Overview

Ever wonder why bronze players have 45-minute team death match style games while in Challenger one mistake can end the game. An analysis of game length over each tier shows that as the average Elo increases the game average game time decreases. What leads to this game length decrease is high Elo players' ability to play much more proactively and exploit enemy mistakes. While these skills are acquired through play time you can supplement this playstyle with your champion choice and active decision making.

Champions

In solo queue, early game champions are kings. They possess the ability to take over a game and snowball an unstoppable advantage. Late game champions are still viable but a Jax who takes 20+ minutes to scale up into a decent fighter is less valuable than a Darius who can crush lane and put the enemy behind. Besides obvious strong lane champions, you should also look to counterpick the enemy. For example, if the enemy first picks Vayne, you can counter her with a strong poke lane like Caitlyn and Karma which will make her irrelevant for most of the game. Don't pick champions solely to counterpick, however. A consistent champion pool is more important than countering the enemy.

Top: Darius, Pantheon, Jayce

Jungle: Kha’Zix, Olaf, Graves

Mid: Syndra, Aurelion Sol, Viktor

Ad Carry: Caitlyn, Jhin, Ashe

Support: Zyra, Alistar, Karma

All of these champions are strong early game champions with decent kill pressure. The toplaners all have high kill pressure with Pantheon falling off later in the game. Kha'Zix, Olaf, and Graves all have strong early game clears with good ganking and invade potential. Syndra and Viktor are two champions that pose a significant threat at all stages of the game, while Aurelion has strong early game roaming and a strong two item power spike. Caitlyn and Ashe have high auto attack range which lets them bully other carries out of the lane, while Jhin has very large burst because of his unique ammo system and the fourth bullet always critically striking while also dealing missing health damage. Alistar is a strong tank support who has a large amount of CC that allows him to zone his opponents. Karma and Zyra are both ranged supports who have high poke damage early game that allows them to zone the enemy.

Proactive and Reactive Gameplay

Mastering proactive and reactive gameplay is essential to winning decisively. Proactive gameplay as the name implies is what you do rather than what the enemies do. A successfully pulled off proactive play can put you ahead and allow your team to control the tempo of the game. Setting vision, coordinating ganks on the enemy and preparing for objectives are all examples of Proactive play. The recent addition of Control Wards has added a new layer of depth to vision control, as you can take away the enemies' vision of an area around an objective whether they have a ward on it or not. Always prepare vision around an objective before it spawns. Reactive gameplay is how you respond when either the enemy acts before you or a proactive play goes wrong like a botched tower dive or a counter gank. Knowing your limit when reacting is important if the enemy team is getting dragon and you can get a turret toplane without dying that is a good trade. But if you take the turret and keep pushing which ends with you dying that reduces the value of the trade. Watching vods of competitive games is a great way to study proactive and reactive play.

Aggression Versus Recklessness

When playing a bully like Renekton or Darius, it can be easy to overstep the boundary between being aggressive in lane by contesting CS and being reckless by shoving the wave repeatedly. No matter how big of a lead you have it can be thrown away especially if you die carelessly to ganks. Having either proper vision or full knowledge of where the enemy team is very important when applying a lot of pressure because usually the enemy team will try and gank your lane to help whoever you are laning against. Being able to bait ganks can waste the enemy team’s time and will allow your team to play aggressive and proactively on the other side of the map.

Understanding your win condition

Win conditions vary from game to game and realizing what it will take for your team to win is important because it will allow you to proactively play towards that. Usually a win condition can be identified in champ select by looking at the team compositions, if the enemy team has a much better teamfight than you do but your team can split push effectively, your win condition is to not fight as a team and play around your split pusher pressuring enough so that they won't be killed. However, if your team has a 10 kill lead on the enemy even with the same comp, you may be able to win true 5v5 fights. A win condition can change constantly in one game and realizing what it is will make destroying the enemy nexus a lot easier.

Conclusion

Aggressive decision making and proactive gameplay can be learned over time. Understanding what they are is important to developing and using them to their full potential. Mechanics in league can only get you so far before your true knowledge of the game is put to the test. Thank you for reading! I'm Alexmanpersonguy, a Diamond V toplaner. I play on NA and if you have any feedback feel free to add me. Thanks for reading!

Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop