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How can I win?

Niyumi··2 votes·335 views

I've been stuck in silver for over 2.5k games, with last season (started last June, made 30 a few weeks later) and this one combined. It just seems like no matter what I do, I can't win reliably. Oh sure, I might win a game here or there, but overall I have a <50% winrate, and continue to lose games repeatedly.

While I'd like to blame teammates that go 0-10 before 15 minutes, I know that the only common factor in all my games is me. So, obviously I'm just bad at the game, and need help improving, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong; I have good map awareness, I ward as much as I can, I tailor my build to what's going on, I counterpick if I can, I pick to fill a role in my team, I know how to trade, I know how to CS, I know every champs' mechanics and kit, all that. But, when I get into a game and someone like LB just repeatedly 100-0s me no matter what I do, I just don't know what I can do.

I can play someone like LB, Kat, Yi, Darius, Jax, ADCs, Tahm, or any other simplistic, boring champion and win easily... but I just don't have fun like that, and honestly feels like I'm cheating somehow. I enjoy playing the more complex champs, but it just feels like they're just pathetically weak compared to some champ loaded with targeted nukes or AA spam that vastly out-damages any skillshots I have.

So how can I win? Just seems like, no matter what I do, I can't climb at all. I don't want to be relegated to playing champs I don't enjoy, but it seems like that's the only way to be competitive in this fucking game.

7 Comments

Deep Terror Nami1 votes

My advice would be to focus on a small pool of champions. They don't have to be considered "top tier"; you'll do better on champions you enjoy than ones you don't regardless of the meta.

Also, read up general role guides and specific champion guides. You want to build what works for you, but you also need to itemize according to the needs of the match efficiently. This includes Runes, Masteries, and Spells of course. Looking at your match history I see you frequently pick up a Sightstone but keep the Warding Totem; swap the totem for a sweeper as soon as you get the Sightstone! If you really don't want to use a Sweeper for whatever reason, at least get the Farsight Alteration since you can only have 3 Stealth Wards out at once.

Niyumi1 votes

I was a fill main before dynamic queue, so I have a handful of champs I spammed in each role to learn them and get used to them, and can confidently play at least 7-10 champs per role, but one of my favorite tops is Teemo, and unless I'm way ahead and doing super well, he just doesn't do much. Meanwhile I can play Darius or GP and fuck up left and right and still win. So, I definitely think the champs I enjoy is an issue.

Well, with the whole vision update, I notice that anyone who isn't me or a support (assuming I'm not support) really isn't warding, and can't ward that much anyway, so vision doesn't seem like that much of an issue. Since I'm usually out running around for a long time, I run out of ward charges on my SS a lot, and l like to keep the warding totem for the extra wards. Also, if I roam to another lane, I usually ward up places where the enemies are likely to come from, which uses up a lot of wards since I already had wards elsewhere.

Michael Sykes1 votes

"LB a boring champion" - I feel offended. It seems you have no idea of some champions.

Niyumi1 votes

Well, considering most of her damage is targeted, I don't really enjoy her that much. My very first game with her, I was 19/1, and only ever died because I tower dove their whole team. The next few times I played her, I also did stupidly well with minimal effort, and it felt like I was cheating. Don't really have fun when I just win with no effort. : /

Michael Sykes1 votes

Then you were lucky. And I think that was a normal game where the most people do not even try their best. It is a lot harder and more exciting when you play specific matchups or your opponents know what they do. I do not want to convince you to be a hard LB-Main like me, but I can assure that she is more complex than it might seem. Especially in those situations when you have to outplay your enemies. And she is not an "easy win" or "freelo" champ, you only have to look at her winrates. She is a champion which needs much experience and good decisionmaking to win a game. I agree that her basics (like q+w) are not hard to understand and that she is able to get kills easier than other champions. But this is not the whole complexity a champ can offer. It is similar with some adc's.

612X0dbmDS1 votes

Find a premade and use dynamic queue.

The Taco Kat1 votes

I recommend using those "boring" champions. They don't really feel all that cheaty, as other have used them to climb. That, and people in silver usually don't know how to play against those champions. Some people who are in diamond even admit to using those champions being the main reason why they are at their current ranking. I am a Katarina main and play her so much that I don't find her nearly as fun as I used to, but I still climb. I think your best performance champion is who you should play in ranked, but your favorite to play champion is for normals.

For example, I currently maintain a 67.9% win rate on Kat (placed Plat 5 -> Plat 1 rn) and have around the #80th best Kat in the world according to http://leagueofgraphs.com and I climb quite well. However, when I play a normal game, I only play Kat to win. If I play a normal game, I prefer someone like Azir, Yasuo, Lee Sin, or Riven although I'm not great with them. I still do, however, enjoy playing them.

If anything, you can feel free to add me and I can show you a few tricks in a custom if you'd like (for example, flashing while using a Tornado Spin on Yasuo to surprise the enemy).

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