Have you ever watched the LCS, LEC, LCK, or any sort of professional League of Legends, then gotten hyped from watching the clash of the best of the best? You're inspired, so you log into League yourself, then queue up for Ranked Solo/Duo, only to lose because everyone was so uncoordinated

Despite what many people will tell you, League of Legends is not a team game. Most people will never be able to taste what it's like to play as five members of a team, because games are won and lost mostly on the shoulders of two or three players in normal and ranked queues. My goal is to make you one of these two or three players consistently by following this guide.

1. Play Good Champions, Play Easy Champions

It's hard to win games when you already limiting yourself in champ select. You need to make sure that you can have champions that are forgiving, because unless you're playing at a very high level, you're going to make mistakes. As a Jungle main, Elise is one of the best junglers in the game if played correctly. But Elise's skill cap is very high, and it's not as forgiving as playing a jungler like Olaf or Hecarim, where you can afford to make a mistake early and not be too far behind. Good champions are able to be flexible, as Hecarim and Olaf can play as tanky meat-shields or dish out damage as a hyper-carry. Elise has mainly one playstyle, which is still good, but can be shut down if not played right.

The reason that we play good and easy champions is because it's obvious where you should be and what you should play around. In top lane, Garen can easily stay top for the first fifteen minutes, not have to worry about where his laner is as much as other champions and can take trades with his easy kit without getting punished because of his healing passive. Garen is a great example of an easy, good champion. He has very simple yet strong abilities, can come online for late game just by sitting in his lane and soaking experience and gold, and late game, he can sit in the middle of multiple enemies and still walk away with a kill or two in fights while still soaking damage for his teammates.

Ezreal and Tristana are good examples of champions that are very safe while also being able to carry the game. They have very basic laning phases, can be played both Mid lane and Bot lane, and can carry late game while dishing out tons of damage. I've listed easy and good champions for every role at the bottom of this article.

2. Be Greedy: Take What You Can

This is probably the most important aspect of carrying games. Being able to take what the enemy is giving you for free. The thing that makes a champion "fed" is maximizing your gold per minute. That can come in as many different sources, whether it be farming, taking objectives, reaching level or item power spikes, and yes, killing enemy champions. League of Legends isn't a Team Deathmatch, and champion power doesn't come from killing champions. It comes from mostly spending received gold, and other buffs given in forms of objectives.

Being greedy can also be seen in a form of not giving the enemy team kills/gold/experience early. If you're sitting in a bush and the whole enemy team comes out of fog of war at the beginning of the game, it might be worth to Flash away to not give the enemy team a starting 400 gold (and more with assists). You have to balance out the positives and negatives for giving up a summoner spell or first waves or camps. Most of the time (in Solo Queue), it's worth blowing one or two summoner spells to not give up first blood.

3. Don't Try to be a Hero When Behind

Know when you're behind in the game and learn how to play from behind. Did you give up first blood to your laner? You probably shouldn't fight your laner by yourself anymore, because you are risking the second death (where you'll eventually lose gold and experience) and then things will snowball out of control quickly. This isn't only with fighting in lane, but don't fight for objectives when you're unlikely to win that objective or the fight. If your team is in a 4v5 for the second drake, you most likely shouldn't contest it, because you can afford to give it up. At the same time, you should be available to go somewhere else on the map and gain objectives there.

I heard a quote once that changed the way that I played League completely. "To win lower elo games, just stop dying, it's that easy." Really, it's that simple. So much is lost when you're dead in lane, so take fights that you have a higher percentage of winning, and don't take fights where you're likely to die.

4. Concluding Thoughts / Strong Champions

To win a solo queue game of League of Legends, you need to identify the win conditions for your game, while also trying to stop the other team from reaching their win conditions. If you can put yourself on the win condition for your team, then you can easily solo carry by following the guide above.

Strong Champions:

Top - Malphite, Garen, Volibear, Sett, Ornn
Jungle - Olaf, Hecarim, Karthus, Nunu & Willump, Zac
Middle - Annie, Malzahar, Veigar, Orianna, Ahri
ADC - Tristana, Ezreal, Kai'Sa, Ashe, Sivir
Support - Leona, Nautilus, Morgana, Lulu, Alistar