The age old adage. Don't play mechanically intensive champions until you understand the game better. However, what is often lacking in that advice is a good description of what understanding the game better means.

Let's take Lee Sin as an example. Lee has a ton of ways to gank or effect plays around the map.

One combo that I've seen described is to hit them with a Sonic Wave (Q), place a Stealth Ward or Vision Ward behind them, Safeguard (W) to the ward, auto attack (AA) them, activate Tempest (E) for some additional damage, nail them with Dragon's Rage (R), and follow up with the 2nd half of Q, Resonating Strike. Oh and you might throw a Smite in there somewhere assuming you have a champion targetable smite.

Did you get all of that? Can you do all of that in the 3 seconds you have to reactive Resonating Strike? If so, congratulations, you probably don't need to be reading this.

But how do you approach ganking with Lee Sin before you have Dragon's Rage? What if they aren't in range or at a good angle from which to hit Sonic Wave?

How do you know there is a gank opportunity for you to be there in the first place trying all that fancy stuff?

So that question gets to the heart of the issue. You have to know so many things just to get to the point where you recognize a gank opportunity, or a roaming opportunity, or an opportunity to support your team via Teleport.

By all means try out as many champions as you possibly can. The more you know about what makes a champion tick, the easier it is to play them and play against them, but when it comes to getting a handle on the game strip it down as much as you can so you can quickly get to the point that you are effectively playing your champion on remote control in order to leave room for the most important aspect of the game - decision making.

Have you ever tried talking to someone in the room with you and playing league at the same time? Most of us can't split our attention and play well. Big time streamers tend to be able to manage it somewhat well, because they have A LOT of practice (probably 1000-2000 games/season) and even most of them struggle to explain everything they are doing on a play by play type basis. And almost all of them will admit that when they want to try hard they do it off stream, because they know they aren't able to devote the mental resources to concentrate on the game while they are commentating.

And here I go leaving out the description of what understanding the game better means. Don't worry, I won't leave you hanging. But I will say up front that I'm only now beginning to get it myself, so I'll probably miss some important aspects.

So do you remember back to when you started playing? You probably picked up a melee champion like Garen because of the cool spin and when you went an autoattacked your lane opponent you would lose the trade and you would have no idea why other than they must be playing some damn OP champion, when the fact of the matter was that you lost the trade because of minion aggro. "Screw this melee ****, I can't do it." So you switched to Ashe and it goes a little more smoothly until you have a melee champion in your face and you can't get away from them and your dead support types in chat, Ashe, you need to kite.

Kite? There isn't really a z-axis in this game, how would I fly a kite? Does the store even have a kite?

Everyone needs to learn how to ward.

Laners need to learn

-How to CS
-How to trade
-How to watch the mini-map
-How to kite with autos and abilities
-How to zone
-How to freeze
-How to fast push
-How to slow push
-When to freeze or push
-When to back
-What to buy
-How many minions it takes to get to Level 2
-Lane match-ups
-Identify where the enemy jungler started and plan accordingly
-How to coordinate jungle ganks
-Track major cool downs


Junglers need to learn

-All of the things above
-Jungle pathing (where are you going and why are you going there)
-Guarding against invades
-When it is safe to counter jungle
-Against whom it is safe to counter jungle (match-ups)
-How to gank from every conceivable angle given your champion's kit
-How long it is okay to wait on a gank opportunity to develop
-De-ward
-Track timers on major objectives
-Deciding when it is "safe" to take major objectives
-Listen for notes from your laners about major cool downs being blown
-Know what mobility skills a champion has and when they've used them
-How to keep tabs on what is going on around the map while clearing your jungle
-Know when to use your summoners and mobility spells to give a gank the maximum possible chance of success
-Know the lane match-ups, which may inform your jungle pathing
-How to recover if you do get invaded or are set behind by some botched ganks or counter ganks

I could go on. But really the point is that is a lot of things to know before adding complicated champion mechanics on top of it. Generally the point of complicated mechanics is that they give you more options, which is great if you know what to do with those options. But if you are playing jungle a don't really know why your are headed to the Top side of your jungle after you've backed, then there is an easy way to improve your game without having to manage a ward hop during the middle of a team fight.

So, my advice is spend the time learning what your options are, followed by learning what the right thing is to do with those options (decision making), and then finally consider working on your Insecs and Shurima Shuffles assuming those sorts of champions appeal to you.