It happens to us all. We start out hot early in the League of Legends’ season, rack up a high winrate playing our best Champions, climb to where we were or maybe even a little higher, and then eventually plateau into our old patterns. It’s one of the more frustrating things about trying to improve your rank, and it can be a motivation killer for those that set out to achieve more. But there are ways to get over this hump, to overcome the stall and continue progression.

Today we’ll be unpacking those methods. And some may surprise you as they’ll have nothing to do with League of Legends as a game at all. So, strap in, ready that open mind, as we unpack what to do when you’re stuck in rank.

Warm-Up

Keeping it simple from the start, to get over a slump you need to get into the habit of warming up before your LoL sessions. Getting your fingers in motion, your eyes attuned to the game, and your brain involved in the execution of a Champion is key. And the best part is, warm-ups can come in many flavors depending on your allotment of time.

First, there’s the Practice Tool. Here you can select your main or rotate through the Champions you’ll be focusing on for your session. In the Practice Tool, Minion spawn can be controlled with a click of a button. So, you can set out to focus on CSing, or you can turn off the Minions spawn and set up Target Dummies where you can practice your ability combos, timings, and synergy with items.

Secondly, there’s ARAM. While die-hard ARAMers will likely flame us for bringing down their favorite game mode into a hand-warmer space, it’s genuinely a great way to get your mind engaged with LoL if you don’t want to play a full Summoner’s Rift game or put time into the Practice Tool.

The benefits of ARAM are that it’s all about execution and teamfighting. With everyone gaining passive income, you’ll eventually get your items, so there’s no direct need to worry about farming. Instead, you can tunnel on the execution of your Champion and maximize their damage output from moment to moment. With ARAM being a single tight lane as well, this encourages teamfights to happen frequently as one pick can quickly snowball into everyone slamming down their ults and running at each other. While this can come off as random at times, when you think about it, everything comes down to threat assessment and analyzing the enemy composition.

If you’re a dash-heavy Champion and you’re playing against a Cassio or Taliyah, you know you can’t just full send it on repeat. You have to be patient and wait for your windows to present themselves and, ultimately, this builds good fight assessment and translates well to Summoner’s Rift.

The last warm-up we recommend is simply getting into a Normal Summoner’s Rift game. There’s no better tool to warm-up than emulating the environment you’ll be looking to execute in. As an added bonus, with no stakes other than the misery of your teammates, in a Normals match you can test your Champion in the exact circumstances you’ll be looking to execute in. This helps you more realistically shape your goals and expectations for your eventual Ranked session.

Create a Focused Environment

Just as with any sport, study, or hobby that requires precision, you want to foster an environment of focus. This is doubly so when it comes to League of Legends. Why? Because unlike studying, fitness, or training yourself in another hobby, League of Legends pits you not only against yourself but also against everything else that could distract you. This could range from your teammates, to your friends on Discord pinging you to play, to your phone ringing mid-game. So, we want to start by limiting and removing those factors as much as we can.

Start first by muting your teammates. We know this is a dead horse discussion point within the LoL community at this point, but with Riot’s staunch resistance to voice communications and expanding communication tools, you’re better off getting ahead of the curve and Mute All. Of course, this can limit the information you receive in the game that could be vital, but even the toughest of minds can bend to the chaos that is All Chat and Flaming. Shutting down this distraction before it can even become a problem is step one.

Next, let’s talk about factors outside the game: that pesky phone ringing, those Discord notifications, parents, friends, and other distractions outside the game. When you want to climb and create a focused environment, put your efforts towards creating a distraction-free practice and play experience. So, manage your assignments, get those chores done, touch base with those that you need to, and then turn that phone alarm off, go DND on Discord, and do your best to restrict any interruptions. Essentially, you want to have your ducks in a row because we’re treating our time with League of Legends like athletes treat their time at practice, as artists treat their time sketching and training fundamentals, or as a student would try to study and retain information. Focusing on LoL, your improvement, and what to retain from every single unique game is already a daunting task, and to chop through the clutter that is life to find takeaways is too much. So, get life in order and sit down for the game.

Record Your Games & Watch Professionals

Just as an athlete watches film, or as a musician might listen to a recording of a piece, reviewing recordings of yourself and Pros or High ELO Players will go miles in helping you overcome your slump. How? Well, through VOD review, we can learn what our habits are. Over the course of a short set of games, your performance might be up and down. But string together a few weeks of VODs and you’ll start to notice patterns.

Maybe during the first game of your set, you’re more aggressive and take more risks that don’t pay out. Then, maybe in your second game, you’re far too conservative and give up pressure to the enemy team. In your third game, you may finally turn it around, where you’re balanced and clicking well at a balanced tempo.

You can take info like the above and adapt Ranked sessions around your habits. If your third game is where you come online, then playing two Normals beforehand might help you lock in more. Or maybe you’ve noticed through a trend of games that your same level one strategy hasn’t been paying off as much as you’ve climbed. Or even further, you’ve found a particular matchup you struggle with and VODs against that Champion can help you build up knowledge of how to overcome it.

When it comes to watching Pros, High ELO Players, and One-Tricks, who you watch entirely depends on your own goals. For most players that are Emerald and below, we recommend watching One-Tricks that cater to your favorite Champions as these players will give you the most hands-on tools to succeed in Solo Queue on your favorite Champions. If you’re not a person that enjoys finding a main Champion and simply plays whatever is meta, then you can generally watch One-Tricks of the current S and A-Tier picks for Solo Queue or watch current and former Pros grinding the ladder. If you’re a High ELO player, especially an aspiring Pro, then you’re likely married to the meta and should be emulating Pros in many ways, but you should also take the time to study players that have mastered common Pro picks for your lane. You want a balance between Champions that you have unique knowledge and skill on, but also want to have a high understanding of what shapes the Pro Meta.

Keep a Narrow Strategy

When it comes to climbing, there are many methods to take advantage of the Solo-Queue environment. But, many players get lost in the sauce of trying different strategies throughout the split. This itself can create a slump that can stall a climb, so when you’re finding a point that your strategy hopping isn’t working, then focusing in is what will net you the most success and help you conquer your hurdle.

So, what methods are there? Well, there are four generally accepted modes of climbing:

• One Tricking
• Playing the Meta
• Playing Your Main/What You Enjoy
• Playing for Draft

All four of these strategies are viable and each has upsides and downsides that you should be aware of before aligning yourself into a particular mold.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of One Tricking first. One Tricking is the method where you select a Champion and aim to lock that Champion in every single game. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been counterpicked, it doesn’t matter if you’re locking in a team comp of all AP or AD damage, it doesn’t matter if your Champion doesn’t fulfill a need for your team, in the One Tricking method you’re relying on your mastery, knowledge, and how your Champion works in a Solo Queue environment to find a win.

One Tricking is a great method for those that have little to no interest in the wider audience of LoL’s Champions beyond a particular one or two picks. It promotes a deep understanding of one’s Champion and how they work within the ranked ladder as at certain thresholds you’ll have to elevate your gameplay to achieve the next rank. And, lastly, your muscle memory and situational knowledge should trump every other player in moment-to-moment encounters as you’ll never have to worry about executing on your Champion due to your mastery.

The downside of One Tricking is that it’s a very limited approach in a very strategic game. It’s a selfish strategy where the One Trick often aims to be the center of the game as they aim to play every Solo Queue game towards certain conditions that favor their Champion’s strengths and ignore their weaknesses. And, of course, it can shoehorn team compositions and set strict win conditions for your team, that if not met within precise times, will ultimately cave in and lead to losses.

Playing the Meta or being a Meta Player is the next approach. Players that adopt this strategy aim to use and abuse Champions who currently interact with items, objectives, or matchups in favorable or broken ways. Meta Players, similarly to One Tricks, aren’t necessarily picking to round out a comp. They’re selecting a pick that is, for one reason or another, strong in the current state of the game. From player to player, this could create variance where there are often Champions of a similar style or design that Meta players gravitate towards, and like One Tricks, they’ll select the picks that they’re more comfortable on more often than they will select a pick that rounds out a team comp.

The strengths of Playing the Meta are plainly put. You’re simply playing a strong Champion in the current state of the game. Their interactions with items or other Champions tend to favor them and, typically, ease of use and execution is often factored into the tiering. So, these picks are not only powerful, but also have easily executable gameplans. For example, Volibear on Patch 14.11 is a flex between Top and Jungle, has two distinct build paths that are strong, a simple to execute kit and gameplan, and generally has favorable matchups into a host of Junglers and Tops.

As far as weaknesses go, Meta Players typically suffer in tight games as they often possess an over reliance on the strength of their Champion. If they aren’t eased into winning game states, they often struggle to define matchups themselves if their Champion isn’t woefully favored. Where mastery might be needed to give them an edge, Meta Players typically lack the rapport to recognize when they can define a matchup themselves. Additionally, these players might struggle to think forward or beyond their immediate lane state. While this isn’t always the case, Meta Players, like One-Tricks, typically have an isolated view of the game that can distort if they aren’t successful.

When it comes to Playing Your Main/What You Enjoy, we personally generally support this method for most players. Why? Well, simply put, this is a video game that’s meant for your entertainment at the end of the day. While the other methods here might net you more immediate results and help you overcome your hurdles, the seed planted with care bears the sweetest fruit, after all.

The strengths of this approach are similar to One Tricking. You possess an intimate knowledge of the Champion you’re piloting so, in theory, you are able to shape the game more drastically around that mastery. From muscle memory to knowledge of damage output to understanding how plays can unfold from moment to moment, all these and more should be easily achievable for you when piloting one of your Mains.

Where this strategy fails is in overall Champion strength. Unless your Champion is a counter-pick to a popular meta selection or is a meta choice themselves, they’ll often under perform in raw output compared to meta picks. This could be due to suboptimal rune synergy, itemization, or even tuning on key abilities on the Champion. As an example, Tristana as of Patch 14.11 is rated as an A-Tier ADC on U.GG. Trist is known for an aggressive and volatile lane phase, but so are Lucian and Draven who float lower in tiering due to nerfs to them directly, or towards Supports that synergize with them.

Last but not least is playing for Draft. Draft players, in our experience, typically float between Meta Players and players who play their mains. These players are often jack-of-all-trades sorts that seek to round out their team compositions with what they perceive as needs. The strengths of this approach to climbing are apparent in that it helps create cohesive teams. The weakness can creep up in lack of mastery or even the selection of non-meta Champions for the sake of a composition. While valuable in some circumstances, if the Draft Player isn’t heavily experienced then they will falter in comparison to more experienced or meta piloting players.

So, ultimately, between any of these four approaches to playing Solo Queue, we suggest that you narrow it down to one. Even better if you can adapt them into a strategy that has you playing meta Champions that you are not only familiar with but can also serve to round out team compositions.

Set Up Sessions

Before we close, we want to quickly talk about creating a gaming session for your slump-breaking habits. Many players grind games on end, tilt queue, or queue when they haven’t fostered the environment they need or done their diligence to set up a play. They simply log in and play.

While this is totally fine for players that are clocking Normals in LoL, for those that are expecting Ranked success, it simply won’t do. Ranked is ultimately about mindset and preparation. If you can’t gear your mind and prepare for a strict focused session, you’re not setting yourself up to reach your goals.

For session lengths, we recommend working from 3 to 5 games per set with light breaks and review in between games. As you collect VODs and establish your habits either by yourself or with an assisting friend or coach, you can come to isolate when within a set you perform well and gear your sessions towards that power-spike of ability and focus.

Closing

So, there you have it! With these tips to refocus and rekindle your League of Legends fire, we’re sure you’ll overcome any slump that you might be having on your ranked climb. This split is still young and there’s a long road to grind before we reach the end, so don’t be discouraged by immediate results and instead adopt a learning and improvement focused mindset so that you can reach the rank you both want and deserve!