Hello. Im Hexthecat. I am an ex challenger player (s3-4) and have stayed around masters on many, many accounts since then. Short story, I got carpel tunnel and was not able to play at the same level since, as my hands do not work as well as they used to. Anyway, on that note, I have decided to write a guide on improving in LoL. I have raised around 32 accounts to diamond in my career, all between 70-95% win rate, and I consistently run in to players who are stuck in their elo, and have no chance to improve. Either they have given up, refuse to change what they are doing, or believe that bad teams/luck is what is keeping them down. In other words, these players are their own worst enemies. I am not saying that you wont get bad teams/afkers/toxic players, that is an inevitability. However, in an even game, there is always a chance to win, and that is what I hope to teach.

Or you can skip to the bottom for the TL;DR

***Disclaimer***
This guide is for people who want to climb and are willing to change how they play in order to improve. If you are dedicated to life as a YI main, or are they type of scum who only plays ranked because its "fun" or "I like pissing people off" you will not gain much skill here.

How do you win a game of league of legends? Seems like its a complicated question, but it is not. You win when the enemy nexus explodes. Your kills/deaths/assists are irrelevant. That is literally it.

What does this mean? How do I accomplish this?
Towers, towers, towers, and towers. Towers are the most important commodity in the game. Each won/lost tower is one big step towards the end goal of nexus destruction.

A big part of winning is remembering that it is not call of duty. You will not win if you have 50 kills but they take your nexus. This is an objective based game, and your kda is a false prestige. The only thing that matters in terms of numbers is your win rate.

If you need an example of this, notice how alot of LCS games end when both teams have less than 10 kills each.

Why am I stuck in x elo?
Probably because you want to be a carry. The problem with low elo is that every single person wants to be a carry, even if they suck at it. Low elo players usually just stay in a state of denial: teams fault, trolling, other team had smurfs, ect. Dont be afraid to be the cog that makes the whole system work. Be flexible, fill what your team needs, especially if everyone else is refusing to, and your winrate will skyrocket.

You need cc to win (CONSISTENTLY), not 5 carries of the same damage type.
"But hex, we played tryn top yasuo mid yi jungle, vayne adc and brand support and won!"
GOOD! It can happen! Just like a teemo jungle can get a pentakill! Just cuz you CAN do something and succeed dosent mean it WILL/SHOULD succeed.

****If you are at or below 50% winrate after 100 games, you are not improving. Take a break, play some normals, watch some pro play, and reframe your gameplay. Recording and rewatching your losses helps, look for what you can improve****

Top: Your role is to provide solid map pressure and take advantage of lulls and derelict junglers. You push top, making the enemy team have to send 1/2 to deal with you, and when they come you tp to your team and shove in the 3v5 4v5 that your pressure caused. You should be a tank/tanky. Carry top laners are very niche, and you should leave the carrying to the carries, your mid and adc. Your job is to be the teams rock.

Jungler: Your job is to support the laners and help them take objectives, while denying resources from the enemy team. Invading is okay, but unless you are a better duelist than the enemy jungler, it is better to just clear yours and not try invades. You need to be there to gank a lane thats ahead, then once the other teams laner is dead, help them shove the tower. If the other teams jungler is ganking top, and you are around bot, rush the dragon, gank a lane, or take their jungle. Same if the other teams jungler is bot. Playing jungle is alot like chess, you need to be 3 steps ahead of the other jungler, anticipating their movements and being there to counter, and if you missjudge, have another play in mind. Junglers need to be constantly moving. Do not afk in a bush waiting 20+ seconds for a chance to gank, or for a buff to be moving. You are also in charge of warding the enemy jungle, not your support.

As a midlaner, you are a big focal point of your team. Your role is extremely important, and there are three different schools of thought to playing mid lane. First, there is the agressive playstyle, in which you push the lane and try to land kills as much as you can. For this, champions such as Ahri, Orianna, and Syndra are good examples, since they all have very good pushing ability, as well as the potential to land kills repeatedly. The most important part is that they all have escapes. If you are going to play an agressive push lane, the point is that you will be drawing pressure from the enemy jungler. Which lets your bot, top, and jungle be more free with how they play. However, with the added jungle presence in your lane, an escape, and WARDING, are 100% necessary or you might as well just intent feed. Going even is not a good thing.

As an ADC, what is your job? The adc's job is to MAXIMIZE YOUR DAMAGE, and kill those damn objectives. By maximizing your damage, im referring to how you play in teamfights. Your job is to hit whoevers in range that you possibly can, not dive a low hp target, thats for your tanks and assassins. Your job is to hit everything and everyone that you possibly can, get that damage out there, and make winning the fight easier for your team. Obviously, if say a renekton and a ahri are both in range and at equal hp, you should probably be focusing the ahri. If your team is towerdiving, and neither side really has the upper hand, take out the tower if its low enough, and the scales will turn in your favor.

As a support, you are one of, if not the most important role on the team. You fill many roles, warder, escort, peeler, tank, healer, ccer, and occasionally supplementary dps (brand, zyra) In fights, your job should be to disrupt the enemy team as many times and as well as you possibly can, unless, say, you are soraka and can only heal. Watch a video on ward spots, its important for everyone to know. While supports arent wardbags anymore, people still think that they are, so you still need to be the one warding because others generally wont.

First off, let me preface this by saying maining a champion and playing said champion every single game is, in my opinion, a terrible, horrible idea and will not work. Sure, you might perform better on a specific champion and learn to master a specific champion, but for the purposes of advancing, you should base your pick around what your team needs, and what counters the enemy team. Lets say you wait to main riven. First pick is adc, second pick goes yi jungle, third goes yas mid, then support goes raka. If you pick riven, you deserve to lose. A well rounded team has alot more chance to win, and until you can play a variety of champions, you should wait before attempting ranked. Noone likes people first timing champions in ranked, and personally I equate it with trolling. One trick ponies hurt the community, because until you play a champ you arent as familiar with it as you could be, and that insight it what allows top tier players to be as good as they are.

There is a meta for a reason. There are champs that are fundamentally better and worse than others, and there are champs that are fun to play, but have little to no place in serious games. Unless you have a specific teamcomp running r5s and you have a stategy and comp that is centered around these champs, there are champions that will do better in any given circumstance than these champions.

You may argue, "BUT WAIT, COWSEP IS CHALLENGER AND MAINS YI" Sure, but you are not cowsep, you are not boxbox, you are not lordshaco.

Champs you should NOT play in ranked:
Yi: Yi can be a viable pick if you have a dedicated tank top, and a heavy AP mid, and an offtank support. However, even then, Yi is a bad pick, and you could be playing something better. Yi's kit and playstyle revolves around stealing resources from your own team, not helping lanes, and farming until you are viable to killsteal. Yes, you can gank, yes you can carry a game. Thats wonderful, I can carry a team as jungle tank teemo, it dosent mean its good. Utility junglers help the team tenfold more than what a yi can do. Your job is to support lanes, not be a carry.

Shaco: Sure, shacos fun. Sure, you can see some good, high level shaco players. Is shaco a viable pick? No. Maybe, if you get the 1-30 game invade and kill their jungler 5 times in his jungle and get every single jungle camp and end the game pre 20 mins. Chances are that wont happen. Shacos boxes have an AOE CC! He has a slow! He can assassinate their carries! All true! In fact, shaco is one of my favorite champions to play, but do I win with him? Not often. If you are looking to climb, there are many, many junglers that give your team a much, much higher chance of winning. Shaco is weak in sustained fights, and falls over in a swift breeze.

Yasuo: Lets be honest with ourselves, none of us is as good at yasuo as we think we are. About 90% of the yasuo players I run into, regardless bronze or diamond, are not very good at yasuo. It seems to be a regional thing, as koreas soloq has alot more success. Yasuo is a strong champion, but you wont do as good as you think you will, and for the purposes of climbing, you want to maximize your chances of winning.

Riven: Same reason as Yasuo. Lets be honest, Riven is ****ing FUN as **** to play, and is a total BADASS. Some players are crazy good with her and can carry the game repeatedly. The problem is everyone thinks that they are this person, and so the amount of bad rivens is exponentially higher than the amount of good rivens.

The only constant factor in you losing games is you. You are the only thing that is 100% the same in every game, win or lose. If you are losing constantly, the fault might be in something that you are doing.

Do not be afraid to let something go if it isnt working. Just bought CS riven, and have 1k games played on riven, but have a 45% winrate? Let it go. You are harming yourself and the people you play with. If you just wanna play riven, go to normals, where it dosent matter.

Be honest with yourself. Its not always someone elses fault. After a play, instead of looking at what went wrong, look at what you could have done differently. Sure, some things are unavoidable, and some people are just awful and will misplay, and theres nothing you can do about it. However, that mindset will hold you back. Focus on what you can do differently, and that alone.

Pick smart, pick what your team needs, you dont need to be the carry.

Thanks for reading, I hope to see you on the rift, with vastly improved winrates.