The mid lane is one of the most popular roles in the game, and there’s a good reason for this. It’s the role where you can truly channel your inner “Faker” and live out your carry dreams.

However, the mid lane’s game-changing impact is a double-edged sword: You need to play it pitch-perfect. Make a mistake, and you can cause your team to fall apart and quickly find yourself looking at the defeat screen.

To climb as a mid laner, there are several skills you need to master beyond just beefing up your K/D/A. Read on to discover what these are — trust us, your LP will thank you.

1. Master CSing Like a Pro

Sure, a 5/0/0 KDA may look impressive, but if you’re sacrificing farm to secure kills on an enemy who likely by now lacks a bounty, you don’t really have much of a lead.

To put it into perspective, a minion wave averages around 115 to 148 gold and also grants a good amount of experience. A kill is worth 300 gold. It can be potentially higher if the champion has a bounty, but it can also be lower if the champion has a negative bounty. Repeatedly killing your opponent is likely to significantly reduce their bounty and actually make them worth less than a minion wave.

Kills also don’t guarantee gold or EXP. Your target may escape, leaving you without a kill and farm, and likely a few wasted summoner spells or abilities. You might even die in the process.

In short, farming offers a much more reliable source of gold and XP income. By farming effectively, you’re often able to secure a lead and put your opponent at a disadvantage, even if you don’t chip away at their health bar.

This makes farming one of the most important skills to master as a mid laner (and for any role, for that matter). Familiarize yourself with minion values and practice last-hitting in the practice tool with your main champions. You should aim for at least 7 CS per minute.

2. Perfect Your Laning Phase

A strong laning phase means you’ll always have a head start and will gain more opportunities to secure kills, turrets, and key objectives for your team. It also limits your enemies' capabilities, as they’ll lack the pressure to contest or challenge you.

Perfecting your laning phase is easier said than done, of course. Alongside farming, you need to master aspects such as:

• Your positioning: Play your lane with careful aggression. Overextending can leave you vulnerable to the enemy’s harass and ganks, while playing it too far back can cause you to miss out on farm, XP, and pick opportunities. Look to play more aggressively if you have a minion advantage, your jungler is nearby, and you have abilities up. Position defensively if your abilities are on cooldown or enemies are MIA.
• Wave management: Controlling the minion waves effectively will allow you to set the tempo of the lane. You’ll be able to force your enemy into an unfavorable position, secure farm with greater ease, and roam without losing significant XP or gold in the process.
• Trading: You need to always look for opportunities to trade with your enemy. While this will vary depending on your matchup and the game state, you generally want to trade when your opponent is in a last hit animation, has just wasted an ability, or you have a level or item advantage.

While we can’t go into in-depth detail here, you can find plenty of helpful laning phase guides on our blog, so be sure to have a read in your own time.

3. Improve Your Map Awareness

Yes, you’ve probably heard it before, but there’s a reason why “map awareness” is stressed so often. If you don’t know where the enemy or your teammates are, you’ll lack the information you need to make informed plays and identify game-changing opportunities, like free objectives or overextended enemies.

Map awareness can be tricky to master, especially since you have to balance it with farming and trading. However, there are a few nifty tricks that can help you improve your map awareness:

Use a “map” video that plays an audio cue every few seconds to remind you to check the map

• Unlock your screen and make use of the F keys to quickly switch between different teammates
• Learn vision control fundamentals and implement our warding tips into your games
• Adjust in-game settings; minimize visual clutter, increase the volume of vital sound effects, and enlarge the map’s size to ensure it’s always in your view
• Get into the habit of using and recognizing pings

You should also consider trying out some champions with global abilities in Normals. You’ll be forced to pay attention to the map, which can make you more conscious of the map when playing other mid lane champions.

4. Don’t Limit Yourself to the Mid Lane

The mid lane’s central positioning allows you to roam to both the top and bot side of the map with much greater ease (and less risk) than other laners.

You want to use this to your advantage. Whenever an opportunity presents itself — i.e., the minion wave is pushed under your opponent’s turret — look to see if you can make any plays through roaming. Gank overextended opponents, help the jungler secure objectives, and place deep wards or clear enemy vision.

Through effective roaming, you’ll be able to help your other allies get ahead and increase your team’s overall lead.

5. Understand Your Matchup

Understanding your matchup isn’t as simple as quickly checking your opponent’s abilities in champ select. You need to be familiar with the intricacies of their kit, including the range of their abilities, their cooldowns, power spikes, and weaknesses.

You also need to know their common build paths and whether they have been affected by any recent patch updates (buffs, nerfs, item changes, etc.). The more information you know about your opponent, the easier it will be to identify and exploit their weaknesses in the game. This ultimately translates into long-term LP gains.

It can feel overwhelming at first, particularly if you’re new to the game and haven’t played many champions yet. However, start by focusing on the highest pick-rate mid lane champions. Use our blog, the in-game client, and helpful community resources like Summoner School to learn information about these champions.

Once you’ve understood the fundamentals, watch pro streams and try the champions yourself in Normals to get a better sense of how they play out in practice. You can also review your games from your mid lane opponent’s camera perspective.

Channeling Your Inner “Faker”​

​From mastering CSing to perfecting your laning phase and roaming, there are plenty of skills you need to master to climb the mid lane. While it can take time, the effort involved is worth it: You’ll give yourself the best chance of carrying your games to victory.

As some final advice? Our last tip is to stay consistent, be patient, and most of all, remain positive. It can be easy to get tilted playing the mid “carry” role, particularly if you experience loss after loss. However, remember that with practice, those loss streaks are simply blips on your way to the top, and they’ll gradually turn into win streaks.

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