How to climb ( My Experience and advice)

Hi guys, I don&#039;t usually post on the boards but I wanted to share my experiences and try and help the OCE scene progress. Right now I currently sit at Gold 1 45 LP ( Mid Lane main), after sitting at Gold 4/5 for most of this season, in Season 4 I ended up in Silver 4 ( achieved Gold during the season but tilted) and in Season 3 I was Bronze 3. During this season I also had the pleasure to work with a Challenger team of which I did some analyst work and helped out with some strategy. EDIT: Update on my ranking, I am currently in Platinum 5 52 LP I will also note I follow the competitive scene heavily ( OCE, LCK, LPL, NA, EU) which has also assisted with my climb with things I learn. In the recent weeks I have climbed dramatically and thought to myself why couldn&#039;t I do this before and what have I done to achieve this? I will try to break down certain points for players who are in lower divisions and maybe even people in higher divisions may be able to take something away from this. In my climb I have suffered both the highs and the lows of solo queue, that being trolls and afk&#039;s but I still found myself to continually play even when it annoyed me so much that I would tilt and do stupid things, now I know people talk a lot on tilting and how to overcome these things. I still remember the best advice I ever received and still use it to this day &#039;you can only control what you do&#039;, now yes this may seem simple but it took me a long to grasp at this context and I never fully understood it till midway this season. My approach towards each game had changed dramatically in 3-4 months, I would work out in my head where to roam, when I could roam, if I potentially had kill pressure in my lane or when to ward and take note of jungle camps etc. In most of my games I am able to gather enough information about my opponent in the first 5 mins, this being whether they are going to play passive or aggressive. And this has seen me get many solo kills in lane just based off knowing how they plan to play the match up and how much pressure I know I can put on them until their jungler is forced to gank me. The biggest thing for me learning match ups and how to play them was to continually play and also watch some of the best players of this champ and how they approach each situation. Now yes some of us may not have the time to watch streams or play numerous games etc. But it is something that you really are able to benefit from. Another thing for me in champ select whenever I get into it I try to suggest champs to other players but never pressure them to play it, something as simple as &#039;Leona would be good with out comp if you can play it&#039; or &#039;If you can play a tank would help our team out :)&#039;, most of the time you get a positive reaction from people but you can also get that one person who may be on tilt and will abuse you and instalock Teemo. I will come back to &#039;controlling what you can&#039;, if you are picking after the Teemo look at what you can do to help your team and compensate for that pick, now something that is really underrated in low elo is.......support. If you are a really godlike support you can carry low elo games. It amazes me at the amount of people who will pick a troll support just based off the fact they don&#039;t like to support or whatever it may be, and I feel people don&#039;t value or understand what crowd control does for your team. Now I am sure we all know what cc stands and is, but what value does it bring to a team? eg. A 4 man Leona ult which hits all 4 enemies is a 1.5 stun which is a long time for your carries to do enough damage to win that fight a Leona Q which you can use to peel for your ADC with a tank or assassin diving onto them is 1.25 seconds which can be enough time for your ADC to re position and get their damage out. Now it is a known fact low elo player mechanics are pretty sloppy and some players are slow to react to things but raging or yelling at someone will not help you at all, for example you&#039;re playing support you try to engage in bot lane and your ADC doesn&#039;t follow up, it&#039;s not a big deal it is low elo and unfortunately throws happen more often then you think. There is no such thing as a game being over after 5 mins when the enemy ADC gets a double kill ( unless they are challenger and fully understand how to snowball of that lead), a thing that was very common for me and I was even guilty of was giving up once I saw a kill top lane and a double kill bot to the enemy team I would tell my &#039;welp gg this game is over&#039; and even said to my team &#039;let&#039;s just ff at 20&#039;. But I saw time and time again throws would happen or they would make a mistake and you slowly claw your way back into the game. But you have to remember you are versing another human being and people make mistakes it&#039;s human nature, you simply have to find and wait for that mistake to happen which may take 5, 10 or even 15 minutes but if you are able to get your farm and stay relevant in the game with vision and keeping your creep score high you have every chance of coming back in that game. A thing that get&#039;s thrown around is &#039;Meta&#039; this can apply in certain situations but when you are lower elo this doesn&#039;t necessarily apply to you, the &#039;Meta&#039; is there for the reason of champs being strong with certain Item builds and also any Buffs/ Nerfs which come into play. To put it simply play whatever champs you feel most comfortable on in that role but don&#039;t be stupid about it eg. playing Maokai ADC. The reason why some losses happen is people choose to play for fun and play whatever they want which can sometimes ruin the game, but you are unable to control these things and should change your focus to doing whatever you are able to do in order to create every opportunity to carry. Crucial things which people don&#039;t take notice of: * Vision- This is highly under rated, having vision on the map allows you to catch out people on certain rotations or simply make a play knowing that the enemy jungler may be top side or vice versa. It also allows you to take certain objectives based off knowledge of where the enemy team is. * Farming- Now I feel this is the big one, something that is really important is being able to farm if you see in pro play the value they put on farm is crucial as it allows you to buy items and also wards. Now I know people think getting kills is of a high priority but I myself would rather have a 60 cs lead then 1 kill. I am pretty sure it was evaluated that a kill equals something like 14-17 creeps which isn&#039;t a lot in the long run. * Mentality and Tilt- Something which has affected us at one point in time, this is something which you have to learn to control which will take time. As I spoke about earlier &#039;controlling what you can&#039; is something which enables you to control your tilt, simply put...focus on yourself, your farming and when your enemy laner makes a mistake to punish it. EDIT (12:21pm): Another thing that has come to mind is being toxic/ abusive to your team mates or having a toxic/ abusive player, the best thing you can ever possibly is not type or type back. If someone on your team makes a mistake it's not a big deal simply type out whatever you gather from their mistake eg. if the enemy flashed you type out the timer ( 5 min CD on flash for those who don't know) or if the enemy ignited/ healed/barriered/ exhausted...you got my drift. Every bit of information you have accessible is important as you are able to punish them for overextending if you are a jungler and help out your team mate to get him back in the game. A way to combat toxic players is simply to mute them, this feature has saved me from being distracted by toxic players a hundred times...literally the mute feature is great as you cannot see what this person is typing about and thus you not responding defuses the situation and they will eventually get back to playing the game after their rant/ rage. Now I feel like I am dribbling on, but will make some edits to this during the day and night where I see fit. But I hope I was able to cover some points on problems people face in solo queue and offer some form of help to you. I wanted to post this as I think it means a lot more coming from someone who knows and understands your struggle when climbing and some of the problems you may be facing both with yourself and some other summoners. I would really like to see the OCE scene up there competing with NA and EU but it starts with the community and how we approach the game. Any feedback and comments is really appreciated too {{summoner:31}} {{champion:238}}
Report as:
Offensive Spam Harassment Incorrect Board