The Steemit Guide to Elo Climbing in League of Legends II

Hello fellow Steemers, Eric again with a few more tips and tricks to climbing the elo ladder. After posting my first elo climbing guide (https://steemit.com/gaming/@leagueoflamps/the-steemit-guide-to-elo-climbing-in-league-of-legends), I realized there were a few other tricks that I think play a huge role in becoming a better player. When I got a lot of good feedback on my last League post, I figured I'd give it another shot! So without further ado, I give you the Steemer's Guide to Elo Climbing in League II:

Vocabulary Key

Just for reference here are some of the terms I'll use in this post if you're unfamiliar with League abbreviations:

MR: Magic Resistance

AP: Ability Power

AD: Attack Damage

AS: Attack Speed

CDR: Cooldown Reduction

ADC: Attack Damage Carry

Comp: Team Composition (Enemy or Allied)

ffs: Surrender

gg: Good Game (Often said at the end of the match)

1) Learn From Your Mistakes

We all know that moment when you've just given up first blood, or initiated a team fight only to be one-shotted by a Rengar followed by an enemy ace, etc. Bottom-line, you messed up, and it cost you or your team a hefty gold sum. While it's never a good thing to die or perform poorly (see below),

you can use these mistakes to your advantage. In all likelihood, your oppponent is going to try a similiar strategy when the scenario arises again. Whether it be harassing in lane or trying to bait you into a teamfight where a sneaky Fiddlesticks awaits in the bushes; note the strategy they used, why you fell for it, and (if you can) why they utilized that strategy (your flash is down, low mobility champion, etc.). For example, I play a lot of fizz in the midlane, and nothing gets me more excited than seeing a lonely carry in the jungle ripe for the picking. I head straight for the easy kill, only to run directly into a bush with their support and jungler waiting. I'm one-shotted, and I rage ping all over the place, flaming my teammates for not being there to help (jk, see post one if this is you, NO FLAMING). Obviously, the easy way to continue the game is to say "shit, I messed up" and not give it a second thought, and you do need to be wary of getting too focused on your mistakes. However, I could easily analyze what had happened while my death timer counts down, and come up with some solutions to ensure it doesn't happen again. In my Fizz scenario, this may include buying a pink ward for extra vision, doing a better job warding (or politely asking my teammates to ward more), or it may encourage me to be more wary of a seemingly helpless carry. This strategy goes both ways, if I were on the other side of the equation, I would surely try to do the same bait again (maybe even on a different enemy who hasn't learned my strategy). This tip is two-fold- If you make a mistake, learn from it and don't do it again; and, if you catch your opponent making a mistake, try to abuse that lapse in strategy over and over until they correct it. Higher level play can even involve assuming they will alter their strategy and changing yours accordingly, but for lower elos (bronze-mid Gold), it's a safe bet to just stick with what works, and correct what doesn't.

2) Itemization

I avoided this topic in the first post because it's actually more complicated than it first appears. On the surface, it seems simple: AP champions buy AP, CDR, maybe some MR or Armor; AD buys attack speed and AD; tanks buy resistance and health; etc. This is perhaps the BIGGEST tip I can give you, DO NOT USE THE SAME BUILD EVERY GAME. While I always do suggest a standard build as something to go off of, you should always adjust your build based on the enemy team. For example, let's go back to my game with Fizz, an AP assassin. Let's say I'm facing a team with the following composition:

Top- Riven

Mid- Zed

Bot- Ashe and Braum

Jungle- Udyr

Obviously, all of their damage comes from AD. With that in mind, I would do a few things. First, I would start with a Zhonya's Hourglass. Only a few champions build this item first in their standard build (Morgana, fiddlesticks after jg item); and, typically, I would build it after Morellonomicon; but, because they have an all AD comp, building ZH will give me good starting AP and provide defense against their entire team. Furthermore, while I may still build Abyssal Scepter because of the CDR and reduction of enemy MR, there is absolutely no way I'm building any other MR (Spirit Visage, Banshee's Veil etc), and I may even consider another Armor Item (Guardian's Angel- actually a very good item on late-game fizz) in order to provide even more resistance against their team. It may not be this obvious, you can also alter your itemization based on which members of the opposing team are fed. For example, given a balanced team composition (~equal AP and AD), say the ADC has 6 kills and no deaths, and the mid laner (AP) and top laner (AP) are a combined 2-8. In this scenario, I will almost always begin building armor before I build any MR. After all, the only dangerous damage output is coming in the form of AD, and in all likelihood, I can solo kill the AP champions without any MR. This concept requires an enormous amount of practice, but practice it and your game presence will improve exponentially. If you're unsure where to start, try looking at some of the following websites for suggested builds. Search your champion, and you'll find a number of different builds (All with a wide selection of items for different situations/comps), and many of them even have guides including more specific strategies, runes and summoner spells.
www.mobafire.com (my personal favorite)
www.lolking.net
www.proguides.net (Lists the builds used in pro-play for your searched champion)

Hopefully, with good itemization by your side, you'll soon be swallowing your enemies whole :)

3) Never Surrender

We all know those games where the chat box is a garbled mess of "ffs", "ffs @ 20" "gg" long before you reach 20 minutes. I'm here to tell you that a game is RARELY over before the 20 minute mark. I used to be a repeat offender of the ffs @ 20 mentality, until I saw a YouTube video by one of my favorite players (PantsareDragon) claiming that he never surrenders. At first I was skeptical, but now I rarely surrender games. No disadvantage guarantees a loss- especially in low elo, where your fed opponents are more likely to make risky or reckless plays. Remember that players with less deaths, and more kills give you more kill gold, and team gold for "shutting them down." Take advantage of their cocky attitudes (running into 1v2/3 or 4v5s), utilizing their lead against them mentally. Unfortunately, I'm not saying you'll win every single game you don't surrender on. In fact, I would say I win about one in five games that I would have previously surrendered in. But these wins make a huge difference when you're loosing 20 lp for a loss and gaining 23 for a win (net gain of 40+ for a game you would have surrendered on and won). In fact, because everyone's win rate is so close to 50% (even the best players rarely get about 55%), one in five losing games turned into a win could be the difference between a Silver III player and a Gold V Player (or better). Furthermore, forget about the elo for a moment, and take into account the excitement of turning a game completely around. My favorite game to this day was a game where we started off at a huge disadvantage (I believe 26-8 at its worst). In the end, still at a huge disadvantage, and with two of my teammates down, I teleported into the enemy base while the enemy team tried to get Baron. I destroyed their open inhibitor and the enemy team recalled just in time to see me finish off their nexus. My point being, not only will avoiding the surrender improve your win-rate, it actually may make League more fun for you! So hit that no when your team tries to surrender, remind them that it isn't over until it's over, and look to bring your team back in the game with a few picks or clever baits.

With all this said, that completes my second League of Legends Guide to Elo Climbing, I hope you all enjoyed, and thank you all so much for your support! Please leave your comments below!

Happy Steeming,
Eric