I don't like elementary guides. If you don't know what the skills are, just hover over the icon and read them. I'll be covering intermediary and advanced combinations/tricks

Powerball: If your going from top side camp to bot side camp, or vice versa, use powerball to get there even if it means you won't be able to use it on the camp. Either you can use it last in your combo, to execute the monster, or if your fed, use it to get to the next camp

Defensive Ball Curl: Here's a mechanical situation: your powerballing into a jungle camp. Auto immedietly after powerball ends, and immedietly after your auto lands, hit W, which will also be right before the jungle camp lands the attack on you.

Puncturing Taunt: Taunt is interesting... You either need to use it immediately if you caught a squishy and your team is with you to blow him up, so you don't want to let him escape. But if your team isn't ready to follow up on him, then hold E for when he starts to get away from you. If you ended up powerballing into a bruiser, try saving your E to either bring him back to you when he starts to go for the backline, or wait until you can grab one of their backline.

Soaring Slam: Technically for max burst, if your powerballing at an enemy carry (flank or whatever), you'd start your ult right before your powerball hits them, since it has a range to it.

Engaging

Gather powerball speed, engage from the side when ready W before Q impact Auto and hold Puncturing Taunt E for the right moment (whatever I said earlier about Taunt), and use on anyone that it deals damage to.
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. gives them the option to disengage and you telegraph yourself for the tanks to stop you. You also want your team to help you, so I would avoid flanking from too far back.

Steps to creating a hard-engage (use this when your team sucks at engaging)
[*] Go to the side, out of vision, start powerball up and let it build up speed for 4-5 seconds
[*] During this time, make sure your team is moving forward, ready for your engage. Ping if necessary. Constantly keep an eye on your team. Don't trust anyone, they may start walking backwards at the last second, in which case, cancel the engage.
[*] Your now really fast, so move in from the side and flash BEHIND their carry. Powerball is a directional knockback, which means it will throw the enemy slightly closer to your own team, and even better, he still has to run through you to get out. Immediate taunt because they tend to spam flash UNLESS they have QSS or cleanse. In that case, dont taunt them unless they accidentally waste it, or maybe someone else can engage with you to waste their cleanse/QSS, then you can be free to taunt them.

If your team is really weak, then you need to make sure you kill them or get them out of the fight. A ranged champion can finish them off if they get close, so you can back off and start peeling for them if you didn't finish the job. You can chase if you are winning the fight, but I value my life personally, so try not to get too risky to throw your strength (I mean you can get kited and still blown up if they have 2 more carries).

This is where I go over mechanics, breaking down strategies and playstyles based on comps, counter match ups, and anything else you need to adapt to for each situation. It can get pretty comprehensive, so give me some time to add more to it.

The default situation of most tanks

Most tanks are going to be in front of their carries and stop the other tank from engaging onto his back line, while either kiting so his carries can trade damage onto the enemy tank, creating openings for people like Zed to freely get to assasinate, and trying to get an engage onto the enemy back line that his team can follow up on.

Rammus with runic echoes has a way to counter each situation.

Dealing with AD fighter tanks:
Jarvan IV, Renekton, Nocturne, Vi, Wukong, Rek'Sai, Irelia, Evelynn, Jax, Aatrox

Just kill them if they engage. You probably don't want to let them get to your back line, but you win a tank v tank fight with the carries hitting the tanks. You don't have to go for that: if your team is weaker than their team by a lot, then you can go for their stronger back line instead and just let the Irelia or whatever in

Against CC heavy tanks that rely on taking one target and giving it to their team to kill:
Maokai, Gnar, Nautilus, Shen, Nunu & Willump, Sion, Skarner

Easy, don't let them catch any targets from your team. If they suddenly go in, your probably going to have to flash into their team and knock all of them up with Q to quickly take aggro (I'm a fan of flashing in), but that's a desperation measure. If your the one engaging, you can force these tanks to peel you off of their backline. Be careful of how you engage: You need an engage that makes it insanely hard for them to just run away and kite you back. I will go over ways to make a hard engage by yourself, over in the combo's section.

Dealing with counter match ups and kiteable tanks:
Darius, Singed, Illaoi, Garen, Olaf, Shyvana, Nasus, Tahm Kench, Volibear, Zac, Kog'Maw, Vayne, Cassiopeia

With the tanks, you definitely don't want to be fighting them. With the carries, they just absolutely murder you or your team if you don't deal with them. So in both cases, go around the tanks and let your team deal with those easy-to-kite tanks. When their tanks commit their engage onto your team, you go in and flash onto their carries to deal with the enemy team. You basically have a trade, tank for tank, but you can actually get close to killing their carries even while CC'd. Most of these tanks actually need to auto, which is why you win most of these trades. As for the list, you can add on any champion that gets super fed.

Really REALLY bad match ups, or just boring match ups:
Sivir, fed Illaoi

This is where we go full tryhard. Think of the game in terms of: Give them what they want, then take advantage of it in a different way. Sivir will always want to find a time to engage. Let them start engaging with Sivir ult, but don't let them fully engage by themselves. When they run at your team, they tend to clump together, use that to find a way to flash in (maybe stay to the side so they don't see you coming) and CC lock a target down. Illaoi wants people to engage on her, and then she ults for a ton of healing. If your ADC gets executioners, then with enough peel, they can take Illaoi down, even if fed. So your job is to get the enemy team out of the way and zone them off. If you can leave Illaoi to a 1v3, grab a bruiser teammate and try to 2v4. The double bruiser composition is pretty strong imo. Stay adaptable to find other ways to take advantage of the things they want.

Lvl 1-5: First, do avoid ganking on your first jungle run. If you do not have both buffs, the enemy jungler should notice that, and simply come kill you at the buff your going to do next.

Only gank for lanes that need the help to survive. Otherwise, don't risk losing your own early game.

On your second run, use flash to get a really good gank off. You don't need flash for the early game anyways, and this will begin your own snowball and exponentially increase your jungle clear.

Lvl 6 to 11-16: Clear strong-side jungle and see if you can gank or counter-gank. Clear weaker-side jg and see if you can get a gank. Refresh.



Farm and farm. Focus on effective ganks or no ganks at all. Ganks should be followed by some sort of objective, like dragon or turret.

Once you have Jungle-Echo item, stay on the map and keep up the pressure and farm. Try not to base for as long as possible, unless you got something done.

lvl 16+: Dont get kited. Focus on engaging in a way that makes it hard for the enemy to escape, sort of stack CC or damage. Use Flash+Q or Flash+E to finish off anyone who escapes, try not to just flash.

Hunter's Potion is basically the free-est safety net you can have against ppl trying to counter jungle you. Get it as soon as possible. Don't run around with low enough health that they can kill you if they counter jungle you.

If you get a successful gank, you'll probably be able to get Bami's Cinder on your next base, go for it and finish Sunfire Aegis before you even upgrade to T2 boots.

Finally to round off your items, Spectre's Cowl against heavy magic damage, Dead Man's Plate by default otherwise, with one exception. If you went Boots of Swiftness, then dont go for DMP, instead grab a Thornmail or more MR. The rest is just adapatation, use the flex pool and figure out what your team needs.

Don't play to win. Play to learn and improve. You can lose 10 games in a row and feel depressed, or you can lose those 10 games, find ways to improve, and start your road to Challenger MMR. Who cares if your not there yet? As long as you never give up, you can never lose. If you have the attitude to get to Challenger, your half-Challenger already. The rest is just playing enough games to get the title. Don't play because you want to win, friends.

List of things people can improve:

• Reaction Speed:

  This is not something I gain from League. I choose to play Osu! every now and then to keep me training and refreshed
  

• Teamwork:

  Contribute as much as you have possible, but stay smart. Lets say your low HP: if your carry is good, you can start peeling for him rather than tanking (you can hide behind your carry, just Q and E whoever comes into range). If your too low, just get out, and come back to defend objectives instead as your contribution. Another example: Junglers don't actually need flash to jungle, so use it off cooldown to get a gank off for a lane.
  

• Retreating:

  This mistake is HUGE, people never know when to back down. Even in plat, so many people go "Lets just fight" and don't actually understand that they should only pick fights they can win. Like, when your carry gets 1shotted by rengar, unless you can instakill the rengar back, just back off, he got caught, dont let it happen next time. I can't explain it easily, but try to only pick fights that you can win. If you can't, play passive until they make a mistake, or you can get a better engage onto them.
  

• Positive Motivation:

  Many people play for ELO, and that's a straight path to disappointment. You gotta FIGHT LIKE HELL!!!! and give every game your best shot, and you will climb as long as you keep fighting your best. But there are trolls and bad players everywhere, even in Diamond I'm pretty sure. It's a lonely road to carry yourself on, and teams will always hold you back and let you down. Expect them to let you down. You just gotta do everything you can and more to eventually start winning, use this game to get better than your last game, and you'll climb by yourself.
  

• Macro decision making:

  All lanes have some sort of logic to them and to the game as a whole. For example, I see a lane bully vs lane bully match up in top lane. If I get my top laner ahead a kill, then his lane naturally wins. If he still loses after that, just drop the lane, as he's probably not very skilled, and go work on keeping other lanes in the game. For another example: some late game champions have a hard time with some counter match ups. Gank for him 3 times, just keep him in the game if you can, and focus on helping him survive the laning phase for a better shot at late game, rather than having some worthless laner who got shut down.
  

• Wards:

  Some games just need the right wards at the right times, to prevent getting counter-jungled (pinks help) or ganks (even a trinket at the right time can stop a gank or initiate a counter gank).
  

• Music:

  Listening to music has a distracting effect, which can lead you to just "go with the flow" of the game. This ties back into "FIGHT LIKE HELL!!" you should just give every ounce of attention you have into your game. Anyways, plug in for this one, I got it from Twitch.tv/kireiautumn
  

• High Level Streams:

  NO do NOT go to these thinking that your learning the game. Watch a Plat streamer, and even if your gold and below, you will actually be able to SEE mistakes happening. And that's when you realize: Hey I could be making these mistakes too! And that's how you learn what to avoid, you barely even learn from high elo streams (maybe Valkrin though)
  
  
  Streamers I watch

  Okay I realized it was easier said than done to find plat streamers. My friend is a plat streamer, but I didnt think anybody else would like him... that leaves... mostly girl plat streamers... alright...

  • http://www.twitch.tv/valkrin (Master tier, and a guy. He teaches and makes you feel good. Amazing guy)
  • http://www.twitch.tv/kireiautumn
    
    pff, Ill leave the rest out, I don't watch them that much and it does get harder to learn from some plat streamers

Hi, my name is Mirkwoodia. Im stuck at Normals: 1800 Quickfind MMR, 2.1k+ MMR on Dominion, and yea, 1800 loser elo in ARAM too.

I hover around P2 and P3 all the time. I'm a Rammus Main, if that wasn't obvious, but I also have pretty good guides on Katarina Dominion and Rammus Dominion