Top 10 Tips for Climbing Ranked Ladder

Ever look at high level players and wonder how they got there? They started from the bottom and clawed their way up, just like the rest of us, through trial and error, grueling mental stress, and finely honed motor skills. But what are some soft skills that can help you climb?

Introduction

League of Legends: The 5v5, action packed game with deep roots using a 1v1 chess ladder system (Elo). Since removed and replaced with a hidden "MMR" (matchmaking rating), the underlying concepts are the same:

1. Win to gain MMR
2. Lose and lose MMR
3. Winning against better people gives you more MMR
4. Losing against worse people reduces more MMR

So how do we maximize our winning and minimize our losing? Some of the tips you've likely heard below, while hopefully some of these tips will also help you on your way to conquering the ladder.

1. Never Take Winning Or Losing For Granted

In solo queue, no game is a definite win or a definite loss. 

Winning a single game will net you roughly the same as losing one game and winning two games. 

This means that no matter how bleak the odds, play it out. If it's really that bad, the enemy team will likely overrun your base soon enough.

2. Research Your Teammates

While researching the enemy team is of debatable usefulness, reaching your own team via a site like Lolking.net is absolutely vital to your climb. In order to maximize winning, allow your team to play at the maximum level. 

For example: You are a jungle and support main. Another person has a much higher support win rate and a sickeningly bad jungle win rate. Let that person support. Even if they do poorly, your team is still better off as a result, because that's as good as it gets.

Never expect your teammates to speak up.

3. Stick to Your Best Role

This might seem contradictory to the Tip #2, but it's actually very simple. If else nobody on your team specializes in your best role, play your best role. Oftentimes I see people say, well I'm pretty good at everything and I get bored...If your team was playing the best team in the world, who would you want to be? Be that role.

4. Ignore Losing Streaks

When you go on a losing spree, it's easy to say things like:

"I keep getting bad teammates"

"If I don't mid whoever else plays mid will feed"

"If I don't make plays nobody else will"

"Riot hates me"

Despite the fact that you may go on losing sprees from time to time, the key is to stick to your guns and play the game as you normally do. Don't feel forced to make plays or get demoralized. If you need to, take a break. Losing 10 games in a row doesn't mean you're definitely going to lose the 11th one. If you take that attitude into the game, bad things happen.

5. Pay Attention to Nerfs and Buffs

Riot guts champions from time to time. It's an inevitable part of the cycle of this game. Make sure you stay on top of things. If you want to follow along with the Solo Queue Tier List, it's an excellent start to seeing which champions are strong at the moment.

While you shouldn't always gravitate to the highest champions on the tier list, you'll want to take note if your favorite champion is quickly heading to the dumps, if you're continuously losing with them, then consider practicing up on a few new champions as well.

6. Nobody Is Immortal

This applies to both players themselves as well as fed champions on the team. Against players with seemingly impossible statistics, it's best to tread carefully, but don't be demoralized. Meanwhile, a fed enemy champion can still be slain 5v1 with turrets or if all else fails, the fountain.

If you happen to be "The Immortal" on the other hand, make sure you still fight with your team. If you travel alone, your team doesn't get assists or experience, even if you manage to take down 3 before they get you. Meanwhile, the enemy team gets your killing spree gold, a last whisper, a void staff, and suddenly you find yourself feeling awfully vulnerable.

This doesn't mean that the right split push for an objective can't win games, but never die for free.

7. Take Note of Player Arguments In Chat

If two players are fighting with each other in the champion selection lobby, it might not be grounds for dodging right away. However, if someone else dodges, I recommend not rejoining that queue for a few minutes until they enter champion select. To quickly tell, you can use www.lolnexus.com, Once it says "That player is still selecting a champion", you'll know it's safe to jump back into queue.

8. Don't Let Team Compositions Get You Down

Despite popular belief, most people are playing to win. This means that even if your team composition looks like utter garbage compared to the enemy team, don't dodge just yet. The enemy team may simply get complacent.

Also, especially at lower Elos, players who are willing to play with complete trash team comps without complaining usually have the ability to carry themselves regardless, which is why they don't care. If you have 4 super troll champions on your team, who knows...maybe it's 4 challenger smurfs. 

Stick around and find out.

9. Upgrade Your Trinket at Level 9

Sneaky right? See how this is tip #9? Totally did that on purpose. Anyway, UPGRADE YOUR TRINKET AT LEVEL 9 PLEASE. The fact that Riot has reduced it to 250 gold makes it basically FREE. It's also super overpowered compared to anything else you could possibly get, so please. Take your free gift.

10. Use Smart Pings

Surprisingly, I found this really strange since I normally don't play on my smurf too often nowadays, but people at lower divisions don't seem to ping correctly. First of all, yes, there's a MIA ping. But if you know which direction enemies are coming from and traveling, ping 3 times in a line from the direction they're coming from through the path they're taking.

If they're moving rapidly, ping in a longer line, if they're moving slowly, ping a slightly shorter line.

It's much more obvious and allows your teammates to understand what's coming from where, and react accordingly. Pinging the same spot over and over doesn't really help and often makes people get bullied in lane.

On a similar note, if you push your lane and there's nothing else to do, feel free to step into the fog of war just to mess with their heads.

11. Have Fun

You thought #10 was going to be the big concluding tip that wrapped it all up, but surprise it's #11. This game is meant to have fun. Ranked certainly gets stressful, and you want to take the game seriously, but if you're getting too worked up after the game about something that's already done and over, you're going to burn out very quickly.

Keep calm and carry on!

Got more tips for climbing? Comment below!