There are over 150 champions in League of Legends, many of whom have unique abilities, play styles and overall gameplay mechanics. It seems overwhelming at first, but with time you start to find champions that you like to play because of aesthetics or because you pop off on them. Once you reach a point where you unlock the unholy land of Ranked Solo Queue, managing a Champion Ocean is a key point to finding success in your ranked climb. This guide will provide some insight into smoothing and molding your champion pool for newer and more veteran players to help you climb the ranks in League of Legends.

Develop Your Style

League is a game where every type of playstyle can be rewarded. If you like to be a big wall and create havoc for the enemy team, there are Champions that can do that. If you like to have big wombo-combo team fights, there are champions for that. If you like the move so fast that you become the bane of everyone’s existence, there are champions for that too. Figuring out how you like to play is a vital part to actually learning how to play the game.

This goes even beyond just saying that you are a mid-laner or a support. Being able to define that you are a tank support player or an enchanter support player is crucial to understanding how you like to play because it affects what champions you should be playing. Nobody wants a Yuumi support one trick to suddenly play Thresh because they feel like it because, more times than not, it will not go well for your team.

Every champion in league can be put into a “style” category, there are long range poke champions in every role, Big frontline tanks in every role and high mobility duelists in every role, the key is to be able to identify what your style is, then build a Champion pool based on your style.

Start Off Small

As stated above, there are over 150 champions in League of Legends, but just because they are there, does not mean you have to play them all.

If you are just starting out in ranked, or you have hit a rut and can not seem to climb anymore. Reevaluating your champion pool can be a good way to kick off or reignite your climb in ranked games. But it is important to keep this champion pool small. This is because you do not want to blend styles between champions and you want to make sure you are comfortable with the champions that are in your pool.

A good rule of thumb is have two to four champions for each role that you can comfortably play into a majority of the matchups you will be playing against. So at most, you need 20 champions that you can play comfortably, but I would aim for around 14 - 16 champions.

Another reason to keep it small is because you want to focus on playing and improving your game knowledge, farming, warding, teamfight positioning and other intricate parts to the actual game of league of legends rather than focus on learning what your champion actually does. By trying to play your role and style with 10 different champions, you are more likely to worry about your mechanics on the champion, rather than working on your game mechanics.

Actually Picking Your Champions

Now that you have identified and developed your style and evaluated the champions in League that best fit your style of play, it's time to actually pick your champion pool for your ranked climb.

This does not mean however that there are not some tips to what champions you should pick. If your style is that of high mobility mid lane assassins and you main Zed, then of course you should play Zed, but just because assassins are your style does not mean you should play an assassin if you have played in total two games ever on that champion.

If you do want to add champions to your pool or just need a backup plan if your main champion gets banned. Do not pick champions with very intricate kits or hard mechanics to get a grip on because you will more than likely struggle in your games. Rather, you should play champions with fairly simple kits and rewarding game mechanics to make sure you are not being bogged down by complex game mechanics and you are able to contribute to your team as well as being able to improve other aspects to your game rather than focus solely on your champions kit.

Of course, all other aspects of this article still apply up to this point, make sure whatever champion’s you learn fit within your style and that you don’t over-add champions to your pool to maintain that small size.

Patience and Consistency

Now for the fun part, your champion pool is set and it is time to begin your climb into ranked glory. If you find immediate success, great! But if you still struggle to find consistent wins it is okay, patience and consistency is key.

There is an old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” think about that if you ever struggle to climb or even find a constant string of wins. The likelihood that in one day you reach your end of season ranked goal is very very slim. But keeping the faith and staying patient to the process is vital to making sure that you don’t become engulfed by tilt if you struggle in some games.

Another good tip in practicing patience is focussing on your gameplay and what you should be doing, rather than putting a majority of your focus on your teammates. No one is perfect, so certainly people will make mistakes, but if your focus on yourself and what your need to do to win, then you will improve faster rather than if your focus on trying to perfect your teammates,

Once you start finding wins, make sure you stay the course and be consistent. If you win two games in a row, then completely change your style for the next game, then you are disrupting your improvement. Remember, a big point of accepting your style is to improve your game knowledge and general game mechanics, and making a sudden change in style because you are “feeling yourself” could upend all the work that you put into your ranked climb.

Conclusion

The world of ranked league of legends can be a very scary place for new players and veteran players. It contains multitudes of negative aspects like the opposing team, nerves and most of all, your teammates. The last thing that you want to be worrying about is the champion that you want to or will play. Hopefully this guide has provided some insight into managing your champion pool, as well as giving you some ideas on your future endeavours for your ranked climb in season 11.