Helping Yourself Gain Elo

You've seen them all before, and yet you keep still coming back.

"My ten step guide to climbing out of ELO hell." "Five quick ways of improving yourself." You think to yourself, "how on EARTH do I get to gold?! I know I am better than being silver 4 and it is just that I always get the WORST teammates."

What I am here to do though is try to relate with you, yes you the one reading this, the person with the bottle of water next to your monitor and bag of goldfish down by your feet. I am trying to relate with you in the fact that, I thought the same thing and I am just a normal person much like yourself. I'm a senior college student with a part-time job and friends who do not play very many video games, I didn't practice all day and night nor did I drop out of college to try and become a professional at League of Legends.

I had my first promotion series in the beginning of season 3, I won two games and was placed into bronze 4. I fell down into bronze 5 not much long after that and now at the end of season 4, I am gold 4. I have made the climb. I have played with some of the worst League of Legends summoners that have ever stumbled upon the rift and I have played with some good ones who just happened to be stuck in "elo hell."  How I climbed into my current Elo was very simple once I realized a few things that I am about to share with you.

 1. DO NOT rage. No matter how many times the AD Blitz jungle dies to their Lee Sin. No matter how many dragons get stolen from your team. No matter if the top laner yells at you for not calling MIA from your roaming mid laner who you have not seen in 8 minutes. When you rage it puts you on tilt which ruins your capability to play well. ALWAYS just worry about yourself and never freak out on your team, mute teammates or do whatever it takes to remain calm.

2. You are NOT good enough. This is the mental standpoint you need to carry yourself with. The underdog mentality is what will keep you hungry for improvement, something everyone can never have enough of.  If you are playing as a solo lane and end up with 8 kills within the first 5 minutes it is up to you to win that game. If you want to win that game you must be the driving force in doing so, winning lane is not enough.

At the end of the game if you lose, you must think of it as your own fault. Think about whatever you did wrong that game, no matter how small or big and really focus on improving that. A good way of doing this would be to keep a notepad of your mistakes handy and write down any mistake you had. By being mentally aware of your mistakes it is easier to improve on them.

3. Play SMARTER not harder

League of Legends is a game of wits as much as it is a game of hand-eye coordination. Rotations are key in maintaining a lead or trying to take it for your team. For you to be a better player and to showcase your skills, you have to always be thinking. Where is the enemy team? When is the next dragon? Can we take it if they try to contest? Would we win a 5v5? Am I in the right position if they engage on us?

Dozens of questions need to be answered for you to play a flawless game, the focus here is not to be perfect but to be good enough.  If you are not doing well but a different solo laner on your team is, do not die and let them do their thing. Try your best to be a positive or neutral factor for them rather than a negative. Getting carried at lower Elo is something that should be easy for yourself, do not make it difficult on yourself or your team.

4.  Play each position and learn from it

This is something that is more of a personal opinion and up for debate. Now I know we all have your favorite role and it is our "main" role. I highly recommend you try every position out though (top, mid, marksman, support, and jungle). Not only should you do this to be able to play a champion in case you get stuck on that particular role, but I believe each role teaches you something that others do not.  While playing as top you learn about farming and knowing how to properly split-push. This prevents you from AFK farming and split pushing when 2-3 enemy champions are missing. As a mid laner you best learn how to roam across the map as a solo laner. You push out lane, gain a few kills on your solo lane, and then roam bot for the double kill.

Playing more as a mid laner you begin to see more opportunities to be an impact for your team. As a marksman I believe you best learn about positioning in a team fight. This prevents you from running up to melee champions and getting your face wrecked, you learn how to kite and attack move. Playing as a marksman also helps you realize the impact you have on sieging enemy towers. Playing as the support role helps with the importance of vision and being an utility impact for your team rather than a damage dealer or tank. Support players takes a high amount of cognitive function. By not being able to directly kill the opponent you must win the game by being a remarkable utility.

Lastly playing as a jungler teaches you map awareness and how to have map presence. Jungling is in my opinion one of the most mentally intensive roles in LoL because you are not going against a lane opponent, instead you must always be thinking about where the enemy jungler is. You must also think of how to gank your lanes and if you are able to, it takes a great deal of game knowledge.

 

These are just the basic tips I can give you to help yourself mentally prepare on climbing out of low elo. Remember to keep calm and play the game. The main reason you first started to play League of Legends is that it looks fun, do not confuse yourself and start thinking you are the next Faker. 

If you are interested in more of these and more advanced tips and hints that I personally think work, be on the lookout for my next installment of Helping Yourself Gain Elo.

- Tielahr