Consistency Guide: How to Always Play your Best in League of Legends

Welcome to our Consistency Skill Decompilation! Revisit our other Decompilatons if you’d like to learn about Aggression, Farming, Fighting, Teamplay, Toughness, or Vision.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Success and greatness are never an accident. The best in the world (in any field) find a way to consistently develop and push themselves to their limits and beyond.

In the video below, NBA player Stephen Curry shoots fifty 3-pointers in practice, ten shots times five different spots on the floor. Watch him closely…

Catch…release…..swish.
Catch…release…swish.

…over and over again.

He shoots with the same form, the same rhythm, with intense focus, every time.

You’re witnessing the product of mindful repetition pushed so far that his shooting appears to be effortless. Sure – he misses a few but if you don’t play basketball, shooting 47/50 is an unworldly rate (try it!).

The time and effort he spends honing his skills every day causes him to look almost inhuman in real games. It’s no surprise that Curry is also 2-time MVP with just as many championships.

The same goes for League of Legends – in order to climb and improve, Consistency is key. From your mechanics to your mental state, you must be disciplined and intentioned.

Let’s take a look at Faker, the best and greatest LoL player of all time. The SKT legend is known for his unrelenting work ethic, playing more Solo Queue than most players and taking it seriously even though it’s during his off-time (outside of scrims).

Here’s an example of what he does while he’s waiting in queue.

He could be on his phone, on Reddit (probably Inven), or watching Netflix, but instead, he’s still in the mindset of preparing for his match and warming up his hands with a platformer based around dodging.

It’s a definitely a tiny factor sure, but realistic improvement is all about adding up small steps to achieve big goals. You can see the fruits of his mental approach and mechanical prowess in how he similarly dodges on Summoner’s Rift. Like Stephen Curry on the hardwood court, Faker’s skill and movements are awe-inspiring.

To strive to be like the greatest, you need to foster the right mentalities and habits that will encourage your steady improvement. By the time you finish this article, we believe you’ll pick up some new tricks and approaches to help you climb more effectively and efficiently.

Let’s get started.

The Nuts and Bolts

Performance

• This score evaluates your performance throughout the early, mid and late game. This score measures how consistent your fundamentals are in every stage of the game.
  • How well you can CS, ward, avoid dying and participating in team fights throughout all stages of the game will impact your score in this category.

Routine

• This score considers how often you play and if you stick to a schedule or not.
  • How often you play or don’t play League of Legends will impact your scores in this section. Playing every few days with a limit of how many games you play will help for optimal climbing and good GPI skills.

Lane Consistency

• This score considers your Consistency across all your games by looking at wins, losses, and statistics in general.
  • Ranked in League is often streaky and unpredictable game to game. To truly track your growth and development, you need to understand your long-term trends and how your performance looks from a big picture perspective.

Fatigue

• This score is determined by how your performance changes when comparing your first and last games of a climbing session.
  • If you play really well in your first game, but by the end of your gaming session- you’re struggling, your scores will take a hit.
  • Reducing the games played and avoiding long gaming sessions will help in this category.

Wise Words from the Pros

The Keys to Consistency

As is tradition for our Skill Decompilations, here are some great advice pieces curated by our analyst, Hewitt “prohibit” Benson.

Proper Practice

Utilize the Practice Tool

• Practice and consistency go hand in hand – take the time to really become comfortable with your champion.
  • Master last-hitting and cooldown timings.
  • Grind out your fundamental combos.
  • Learn the ins-and-outs of specific champion tricks.

Shrink your champion pool

• Focusing on learning one or a few champions will allow you to learn them faster.
  • Playing many champs can be fun but it isn’t optimal for playing Ranked and ascending the ladder.
  • If you focus on getting the hang of a handful of champions, you’ll be able to have a much deeper understanding instead of constantly have to relearn intricacies. There’s a reason why many Challenger-level players are one-tricks!

Learn with simpler champions

• If you’re a newer player or switching to another role, we recommend starting with champions with easier mechanics.
  • Simpler champions allow you to focus on fundamental skills such as positioning, trading, and decision-making.
  • They decrease your margin for error since they often have less skill shots and combos.
  • Once you become proficient with your champion and role, you can gradually work your way up to practicing complex champions.

Focus on yourself

Reduce your variables

• You can increase your Consistency by simply keeping as many of your variables as constant as possible. For example:
  • Have a routine and stick to it. If you like to prep with a warmup game before a Ranked game, do it every time.
  • If you have a duo queue partner you have success with, keep playing with them! Chemistry is hard to find and is very powerful against uncoordinated enemies.
  • Avoid adjusting your mouse settings/hotkeys often, this will give your play more stability. If you do make a change (perhaps to try Smartcasting for example), put in Practice Tool time to become comfortable before trying it in Ranked.

It’s not about the result

• Although winning is obviously great, your main goal should be to improve every game.
  • Remember that you can’t control what your teammates say or do, and there will be matches that you will lose no matter how well you play.
  • If you go into a game with an emphasis on self improvement, you’ll eventually win more over time due to your development.
  • This mentality will help you stay emotionally consistent regardless of winning or losing.

It’s about your journey

• Everyone learns and develops in different ways and rates.
  • The less you compare yourself to other players, the more you can focus on your own progress.
  • There will always be players that are worse than you and players that are better – focus on competing with your own performances.

Set clear goals/milestones

Accomplish one goal at a time

• Okay, maybe not literally one thing at a time, but it helps if you add up small goals for large gains over time.
  • For example, you can have a goal at different phases of the game, let’s say early, mid, and late.
    • Early game, perhaps your goal would be to hit 100 CS by 10 minutes.
    • Mid game, your goal may be to practice manipulating your lane so you can push and roam to other lanes.
    • Late game, your focus could be working on your Positioning (revisit Fighting!)
  • If you establish clear goals such as these instead of worrying about multiple things at once, you can more easily reach milestones.

Isolate and conquer your ineptitudes

• Set goals according to your own weaknesses and inadequacies. Track your progress over time in targeting these weak spots.
  • If you’re a poor farmer, put in work in the Practice Tool and keep CS as a focus when you’re in Ranked.
  • A player that struggles with surviving ganks should emphasize buying more Wards and playing safer to prevent overextending.

How to avoid tilt

Don’t play stressed

• It’s hard to improve and climb when you’re distracted or stressed by other things.
  • League is an especially stressful game, we discourage playing Ranked as a mental de-stresser after work or class.
  • The Practice Tool, Normal games, and ARAM are great alternatives to still work on some mechanics without full mental dedication.

Know how to accept the blame

• Be accountable and honest with yourself.
  • You can’t improve to your full potential if you don’t acknowledge your mistakes and poor play.
  • If you deflect your own misplays onto your teammates, you’re only fooling yourself and delaying your development.

Limit long play sessions

• Its hard to stay focused and mindful for very long sessions.
  • Take breaks and give yourself time to reflect on your performance between games (a great time to take notes/look at stats)
  • Keeping a schedule also helps with Consistency. For example, if a player limits themselves to 3 games maximum a day, it’ll help them resist the “I don’t want to end on a loss”.

Keep it up!

For better or worse,  humans are creatures of habit. If things are improving and trending up for you, don’t change a thing – keep that rhythm and flow. If your matches are going poorly and trending downward, think of the reasons why and make a focused change based on those factors.

Consistently improving is a journey that will take time and dedication. Find what works for you and keep doing it!

Did you find this article to be helpful? We’d love to hear your thoughts on our Discord channel.

Revisit our other Decompilations if you’d like to learn more about Aggression, Farming, Fighting, Teamplay, Toughness, or Vision.