Improve your low elo play through small changes that have a bigger impact than you think

Looking to climb the ladder? Learn some micro, some macro, warding, splitpushing, laning, tp flanks, etc. to help you improve. While this is a renekton vs camille gold elo game, many concepts apply to other matchups as well... even other lanes. Some of the smallest adjustments to the way you play can make the biggest differences. So come see a breakdown of what happens in each short clip or hear what COULD have happened and find out why it matters.

clip 1 - the power of wards and lane control/wave manipulation Kindred was spotted walking through tribrush, so I know I'm 1v2. I'm winning my lane and can punish camille more by freezing and chipping down her hp for an eventual all-in. For this reason, I want to trade with autos, w, and e... NOT with q or the freeze will break and she can farm under her tower safely. I see my jg is nearby and confirm he notices. He knows we win 2v2, so when he's ready and I am, we all-in for an easy kill. Unfortunately lb was also there and I could do nothing to save him. That's not veigar's fault and I'm honestly surprised he followed since she can delete him easily and he has little chance vs her if she turns to 1v1 him in river when he follows her up to top. We had no chance of getting a second kill w/o investing more time and summoners than it would be worth... with an eventual turnaround by respawning kindred likely if we tried, so it's better to take the 1 for 1 and be happy.

clip 2 - punishing opponent abilities camille tries to land w on me when I have my e up. I can either try to walk back, or I can go in for a nice trade while she's stuck in her w animation and come out ahead on the damage dealt. This can work for other champs too... such as riven or fiora (or renekton) vs darius q and aatrox q to dodge the outer edge and get off a trade vs him.

clip 3 - watch for map opportunities While renekton doesn't get an assist for this, he made sure to trade as much as possible with camille before basing and that the wave would be in a good spot for him. Nocturne spots this and goes out of his "afk farm mode" route (he doesn't do this mode, but many jg do at lower elo) to snag an easy kill and further punish the enemy toplaner. He stops her back with his q and gets rid of bone plating (great job on that latter part)... waiting for it to fall off so he KNOWS he can delete her with no potential for camille to outplay via hookshot and ultimatum. While it might seem like that's being safer than necessary, it's the smarter play... especially with enemies mia. Noc has to be ready not just to 1v1 camille, but also to deal with any mia enemies that could collapse on him afterwards.

clip 4 - respect flash and repeat gank The first half of this shows renekton ready to punish camille with his advantage. Camille respect flashes when noc ults... thinking he's going on her again because of how agro renekton is playing. Kindred comes top to turn the tide in favor of camille as noc ganked elsewhere. If camille lands her hookshot and then ults, renek will be trapped outside of tower range and his opponents can follow him under tower to finish him off even if he flashes away. Hence, he either flashes when he does or he dies. He waits awhile before recalling and then tp's back. At this point kindred SHOULDN'T be top for so long... and she's not. But when she spots the tp, she returns to punish him for the blown flash earlier. This should be obvious by the fact camille runs towards river instead of to her tower as renekton starts bullying her, but renekton doesn't immediately back off. Once kindred shows, it's too late and he has to just get as much as he can off the play before dying.

clip 5 - bad jg tax, good tp and good punish for tp Ok so kindred just shoved in the wave and snags a mark after killing renekton. This is good because it gets her a mark, gets tower damage, and bounces the wave off so it will push to camille and let her somewhat catch up 1v1. But then she clears half the next wave... setting up renekton to freeze the wave and starve out the weaker camille if he wants to. Lucky for her he chooses not to, but the only reason kindred SHOULD clear that half wave is if she's going to stay top and look to pick off renekton if he goes agro and/or push with camille to try to finish off the tower. Bot makes a good engage and would have won that trade if not for camille punishing the vayne and blitz with her tp advantage. Because renekton cannot follow, he MUST push top and get tower to punish. Basing here if he's not in threat from lb or kindred would be unacceptable even if he has 5k gold to spend (which he doesn't).

clip 6 - ward baits and bad ults Blitz hesitates to clear the ward in river brush at first because he knows there's an mf and a fed leblanc sitting on the other side of that wall. Leblanc could have used that ward as bait to burst blitz or me very low and finish us off with mf ult. But she ran mid instead and mf completely wasted her ult for no reason. Using ults and even basic abilities at the correct time can add so much more pressure; wasting them can really hurt your team's ability to fight, siege, and take objectives. Think before you clear a ward, go to ward, or use a key ability... what is this getting me, and what might it cost me?

clip 7 - midgame greed Wowza... a whole series of throws by both teams. First it's noc knowing where all 5 enemies are and taking a horrible path that leaves him too far apart from the rest of the team. Then it's renekton going top to clear a wave that can be dealt with later. Although his team COULD have conceded the inner tower, let him clear, and let him tp pincer the enemy team as they siege mid inhib via a ward by the wolf camp. This probably would have yielded similar results to the eventual counter-throw of the enemy team when noc ults in 2v3 with vayne and renek makes a tp to follow up on noc's engage. Notice the pathing by renekton through the jg here. If he follows noc on the other side of the wall, both enemies get away. Splitting up ensures both enemies are trapped - which is better for the team even if he hadn't gotten any kill participation from it. Also, shoutout to vayne punishing camille for trying to tower dive too deep. When your team has massive advantage in pushing, don't throw it away to greed for one more kill.

clip 8 - objective trading gone wrong Most people will look at this and say... they're stupid for starting baron instead of going to contest dragon. But you'd be wrong. If not for poor execution, the blue side had a potential ace AND baron on 2 members. 24:14 game clock... noc should be ulting in on the 3 enemies to get a 5v3 engage. Do this, and mf and galio do not arrive in time to make a difference in the fight. Renekton also takes less damage during the initial fight then due to enemies having to deal with nocturne and the veigar aoe stun which enables him to heal up some and survive longer in the fight. This easily nets a 3 for 1 or 3 for 2 by the time galio and mf arrive... allowing the team to mop up those 2 with maybe 1 death due to a good mf ult. Instead, it looks like a bad call because the team did not execute properly.

clip 9 - how NOT to play around enemy assassins Vision matters more than you think. The enemy was poking their nose around mid and our jg, so I dropped a ward over raptor camp to spot their rotations. As soon as the enemy adc messes up and gets caught a bit too far from her team's help, noc pounces and we have an instant 5v4. This is also one reason why it's a bad idea for adc's or most midlaners to splitpush if the enemy has fed assassin(s) running around. Renekton then dives in to force the 3 enemies in mid to commit to a fight - enabling his team to get an easy teamfight win. It SHOULD have cost renekton his life, but hey that's ok. If you can get your TEAM a winning fight do it... even if it costs YOU YOUR life personally (in game - not in real life). Too many players only think of their kda at the expense of objectives, teamfights, and even wins.

clip 10 - 4-1 split for map control First off, I want to say great job by my team for disengaging after getting the inhib tower. Many teams think... we're 3v3 right now and winning... let's force inhib. Only to not realize that in 2 sec, you will be 3v5 vs freshly respawned full hp enemies and you will at best die for getting inhib and give the enemy team a potential 5v2 baron force to catch back up. Luckily my team was smarter than that. Know respawn timers, know where enemies will likely be heading on the map, and play respectfully even if you are winning individually or as a team. Second part of the clip: my team is pushing out lanes to be in position to 4 man contest or force baron. They don't do anything stupid until they know where the enemy team is at and that I've taken care of my splitpush opponent. Once they know I've killed my opponent and they have VISION around the baron, they can be more agro because either I can split and pull more people to give them a 4v3 like what ends up happening, or I can tp to get a 5v4 if things are looking tough for us and continue splitting 1v0 to kill towers if we are winning the 4v4. The key thing here is A. being in position and knowing the plan and B. letting your splitpusher do the work rather than forcing something for no reason.

Through small intelligent plays - and not without our own mistakes and throws - we turned small leads into big ones and used those leads to exert map pressure that pull the enemy team apart and punished their mispositioning harder than they did to us. While each individual thing is small, you can see the effects of how the little things add up and hopefully appreciate it more. So remember the small things next time you play and work on improving them each game you play. You will be surprised at how much of a difference it can make. Good luck out there and I hope you enjoyed.[sg-ezreal]