Improvement tips for wood 5 players

Some people are new to wood league, some people have been in wood league for years. Some of you want to stay here and others want to climb and achieve your LCS dream and win worlds for NA. This isn't a compilation of basic tips that will help you win worlds or make lcs, but it WILL probably help you get better if you consistently take this into consideration when you play.

Laning phase can make or break the game depending on the meta -- right now it is especially strong in deciding the outcome of the match. So the worst thing you can possibly do is give away tons of kills to the enemy team early on. Warding: To avoid feeding/inting, start with vision. Bot lane has 2 people - with access to 4 trinket wards early on meaning river or tri-brush (or both) should always have a ward no excuse. Mid should pick one side of river to ward, jungler should ward the other side of river for mid Or get deep ward in enemy jungle and top should ward river or tri-brush whenever possible. Mid, jungle and top cannot always have a ward up, so they must play more defensively according to if and WHERE their ward is placed. Believe it or not, your warding trinket STILL WORKS more than 3 min into the game -- in fact it works all game, so please do not stop using it.

Tracking junglers: Deep wards - if they can be SAFELY placed (don't risk a 1v2 facecheck of enemy jungler and laner) - are great for tracking the enemy jungler and making all your laners safer (provided they look beyond their lane to see where others are at). You can also track the enemy jungler's PROBABLE location early on based on... which enemies showed late to lane and where your jungler is at. For the first clear, the jungler will either clear one side of their jungle and then gank a lane or will probably do nearly a full clear. If the enemy bot lane shows late to lane, they probably leashed. Also, based on the enemy jungler (are they blue buff reliant early or do the want red for damage more) can help confirm which side they probably started. Based off this and your own jungler's pathing, you can make the assumption the enemy jungler is probably doing red buff or a small camp as 3rd camp before he/she will consider ganking. You can estimate this based on checking how many camps your own jungler has cleared, or if you are pro, you can memorize timing and numbers (ex: 4:40, 3: 38 - just making these up as an example).

Ganking: Communicate ganks in advance, but do not indicate you are going to gank unless you are literally walking/tp to lane this instant; don't ping omw and then stop to do a camp first or your laner wil possibly engage/stay when they wouldn't had they realized you are not coming RIGHT NOW and die before/as you get there to an enemy gank. Also, when the chance for a good gank shows up, GANK FIRST, then go back and do your jungle camp (unless you are too low hp and will probably die; don't gank then). Laners don't change your playstyle if your jungler has cc... let them go in first or you risk giving away the gank and the enemy escaping; that tilts your jungler. Jungler just because you are spotted by a ward doesn't mean you shouldn't gank. If you can chunk the enemy very low to force them out of lane that is a win. You might even be able to kill them because they are overextended pushing to your laner's tower despite them spotting you. Laners save your cc when you know a gank is coming - don't blow it on the enemy before your jungler gets there and don't waste it farming minions. Plan ahead before the game starts based on team comps which lanes you will try to gank and at what times -- similarly plan what lanes the enemy is likely to gank. Ex: Blitz ashe bot lane? They are probably getting ganks if against a sona jhin because the potential for kills is VERY HIGH. Rumble vs darius, riven, or maokai? Yeah rumble is probably getting ganked a bunch early on. Play accordingly as both bot/top lane and as jungler. You got a ton of potential to counter-gank in these scenarios junglers. Why gank for rumble if he wins 1v1 and should "just play safe" if he is going to get ganked? 1. You win any 2v2 toplane unless your jungle champ is a complete potato when you have the rumble. 2. You stop the maokai and enemy jungle from snowballing and your rumble from tilting. 3. Rumble is one of those champs who auto-shoves a lane... so he has to push in and risk getting ganked -- not really an option to freeze lane and farm under tower. There's other champs like this too. When you see enemies mia, ping the lane they were in to make it clear who is missing. Also ping what lane(s) or jungle area the laner is likely to be in so your teammates know WHO has to be playing safer. If you have a lvl 6 gank opponent like or or be sure to watch when they are lvl 6 and ping other laners when they back to base. This way your laners have more warning in-case the enemy champ ganks mid/top/bot instead of returning to lane immediately upon buying. That way when the full ap mid malphite goes straight to bot after buying, your bot lane is playing safely and doesn't feed malph 2 kills before he returns mid.

Playmaking/dueling: Everyone wants to make the big plays in laning phase and beyond to carry their team like a boss. But there are times when you should and times when you shouldn't. Whenever you want to go in and force something on the enemy laner or are low hp but want to stay for one more wave so you don't miss a ton of xp and cs, ask yourself... If the enemy jungler pops up out of nowhere or the enemy bot duo or the enemy mid, can I still: a. make this play and grab a kill b. get out alive without wasting too many sums/abilities that I would like to make a play with? If you can get away without dying and without wasting say... flash and malph/hecarim ult (just to survive instead of to get kills), then go for it; if you probably die... reconsider. Also, weigh in the factor of missing enemies: a. is enemy toplane or bot lane late to show back up to lane? b. was enemy mid lane pinged as going down/up river to my lane? c. was the enemy jungler spotted entering top/bot from mid lane or by a deep ward at their red/blue buff? They could easily be setting up a gank on the top/bot lane or mid lane from that side of the jungle. Finally, is my jungler bot/top/mid in a position to counter-gank and are they willing to do so?

Oh, one more thing. Did you already die to the enemy laner 1 or 2 times? Maybe they got a gank or got lucky, but that doesn't change the fact they are ahead in items and probably xp/levels. DO NOT fight them unless you have some clear advantage: a. you have fed jungler coming RIGHT NOW to gank and KNOW the enemy jungle isn't nearby due to WARDS. b. they are low hp and oom while you are FULL hp. Believe me, I know how badly you want to prove you are better than your opponent, but forcing fights or shoving to their tower when they have a clear advantage is just dumb. That's how you go 1/6/2 and feed the enemy laner(s) and mid and jungle into an unstoppable lead. Just farm safely until you catch up and let your team carry you for now. You can survive without dying that 3rd time, let your teammates use their lead to win the teamfight, and pick up a triple to put you right back to even; if you keep forcing without advantages, your teammates' advantages will be meaningless compared to the advantage you gave the enemy team.

Shotcalling/map rotations/teamfighting: Are you tilted? Are you having a rough game? If there is someone better than you AT SHOTCALLING, don't flood chat and map with pings; let the better shotcaller(s) make the calls. That's not insulting you as a player; you might have better mechanics. So focus what you are good at, and let smarter/cooler heads prevail in shotcalling. This includes many things. Toplaner or mid with tp? Let them clear the side wave and set up a slow push that enemy will have to react to. DO NOT stand NEAR enemy engage range provoking them 4v5 -esp when behind... wait for your laner to get side wave pressure and regroup; then you can force a 4v5 when the enemy sends someone to clear the side wave pressure. See an isolated enemy? If you can't kill them in 4 sec as a TEAM and/or you do not have a MASSIVE gold LEAD, DO NOT CHASE. Enemy team 4 man sieging bot lane outer tower? You COULD rotate there as 4 and hope tower survives long enough to defend or... you COULD 4 man mid since your minion waves have a head start and win any resulting base race. The enemy team would probably back off long before then and you would get your TEAMFIGHT mid -- where you have advantage rather than chasing the enemy around the map. Recognizing this and LISTENING to teammates who recognize this is what let's teams like SKT outplay their opponents. For every play a team makes, SKT has a counter play or counter rotation which nets them more. This holds true whether ahead or behind. So back to that tower scenario and make it 30 min into game. You trade bot outer to kill enemy mid outer. Then you rotate to rush down baron since the enemy is out of position. Or... send 2 back to base to stop the enemy and 3v1 grab a second tower. You behind and the enemy is forcing baron or elder drag? You could: a. contest and probably get wrecked... lose the game b. try for a steal and suicide to MAYBE get it... succeed, you bought some time; fail... you have to defend base 4v5 and probably lose c. get the other objective while they are busy... you either have baron buff to stall their sieges or elder to have a stronger teamfight. This is SO MUCH BETTER than options a and b.

Other teamfighting stuff... When the enemy has a bunch of aoe and cc, DO NOT stand all in one area to maximize their damage. Ex: amumu ult is a circle... don't be in a circle so that all your carries get ulted. Adc... heal can be just as good used to save a teammate as it can to save yourself... 2 damage sources still alive means fewer people attacking you and more damage to help you kill enemies. USE YOUR RANGE. I can't count how many times you have an adc and long ranged mid mage or sup mage try to frontline (and insta-die) or run forwards into melee range to try to kill enemy carries instead of just hitting the enemy frontline.

Other stuff/toxicity: If someone makes a bad decision/bad mechanics, call them out NICELY in a way that helps them improve rather than just insulting them. Ex: xerath please stay behind the tanks in a teamfight. or... jinx and nami, please ward up before you try to siege enemy bot tower and back off when we ping so you don't keep dying to ganks. Or darius please try to mia and come to teamfights around objectives instead of just ff top. If you are receiving messages like this from your teammates EVEN IF THEY ARE SAID RUDELY consider WHAT is being said and adjust your play. If you fed 2 kills in laning and DON'T ADJUST your play, you ARE INTING (intentionally refusing to make simple adjustments and therefor feeding the enemy team -- laner, jungler, and maybe other laners too). If you are a bystander... DO NOT take the side of the INTING teammate and call someone TOXIC for: a. asking a laner to ward b. asking the jungler to gank NOW when they can instead of doing a camp first c. asking team to NOT force 4v5 or 2v4 (etc.) fights WHEN BEHIND d. asking carries NOT to facecheck. PSA... asking teammates to not do stupid easily fixed things like I mentioned is NOT TOXIC. It is trying to HELP them IMPROVE and trying to help your team win. And if teammates refuse to adjust and go 1/6/3 because of this... creating a 11/3/0 adc, a 4/1/10 support, and a 6/5/13 jungler then don't be surprised when a teammate(s) start telling more toxically/rudely what to/to not do. If you didn't listen after 2 deaths, they are not going to explain the same thing nicely or ask nicely anymore. Yes they are being rude/toxic in how they say it after you do the same idiot thing 6 times and snowball the enemy team; but you were toxic first by feeding 3/5 the enemy team NEEDLESSLY first. The person(s) who went 1/6/3 for no reason and IGNORED advise/requests and didn't adjust their play to STOP dying deserve a report... not the teammate(s) who NICELY asked/advised their 0/2/0 teammate how to fix a simple mistake(s) they were making so they wouldn't go 1/6/3 in the first place and are now saying the same thing rudely after their advice has been ignored 4+ times to reduce their team's chances of winning by 95%.

So hopefully you can gain a bit of new ideas to practice in your upcoming matches and see more success on Summoner's Rift because of it. I'm not an lcs player, I'm not a diamond/plat smurf, but I've played a few years now and have a great understanding of some aspects of the game. From pro-play, twitch streamer superstars, to bronze-gold 4 these are some of the basic things I have learned. I have my bad days just like anyone else and my good days. I've been asked by plats and diamonds smurfing their way through silver (now ranked diamond/plat) if I am a plat/diamond smurf -- I'm not. I've gone 1/13/5 or something horrendous like that (everyone sucks when they start ranked), but even when I am losing or merely going even in a 1v2 (enemy jungler camping me for 15 straight minutes to stop me snowballing at start of game), I consider these things to give my TEAM the best possible chance of winning. I'm fine getting 3 man camped after laning if my team 4v2 kills towers and wins the game. I'm fine dying in teamfights if my team positions correctly and my 0/3/2 adc (who listened to my advice and therefor stopped dying so much bot lane) picks up a quadrakill. I am tilted when my advice (said in a friendly/helpful manner 2-3 times) is repeatedly ignored and gives the enemy too much of a free snowball so that the lead I got for my top and mid lane or my bot lane doesn't matter because the enemy top/bot/mid is too far ahead and I get called toxic for screaming at team (via typing in chat) because after 12 min of asking team to help ward and play safely, they are doing neither and instead forcing 3v5's vs enemies they fed while I am 1/5/3 because I have been 3 man invaded since 5 min into the game and get 0 help. Sorry, I rambled a bit. The point is kda doesn't tell the whole story and that teammates who keep the tips I mentioned in mind will find more success in bronze - gold (and probably even higher ranks too). 99% of matches where my teammates have teamwork and follow these tips, we win -- even if jungler or laner(s) x, y, p started 0/3/0 or 1/5/2. Teamwork, good decision-making, smart map rotations, reducing needlessly high risk plays, and being humble enough to listen to advice instead of replying "toxic/reported" goes a long way.