Tips and thoughts for Silver players now that I'm in Gold!

Here are some tips for climbing the ranked ladder. Maybe I will add more tips later!

FYI, I played mostly jungle and adc... because I didn't have enough to buy more champions. Before I start, I see some people cry about "elo hell" or "dynamic queue." That's all excuses. You are in Silver. You don't even get to cry about things. At least earn your right to cry about things by proving your decency.

General Tips In my opinion, Silver players are actually quite great to play with. There is a lot less bitching, crying, etc in general compared to other tiers. Players don't chat as much. So if you feel that Silver is toxic, you are probably a part of it. I have to say not all of them are great players in skill, but they do enough. They don't surrender so soon. In other words, you can carry them.

The only games which I managed to lose in Silver are the games with an afk, teammates who feed incredibly, or playing a role/champion that I don't really play. You can't win them all. So just move on. And put yourself on tilt for the next game.

There are actually many games where my team would comeback from scores like 0-9. There are requirements. First, you can't feed with your teams. If your team is 0-9 in kills, your score better be something like 0-0 because if you died, you lost farm, and that put you behind. For example, there was a game where our team went 0-10, and nobody said anything. My score was 0-0 and we played on. I ended up getting a quadra kill as an adc because the enemy team misplayed. Nobody was saying anything but then our Janna said "protect ezreal" and we won because the enemy team couldn't deal with me.

Second, you have to pick the right champions. For example, I played ezreal with cleanse because I don't want to rely on my support. I can self-peel. It's actually incredibly hard to kill champions like ezreal without a proper coordination. Support has targon? fuck it, ignore it, you cs for yourself because that garbage Thresh on you team is going to miss that cs on the seige minion even with the targon. Leona on your team suicides to enemy Draven three times? fuck it, shut up about it, out cs and out carry.

Top Lane To give you another example, if you play top lane, don't pick Nasus and expect to carry. The champion has no kill potential, weak trades, melee/mana cs, weak gank coordination, and weak tp support. On the other hand, look at Maokai for example. He is like... everything opposite.

Top lane actually is easiest to carry with in terms of the number of things to keep in mind. You have 3 jobs. First, don't get ganked. Ward and don't face check. Watch out for cheesy level 2 red buff ganks and 3 min mark jungle ganks. Check the map every second. Second, don't fuck up your lane. What I mean to say is that if you die at level 3 and your lane is pushed... yeah you just fucked up your lane. You just gave a kill and gold, more gold from missed cs, room to get ganked, chance for another kill, and... you will probably have to use your tp or else you'd be really fucked. Meanwhile the enemy top has a tp handy so he's going to trade or gank or do whatever the fuck he wants, then use tp. Now, because you did this, your bot lane can't be aggressive, your jungler ganks are going to be outnumbered, etc. So when in doubt... just don't. The only time you should be fighting early is if the enemy laner is taking a shit ton of minion aggro from at least 5 minions. Third and lastly, save your tp. You died in lane? Try saving tp because your lane is fucked anyway. You come to lane and the enemy goes back? Push lane and see if you can gank with tp. If the enemy also uses tp, it's a brawl with the top lane disadvantage diversified to other lanes. And by the time you come back to top lane, voila! The minion wave in your favor.

The only problem with top lane is that a lot of smurfs go top lane and wreck you lane... so I didn't play top much.

Support The infamous role that "can't carry." Well... support by definition isn't suppose to. I don't have much to say but if you play properly, you can help your team a lot. In lane phase, help your jungle all the time. Ward the side bush, ward the river, ward the enemy tower to prevent lane ganks. No, you can't ward everything but you know which spots are important. Do this only when lane is pushed to the enemy tower so that the adc is safe or doesn't suffer from harass. If you play champions like Alistar or Leona, stand in front of your adc so that the enemy can't freely harass your adc. When a minion goes low hp for your adc to last hit, move forward so that the enemy feels pressure. You think the enemy ezreal will use q for cs? get in front of that seige minion and block it. Use Alistar heal and block it. Use spells to block it, do whatever it takes to prevent enemy cs. Hell, if you are a big champion, you can stick close and walk around it so that the enemy can't click for cs. Small things... make a big difference. Other than that, know when to fight. If your adc is Ezreal and built tear of goddess, or the enemy goes to base and comes with a BF sword while your adc gets a pick axe and boots, you probably don't want to engage.

I wouldn't recommend roaming in Silver, just because I wouldn't expect my team to know what to do. Stick to the basics but just do it better than the enemy team. You still have to pick a right champion. Building synergy is good too. Lucian passive works well with Braum passive, for example. Gank dynamics are important; Janna support is going to be much safer than Sona when getting ganked.

Ward the dragon pit, ward the brushes before/during fights, ward to remove any blind spots, ward before/after fights, ward.... **scan... ward... **Always have a pink ward handy.

I realized that I wrote a lot so maybe I will add more tips later!