Casual conquest

It is important to use casual conquest to get you ready for ranked. Casual conquest should be your go to place to practice builds, gods you aren’t comfortable with, and overall just warming up before diving into ranked. Once you hit level 30, I would highly suggest not just diving into ranked. You should be effectively playing enough conquest that builds, routes, and just overall decision making is second nature.

Multiple gods mastered

With the ranked system requiring you to have gods mastered, having multiple gods mastered is extremely important. The best ideal situation is having at least 40 or so characters mastered, not only just so you have something to trade. It is also to have a basic understanding in each god you go against and play with.

2-3 roles

Most people go into ranked only knowing one role or even worse one god. Yes you can get far with only knowing one god or role but once you get into later divisions of ranked people will start noticing and banning you out. Knowing more than one role prevents you from getting your role taking and just playing out of your comfort zone. Main a role you enjoy and love but also have a backup because you never know what will happen once you get into that match lobby. It is a MUST that you make sure support is one of those roles. You don’t have to be the best support player in the world but knowing a basic understanding of the supports and that role helps so much when you are in that bottom pick situation.

Being comfortable with your pics/builds

As I said before, when you are queueing ranked you are essentially looking to win. Ranked isn’t the place to play games you “guess” you can play. To effectively climb up the ranked ladder and getting more elo, you need to play gods you atleast have some basic understanding of them.

Curse voice

Curse voice is socially accepted as a must have when going into ranked. It gives you the opportunity to work on your communication and shot calling. You should be comfortable talking with strangers and keeping a cool head. Curse can get heated at times so, I would suggest being prepared to handle hostile situations in curse. Having a cool head in my opinion a must have. Being positive can surprisingly get you to win more games. Think about it, if someone is giving you praise wouldn’t you want to play good to consistently get that praise?

Adjusting to “BM”

As I said in the curse portion of this article, BM is going to happen regardless. However, realizing what bm is and what bm isn’t is extremely important. Normal criticism of your play when you do make a mistake isn’t BM. If you do happen to get that guy who just rages over curse and VGS, just simply mute him. Having him talk and getting you upset isn’t going to help you win the game.

Focusing on your own play and not your team.

It’s extremely easily for you to blame matchmaking or your team after you go 15-2 in a ranked game but that’s not always the case. You should get into the mindset of understanding what you could have done better even if you ended a game 15-2. Could you have prevented those two deaths? Could you have shot called better and capitalize on going for objectives at the right time? Did you ward constantly and effectively? These are all questions you should be asking yourself when you lose a game where you were dominating.

Knowing when to stop

Knowing when to stop playing ranked is very vital in my opinion. Some people tend to play ranked constantly after loss after loss and expecting to win. When you are constantly losing for hours on end, you won’t be playing at your maximum potential. I suggest after two to three losses, just log off and try again tomorrow. Especially if you can tell you are playing incorrectly, just stop queueing because you are gaining effectively nothing by hitting that “play again” button.

Knowing the meta and what can work

Of course, knowing the meta is key when jumping into ranked. You should be watching pro player streams, tournaments, and just paying attention to what you see all the time in ranked. Knowing how and what to ban is one of the key components of winning ranked. You should be trying to mimic the pros to the best of your abilities to see great success in ranked.