League of Legends: 50 Tips to Help You Climb Ranked in Season 10
By Josh Tyler
Winning lane, winning game
11. Punish big leveling spikes.
This is something high elo laners abuse all the time, but you should know how many minions it will take you to hit Level 2 in lane (seven if you’re a solo laner). If you beat the enemy laner to that Level 2 spike, you should always look to punish (and you should look to avoid getting chunked if you know you can’t push to Level 2 faster than your enemy).
This also goes for hitting Level 3 (when you’ll have all your spells versus the enemy only having two) and Level 6 (when you’ll have your ultimate before the enemy does). Abuse those spikes.
12. Time backs on cannon waves and item breakpoints
Something I don’t tend to see a lot of players do is timing their backs so that they can get to a certain item power spike. For instance, getting an early base in lane when you have enough money for a Sheen, Fiendish Codex, or Ninja Tabi can swing the lane in your favor if the enemy doesn’t take advantage of that back timing as well. This applies to junglers as well, who should be looking to clear their camps in such a way that they can base for their next big item buy.
If you’re a laner, though, one trick that can help you greatly is timing your back with a spawning cannon minion wave. The reason for this back timing is that the cannon minions are harder to kill, meaning your enemy cannot easily abuse your base timing by shoving their wave into your tower. And, if they do this, the cannon minion will tank more tower shots than the other minions, giving you extra time to get back to your lane.
13. Play around the junglers.
If your jungler is on the opposite side of the map and you go aggressive, they cannot help you. If you don’t know where the enemy jungler is, that can be a recipe for disaster. If you’re warding properly and tracking the enemy jungler’s pathing (or at least having an idea about it), you should know when you can or cannot play aggressively.
The general rule to follow is that you can play aggressively when you’re on the “strong” side of the map (with your jungler’s pressure or someone like the mid laner or support roaming). If your jungler is on the opposite side of the map executing a gank, be very cautious. Almost any good jungler, if they can’t counter-gank, will try to apply pressure on the opposite side of the map.
14. Punish players who carelessly use their dash abilities.
Even the most mobile champions usually only have two dash abilities in their kits, but most have only one. If you see your lane opponent or the enemy you’re looking to pick use their dash to kill a minion or just gain distance roaming to an objective, pounce on that opportunity. By the same token, don’t be that guy who uses their Playful Trickster to CS a wave as Fizz when it’s a 12-second cooldown because you’ll be screwed if you get ganked.
15. Only roam when the wave is pushed.
Roaming is the best way to not only extend your lead once the enemy laner has died so many times he’s worth no gold, but also transition your power to boost up other lanes. When watching coaching videos from folks like LS, Neace, or ZenCoaching, something you see a lot is players do (and those coaches call out) just randomly roaming from their lane to either help their jungler or take an objective. A lot of times, though, those roams are too late or they turn into a whole lot of nothing.
If you didn’t push the wave into the enemy tower before roaming, there’s every bit the risk that your opponent will push your wave into the tower, denying you that CS and experience when the minions die. You should only be roaming when there is little risk that you will lose minions.