar problem it has with blind normal is that the MMR won’t be the same as your ranked MMR. It’s just as good practice as any, of course. The immediate downside is that because there is no penalty for dodging champion select, it might take up to as many as 3 or more queue dodges halfway or at the end of pick/ban phase before you finally arrive at the loading screen. Either that or I’m just very unlucky it happens to me often whenever I try out Normal Draft Pick.

Twisted Treeline (Ranked/Premade 3 Preferably)
- This will seem like an unpopular opinion but I really believe that TT Ranked (or normal but I will explain why Ranked 3s are my preference) is good for learning mechanics on champions you want to play. Here is why:

A. The map has a lot of small places as well as a few wider opened places and since the map is so small you can expect a lot of skirmishes, 3v3 teamfights and duels to take place in both kinds of areas. Most fights on TT early on take place in the jungle so it forces you to pay attention more to your positioning in a teamfight or skirmish. TT by nature is also a very aggressive map and a shorter map (generally 20-30 minute games though we have had plenty of 50 minute games) so more repeated exposure and emphasis on teamfight positioning is a great way to learn champions and improve overall mechanics.

B. The three roles in the game (Bruiser Top, Assassin Jungle, and AP/AD Carry Bot lane give plenty of champion choices and flexibility on what you might want to practice.

C. So the reason why I prefer premade 3s or ranked 3s for Twisted Treeline is because while you won’t have this level of coordination in soloqueue ranked, you don’t need to practice your map knowledge on Twisted Treeline in preparation for Summoner’s Rift given the difference in meta and playstyle. If you take that out of the equation then you can purely focus on your teamfighting. After all, that’s the purpose of TT training!

In Season 3 my friends and I learned TT and hit Diamond in Ranked 3s in the middle of the season. All I played was AP Carry Bot lane and after about 60 games on TT, my Orianna had become noticeably stronger and I won a lot more games with her when I went back to Summoner’s rift.

Dominion

Dominion is very similar to Twisted Treeline because it is completely made up of skirmishes, duels and fights. The difference is that farming is less relevant in Dominion but even more fights to get you used to the mechanics and the ins-and-outs of the champion.

- Four champions go top, which means the upper part of the map is: Tower Diving, Teamfights, Duels, Skirmishes, and objective control (Relic Shield and Capture Points).
- One champion goes bottom: Duels, 1-on-1 Laning (matchups, even very unlikely ones) and be ready to get ganked from the winning team when they already have control of the top point (or even the losing team when they have no chance on taking the top point).

ARAMS

I almost never play arams, because most ARAM games are 10-30 minutes of sieging before the game hits the breaking point and ends. However I think ARAMs, if anything else, can teach people the courage to engage. A poke team theoretically loses in a direct teamfight assuming the other team is neither poked to half health or already behind in gold. The courage to engage or to get things accomplished for objectives is a huge strength in solo queue compared to trying to spend 30 minutes farming before they’re not scared to fight.

These are just my most important tips to preparing yourself for the dreaded ranked mode. There are more things anyone can do, and it is best to find them out yourself. Good luck out there!

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

**header photo credit to NEmation