The Steemit Guide to ELO Climbing in League of Legends

Hey there Steemit! My name is Eric, and as a big time League of Legends fan, I thought it would be fun to share some of my tips and tricks with the Steemit gaming community.

Here's the 5 biggest tips I wish I knew when I was chopping my way through the wood division and desperately trying to climb out of ELO hell.

The Wood Division is Dark and Full of Terrors

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Rule 1: Practice, Practice, Practice

As compelling at is may be to start rank matches the second you reach Level 30, take some time and try to get at least 500 plus blind pick wins before you take on your placements. Even if you already have a main that’s very good, you should have at least 3 champions in each of your roles that you are proficient with before you begin playing ranked.

Rule 2: Let Yourself Be Carried

For the uninitiated out there, a “carry” is someone with a large gold advantage capable of winning the game essentially on their own. It's always fun to carry games, so fun in fact, that too often players end up jostling to be the carry instead of collaborating together. It's important to be a team player and remember that you can’t carry every single game you play. Don’t get greedy — if one of your teammates gets a 2-3 kill lead, play defensive and let them carry you. Letting your teammates shine means you all can win together — and from an ELO perspective, that’s all that matters

Rule 3: Check out the Pros

And maybe, just maybe, if you watch enough Faker, you will become Faker...

We all prefer to be in the driver seat, but you can learn a lot from watching LCS players and studying their strategies, team composition, pushing and split-pushing, and objective decisions. It goes without saying that these guys are the pros, and even though you can’t do everything they can do, you can certainly try.

Rule 4: CSing

CSing for those who aren’t computer scientists by trade, refers to “Creep Score” or “Last-Hitting.” Be sure that you are comfortable last hitting while you are harassed in lane. As a general rule Silver players will CS around 80-100 at 20 minutes, Gold around 100-120, and Platinum 120-160 (at this ELO everyone is really good at CSing). If your CSing isn’t where you’d like it to be, try doing custom games first with no bots, and then progressively add bots of increasing difficulty (intro, beginner, intermediate). This connects back to the first suggestion, as playing more will naturally increase your average CS.

Rule 5: Have Fun

This may go unsaid, but becoming toxic, tilting, or flaming all only increase your chances of losing. Remember that at the end of the day, it’s just a game, and being rude to your teammates will only make them play worse. If you have a bad game, it’s often a good idea to take a break to eat, get a snack, and take your mind off of the bad game.

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Of course, this is only scratching the surface of what it takes to climb the boards. If there’s interest, I can follow up with more posts targeted toward more advanced concepts.

Sound off below with your own placement stories and ranked tips!