How To Climb In League of Legends Ranked Games

How To Climb In Ranked

With the beginning of the 2022 Ranked Season, let’s break down some of the best ways to climb as you strive to reach new heights this year.

Selecting Your Champion Pool

Once you’ve identified your main role, selecting the right sized champion pool is an essential skill to climbing. Although it is useful to be able to play a plethora of different champions and pick champions that fit perfectly with the rest of your team comp, this makes it very difficult for you to master champions and advance beyond a surface level of skill on the champions you play. Therefore, you want to have a champion pool that is wide enough for you to counter-pick the enemy or fill a gap in your team comp, but small enough so that you can take the time to practice and master the champions you’re playing.

Try to aim for a roster of around 5 champions you are confident to play during any one patch, preferably champions that cover each of the sub roles within your main role. For example, if you are a support main, your champion pool should include a mixture of engage/tanky champions and enchanters. Although you should adapt your champion pool with each patch as the meta changes and champions are either buffed or nerfed, try and include a couple of champions that are consistently strong so that you always have them in your back pocket. For example, Caitlyn and Ezreal are consistently good bot lane picks and worthwhile champions to include in your champion pool.

Having the Right Attitude

The ranked season lasts for a long time, and it’s important to remember that climbing is a marathon and not a sprint. Becoming better at a game as complex and intricate as League takes a lot of time and effort, so don’t expect vast improvement to happen overnight and set realistic expectations. It’s also important to not be too hard on yourself if games aren’t going well for you: everybody gets tilted and has bad days, and sometimes a patch’s meta just doesn’t suit your playstyle. Don’t be afraid to take a break and come back to the game with a refreshed mindset, and remember a loss streak is just a drop in the ocean when the season lasts for such a long time; there’s always time to bounce back and keep climbing!

Think Critically

League is one of the most intense and competitive games out there, and it’s natural to become so absorbed in a game that you’re only focusing on the next play and aren’t really thinking about what plays have already happened. Thinking critically about your gameplay is an imperative skill to help you climb, as it helps you recognise your strengths and weaknesses as a player. If you feel you are unable to do this in game as it’s taking up all your focus, watching replays of your game is a fantastic way to thoroughly examine what went well and what didn’t.

It can be difficult to swallow your pride and look out for mistakes you have made during a game, but recognising and overcoming mistakes is the only way to improve as a player. Additionally, though it’s easier to only look for mistakes made by your team, this doesn’t really help you as your team will always be unpredictable whereas you have full control over your actions in every game you play.