It's important to know what you look like. Similar to looking in the mirror, we can tell what someone's skill is by watching League of Legends VODs. We're going to be breaking down multiple general situations (champion combos, teamfights, early game, late game) to see if you can identify what the right move would be to do. A VOD, or Video on Display, is the replay of your match that you can access directly from the League of Legends Client. The VOD screen gives you multiple tools to assess your gameplay, and lets you see Champion Abilities and Summoner Spells individually.

To get to a specific game's VOD, take these steps:

1. Click on the profile icon in the upper right-ish corner of your League of Legends Client.

2. Click on the "Match History" tab on the left side above your player banner.

3. Find the match that you would like to watch over, then click the download button on the right side.

After it's done downloading, then the download icon will be replaced with a play icon, and you can click that to watch the game.

Before going into your VODs, you should mentally prepare for what to expect. This includes many things, but mainly just know that, like literally everyone else that plays League of Legends, you're not perfect. You will see yourself make mistakes, and it's important to identify those mistakes because you won't be able to fix your gameplay if you always think that you always play perfectly. Even top-level players such as Uzi and even Faker would be able to learn stuff from analyzing their VODs. You will be asking yourself a lot of questions when you analyze your VODs, so take time to answer them honestly. It is also recommended that you keep a "League Journal" in a form as a Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, to keep track of how you're doing and so you can see if any repeating factors keep showing up.

Deaths

One of the best ways to use your VODs to improve is to go over every death that you have and assess what happened. It's safe to assume that every death you have is a misplay or a mistake, because that time that you spent dead and walking back towards lanes and jungles, could have been used in lane or in jungle soaking up experience and gold or focusing towards getting control over objectives. I go in-depth on how deaths in League of Legends effect your game in a future article here on Dignitas, so keep a look out for it to learn how to apply that learning to your VOD analysis.

Champion Combos

Knowing the bread and butter champion combos is crucial to playing League effectively. For example, using Alistar's best combo, W(Headbutt)-Q(Pulverize) combo is amazing for setting up your ADC, but you can make the move more accurate and effective by pressing Q while you're in the middle of the W dash. This will cause the Pulverize to buffer and cast as soon as the Headbutt animation finishes. When you watch through your VOD, are you noticing that you're missing most of your CC setups for your jungler? Are you casting most of your skill shots into minions instead of walking upwards then hitting champions with it? Both are common mistakes that a lot of players don't realize they're doing. The realization that you're doing something wrong will allow for the mental notice and hopeful improvement when you go back into your game.

It would take way too long to describe the technical bread and butter combos for each champion, so it's best to research into your champion and find out what niche combos you can do with your champion. Or watch pro players play your champion, and see specifically what abilities they use when and why. Comparing this gameplay and your VOD will allow you to see how you're doing compared to them.

Teamfights

To be honest, most low-level gameplay won't have very defined teamfights. So that's why whenever you do get a teamfight in a game, it will be crucial to go back and watch how you reacted to having that pressure of needing to play your place. If you're an engaging tank, are you trying to catch their back-line damage champions out or are you sticking back behind your damage and not being effective there and letting your teammates get hit? If you're a damage carry, are you going in and getting burst out by their team or are you staying back and playing off your engagers?

If you're playing a support, are you focusing on keeping your damage carries alive or are you putting your shield on a weaker tank that would die no matter what? Being able to identify where you should be in a teamfight is crucial. Most of the time you're not dying to something that isn't avoidable. These teamfights twenty to thirty minutes into a game have a huge effect on the outcome of games, so make sure you go back to watch and assess how your performed and you know how to correct your mistakes.

Early Game

This is how you get strong. This is how you get to your item and level power spikes, and the early game will set up how the rest of the game will go. Most of the time, early game can be defined within three strong words: DO NOT DIE. The game can slowly spiral out of control if you start dying, because then you'll be coming back onto the rift weaker than the other team who will be 300(+) gold higher and with more experience points. If you get past not dying, then you should watch over the first 15-20 minutes of your game, specifically focusing on these things (Tip: Use the fast forward feature to go 2x, 4x, or even 8x speed!):

1) What am I doing in lane (or jungle)?

• Are you losing trades in lane? Why is that? Are you missing your last hits on minions? Are you allowing your ADC to run in 1v2 without helping them?

2) What do I know from looking at the minimap? (Tip: Change the 'Fog of War' to your team to simulate what you can actually see in-game)

• Did you see the enemy jungler gank top side and then not trade turret plating or a dragon for his time up there? Did you see your enemy top laner use Teleport on bot lane and not either Teleport in also or trade turret plates/Rift Herald for his time? Could you walk with your jungler into the enemy jungle to steal camps? All of this is information that you would know if you would be looking at your minimap during gameplay, and you can see the full picture when reviewing your VOD.

3) Why am I dying?

• Did you not look at the minimap to see the enemy jungler walking through river to you? Did you take a bad trade into strong early champions? Are you misplaying any of your fights around early objectives?

Being able to apply what you learn from asking yourself these questions to your gameplay will open up your skill level in the early game. This will help you gain a stronger early game which will lead into the late game.

Late Game

You can't win a game of League of Legends without your team having a successful late game. The basis of late game comes down to being stronger than the enemy team around objectives (Barons, Dragons, Turrets, and Inhibitors). Because of this theory, we're able to define what a good and bad late game looks like, and compare them to how your late game looks like. Here are a couple of good questions to ask yourself about the backside of each game:

1) Am I dying?

• It should be like clockwork now in your minds! If you're dying, you can't contest those late game objectives. Make sure that you know when it's safe to run up and hit a tower, when it's safe to start barons, and when to take fights (is the dragon/baron coming up soon?).

2) Are we fighting in good spots? What vision do we have?

• Make sure that you're not fighting into the dark. Vision is key here, and make sure that you're not always walking into bushes blindly by yourself, because you'll be an easy target. Are we fighting in a spot to where we're forced to be put into a chokepoint? This will make it to where you are an easy target because of limited movement options.

3) What are we getting off of our kills and teamfight wins?

• If you finish a fight on top, are you getting objectives or are you running back towards lanes and farming more? What's open on the map, or about to come up that you can take?

It's good to make sure that you're maximizing your late game as much as possible. If you gain advantages but don't do anything with those advantages, you're just allowing the enemy team a chance to get back into the game.

Concluding Thoughts

VODs are a great opportunity to improve at League of Legends, and they can expose bad habits that you have. Yet this seems to be one thing that not a lot of people know how to do effectively. Hopefully now you have a better understanding of not only what to look for but applying that learned knowledge to your gameplay.