A Beginner's Guide to CS

One of the most important elements of League is the creep score, or CS. You get CS from getting the last hit on enemy minions, which gives you a small amount of gold. That gold adds up quickly though – 15 CS is worth roughly the same amount you would get out of one kill. This can make a champion deceptively powerful – Vayne might be 0/0/0, but if she has 50 CS more than anyone on the team, she’s going to be as fed as if she’d gotten 4 kills in lane. This can be especially helpful in games where the enemy plays passively and doesn’t leave any openings. It can be extremely tricky though. Here are some tips to help you improve faster.

Don’t just autoattack.
A mistake a lot of newer players make is they’ll right click on a minion with full health and hope that they’ll land the last hit. Don’t do this. You want your CS to be calculated and precise. Champions will automatically auto attack enemies close to them, so you may need to hit S to stop any action on the champion.

CSing is different from champion to champion.
Don’t assume that because you’re good at CSing as Renekton that you can jump right onto Vayne and still be fine CSing, or vice versa. Ranged champions can safely CS from a distance, but must be aware of their projectile speed and their distance from the minion, whereas melee champions have to make sure they’re able to walk up the the minion in time to hit it. There are also some champions that rely on abilities to clear CS, whereas others don’t have that ability. Make sure to practice on each champion’s CSing skills individually before you go into a high pressure situation.

Use abilities when necessary.
If your champion has abilities that can affect CS, don’t be afraid to use them if you see you’re about to miss a CS. Don’t spam skills so much that you run out of mana or overextend, but when last hitting isn’t going to work, you can fall back on abilities.

Manage your wave
If you’re spamming abilities and annihilating waves, your wave will push in towards their tower. This will allow them to freeze the lane by last hitting only when necessary just out of tower range, so that they’re safe to farm and you are not. Make sure you’re not overextending when CSing, and ask yourself “Where do I want the wave to be?” If it’s further behind where the minions are fighting, you don’t want to take CS until the absolute last second. If you want the wave to push in to the tower – if the enemy is roaming or backed, for example – then feel free to go ham on the minions.

Practice in customs.
The best way to learn to CS is to go into a custom game with the champion you want to learn on, and see how many CS you can get without runes or masteries. It’s like fighting with weighted clothing, if you can CS without runes or masteries for long enough, it will seem incredibly easy to CS when you put them back on.

Check the minions’ health.
Left click the minions to see how much health they have. If their health is higher than your attack damage, they’re not ready to be last hit yet. This can be too distracting, so only use this if you’re having a hard time estimating their health bars.

Watch your minions.
Your minions are your persistent competition to your CS. Make sure you’re watching your minions’ attack patterns so that they steal as few of them from you as possible. There are three types of minions you need to worry about: The melee, the caster, and the siege. Your melee minions are going to be doing negligible damage, so don’t worry about them stealing a CS on their own unless the enemy minion is extremely close to death. Caster minions shoot slow projectiles towards the enemy minions, and do a decent amount of damage to them. It’s important to watch the projectiles, and see where they’re going. By tracking the projectiles, you can predict which CS you’re about to lose, and take it before it’s lost.

Learn to Orbwalk
When you perform an autoattack, there’s usually a decent amount of time after the attack has registered that you are still in the attack animation. By moving after the attack has registered, you can cut out wasted time spent in the attack animation, and reach another CS faster.

With enough practice, it’s possible to carry games simply by outfarming the enemy team. CSing can be tricky at first on new champions, but if you practice in enough customs, you’ll be able to win games regardless of the safety of the enemy champion.