10 Things You Need In Order to Play Ranked

Newcomers to League are often eager to jump into ranked play as soon as possible. They want to show that they are the best of the best and display their skills to everyone who plays the game. However, there are a lot of things to consider when deciding to play ranked. It isn’t child’s play and if you want to ascend to the top of your division and get to a higher rank, you need to be aware of various aspects of ranked play. If you are seriously thinking of playing ranked, read this guide to find out what you need to succeed!

 

1. Champions You Are Comfortable With

Often times people in ranked feel forced to play the OP meta champions like LeBlanc, Kassadin, Gragas and others just because of their increased visibility in the pro scene. However, that is not always the best idea when starting out ranked play. You shouldn’t feel forced to play champions you aren’t comfortable with. Just because a champion is broken doesn’t meant the player using said character knows how to use them and is automatically good at the champion.

Let’s say one of your main champions you like to play is Twisted Fate. He isn’t as mobile as some of the current meta assassin champions and has some negative attributes which is why he isn’t seen often in competitive play, but if YOU are good at playing a champion like him and know YOU can do well in game as that champion, then you shouldn’t hesitate to lock him in in champion select, no matter how unpopular a character is. If you’re good at a certain character and know how to utilize them in a team fight situation and are comfortable with them, then use them. Yes, the meta in competitive play sets the standard, but it isn’t for everyone.

 

2. A Wide Champion Pool

Having champions you are comfortable with is the first step. Now, you need to have an extensive roster of available champions that you can use in ranked. While one should play champions they have practice with, you need to be able to broaden your champion pool. Champion select can be chaotic, especially in lower divisions, and you aren’t guaranteed to get the role and lane you want. If you specialize in a certain champion role and lane, have a limited number of champions and are locked out of that role during champion select, you could be in trouble.

You need to be prepared for everything that happens. Malleability is definitely a good thing to have. You can’t expect to play mid every single time. When you play a different position, you should master and have a wide range of champions for the role in question. Plus, having an extensive amount of champions in your roster will keep your opponents guessing and will keep them on their toes. The meta is always changing nowadays and many champions like Morgana, Annie and even everyone’s favorite yordle Teemo can be used in multiple positions and lanes. Thus having a varied selection of champions at your disposal is now easier to take advantage of than ever.

 

3. A Broad Array of Rune Pages

When most people start off playing League of Legends, their two rune pages are often dedicated to the AP and ADC roles. If you ever expect to play ranked, you need more rune pages than that. I recommend you have at least one rune page for each role in the game (In my case, I have 7: AP, ADC, Support, AD Top, Tank, AD Jungle, and AP Jungle), if not more. Even if you play multiple champions in a certain role like a tanky top lane bruiser for example, many of them have kits that benefit from different runes than what you have set on one dedicated page, so more than rune page for a specific role is sometimes needed.

For example: Nunu and Elise are both AP-based junglers, but both of them benefit from having different runes equipped. Having a large amount of rune pages that you can customize to your heart’s content is ideal, especially if you decided to enter ranked play. I also recommend using only Tier 3 runes in ranked, as you don’t really get much at all out of the lower-tiered runes, which is all the more reason to wait until you are a higher level in League of Legends to try ranked.

 

4. Well Thought-Out Masteries

Although it is small, masteries do make a difference to a champion’s stats and can make them more powerful, and in ranked that is especially important. You need to make sure you get the most out of your masteries. If you tend to favor AD-oriented champions, it may seem easy to just put all 30 points in the Offense mastery tree and be done with it, but that is not the case.

Many AD-based champions benefit from certain stats in the Defense mastery tree that give them extra health, so putting all your eggs into one basket is not the way to go. Understand what your champion does. If a character has low attack speed for example, putting points towards Fury and Frenzy in the Offense mastery page can help with that problem. Is your main champion squishy? Investing points in the Juggernaut and Veteran’s Scar stats in the Defense mastery tree will help them out in that aspect. Find out what suits your champion's kit the best and cater your mastery pages towards that.

 

5. Great Map Awareness

You need to know what your team is doing, where they are, and how the pace of the game is going. If you see that four members of your team are grouping top to take down a turret and the enemies are heading towards there and ignoring the other lanes, then split-pushing is definitely an opportunity to take advantage of since the enemy can’t respond in such a short period of time. Pinging when an opponent leaves lane, comes in for a gank or gets spotted in a warded bush is a great way to alert your team so you can take action and react to the situation at hand.

Having good map awareness is how objectives get accomplished. If three members of the enemy team are recalling and heading back to base and your allies are near baron, then it is a great idea to go ahead and take it since you're aware that your opponents are not there to answer back. Knowing where the enemy is AND isn’t is a great tool that can lead your team to victory.

6. Good CS-ing Skills

In my opinion, looking at a player’s CS count will let you know the difference between an ok/good player and a great player. Killing minions helps gains you gold, which helps you buy the items you need, which in turn makes the champion you’re playing become even more powerful in lane. Getting a high CS count early on creates a ripple effect that changes the flow of the game.

Being able to obtain certain items early on can cause champions to get a power spike that allows them to completely demolish their enemies in lane, like a Nidalee or a Gragas getting a Rabadon’s Deathcap first over their opponent. When you have the advantage in terms of gold, you can help your team out more since you are able to do things that your enemy can’t.

 

7. Great Warding Abilities

Much like a person’s CS-ing skills, I feel you can tell the difference between a lower tier player and a higher tier player by how, when and where they ward the map. It isn’t just the support’s job to ward anymore; it is the whole team’s. Having wards in the right areas at the right times can move the game in your favor. Is top getting camped on by the enemy jungler? A smart player would put wards in choke points where they can be cut off and in the bushes by the golem and wight camp, along with tri-bush.

I feel that an inexperienced player would just put a single ward in river and be done with it. One ward in the river will not protect you against flanks and unexpected attacks. If possible, working together with your team and dropping deep wards in the enemy area will give you a heads-up on what they may be doing, and thus will give you an advantage. Warding high-value objectives is a good idea aswell. Putting one ward in the baron pit isn’t going to cut it. You need to place wards in the jungle brush surrounding it as well as the bushes in river, because your opponents may be hiding there and if you don’t have wards canvassing that area, you may be in deep trouble.

 

8. Malleability

Sometimes in ranked things don’t always go according to plan and you will have to be able to react to that. Is the AP-heavy enemy team bursting you down harder than expected? Maybe it’s time to change your build up a bit and build some magic resistance. Surprised by the jungle Evelynn coming in from seemingly nowhere to annihilate you? Place a pink ward in a high traffic area.

Is the mid-lane Zed able to shred you down to nothing and out-zone you? Build up some armor and health regen and try to stop him in his tracks by using CC abilities. You need to set the tone for the game and be able to react quickly to any given situation. Common sense and the ability to be flexible and think on your feet are great tools to have in a game like League of Legends.

 

9. A Positive Attitude

No one likes playing with a person with a horrid, negative attitude. It ruins the game for everyone. Having a good attitude in game sets the tone for the rest of the match. Going into a game with low expectations and a pessimistic attitude isn’t going to help at all, it will just make the team feel down on themselves and thus they will feel less inclined to put forth the effort to win. You and your team need to work together and be able communicate and that isn’t possible unless you have good teamwork and an upbeat manner.

Yelling at someone for making a mistake isn’t the right way to go. Gently providing some constructive criticism and working as a unit to come back from an error will do more good in the long run than acting like a tyrant that no one wants to listen to. It’s as simple as this: would you rather play with a person who you gel with well, praises you for your good play and helps you accomplish objectives in game, or a person who breathes down your neck for every slip-up that occurs, trash talks and brings down the rest of the team? Just have a laid-back attitude and have fun!

 

10. Good Mechanics and Knowledge of the Game

I saved the best for last. You can have the right masteries, rune pages and champions but if you don’t know how to properly execute everything in game, then all of that is worthless. Being aware of what the enemy champion does and is capable of is powerful knowledge to have, and being able to react to it successfully shows off good mechanics. For example, if Caitlyn is about to pop her ultimate to finish off a low-health ally and you know that it deals damage to the first champion it hits and thus is able to be tanked by a higher-health teammate, you can dive in and save the day.

You can have all the information about the game you want but if you can’t apply said information to the game itself, then that information becomes useless. Study and play the game, learn different champions and understand what they do, and just try your best to utilize all that information and apply it to the game at hand.

 

I hope by reading this article you found out whether or not you are ready for ranked play in League of Legends. Ranked is a big deal where everything is taken up a notch and it is essential to be proficient at various aspects of the game. It takes time to accomplish all of that, nobody is going to be the next Faker overnight, so just play, practice and have fun and you will do fine in ranked!