Basic solo queue guide
Playing solo queue in League of Legends can be extremely difficult. As one of the most competitive games in the world, you must be at the top of your game to be able to rise through the ranks. There are some things that you can do which may help you to improve your ranking in the game. Below are some tips which may help you become a better player while in solo queue.
Know Your Role
If you've only been playing League of Legends for a little while now, you probably noticed that there are a lot of different roles that must be filled in each game. While you may be interested in filling many different roles in the game, it is usually best to start with a single role that you can focus your attention on. By focusing on a single role, you'll gain experience much faster and have a much better understanding of the position, which can help you to rise much more quickly in the ranked queue.
Think About Your Champion Pool
Along the same lines as picking your role is picking your champion. If you are going to be playing ranked, you are going to want to make sure that you have a solid champion pool to pick from. While it can be fun to play many different champions, when you're in ranked, it can be a hindrance to you and your team if you are always playing different champions that you are not comfortable with. By limiting yourself to 2-4 champions that you know the ins and outs of, you can create a more consistent result in your ranked games.
Communication
In a team game like League of Legends, communication is important. In solo queue, unfortunately, this can often be an issue. When you are unable to communicate with your team effectively, making game decisions that will benefit the whole team can be difficult. Making use of the in-game pings available in League of Legends will help to facilitate better communication with your team. These pings allow players to communicate information quickly and efficiently without having to type. So make use of them.
Never Give Up
No matter how difficult a game is going, as long as your Nexus is still standing, you still have a chance to win. In solo queue, games that seem lost can often be won because of one mistake by the other team. This is especially true in lower Elo, where mistakes are made frequently by players of all ranks. If your team falls behind and is taking losses, you might consider playing more defensively and delaying the game to give the enemy more chances to make mistakes. A common example of this is across the lower ranks — from Diamond IV all the way down to Bronze — where one decisive play at the right moment can completely swing a game.
Manage Your Mental
Tilt is one of the biggest killers of LP in solo queue, and it's more common than most players admit. You can usually tell you're on tilt when you start making the same mistake twice in a row, you find yourself typing in all-chat after a death, or you're dodging lobbies repeatedly out of frustration. When those signs show up, stop queueing. Step away for 20-30 minutes, do something else, and come back with a clear head. Setting a hard loss limit — for example, stopping after two losses in a row — is a simple habit that saves hours of wasted LP. The ranked ladder will still be there when you get back. Your mental is a resource; treat it like one.