Getting back into League of Legends after a break can be daunting, painful and utterly tilt-inducing. After all, your mechanics and macro awareness aren’t going to be up to par, and the likelihood is you’ll be returning to an entirely new meta. You’ll also be greeted in game by a bunch of unfamiliar faces; whether they’re new champions entirely, or old champions reworked.

While getting back into League at times can be downright frustrating and catching up with the new changes can feel as difficult as navigating through Grave’s smokescreen, there are some easy ways to ensure your comeback is smooth, fun and tilt-free.

Stick to What You Love, Not the Meta

The meta changes constantly. If you’re getting back into League after a long break, your playstyle and go-to champions might now be considered “off-meta.” While it can be tempting to try and play to the latest meta, you should stick to what you love and find comfortable; if you used to play bruisers, play bruisers. If you used to play engage supports, play them.

The reason for this is pretty simple: you need to make the game as enjoyable and as familiar as possible to ease yourself in. If you stick to what you find comfortable at first, you’ll be able to get back into the swing of things a lot faster, and it’ll be a heck of a lot more fun.

Remember: improvement is a gradual process, so start small and easy before attempting to learn about new and complex things you have no experience with.

Play ARAM and Practice in the Training Tool

Make it a habit to play ARAM games and practice CSing, skillshots and combos in the training tool. The training tool will help you warm up, rebuild your core mechanics and regain your muscle memory, while the ARAM games will be a fast and fun way to refamiliarize yourself with how to position, how to team fight and what each champion does. It’ll also expose you to all the new champions you missed.

As an extra tip, it’s a good idea to play these ARAM (and all) games with friends; they can help talk you through any major changes, and they can also answer any questions you have while you play.

Watch Streams and Keep Yourself Updated

There’s no escaping the fact that the only way you’re going to understand the new changes in the game is through plenty of research. However, research doesn’t mean you have to dedicate every evening for the next two weeks sifting through dozens upon dozens of patch notes.

Instead, you can simply check out guides which cover the key changes of each season you’ve missed, and read up on things which are particularly relevant for you (i.e. champion reworks or adjustments). You can even make research “fun” by watching your favorite League streamers and making notes of anything that stands out as different or new.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are handy tools available like Blitz.gg to help ease you in. Blitz.gg provides an overview of the meta and makes picking runes and itemization a breeze (there’s a lot of new item changes this season!).

Of course, make sure not to rely too heavily on these tools. You should still ultimately aim toward learning how all the items and runes work. That way, you’ll be able to build for yourself in the future, and you’ll also know how to effectively play around and counter your opponent’s items and runes.

Don’t Set Your Expectations Too High

Sure, you may have been Platinum before you went on a break, but don’t expect to still be at your old skill level. Your mechanics and awareness are going to be as rusty as Blitzcrank – last-hitting CS will be hard. Landing those skillshots you once aced will be hard. Your reaction times are also going to be a heck of a lot slower.

If you tell yourself you’ll be climbing up the ladder again in no time, you’ll only be setting yourself up for some head-imploding tilt; you won’t meet your own expectations, so you’ll be left feeling disappointed and frustrated.

Remember to be realistic with yourself and set small, reachable goals to work towards. Remind yourself that currently, you’re at a pretty big disadvantage compared to other players in the game, and it’ll take you some time to get back in the groove.

Pretend Ranked Doesn’t Exist

Yep. Ranked no longer exists. That “RANKED SOLO/DUO” option on your client? Nope. Haven’t heard of it. Sure, I may be being just a tad OTT, but if you jump headfirst into ranked, that tilt surrounding not meeting your expectations I talked about earlier? That’s going to manifest tenfold; you’re playing in a competitive environment, where your “out of touch” gameplay will be shown visually, right in your face, through dwindling LP and demotion after demotion.

And you won’t just be failing to meet your own expectations, you won’t be meeting your team’s expectations either; they’ll likely flame you for every little mistake you make (and you’re bound to make a lot of them!).

Even if you /muteall, and tell yourself you don’t care about losing LP, you’re still hindering your actual improvement. Ranked, with its competitive nature, is an extremely pressurized and stressful environment, which makes it seriously hard to focus on the small things you need to be improving on as a returning player, like farming CS and skillshot precision.

Once you’ve got back into gear and feel pretty confident with the basics, only then should you start exploring ranked queue again.

Don’t Forget to Have Fun

Pretty self-explanatory, but you’ll be surprised at how caught up you can get in League when you first return to it. While it’s important to research and practice, don’t do so to the point it becomes a chore.

If you make getting back into League solely about relearning and refamiliarizing, you’re going to be in for a rough time; you won’t enjoy your matches since you’ll be constantly thinking about all the things you have to improve on. It’ll be mentally exhausting, draining and you’ll eventually burn out.

Although it’s okay to take improvement seriously, remember that at the end of the day you should be excited to have fun playing League again, not dreading how much you have to learn and “train” to get back into the game!

Final Thoughts

While getting back into League can be daunting, having fun, a positive mindset and plenty of practice will help you overcome your rustiness, and in no time you’ll be back on your way to climbing up the ladder.

Of course, don’t get frustrated if it’s taking you longer than you expected to get back into the flow of things; as Braum nobly tells us, "When life gives you curdled milk, be patient. You get very good cheese!"