Agilio Macabasco
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8 Min read Whether you’ve just barely hit level 30, you’ve already played a few ranked matches (perhaps your placements), or you simply want to improve, you’ve come to the right place.
Ranked queue is quite serious, the players you run into will be trying harder and more sharp than the ones you face in normal games. Despite its increased difficulty, ranked is also much more exhilarating and gratifying.
You learn more from your losses and the victories are oh so sweet. You’re going to want to be in the right place mentally, the ranked climb is filled with ups and downs. It’s the best way to get better faster! Better competition means having to do your best.
In this article, we’ll give you everything you need to build a foundation for your ranked journey. All these resources will serve to help you learn, track your progress, and improve at a faster rate to maximize your climb.
Before you can really dive into ranked, you’ll have to figure out your primary and secondary roles (between Top, Jungler, Mid, ADC, and Support. We’ll cover the basics but if you want a deeper dive on this topic, check out our article, How to Choose your Main Role for Ranked League of Legends.
Similar to Normal Draft mode, when you queue up for a ranked match, you are asked to choose two preferred roles for matchmaking. Although you can choose Fill, we’re going to strongly recommend (especially if you’re just starting out) that you narrow it down to two that you’ll choose consistently. Why?
Imagine that you played all five roles equally across 100 games (meaning that you played 20 per each role). Now let’s say that you get queued as a Top laner and get matched against a Top who’s had 100 games of experience in that role. You’ve had 1/5th of the practice that they’ve had, chances are they’ve naturally got the edge.
Focusing on a main role allows you to really learn the ins and outs of the individual role. When you first start playing it makes a lot of sense to try out all the different roles but if you keep doing so in ranked, it makes it hard to internalize good habits since you have to constantly adjust your mechanics and mentality.
It gives a level of comfort in terms of the matchups you’ll face since you’ll run into specific champions and archetypes. For example, a veteran Support will know how to play against poke mages, all-in engagers, and enchanters. They’ll also have comfort with ADC partnerships and matchups.
Often times, choosing a main role simply comes down to figuring out which champion you have the most fun playing. Other times, it depends on what brings you joy in regards to how you like to play.
Having a secondary is crucial so you don’t get blindsided when you don’t get your primary. This will happen more depending on the popularity of your role, at the end of the day it’s all abouot being prepared and doing your best to still be serviceable even when you don’t have your optimal conditions.
Once you know your role, it’s time to build your champion pool. Your champion pool sort of becomes your identity, some players are known for playing just one champion (one-trick ponies aka OTPs).
Similar to how learning a role is advantageous, so is knowing a small number of champs. You’ll be able to internalize their strengths and weaknesses, their timings, and the nuances of their kit.
Some players who have trouble climbing simply do so because they jump around champs too often. The new players who stick to one champ usually end up climbing faster because they’re able to learn the limits of what they can do. For example, many champs have hidden tips and tricks that you won’t really know without research and practice.
To pick up a champion, we recommend learning in the Practice Tool and normal games. Start off with the basics by getting a feel for the champion’s purpose and play style, their last-hitting, and their cooldowns. Next, do your research on their skill order, runes, itemizations, and matchups (good and bad). Once you have these covered, they’re ready to be brought to ranked!
Once you’ve found your main champ to lean on, you’ll want to round out your main role with one to two more. Perhaps one champ that fulfills a similar role as your main in case your main gets banned, and a second one for when your main champ gets hard countered. For more details on how to round out your lineup of champs, check out our article, How to Build your Champion Pool in League of Legends.
Get the most from Mobalytics
We created our platform to simplify the process of getting better for gamers. With all the information out there, it can be easy to get overwhelmed or lose focus on what you really need to improve.
Since you’re reading this article on our blog, you may already be familiar with how to use our site so feel free to skip ahead. If it’s your first time here or you’re a reader who still hasn’t tried it out (what the heck are you waiting for?), definitely give it a shot.
Mobalytics makes your climb easier because it basically does all the gritty analytical work for you. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Are you a better Top laner or Mid laner? What’s really causing you to win or lose?
High-level players can deduce these conclusions by looking at their stats and match history but for new ranked players, it can be very difficult to evaluate their play while they’re still learning. It’s definitely a skill that you learn in time – if you aren’t careful you may make harmful misjudgments based on biases.
When used properly, numbers should lead you to key truths. We’ve worked really hard so that our GPI (Gamer Performance Index) does the heavy-lifting for you by taking your stats and illustrating your play into an easy-to-understand graph.
During your ranked journey, use the GPI as a guide to focus your efforts. The platform will give you actionable advice based on what you can do better to improve the performance areas that need the most work.
If you’re looking to track your progress over time or even understand your daily habits, be sure to visit our Stats page. It’s connected and integrated with your GPI to help you understand the bigger picture. Before we overwhelm you with too much Mobalytics stuff, be sure to check out your GPI and take a look around to get comfortable. Then come back and check out the following articles below.
Recommended additional reading:
Since League of Legends is a team game, it can become more enjoyable when you play with others. This definitely also holds true when you’re on the quest to learn and improve. A community can help you in multiple ways, for example, you can:
These are just a few examples of benefits you can get from finding a League community, the other pluses really depend on the type of the community. They can often be found online but are also in real life in places such as school clubs or PC cafes. In the following section, we’ll give you some recommendations of where to find some awesome LoL communities.
There’s a good chance you’ve heard of Discord, but if you haven’t tried it yet, it’s a platform that allows you to create communities built from voice and text chat channels. It’s a great place for groups ranging from small to huge – you could make a server right now for you and a few friends or find a server with thousands of people.
Over the past two years, we’ve worked hard to make the Mobalytics Discord an ideal place for finding other League players who want to improve and climb. Our server is organized to help you keep up with community events, find advice and coaching, and quickly find players from your server. Best of all, a lot of our regulars have become awesome friends with each other and our staff. We’re always excited to see new faces so don’t be shy!
There are plenty of other great Discord servers out there ranging from professional teams to content creator communities so take a good look around and find the place that makes the most sense for you.
If you’ve been following the scene, you’re probably familiar with the League of Legends subreddit, but it tends to focus on esports, highlights, and Riot news. It really isn’t too friendly for seeking advice or tips so we really recommend checking out /r/summonerschool/ as a community for improving as a player.
The subreddit is much smaller than the main LoL one so it has a more personal feel to it and its subscribers all tend to have the common thread of wanting to get better and help others get better. Posters often provide guides, analysis, and personal stories from their climbs to share what has or hasn’t worked. It’s definitely one of the go-to places if you’d like to learn general things about climbing.
If you’re looking for more specific insights related to the champions you play, find the champion’s subreddit. These are concentrated communities of players ranging from low to high-elo who all play or are looking to learn how to play a champion. Here’s a list that has most of the champions, some of the newer ones are missing but they should be easy to find.
Champ main subreddits allow you to find some of the most in-depth analysis and conversations regarding matchups, play-patterns, and tips-and-tricks since you can often find high-level players discussing how to best play a champion.
If you’re having trouble with a particular matchup, you can even visit that champion’s subreddit and the community will often be nice enough to give you a few pointers to help you beat their champ!
If you’re looking for a community that’s a bit more instant in a responsiveness, you can try finding a channel on Twitch. The League of Legends section of Twitch sorts channels by champ so you can often find someone who’s currently playing. Streamers will vary in skill, rank, and temperament, so be sure to take note of that.
Streamers with smaller communities will often be willing to answer questions but you may have to make a donation to get an answer from larger channels (especially if it’s a pro player).
Every week, our Challenger Coach Moriarty streams a session of profile reviews and Q&A. You can learn more about how these stream work in this article, 10 Things you can Learn from our Challenger Coach Profile Reviews.
Join us at https://www.twitch.tv/mobalytics
Outside of Twitch, you can find tons of awesome video content for League of Legends on Youtube. There are content creators all over the spectrum from entertaining to analytical and you can often find ones specific to your role or champion.
On our Mobalytics Youtube channel, we release a variety of videos per week, ranging from our Counterplays to our Dev Updates.
Here’s an example of one of our Top 5 videos:
Youtube’s algorithm can actually be pretty accurate from time to time (at least from my personal experience), so if you enjoy Leauge-related videos, be sure to give thumbs up so you can be recommended similar content.
If you need a quick resource for researching how champions, items, or anything else in-game works, the LoL Wiki is a great place to bookmark. It’s especially helpful for tracking changes such as buffs and nerfs from patch to patch because they keep a change history for every champ and item.
This starter pack should serve you well for basically everything you need as a fledgling ranked player. There are definitely other places and tools that can aid you in your journey so be sure to explore and find what really works best for you. No matter how high you climb, always be respectful to players both above and below you. We’re all in this together and be sure to pay it forward by passing on the wisdom that you learn to less experienced players. GLHF!
Thanks for reading, we hope you found this article helpful. What are some ways that you think new players can use to start their climb strong? Let us know in the comments! As always, you can find us in our Discord if you have any questions.
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