When it comes to improving in any aspect of life, it's all about starting with the right habits and creating a structure to improve upon. For League of Legends solo queue, there are countless strategies to climb that are all quite valid, but establishing good habits will be the most consistent way to climb; regardless of where you start!

Warming Up

I know, it sounds SO boring. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you even skip over this section like "Okay, yeah anything else", but really take a minute to consider the impact it can have on your session. In literally every sport, the best athletes will warm up before they play. Sure, League of Legends is an esport, so it is different, but we all know warming up will be beneficial to our gameplay.

A good place to start is to pick a champion you are planning on playing that day and load into a custom game against a bot (or a friend is much better), and just practice your last-hitting for 5 or so minutes. If you're a jungler then load into a custom and do your first clear route to just warm up your hands a bit! After that, use the toolbar on the left side of the screen to level up to 18 and add gold so you can get to full build. Then just go to a place anywhere on the map and drop some ally and enemy dummies and just practice your kiting, combos, movement, etc. until you feel like you're warm!

That's it! It's really only like a 10 minute commitment every time you log on for a play session, but it can really help you avoid that first game jitters or cold hands!

Creating Goals and Steps to Achieve Them

Establishing goals and steps to help achieve them is like setting up a path forward to climbing the ladder. The most important aspect of goal setting is two-fold. First, you need to set goals that are achievable and not results-oriented. Don't make goals like: win 5 games straight. Goals about wins, or specific ranks by certain days, are good… but you need goals that are specific to get you there in the end. Trying to make the goals realistic will help you improve on your ability to determine your own skills.

Once you understand that, it's good to have different time horizons on your goals to create that path to the end result that you're aspiring to reach. For example, having an early-game goal, mid-game goal, late-game goal, mental goal, and overall goal of the day! An example of an early game goal is to not die to a gank before level 6! An example of a mid-game goal is to ward proactively to set up for objectives!

An example of a late-game goal is to have 8cs/min. Ultimately, the in-game goals are really up to you and you can have different ones for each game. They should serve as reminders to work on some things that you struggle with, but not feel like they are too difficult that you need to play selfishly in order to actually achieve them. As for mental goals, I always recommend having a mental goal that involves teammates. For example, a good goal is to remind teammates when they do something good, and not complain or be toxic when they misplay. Finally, a day goal would be something like trying to finish the day with more LP than you started!

Scheduled Play

As much as people hate the idea of schedules, whenever you have a schedule and stick to it, it promotes you to stay attentive and mentally fresh. It allows you to dedicate un-interrupted time to focus on gameplay and establish the discipline you need to climb by just sticking to the schedule. The best way is to just allocate a maximum number of games to play in a single session.

Personally, I like to give myself a series each day. So, for most days, that means a max of 3 games, but I play it like a series. If I win two straight, or lose two straight, I don’t even play the third game. Instead, I use the time to VOD review. This gets you used to the pressure of a series and will give you an easy way to see how you did for the day. If you lose two straight, you should avoid playing a third game because you may be tilted. If you won two straight, then you should quit while you're ahead! Either way, scheduling time to play and sticking to that schedule will help you avoid losing focus and playing on 'autopilot'.

Sticking with What You Know

It sounds kind of bland and intuitive, but it cannot be overstated. The prime example is to have a concentrated champion pool for your best position. This is easily the most recommended tip from Master+ level players and is for a few important reasons. First, it prevents you from having to learn all of the champions in that role to a standard that will help you climb, but also to learn the few champions you do play, much faster and to a higher degree!

This is extremely important because the mechanical aspect of the game is much easier to pick up for that champion because you haven't gone a long enough time not playing the champion to feel rusty. The added benefit to that, is that in feeling more in tune with your champions capabilities, less attention is needed on that aspect of the game, and thus more attention can be applied elsewhere. Second, you can easily learn your matchups. If you play over 20 different champions but play against the same 5 champions every game, that’s 100 matchups you need to learn.

Let's say you need 4-5 games to properly learn the matchup, that's 400-500 games in total! That's under the assumption you can even retain that information long enough for the next time you encounter that matchup, too! However, if you stick to the same 3-5 champions, instead, you're looking at 15-25 matchups, and 60-125 games to learn each matchup properly. That is MUCH more realistic, and you're much more capable of retaining the knowledge of each matchup! The last important benefit to note, is that it reduces variability in your solo queue games. Solo queue is already an incredibly intricate ecosystem where you can have the nicest and most synergistic team in one game, and the very next, the most toxic and disastrous. A lot of that variability comes down to how players interact with each other and the game's environment.

By having extensive knowledge of your capabilities with a handful of champions, you can be confident in your ability to perform, and so can your teammates. I can't tell you how many times I see a teammate of mine have the name of a champion in their summoner name and I think to myself "Perfect, he got his main champion, I know he knows what to do, and I am comfortable listening to his calls." Just having confidence in your teammates can be the world of a difference in your team's ability to perform and work together towards the win.

The other benefit I'll mention in sticking to what you know, is once you learn what you are good at, you stick with it! For example, I have a friend that is really good at engaging and judging how a skirmish/fight will play out based on compositions. So, what better role is there for him to play than the team's source of engagement? If he is really good at knowing when a fight will go in our team's favour, then he should be the one that can 'pull the trigger' as soon as he sees the opportunity! The same can be said for any aspect of the game such as: Mechanics, shot-calling, side laning, jungle tracking, etc. It's commonly misunderstood that you have to be the best at all of these aspects to be a good player; you really don't! It's always better to have a team where each fills a specific role to an exceptional ability, than a team where every player understands each role to an acceptable degree.

Mental Fortitude

Finally, the most important part of your climb. Your mental fortitude. Your mental will likely lose you the game before your nexus actually explodes. So, once you learn to control it, you can control your destiny in the game. Put yourself in a positive mindset, oriented towards improvement (instead of end-results) and you will see the results you're looking for. This is why the goals section is so important because it's creating that path towards success. If you focus on what you need to do to reach those goals, then you can have faith in your ability to find success.

Don't focus on winning. If that's all you focus on, then you're setting yourself up for disappointment and failure half of the time you load onto Summoner's Rift. You cannot win every game, but you can improve every game. Once you have that state-of-mind, you are taking leaps in setting yourself up for success, and from there it's just a matter of sticking with your plan, and learning from your mistakes.

Conclusion

Overall, it's obviously difficult to establish new habits, especially because it usually means getting rid of bad ones. But take the time to reflect on how important it is to you that you improve your gameplay, and then take the actions that you need to make that improvement. The only thing standing in your way of success, is yourself.

Do your best and keep asking questions. Good luck, Summoners!