Playing ranked in League of Legends can be a fun experience but it is undeniable that there are pressure and stress that go along with risking LP with every game. Sometimes the best avenue towards a win is to have a strong mentality and resilience so that you can thrive under the pressure. There are a few key concepts to keep in mind that are important to focus while grinding.

What’s Done Is Done

League of Legends is a game with an immense number of moving parts. Across both teams, you have 10 players, three lanes of minions, two jungles, and rivers with neutral objectives. To play at a high level you should have some understanding of the state of the game in regard to these different moving pieces. This takes focus on the present and what it could mean for the future which does not allow for time to be wasted on the past. Once a play is over, whether good or bad, you need to be willing and able to leave it out of your mind and move forward. Focus on the past will make your future decisions worse which can easily cause a spiral towards worse and worse decisions.

Just like individual plays you need to be able to leave games as a whole out of your mind as you move forward as well. That game where your team got stomped or that game where you got an insane Pentakill to end the game are not relevant once you have queued up again. It can be hard to drop an entire game out of your mind but there are a few easy practices to do this. The first is to leave the post-game lobby as soon as possible. The post-game lobby is full of players who are most likely not relevant to the next games you play and will more often cause arguments and toxicity rather than encouragement. If you want to review statistics from the game you can easily do this in your match history or on sites like op.gg. Another practice is to never look up players after a game. No matter what you see or how unjust matchmaking can seem to look up players after a game has high risk to cause frustration and cause the game to stick with you for much longer with little to no potential reward.

Doing this will make a huge difference in the amount of time that you’re able to apply full focus to the situation at hand and improve your reactions and playmaking.

Self Responsibility Is Key

It can be hard to take responsibility for a loss or rough situation that your team is in because you want to believe you have the skill and knowledge to win any game. However, this can hurt your ability to improve and also build frustration with the feeling of being out of control of your own LP. Blame allows you to continue to make poor decisions by telling yourself that you are right. This will continue to cause the same problems to occur which leads to the same blame trail. Every decision can be better, every movement and rotation can be quicker and more efficient. If you play with everything being your responsibility you will begin to improve and make better decisions from game to game. You will also feel more in control of your own destiny and be able to perform even in frustrating games because you are able to look for every good decision available to you.

This also can allow you to look across games and see a lot more than just the ending. Victory or Defeat is not the ultimate goal of each ranked game. Your goal across games should be to show that you are the best player in each game and improving so that you can keep that up even as you climb the ladder. Winning is a side effect of this practice and will allow LP to come more naturally with each optimal decision. With this mindset, defeats and loss streaks will no longer terrorize your state of mind and instead are more minor pieces of the bigger puzzle.

This also can manifest itself in review after games in order to minimize mistakes and maximize growth on a daily basis. Don’t forget to use the many tools available to yourself to turn this self-responsibility into more than just tilt avoidance and let it push you higher on the ranked ladder.

Chat Is High Risk Low Reward

Chatting is a trap that so many players fall into and can cause massive problems. Chat can be valuable for encouragement and strategizing where pings don’t suffice. These should be short and not common though. Chat cannot claw games back and it can easily lose your games the moment you allow yourself to freely type. Chatting to teammates also generally violates the first concept of focusing on moving forward above all else. While chatting you also cannot possibly be putting in the focus needed into the present moment and any time standing still and not watching the map is time wasted.

If you are chatting it allows you to be affected by what your teammates are saying and even to affect them negatively with your own chat. If you have a teammate that is losing their temper in chat and you try to calm them down, then you are at risk of them turning their tirade onto you. This can cause them to find a new person in the game to be upset towards and also cause some flame to potentially head your way. Any flame that is thrown your way is honestly not worth reading at all. If you put the time in to read and respond it is already getting under your skin more than you should ever allow it to. People who are blowing up the chat with flame and even griefing the game are often not calmed down by words but by silence. If they are rampaging through chat and running it down with a team that just continues to play and ignore them there are plenty of toxic players that will have no clue how to react.

If you have a need to communicate with your team then there are tools to do it. Pings are essential to communication in League of Legends and should be used well. You should be pinging anything you notice on the map in order to give your other teammates as much information as you can. If you spot the jungler, ping it. If your laner is roaming, ping it. If you have an opportunity for an objective, ping it. Don’t spam ping for flame if you can avoid it so that your pings don’t get muted or teammates get tilted and you will lose this communication route.

Chat is one of the most volatile and potentially tilting things in the game. Avoid it the best you can.

Allow Yourself Rest

Mental fortitude is hugely affected by your out of game habits. Sleep is important and you need to make sure that you have plenty every night. Especially if you continuously have a lack of sleep your focus and mechanics will deteriorate and you won’t be able to play at your peak. Not only that but your temper is shorter and mood less stable with lack of sleep.

Rest does mean more than sleep though. Defuse in-between games with fun YouTube videos or even a quick few minutes in a different game of your choosing. Especially if you’re having frustrating losses or an intense game this can help you to mentally reset before you jump into the next game. This allows for a clearer mind and levels out your tilt. You can fit in a lot more effective games with a 5-minute break in between each one during a gaming session.

Finally, it is also important to have the occasional day off. Days to pursue other hobbies, sit down for a movie, or spend time with friends can allow for relaxation and reflection.

Go out with a level head and make sure that focus and improvement are the first things on your mind from game to game. Believe that you can improve, and you will climb free of tilt.