7 Common Mistakes That Are Costing You Games in LoL

7 Common Mistakes That Are Costing You Games

There are hundreds of mistakes the average League of Legends player makes when hitting the Rift. While it’s impossible to have the perfect game, some mistakes we make can completely devastate the state of the game and make it difficult for you to come back.

In this guide, we’ll be covering seven of the most avoidable mistakes to help you improve your consistency and polish your overall play. We recommend starting with focusing on one at a time as trying to do too many things at once will split your focus.

This article is brought to you in partnership with our friends from ONE Esports, check them out for more awesome LoL content!

7 Common Mistakes That Are Costing You Games

1. You Play Random Champions
2. Not Countering Your Opponent
3. Not Hitting Level 2 First
4. Poor Optimization
5. You Stack Wards
6. Mispositioning in Lane
7. Poor Wave Management

1. You Play Random Champions

Firstly, a common mistake many players make is playing random champions, or champs they don’t play a lot of experience with in ranked. This is a big issue for a lot of players and you often get completely obliterated in lane if you’re playing against somebody who is on their main champion.

For optimal climbing, and to reduce your stress in-game, make sure to only play champions you are very comfortable with. This will help you focus on the state of your game rather than simultaneously learning the mechanics of a champ.

If you want to expand your champion pool, we recommend building up your experience and comfort level in Normal games first.

In addition, having a small champion pool is better in the long run, and you’ll have an easier time winning games compared to somebody who plays every champion in the game as you will be used to playing those champions.

Within that small champion pool though, we recommend having some variety for the sake of our next tip…

2. Not Countering Your Opponent

We all have favourite champions in League. Some of us enjoy tanks, some enjoy fighters, and some players enjoy champions who shot the enemy, and we see this variety with champion picks from around the world. Because of this, you must take into account who the enemy is playing before locking in your champion.

Certain champions or champion styles hard counter some champions in League. For instance, Zyra struggles versus long-range and poke champions. You wouldn’t want to pick Zyra into champions like Vel’Koz or Xerath. Similarly, Sylas is hard-countered by Cassiopeia!

Always check what champions you’re laning against and what champions the enemy team has. Don’t pick someone incredibly vulnerable and squishy like Kog’Maw versus an enemy team composition with tons of assassins.

3. Not Hitting Level 2 First

The level 2 power spike is a crucial spike for the majority of champions in League of Legends. Most commonly, this is very important in the bottom and mid lane. However, it’s necessary across the board. Hitting level 2 first offers you a lot of playmaking potential.

For instance, a Lucian Alistar lane has a strong level 2 all-in and can use the level advantage to make an aggressive play to get a kill or blown enemy summoner spells. If you don’t hit level 2 early, you will not be playing your champion to its full potential.

On the other hand, maybe the enemy has the stronger level 2. For example, Talon’s level 2 is strong. If you want to prevent or at least have a chance at trading back with the enemy, it’s a good idea to hit level 2 first or at the same time as them.

To hit level 2 in the bottom lane first, you need to kill the first minion wave and 3 melee minions on the second wave. This is the fastest way to hit level 2 when there are 2 champions laning together.

In a solo lane, you need to kill the first wave followed by 1 melee minion on the second wave. This will allow you to get level 2 in a solo lane quickly.

4. Poor Optimization

In League, items constantly get introduced, changed, reworked, and removed. It’s important that you understand and look up the latest and best builds for your champion so you are building items that will benefit you.

If you build items in the wrong order or items that don’t necessarily benefit your champion too much, you will find it harder to win games as you will deal less damage or be easier to kill. Furthermore, you’ll be surprised and how many people build random items or don’t actually understand what each item does.

Our recommendation is that you consult builds and runes from our Mobalytics Champion Pages as they are always up-to-date with the latest and best builds. You can also get them directly imported into your client with our Desktop App, so you don’t have to worry about them becoming outdated!

You can completely remove this mistake from your gameplay by learning from popular builds and keeping up with performance stats.

5. You Stack Wards

Let’s keep this one short and sweet. Wards are really important in League of Legends and you get them for free as the game goes along. Make sure you’re never stacking wards and you always have a ward placed on the map. If you have 2 in your inventory, you’re missing out on free vision that could save your life.

It’s okay to delay a ward, or have your trinket available briefly, but you should never be sitting on 2 wards at all. This is a very common mistake in lower ranks as people tend to not use the free resources that Riot gives them.

6. Positioning in Lane

Positioning is something a lot of players get wrong, and it’s pretty easy to auto-pilot and make a mistake that ends up costing you tons of health or gets you killed. Now, positioning can be difficult, but here are some pointers to help you out.

When laning against a champion with a hook spell, like Bltizcrank or Thresh, it’s really important that you stand behind a minion at all times (preferably multiple minions) so they can’t land their hook on you.

Similarly, standing behind minions is great against abilities that aren’t CC too, such as Zeri’s W (pulse form) or Dr. Mundo Q. While this damage isn’t much in the early game, the chip damage could stack up over time. If you’re a champion like Neeko, you can even block this damage yourself with your clone.

However, some champions, like Soraka, have abilities that can’t be blocked by minions or other champions, so you’ll need to rely on pure dodging in these cases.

As the game goes along, it’s wise to stand away from the minion wave versus champions with strong wave clear such as Syndra, Orianna, or Sivir. Standing away from the minion wave forces them to choose between pushing and contesting the minion wave or dealing damage to you. If you’re inside the wave, they can push and poke at the same time.

7. Poor Wave Management

Controlling your minion wave in League of Legends is crucial and with poor management, you are putting yourself in grave danger of falling behind and getting killed. We’ll cover some fundamental tips but if you really want to dive into the nuances of freezing, pushing, and timings, check out our in-depth wave management guide.

Instead of consistently pushing the minion wave, think about the consequences of you pushing the wave. It might be that the enemy can zone you away from the farm, or they might be able to kill you over and over again when you walk up to CS.

If you think that they will do something like this, you can try to keep the minion wave even or slightly closer to your side of the map.

Avoid using your abilities on the minion wave as these will generally make you push. Similarly, constantly autoing the way we will do the same thing. Wave management is a really difficult subject to learn, but no worries- we’ve got you covered.

Closing Thoughts

That about sums up our article on common mistakes that players make in LoL. Let us know in the comments below which mistakes you tend to make most and we’ll help you solve them.

Thanks for reading! Remember to check out our friends at ONE Esports for more awesome League content.