Platinum players

Better Jungler·Nov 11, 2017·2 votes·4,841 views

What did you do to make the jump from gold to plat?

I ended Gold 5 last season, but I stopped playing ranked after hitting it because I had no chance of hitting platinum with my skill back then. I'm fairly confident I can make it to plat this next season. I've improved immensely and play with mostly high gold, low plat with a 62% win rate. I've been working on my farm, despite being a jungle main, in case I get auto-filled into a lane (major problem when climbing to gold, all my lanes were probably mid silver. Jungle made me gold)

So my question is:

What did you notice you had to improve to make the jump from gold to plat? Did you have to learn an off role better? Or is it the opposite and you focused solely on one role/champ?

edit: before anyone goes full investigative mode, this is my norms/main account. I got gold on this account as well, but the MMR is overall lower. My ranked account is "Out My Jungle"

10 Comments

BALDG1VEN BOOMERNov 11, 20171 votes

I personally started picking more lane dominant champions for two reasons.

If I get a lead in lane it transitions pretty well for the most part into a win.
I ended up realizing that while playing more lane dominant champions more smaller mistakes from my opponents then eventually took advantage of those mistakes.

Better JunglerNov 11, 20171 votes

So I play mainly carry/setup junglers. Nocturne, j4, Lee sin, I'd say they're pretty dominant usually.

Focusing on punishing my opponents mistakes is a great thing to improve on.

For My ChickenNov 11, 20172 votes

I see you play similar champions (recently hit plat 3 from gold 5, took just over a month). I'll just show you one way of taking advantage.

There is a typical mistake gold-plat junglers make, which is THEY USE THE SAME JUNGLE ROUTES. You've probably heard that diamond junglers mess up jungle routes to confuse enemies. Well... in gold or plat, they always do the same thing.

Imagine: enemy red side, you blue side.

What is the enemy going to do? Well, a typical jungle champion is going to do blue buff, wolves, then red buff, then gank OR do river crab.

So the question is, what do you do?

You can gank or counter gank by doing the typical path: red buff, wolves, then blue buff. Depends on factors such as: stronger 2v2, lane/minion situation, you know that the enemy will gank mid or top, etc.
But what if you do this? Pick a jungler with a strong clear (nocturne). Make sure the enemy isn't starting from red side. Do red buff, krugs, raptors, riven crab, enemy gromp. Then, you back to base with exactly 650 gold, buy the other jungle item plus a long sword quickly, and head to your blue buff side. Most likely, the enemy won't have taken the blue buff. Even if they have, it's okay because your are stronger (long sword) 1v1 or 2v2, and you can counter jungle their top side now (enemy choosing to take your buff means that their raptors and krugs are still there). You can out farm the enemy jungler by 1 level already. If the enemy does not take your blue buff, then you can clear your jungle and gank top.

Now, the enemy can't get their gromp or the river crab on dragon side.

But now you know where the enemy is going to be. The enemy will go to do wolves, see that they don't have the gromp or the river crab. The only thing they can do at this point is gank, counter jungle your side, or be super confused. If the enemy jungler counter jungles you, that's a risky play because he's probably out levelled and out farmed at this point. Even if they successfully take the raptors, that means you cleaned their raptors.

Now you base. Head bot, get krugs. Well, your raptors may be gone, but you know their gromp is up! Go get it again, check wolves to make sure they're gone, otherwise take them. Etc. Etc. Place a ward so you check double check the enemy jungle position and progress.

Enemy constantly gets out farmed and location revealed. This is the out-farming style. You ward enemy routes along the way to spot their locations and prevent ganks. Your team will magically perform better. Watch out for jungle champions too. Kayn starts raptors then does red. Hecarim starts blue. Gragas has surprisingly bad sustain early/clear due to nerfs. Always cover mid after buff when the enemy is ezreal because your team is stupid and will give first blood.

Better JunglerNov 12, 20171 votes

Thank you very much for this. I will be much more mindful to this. I may even try switching up my jungle route a bit more.

AnonagonNov 11, 20171 votes

I honestly have no idea.

Season 5, which was the first time I got Plat, was the season I've played the least games in since I've been playing ranked, and I had like exactly a 50% winrate, with a negative winrate on a lot of my most played champs.

After dropping to Gold in Season 6, I decided to make Plat again this time. Took a lot more games. But I made it. Still have no idea how I did it. There's very little I consciously did besides play the game and play to win. In fact, I've done a lot of shit that people would say you shouldn't do to climb, like switching my main lane and champion constantly

Better JunglerNov 11, 20171 votes

I would love to be able to auto-pilot there. But the conscious effort it took me to climb from bronze 5 to gold 5 in 7 years of playing was ridiculous:P

I had spreadsheets of champions I played, mistakes I made with them. I had an entire excel workbook of my mastery with certain champions. I tracked the movements of enemy players in the jungle and learned where the best wards were. I made flashcards for item builds and champion abilities. When the practice tool came out I spent hours learning to farm with slow mages.

I hated being bronze, so I got out of there after the second year. then I was stuck in silver for a couple of years. Last two seasons I've hit gold on 2 accounts. NEXT SEASON IS PLAT!

LetMeAfkPlssFeb 27, 20191 votes

I did the same trying to climb in low elo tho but same concept if I keep same champ I will lose a lot if I switch from other champs then I'll have better chances of winning I don't know how does that work it just does

experience with that champ hardly mattered either if it's a meta jungler for example play him and you have 50% of winning automatically don't play that one jungler you always play in normal cause normals and ranked are different and you'd probably lose with him

SimmonianaNov 11, 20171 votes

Having carried multiple times through gold and platinum on EUW I'll list the biggest differences.

1: Gold players don't know how to trade on toplane. They often do a poor trade unknowingly which enables you to all in kill them.

2: Gold players have no macro at all. Platinum macro isn't much better but there is more focus on objectives, it's more important

3: Less huge throws. It's not uncommon for people in gold to find a way to throw a game with 8k gold advantage. In platinum and above this becomes very rare to happen (the higher you go the faster people surrender).

4: More game knowledge. This also relates to the macro gameplay.

I uh, never really was in gold back in season 2 I spend quite some time around 1700-1800 ELO but that would be around plat 2 today. Climbing from gold isn't that hard and generally the things you do wrong are often rather obvious (to me they are at least).

It's much, much harder to climb from diamond to master. Meta needs to be in your favour, wheter you duoq or not etc, stuff like that is more important.

Better JunglerNov 11, 20171 votes

EUW gold is NA bronze. Ill skip this advice.

Im joking:)

I don't play much top lane, but it is my favorite lane to gank as a jungle main. They ALWAYS overextend.
Macro is one of the very few things I think I have a good mind for, the problem comes when my team is behind, I struggle knowing whether to contest dragon/baron, push out a side lane, or attempt a 5 v 5 that we have a low chance of winning.
You're completely right, that happens way too often.
ALways improving I suppose.

I notice a few mistakes.. But I think I miss the majority of them. I think what I'll try is having a higher elo person spectate one of my games when the next Ranked season starts.

DreadlocksNov 11, 20171 votes

Uhh 1 trick helped a lot.. I didn't "finish" plat this year, i decayed from plat 2 cuz i quit 2+ months ago. But i'm back to play for fun xD

1 trick a champion.. have a good back up, and then have a 3rd champ (basically i had a 3rd for ap if we needed) As a jungler, reading enemy jungle pathing helped me go from plat 5 to plat 2.

Also being less anxious to "make a play" generally i know when it's a good time to make a play, but sometimes my team doesn't so i have to consider that before going balls to the wall.

adapt your builds better.. The higher up in rank you go the more crucial it becomes. Spending 2500+ gold on an item that will provide no benefit after you start working towards the next item is a good way to lose the game..

When i'm playing a diver and i get fed, i have to be considerate of team comps and how well my team is doing. If we lack tanks, and i go glass cannon and get fed.. but i can't end the game at a reasonable time.. Well, we auto lose team fights, and ultimately the game. So it's very important to adjust.