The DOs and DON'Ts of watching the LCS

I'm a firm believer that watching the LCS or other professional gaming broadcasts can be a great way to pick up new tips and tricks to improve your game. So many things that the pros do are things that you should be doing too, as they almost never do something without a reason. But there are some pitfalls to avoid when choosing to learn this way, such as copying only what you see, rather than what the pros are doing.

Remember that everything you see is something you can do, but what you don't see is the reasoning behind it and the strategy. One of the interesting things about watching the LCS is the things that separate the pros from rest of us is not what they do, everything they do you can as well, its why they do it, the stuff you don't necessarily see. So here are a few dos and don'ts for watching the LCS.

 

DO: Watch Ward Placement

Looking at where the pros choose to put down their wards is a great first step at improving your game. This is an easily replicable aspect of the game. These ward placements are often to gain information about the enemy that you wouldn't have otherwise, as opposed to simply defensive wards that you might see in solo queue. Knowing where the enemy jungler is before he is poised to gank can be the difference between you winning and losing your lane. This aspect of pro play is one that translates to any level of gameplay, from the LCS to Bronze V, ward placements and amounts are something that the player can learn from the LCS without having to be inside the mind of a pro.

For further improvement try to think about why that ward is being placed there at that time. Often the shoutcasters will talk about offensive, defensive, and objective-oriented wards. Understanding why that ward is there and why it is there now will lead to better knowledge of the enemy team and more success throughout games. Different ward placements are necessary for different team compositions (both friendly and enemy) and at different points in the game. These crucial decisions are one of the easiest ones to see the thought process of the pros and is one that the player can take away. Focusing on this, especially around the Baron and Dragon plays of the professional games, can be a great way to improve your game from watching the LCS.

 

DON'T: Copy Champion Select

There are a lot of useful things to be learned from champion select in all games, especially from the pros, but just copying what you see without understanding why is gonna lead to more losses than wins. The pros will often counterpick certain champions with certain other champions: Ryze's Rune Prison is a good counter to Yasuo, Ahri's charm is a good counter to Zed. These instances are great bits of information to know, but what you don't see in champion select is the hundreds of hours the people have played these champions in solo queue. Going into that match up for the first time will most likely be a less than favourable experience.

Your opponent is probably not first-picking Zed without it being one of his better champions so it's unwise to pick Ahri if you haven't played many games with her. This will probably lead to you losing that match-up and spoiling your palette for using that match-up in the future when it could really help you out. Often when watching the LCS you'll hear the shoutcasters talk about the number of times a player has played a champion that season or that split, and when those numbers are nowhere to be found, it probably means that they aren't as practiced on that champion as they should to bring it out in professional play. Now, the pros are far from perfect and sometimes they get backed into a corner and have to pull out the direct counter even though it may not be their best, and often these games go poorly for them.

Another aspect of champion select is team synergy. I'm all for outside of the meta picks, they can be some of the best for any situation, but straying from the meta and from your comfort zone is a great way to get the other team promoted. Sometimes you may see the pros pull out a crazy pick out of left field and absolutely dominate a game with it. This does not happen often and it often doesn't happen twice. And even in doing so, they have spent hour after hour trying to make this pick work with their team.

The next time your favourite jungler decides to jungle Sona and carries a game, remember that they have tried it before and their team knows to expect it. So if you go into solo queue ready to try out your new jungle Sona tactics, you're probably gonna start the game with a team that thinks you're trolling and doesn't want to work with you. I'm not saying these strategies don't work, I'm saying that they are used are a wildly different set of conditions than your average solo queue game.

 

DO: Pay Attention to Champion Select

Keeping in mind what was said above, knowing these match-ups can be a great way to extend your champion pool. Whether it be by learning the meta or finding a way to counter the meta, looking for trends in the LCS can help you decide which champions to master next. If you find you're having trouble against a champion currently in the meta, check out what has success against it in games, looking in champion select only takes a few minutes of watching a game so seeing what has been good and bad against that champion can be done in a matter of minutes.

 

DON'T: Assume Something Works Because You Saw It Work

Nothing you see in the LCS is going to work for you until you try it. When you pick up a new technique, whether it be the Scarra Ward or the inSec Kick don't jump into solo queue assuming it will work for you. Play some normals or a custom game and try these moves out, practice them until they work every time, learn how others react to you doing them, and then bring it out in solo queue. Once something is in your comfort zone you won't even have to think about it anymore and these moves will be part of your all green match history.

 

DO: Pay Attention to Lane Swaps

Look in the games for the reasons lane swaps occur: objective control strategies, diverting losing match-ups, or even just to waste the time of your lane opponent.  If you feel like you're about to lose your match-up because you got counter picked don't be afraid to say it. A lane swap can do many things for a team like help a losing lane, get a stronger hold on an objective, or help out a split push. These are all things you will see in the LCS and knowing when and why they happen can help you understand your enemy that much better.

Remember to just play into your own comfort zone, don't try things you haven't practiced and assume that they will work. The pros have spent countless hours perfecting their game and have it broadcasted to the world. That's a valuable opportunity for you to improve your game, as long as you know what to filter out.