I am a Diamond ranked player but before you click away from this article because "I am an entitled high elo kid who doesn't understand my struggle of my bad teams", I know low elo more than you would think.

I started playing League of Legends in Season 2 and I was Bronze 5. Yeah, I was in the bottom of the barrel. I didn't play ranked until the season reset, and in Season 3, I was placed Silver 5. Already way higher than I'd ever been. Great. I was your typical Silver rated player. If you need any proof of that, just look at my Season 3 champion pool:

Picture courtesy of op.gg

I followed every Silver player trope in the book. I was toxic, flamed all the time, gave up easily, ran it down mid if someone stole my CS, the whole shebang. Yes, getting rid of a toxic attitude for sure helped me become a Diamond player three seasons later, but there was one thing, one very specific thing that I attribute my climb from a "low" rank of Gold, to a "high" rank of Platinum in Season 5.

I stopped being stubborn in my champion pool, adapted to the meta, and played what champions were good.

I watched tons of "educational" League of Legends content on YouTube back in Seasons 3-5. While a lot of them were telling the viewer what champions are OP at the moment, I don't recall many of them saying this. Play them. A good champion can take you so much farther than a bad one, as well as a good team composition. Yes, you get your one-trick Aatrox players in Master, but that's not the point.

Some of you are really going to dislike this. Being a "meta slave" or not enjoying what you are playing are two common excuses I hear. I have no problem with you being on your way playing Riven when your team composition requires a tank, or playing Zed when you need AP. Whatever, your life, your choice. But, in the League of Legends ranked system, doing something like that just isn't going to get you to a higher rank.

A lot of my friends are Bronze or Silver, and I've played with them and spectated them previously. And to be honest, their mechanics aren't bad. Their game knowledge isn't too shabby either. I believe that your champion pool can have a massive effect on how well you perform. Just take a look at the players in Challenger.

Top Lane: NCS Social Dog

Jungle: SWKM

Mid Lane: Celend

AD Carry: Apollo

Support: Xpecial

These players in their respective position are likely in Challenger partially due to the fact that they know how to quickly adjust to the meta, pick up the best champions quickly, and take advantage.

You also shouldn't only pay attention to the strict Nerfplz Tier list, or whatever site you use, but also to what your team is picking and what the enemy team is picking. Once you master a champion, the champion's mechanics should come naturally to you and shouldn't require a thought. What you should be thinking about is how you can work best with your team to win the game. This is why it is imperative you don't go on "auto-pilot" in champion select and have an open mind while choosing. Let's look at an example.

Let's say you're an ADC main, and you have a Leona support. The enemy team just locked in Lucian as their ADC, and it's your turn to pick. Leona works best with someone who can go ham. You don't know the enemy support, so it could be something like Lucian/Karma which would be a very bad lane to play something aggressive into. The enemy jungler has picked Elise and you aren't too comfortable with dodging skillshots. So you need a champion who can fill as much of the criteria as possible. Who can go aggressive when he needs to, can dodge skillshots, but still stay safe in a possibly dangerous lane? Yup, you know who to lock in.

This is a thought process that you should be going through into champion select each time.

• Consider the meta, but don't fall into The Azir Conundrum, where an infamous amount of players who had no idea how to play Azir were playing him just because he was broken
• Play what you're comfortable with, but don't fall into The Zed Conundrum, when you need AP, but your mid still picks Zed because it's his main.
• Look at what your team works well with, but don't fall into The Yasuo Conundrum, where your team heavily invests into knock-up champions that they can't play to synergize with a Yasuo pick
• Look at what the enemy team has picked, but don't fall into The Caitlyn Conundrum, when people use the classic "Caitlyn counters Vayne" idea and have no idea how to play Caitlyn

But there's one more thing you're going to need to understand.

I am not telling you to play the meta even if you're really bad at that champion.

Yes, everyone has a champion or two that they just can't play well enough. I am an AD Carry main, and I can't play Caitlyn for the life of me even though she's one of the best AD carries currently.

Play around in Normal Drafts (unless Riot removed it from you) and see what you are comfortable with. Also watch the professional scene or streams whenever you can to see little nuances that players have on each champion.

Bringing this all back to the point, I'm trying to tell you how you're champion pick matters immensely in the grand scheme of the game. Pick what your team needs, not what you want.

This is all talking about Ranked, of course. Go crazy with your Riven and Zed in normals! I'm not trying to take the fun out of your game or anything, I'm just suggesting that even though being a god at Aatrox Jungle maybe got someone to Challenger, it's probably much easier to escape lower rankings if you simply just play what is a bit better in the meta.

Until next time, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and maybe learned a thing or two!

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