Maybe one time when you first played League of Legends you thought it was like a Shooter game that you had to kill everybody in the enemy team or if you kill more you will obtain more gold and experience. You were right for the most part. But when you realize you can’t kill every time you try and die trying instead and start losing, then you have to change your strategy.

There’s a way you can succeed in every role you play with more knowledge of the game instead of your mechanics with the champion you are using at that moment. The following topics strictly complement each other and they are organized from the simpler things to do but the hard ones to understand to the most common things you do when you play but the least:

Don’t die

This is the first thing you have to learn if you want to win, a death or a kill gives experience and gold. When either team gets a kill it gives a lead to the player who got it, if you give more kills the more they will get ahead, never allow your enemies get ahead of you. This doesn’t mean you have to stick to your tower and forgive about CS or objectives; you just have play safe, if you don’t have wards and the jungler might be around, don’t push the lane. When mid/late game you can’t stroll in the enemy jungle without vision by yourself, you may walk into an ambush.

Learning how to position yourself in team fights in every role you play is the best thing you can do to accomplish this topic, if you are not a hard engage champ like Xerath you have to stay in the back but if you are a Sejuani and you are the main tank of the team you have to be in the front lane and try to peel your carries from skillshots or hard engage from the enemy team.

An example of when you have to lean back is when your turret is low on health and you are alone against two enemies. Just let them take the turret and do not die defending it, because when they finish they will go after you immediately. Also if your enemy is ahead in CS, gold and items and he is dealing more damage than you, try not to get harassed with poke and if you are low on health and out of health potions you should recall. Don’t put yourself in danger of a dive. Do not make an unnecessary dive just to get a kill because it can go the wrong way.

Obtaining gold

There are many ways for you to earn the in-game currency of League of Legends. The first one is passively, you generate 19 gold per 10 seconds after minions spawn.

-Minions, Monsters and Pets: You can only gain the gold by last hitting them. The jungle camps and the minions as the game progresses will worth more gold. When you kill Annie’s Tibbers, Malzahar’s Voidling, Shaco’s Jack in the Box, Zyra’s Plant, Rek’Sai’s tunnels and Teemo’s mushrooms (when you have the true sight) you will also earn gold.

-Champion Kills and Assists: The gold gain associated with a champion kill is determined by how many kills the slain champion has recently accumulated (champions that have killed many enemies without dying are worth more gold). When a champion is killed, the bounty ranges from 15 to 500 gold. If you were the killer you will receive 100% of the champion actual value. An extra 50% of the actual value of the bounty is put into a gold pool. This pool is split equally among all champions who assisted in the kill in the past 10 seconds (either by damaging or debuffing the slain champion, or by healing or buffing the killing champion). If there are no assists, this pool is lost. Extra 100 gold is earned for getting the first kill in a game (First Blood).

-Wards: Both Sight and Vision wards will guarantee you 30g if you provided the true sight to kill them, but if a team mate is the one who provides it then both will get 15g.

-Structures: Whenever an enemy turret is destroyed, every team member receives between 100 and 175 gold. When you kill an Outer Turret the allies who have helped to kill the turret will split 150 gold. As well you gain 50 gold when you killl an Inhibitor.

-Other: All the Support items will grant you extra gold but in different ways and the “Avarice Blade” generates 3 gold per 10 seconds and 2 gold per enemy unit killed. The masteries “Greed” and “Bandit” make you earn passive gold or when you assist a kill or auto attack an enemy champion respectively. Greater Quintessences of Gold grant an additional 1 gold every 10 seconds and Greater Seals of Gold grant an additional 0.25 gold every 10 seconds. Four champions have an ability that let them gain extra gold, they are Gangplank, Ashe, Twisted Fate and Draven.

To resume all of this, the more gold your team get higher the chances for you to win. If you get ahead in gold take advantage of it. First deny any source of gold to your enemy, freeze the lane if he is playing defensively, push the lane if he recalled so the turret will kill the minions. When the lane is reseting and there are no minions for you to kill, go and kill a jungle camp if you can or if you are having trouble farming in lane, ask your jungler if he can help you to get a camp so you can keep up in gold or if can zone out the enemy in order for you to farm.

Obtaining Experience

This is the way you will level up every abilities that your champion has, also many runes and base stats of the champions scale when your champion levels up. If you are higher level than your enemy it means that you will have more damage overall in your abilities and your auto attacks so you can make profit of that in order to harass or deny experience and gold to them.

There is some math and mind games behind this that I will explain after the sources of experience in the game.

-Champion kills: Killing an enemy champion rewards a player with an amount of experience determined by the level of the champion slain. Champion base kill experience is 50%.The experience gained is equal to 75% of the total experience required for a champion to go from the slain champion's current level to the next level up. In other words, if a level 7 champion is slain, the total experience gained is 75% of the total experience required for a champion to go from level 7 to level 8. The experience reward will be increased if there is a positive level difference between champions (e.g. a level 5 champion killing a level 7 champion) and decreased if the level difference is negative.

-Assists: A champion is given an assist after damaging an enemy champion that is then killed within 10 seconds or buffing the ally champion. A champion granted an assist will evenly split the total experience reward for killing the enemy champion with all other players that received an assist or landed the killing blow or are within 1600 range of the killing blow.

-Minions: Killing minions in League of Legends grants an amount of experience upon their death. The experienced gained by the champion is determined by the type of minion. Experience from minion deaths is split between all champions within 1400 range.

-Turrets: Whenever an enemy turret or inhibitor is destroyed, all champions of the team are granted experience depending on the turret. No experience is granted for outer turrets.

-Neutral monsters: Each type of neutral monster in League of Legends gives a different amount of experience upon death. Experience points from neutral monsters are split between every allied champion within a 400-unit range. Jungle monsters grant 50% bonus XP per level to lower-level champions, up to a cap.

Denying experience to your enemy means that then you level up first, you will have more stats than him (AD, AP, Health, Mana, AS, etc) so you deal more damage or have another ability, and you can achieve it most likely freezing lanes and counter jungling leaving a small monster so the enemy have to kill it for the camp to respawn later.

You have to consider that you split experience with your team if they are near when minions and monsters die, 30.4% more total experience is granted when two or more champions are splitting experience though, so you don’t want to lose a lot of experience when your jungler is waiting in the lane bush for a gank. In case you are the ADC or the Support, whenever the other recalls and you are good on health you can take advantage of that and get the full experience for yourself. If you see your enemy urgently recalling and you can cancel it without putting yourself in danger, do it, it will delay his coming back to lane making them lose gold and experience.

Objectives

When talking about objectives we refer to Turrets, Inhibitors, Dragon and Baron Nashor, but I will add some that people does not consider because they are less important. If you do these things you will see the enemy crumbling: stealing Blue or Red buff from the enemy team without giving up yours and burning Summoner Spells and Ultimates.

The most important objectives grant your team global gold, you should get them as soon as possible. When you kill an enemy turret they lose vision of the map, also the lanes can push further towards them so they have to defend the next turret and you can roam through the Rift and help other lanes. The team that gets the first dragon is the most likely to win the game because it gives your team a pretty good advantage in laning phase and team fights.

You and your team have to trade back objectives always, you just can’t let the enemy get the advantage and keep it. You can trade Turret for Turret, Dragon for Turret, Kills for Turret or Dragon, etc. As long you do any possible trades, do damage to a turret, deny CS to your enemy, ward the enemy jungle, or steal a buff.

You can consider an objective burning many Ultimates and Summoner Spells from the enemy champions, for example burning a Flash in laning phase allows your jungler to gank and ensures that your enemy won’t escape easily. Also if three enemy champions used their Ultimates on you and you are the main tank and you came out alive it means that maybe they won’t have it in the next team fight or they won’t have it to focus the carries. In addition, denying Blue buff to a mana hungry mid laner or highly dependent of it is a very good option (champions like Xerath, Lux, Karthus, Swain, Anivia) for shutting them down.

Killing enemies

I think this is the more satisfying part of the game, as you outplay an enemy or you set a perfect ambush even if you burn all your Ultimates and Summoner Spells just to get one kill and then go “Worth”. You have to realize that this is not the most important thing of the game, it is fun and challenging though this will not actually win the game. It is easier to farm 18 minions and get 300 gold than slaying your enemy.

As I explained before, if you accomplish this it will give you a lead you have to hold, in order to carry the game or to help your team as soon as you can. This will help you to take down a turret, go for a roam, recall and start buying core items. The problem of only thinking of killing enemies is that they start to be worth less gold and giving you less experience, so you have to change your source.

A piece of advice I usually give is if you can’t kill your opponent, you can burst them and make them recall so you just can sit and farm.

Conclusion

When you reach your own way to put all of this things together the results of your games will be better and if you forget one step and then lose the game you will notice in what you failed and what you have to try harder or practice. I know it's a bit much information to process all at once, but with every little effort you put in, the better you will get.