One might think mastering a Champion requires a lot of effort and time, and many might agree based on what Champion they are talking about. A champion can be "mastered" faster than you think, with the right mindset, research and effort you can become a great player with a champion you have never played before.

To help you with this, I have created a basic guide on how to learn and master a Champion!

The Basics

To start off, you should do research, this can help you on the first time you play the champion. "But what should I do, what will i need to research?". Lets start off with the basics, choose your Champion and take a look at their skills, what do they do? How do they work? Does it scale off of Attack Damage/Magic damage? You may miss small details that are essential to your champion. (For example, Casseopeia's Twin Fang reset on a poisoned enemy, and will increase the damage of the poison by 20% stacking up to 2 times. If you didnt know this you may have missed out on a large portion of your damage.)

Getting to know how the champion works and what the Champion can do is essential, some players perfer to dive into a live game and try out the champion, but if you were a person like that would you be here? I assume not, so lets go on! If you truely are interested in this Champion, check out how the Champion functions in-game, you can do this by watching VoD's. You should watch carefully, take note of what the player does, how the player reacts and what the player does to play them to their true potential. This means you'll have to look at things such as laning phase and teamfighting/skirmishing, if you are interested in an even more in-depth analysis of the Champion is played, look at how the player uses their skills and sets up their combo's, this can be vital for the first few times you play the champion.

Within the basics are also two of the most important factors in mastering the Champion, do you like playing the champion? and do you see yourself playing the Champion frequently? If you do not see yourself playing the Champion based on the skillset or play-style of the champion, you may give up on mastering/learning the Champion in the first few games you play.

Playing the champion

Before playing the champion you should check out what the standard runes and masteries are for that specific champion, this will help you on the first time playing the champion as you are playing the champ without exactly knowing why the Champions setup is important for him/her. After setting up your runes and masteries you should check on what to build on the Champion, while builds can be changed based on what the game calls for, knowing what the standard build is for the Champion can help you in what the Champion needs, some Champions may stack Ability Power/Attack Damage while others are centered around Armour/Magic Penetration.

Now it's time for you to get some hands on experience with the Champion, with all of the information that you have gathered, you will need to "feel" the champion. While playing you will gain experience with the attack animation and the style they should be played in. When playing the Champion you should think of what you will need to do in laning phase against different enemies, you will gain experience and knowledge through-out numerous match-ups and games, with that experience and knowledge you will be able to access fights, "win" laning phase and be able to utilize different item builds.

Mastering the Champion

"But how do you actually master a Champion?". Well, you can define it yourself. However, I like to describe having mastered a Champion as: "Being able to play the Champion without having to think about what you are doing", when everything comes natural you are truly a master in my book.

Mastering a Champion can take a lot of work, being able to do anything while not even thinking about it or plan it ahead of time takes muscle memory and dedication. Being able to last hit near-perfectly, execute combo's correctly and itemize well is the start, being able to adapt in teamfights and being able to play the champion in nearly every team compisition or match-up, being able to play around your teammates, being able to play from a deficit. these are all signs of mastering a Champion, but once you're doing this consistantly, you can say you have mastered a champion!

When you are trying to master a Champion you should keep note of your actions and think of what you're doing right, so you can correct it the next game. Mastering a champion takes practice and time, and as you spend time you will become more experienced. Mastering a Champion is easy, you just have to take notes and improve on what you're doing wrong, you should repeat it until you can do everything near perfectly, until you're confidient to do anything with that Champion, whether you blind pick the champion into any match-up, or are able to use different builds and skill orders to change things up.

As a bonus, when you have truly mastered a champion, you've most likely gained Rank 5 in the mastery system, so when you do you can show your enemies you have mastered him/her with your special emote!