r/summonerschool

Many moons ago I managed to hit iron 4. Many moons ago I spent months of my life trying my hardest to break into Silver by consuming nearly every guide I could find. Recently I hit emerald 3 with a 61% winrate in my last 60 games and a 63% winrate in my last 80.

I'm by no means the best player ever but I still think some people will find the following advice useful. They're condensed, hyper specific tips you can implement instantly. It's all advice that allowed me to see a noticeable increase in my winrate when I started to implement it.

1. Pick 1 lane and pick 1-2 champs. Play nothing else. Don't swap between mid and bot. Choose. One tricking a champion far outweighs trying to counter pick or play for team comp especially in low elo. Play a champion you enjoy, not what's in the meta.

2. Play for your wave state, not for kills. Play for objectives, not for kills. Objectives and gold are how you win games. I've seen so many players chase kills and they ended up losing way more gold than they gained. Another example is you blow your sums and ult on a kill right before a drake but the enemy respawns just before the drake is up and is able to tp, you now don't have an ult or sums for the fight and you lose, whereas if you didn't go for the kill you may have won the team fight + drake and be in a much better position.

3. Learn about turns. There's 2 examples of turns I can give. Example 1 is playing around cooldowns for short trades, if they use a key ability, there's a short window where they can't use it and that's your time to fight. Example 2 is playing around wave state, if the wave is nearly under your tower pushing towards you and you both die, you lose your entire wave, if you both die and minions are equal that sets up a freeze, you need to make sure that when you fight you don't risk losing your entire wave in the process.

4. Learn proper wave management, there's plenty of good guides on YouTube

5. Learn to take good recalls and don't get greedy. Staying for an extra plate is how you lose lane. If the enemy recalls and you stay, they now have item advantage when they come back. If you recall as they come back to lane they'll also take a plate and negate any advantage you had. Good recalls are situational but good habit generally include recalling 30s before an objective (unless you have tp), and recalling when the wave is under enemy tower. If you need to take a bad recall, aim to recall on a cannon wave, you won't lose as much.

6. Look at your map more

7. Learn to track enemy jungle. If you know jungle timers and which way they path, you'll avoid way more ganks.

8. If your teammate makes a stupid play let them die. 1 death is better than 2. Don't follow stupid plays.

9. Ping more. Your communication probably sucks. Spam ping when objectives are up, ping danger when your laner is missing. Let your team know what you want.

10. Mute chat and don't tilt, if you play on tilt you will lose. If you tilt your team you will lose.

11. Don't play for KDA. Not all deaths are equal. I frequently have terrible KDA and kill participation but I'm at every objective and I know when to push side lanes. Play for your team and for objectives.

12. Learn to identify your win condition. Most games have a win condition. If your adc is playing well, you must sacrifice your life to keep them in the game. Let the adc kill everybody. You don't have to carry every game.

13. Play around vision and match tempo with your team. If your team are in your jungle and base and you're hovering around 2nd tower, you're probably going to die. Aggressively push only when you can see the enemy or your team are matching side lanes forcing the enemy to choose.

14. If you have tp, play the opposite side of the map to the spawning objective.

15. Learn your champions role and identity. Play with intention. Do you push sides? Do you assassinate the adc?

16. Don't die before objectives, ever. Avoid using your ultimate or summoner spells before objectives as well.

17. Roam when wave is pushed under enemy tower. Slow push the wave so you get a longer window to roam. If you roam whilst there's still minions to be killed you'll likely lose more than you gain.

18. Make decisions quickly. A bad decision done quickly can sometimes be better than a good decision done slowly. Indecisiveness loses you games.

19. If you use mana, don't spam your abilities on the wave until mid to late game. Ability spam is how you run out of mana quickly and then lose a fight and die.

20. Don't kill inhibitors before 25 minutes. If you kill an inhibitor and can't quickly end the game, you give the enemy free gold

21. Play safer when you have a bounty

22. Don't force objectives or over stay. A bad baron call will lose you the game. Taking mid tower "quickly" because the enemy team is dead isn't worth more than securing soul. Games have been thrown because players want to end quickly and get it over with.

23. Play for your winning lane. Don't gank your 0/5 top laner unless they scale heavily and it's a guaranteed kill.

24. If you lose 2 games in a row stop playing for the day. Playing after 2 losses is how you suddenly go from plat 4 to gold 4.

25. If you use tp, save it for objectives or really good team fights after the 15-20 minute mark. Making good tps is how I've won so many games. I used to just tp back to lane and it was such a waste.

There's probably more tips I could give but I wanted to go for an even 25. Feel free to ask any questions :)

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

Just got out of a ranked game where I, barely holding on to my plat IV rank, lost to a Jinx pretty badly in lane. Jinx! Who I constantly hear is incredibly weak early and is the pinnacle of the ADC hyperscaler identity. And I'm playing Caitlyn, the quintessential lane bully who pokes and prods and kills in lane to compensate for her awful midgame.

But, like, what am I supposed to do? Porofessor (basically bloatware I know but it tells me useful things sometimes) tells me that now I've lost to every Jinx matchup I've played as Cait, zero for four now.

If I get too close at all or she's faster, she e's behind me and outdps' me with her launcher. If i try and take short trades instead, she taps me with her launcher and does more damage than me. How am I getting lane bullied by...Jinx? And of course if she gets a lead she turns into an absolute MONSTER, takes over the game, and I've lost my team a game that I really didn't need to lose them.

This last game (the loss of which took me back down to Plat 4 0lp), the lanes were me and a janna vs Jinx and Seraphine, so, a lot of poking me down. If my main asset is range and comboing off of cc with my traps, how do I approach a lane where I don't have much other than peel and I'm outranged by both enemies? I feel like I'm missing something glaringly obvious and very much embarrassing.

Hi, i play league since half 2024, i know is not a long time but still i think i got a big knowledge of the gane mechanics, for example, i started doing flex like an year ago with friends and when i did the comps we won everything, i guess is important to let you know that i'm italian, i don't know if there are difference on how become a coach, i'm just 18 so i don't know if there are any age restriction but i'm still asking to you. My primary objective is to become a league coach, even of a secondary league like btl (for italy), but i guess i can manage do something in other games like shooting games, i played valorant and with friends when i made the comps we won everything like in league. So i'm asking help to you on how to be a coach, if i have to start with an amateur team or if i can be engaged by a team without being known. thx to all for the answers.

Hello. I play League of Legends for 7 years
I have 1,5kk on Yasuo, 800k on Yone and 300k on Hwei. And I’m afraid to play ranked games
I mean I played ranked games but only for skins(10 ranked games for skin) and always got gold-platinum. Every time I play normal draft everyone type me that “you have 1,5kk Yasuo and you are gold, shame on you”, and always type back that I played ranked games for skins and I only play normal and this is annoying for me and I want to start play ranked for real
So my question is simple: How to stop be afraid of ranked games and just stars climbing rank?

So in my games there are a lot of times where I am playing as viktor and when laning phase ends (around minute 20 ish) I will usually just side lane towards whatever objective is up next. However, a lot of the time when an objective isin't close to being up most of our lanes are just fully pushed into T2/T3. As a viktor (or just any midlaner in general) what is the best thing I can do in these situations because I usually feel like If i pushed as far into a t2 then the whole enemy could just collapse on me because of my lack of mobility. Does anyone have any advice for what to do in these types of scenarios? obviously without a replay it is difficult to properly understand what I mean but hopefully I explained it good enough :P

I made a post the other day asking, “when do I stop going 1/10”. Well after 2 days of only playing yasuo, I finally was getting some consistent results in norms, so I decided to bring him to ranked!

For context, I’m exclusively a jungler only. Really don’t play lane in ranked at all except roaming support (Alistar, thresh, pyke). I main Graves & Rengar, if that highlights my playstyle. The account I’m on is currently bronze, with gold/plat MMR.

So, I’m learning Yasuo & midlane together. Immediately, the laners are much more conservative with their trades. My first game I went 1/13 while being flamed by my jungler since the first wave. I went against a Leblanc, a champ I never really played against but knew what she did. I quickly learnt how strong electrocute is (or maybe, I’m wrong). Took a bad trade at level 2 that resulted in setting the tempo the entire game. I ended up 1/13 but quickly became the macro sidelaner I needed to be until I got IE. A rough lesson.

Next game, I played against a mordekaiser mid. I felt I was playing it really well but ultimately, I think their team was just much better with the consistent jungle & support ganks/dives that were happening on me. This game, I learned that tracking the jungler isn’t enough, I need to apparently track the support too.

Then, I went against Aatrox in the top lane. A very simple lane, he ended up rage quitting after 1v2’ing the malphite gank. I felt really confident this game.

Afterwards, ekko mid. I felt I played the lane as well as I could, but it became very uninteractive after I solo’d him. I was expecting more fighting, but he wasn’t having it. I think this game I learnt that not everyone will want to fight, and I need to spam ping my jungler to invade when I perma shove the laner in.

The next game was Velkoz. Never played against this champ in a lane other than bot (usually I’ll lock pyke or even rengar support). Totally annoying lane with electrocute. Took a few bad trades in lane in a matchup that I was thinking I would dominate in. The game became very scrappy afterwards, so to the sidelanes I went!

Finally, Vex. I knew after the first few wave interactions that this vex was not amazing. However, it felt like a completely unplayable matchup. Again, electrocute seems to be doing me in. But, the game became a toxic scrap fest with my Seraphine completely mental booming, so this game was a write off improvement wise.

Feel free to comment or ignore this post, it’s sort of for me to keep myself interested while I recover from a surgery. My big takeaway from today is the electrocute rune. I really don’t respect the trade damage it gives, even if I run it myself on some junglers. I also find myself completely screwing my wave states on this champ quite a bit. I’m always looking for a shove + jungle roam, but maybe it’s not the best.

Any typical matchup tips is always appreciated!

https://u.gg/lol/profile/na1/wheresmycig-0000/overview

A scaling champion like Kayle can still be pretty fine into Garen and some other melee bruiser but Singed just doesn't really. Matchups like gwen and sett are still fairly safe for Singed but theres still alot of room for mistakes even in those matchups so I don't get why they wont just buff his early game a little

Hey guys this may be long but I got a question for you all, I heard this was the best place to ask.

I started playing League around Season 1 and played heavily through 2017. I peaked at Diamond 5, so I’m not new to fundamentals, but I’m obviously rusty and modern League is substantially different from what I remember.
I tend to enjoy melee carries/duelists like Tryndamere, Jax, and Master Yi. What I really enjoy is having an independent win condition: winning my lane, creating split push pressure, forcing multiple people to respond, taking advantageous 1v1s, and converting that pressure into objectives. I also enjoy champions with multiple viable build paths and the ability to adapt to different team compositions.

The news of the Classic mode has drawn me back in, even if it’s not my intention to stay in that mode.
I’m using it as a training ground per se.

I have much less time to play now than I did as a teenager, somewhere between 4 to 10 hours a week I can play.
So I’m looking for a champion/playstyle I can get a lot of value out of focused practice rather than needing hundreds of hours to become functional.

I’m also considering champs like Riven and Yasuo because I was infatuated with their kit back in the day, I was somewhat successful with them even in ranked but I was never overly impressive with them.

If you were advising someone like me, what would you recommend? I’m intrigued in a OTP philosophy or maybe a 3TP philosophy.

Is my old knowledge and playstyle still relevant today?

IGN: Vixenas#30714 (EUW)

I've been playing League for around 2-3 months. When I first started I played one or two swiftplays every other day and only with my friends;now I occasionally play a minimum of a few hours a day in normals and some ranked if I feel good. I picked up the game because of my friend and was suggested to play yasuo mid lane as he plays yond top. I enjoy playing yasuo and have even bought a couple of skins on him. I've also very recently started playing kassadin mid in normals because late game he is braindead.

My problem is that I feel like I am not good enough to play Yasuo in my rank, I feel like my mechanics and game sense + knowledge isn't good enough to play a skilled character like Yasuo. I don't want to change characters as I've already fell in love with the character.

I don't know how to climb out Iron. When I first played ranked I got placed into Iron 1 and fell down all the way down to like Iron 3 20LP, I stopped playing ranked and played normals for a bit until I was more confident in my skills and climbed to Iron 2 85ish LP, where I've now fallen down to Iron 2 50(?) LP. I keep winning and losing so it feels like my LP does not change. Sometimes it is me who ints my lane and it is because I am bad. But it is a lot of the time my teammates who make the game near Impossible for an Iron player to win. I don't know what guides to watch because it feels like there's millions of videos on the same topic, while there being thousands of different topics. I am lost and I don't know if I should just quit the game because of my skill issue.

Game is fun when I win, I don't win in ranked.

Please suggest advice

Hey i started lol about 3-4 months ago im silver and starting to notice myself feeling more comfortable that leads to me autopiloting and from experience in other competetive games that limits improvment. Im not scared of admiting when i play bad but autopiloting makes it harder to spot bad plays so how do i avoid it?

I'm pretty low elo ATM (high plat low emerald) but I've found on lower range ADCs like Lucian, Sivir or Vayne that exhaust has a lot of mileage. It gives you a pretty potent CC on top of excellent duelling power, and is way more efficient than barrier for shutting down divers and assassins after lane.

I get barrier is much easier to use and can save you from mages early on, but I feel like positioning is much more important for that anyway. In an all in 2v2 an exhaust on the other adc is generally a lot more powerful than barrier too.

I started gaming a bit later in my life than I think most people my age who are gamers did, and my reaction times and click accuracy are just not great. I’ve been playing league for about two years and just got into ranked like a year ago (I’m bronze). Unfortunately, as the youths would say, I don’t have hands. I’ve been trying out ADC because it’s fun and I enjoy playing marksmen, but I just keep doing stupid stuff like clicking a minion instead of the enemy ADC (even with attack move click), or firing my skill shot the wrong direction because I lost track of the cursor while kiting, or auto-ing the wrong enemy in team fights. I’m optimistic that I can get a tiny bit better just by building mastery on a champion, but realistically if you lack mechanical skill, how much room is there to actually improve? Will I ever be able to be “good” by working hard and practicing?

Edit: to clarify why I mentioned age, it isn’t that I think I’m too old to be good at a game. It’s that I didn’t start training the skills that make you good at games until I was already an adult. I thought it might be like learning languages or sports where starting young while your brain is still developing can give you a higher skill ceiling.

I have been struggling to play with some of my IRL friends because they get tilted over some narratives about the game.

I'm not the worlds greatest LoL player. But I am a couple metals above my friends. My Social nature and love for organized play has me playing flex and clash regularly with people much better than me. And I can't help but notice that these high level players arn't complaining about these narratives my friends get mad about. In fact the exact strategies my friends complain about are childs play to these players who have the answers.

Going back to playing with my IRL friends afterwards is like nails on a chalkboard. Listening to them complain about things that are so beatable while simultaneously refusing to do anything differently is killing me. I would just let it go and play to my own fun but its hard for me to enjoy a game when my teammates are mad about random stuff in my ear all game every game. And they don't want me to find answers for them. Any advice is taken as an insult. Ive tried working on my communication and delivery. I am usually talented at communicating with empathy. But they are just so stuck on these narratives. What can I do?

mid lane gold 2 player i play mostly mages syndra/cass/taliyah/vex/viktor is my main pool but this past week all it feels like i play is OTP assassins or assassin smurfs pub stomping through gold and its hell. i try to get wave control I'm forced to trade to hold freeze hp gets too low they push me in while i B they get cs adv

i try to harass i get skill gapped by instant gap closer i play for tower protection i give up lane prio and still end up getting zoned out of cs or harassed down and the tower does nothing because all mid assassins have a get out of jail free card for towers.

if the assassin is good which all of them seems to be high mastery or smurf one tricks sweating their dick and balls off it feels completely unplayable beyond skill issue. unless i become unemployed is this where LoL stops being fun?

It's happened a few times, my support will roam mid and then roam top, leaving me alone for several waves. What ends up happening sometimes is that the enemy lane would have heavy dive pressure eg Naut Lucian post 6 and they get to shove up to tower for free. I typically don't have much gold to back with at that point either.

What I usually do is concede the entire wave and maybe just staying in exp range... But sometimes the support can literally walk past tower and zone me out entirely.

What is the ideal play here? Do I just concede multiple waves and possibly tower?

Not quite sure if this belongs in this subreddit, but I do believe that it is a league related skill to not tilt.

League has always made me angry, but since beginning my ranked journey, it’s only gotten worse.

It really doesn’t matter if my teammates are inting, or if I am, just makes me so mad to the point that I end up foolishly yelling at a screen at people who can’t hear me

After being one game away from my rank up, I ended up losing, which I would say I would say is my fault.

Instinctively (because of course this is the logical thing to do) I throw a left hook at my monitor and completely destroy it

Kind of having post rage clarity from this and truly considering quitting league. I really do like the game, and I enjoy the competenceness and playing with friends, but (although it was a goodwill monitor) part of me feels that this kind of stress over pixels can’t be healthy.

If anyone can share similar experiences (I’m sure there are many) and maybe tips to manage anger in and out of league, I’d appreciate it lol.

Hey guys! Hope y'all are doing well. Today I bring you guys some questions in the hopes that you'll have some answers to help me!

So, for context, I was a top poppy main, but this season I haven't really liked how top feels and it's impact so I switched to jungle and I'm currently playing Poppy and Wukong (with some situational Amumu). I also started taking league more serious after years of playing it, and started to try to switch my mentality from blaming teammates and "OP champs" and see what I can do better instead.

With all of that I managed to reach E4 40LP this season while my previous peaks were around gold 2 before. And I feel great about it and I feel like I've grown a lot as a player.

But this new patch nerfed Poppy pretty hard imo. I lost 4 games in a row as Poppy jungle after the nerf and she felt really bad compared to other times I played her because she's now more of a tank peel rather than a bruiser and that style is really hard for soloQ. So I decided I'd stick with Wukong, even so I lost 10 games out of 11 and this got me to Plat I 0LP.

Now, I don't know if this is just normal variance on a climb or if I tilted or if the champ nerfs are really dragging me down or if I'm being unlucky with my teams or even a little bit of everything. I always try to be nice and encourage people but I've also noticed people being much more toxic to me during those 11 games for some reason and it's really frustrating cause I'm trying my best to be positive and I don't think I'm doing badly in the game, even when I review ofc there are errors but nothing that I think completely turns the game around. I noticed I was blaming my team a lot more and getting a lot more tilted during today's session so I stepped back and took a break after the losses.

Even the games we're winning suddenly start to feel hard because they get to a certain breakpoint or someone starts getting caught multiple times and we end up losing. And all of this just feels so intense when it all happens in so many games in a row and I think I start shifting my mentality again to being my teammate's fault.

With all of this said, I've always had a huge passion for this game, and rn at 22 I'd love to try and get to pro play or maybe just some streaming or something but these lose streaks and the "hardstuck feeling" just gets me so demotivated like "I can't even get out of plat/emerald and I think about going pro, delusional". So yeah guys, I'd like to know how you guys deal with this kind of thing.