The biggest thing I learned in climbing low rank (went from bronze to gold season 3 and bronze to gold twice in season 5 after quitting for a while season 4 being frustrated bc I was stuck in silver and didn't like the meta), is to find something that fits your play style and focus on improving every game. I absolutely loved jungling season 3 and how brutal counter jungling could be back then. I played a lot of Nunu jungle and I practiced counter jungling and learning common routes and times until I was at the point where some games my enemy wouldn't get a single buff except their first one. I'd steal every single one that spawned other than that, and get a ton of dragons so my team was way ahead. This season I was playing mid bc I didn't like season 4 jungle and moved to something else, and heimerdinger's lane control and bullying, combined with his stupid level of objective control was what I found that I was willing to practice and I have like a 60 something % win rate on him over almost 200 games.
If you read that then you can see I don't like high skill cap champs bc my mechanics are weak and I don't really care about out playing people as much as I do out rotating and out shot calling them. I love that feeling when you're a step ahead of the enemy and just a hair faster to each objective so they never really feel like they can get out of being trapped just reacting all game. Some people are really different though and I used to duo w/ a couple guys who would absolutely crush their lane 90% of the time and when they did they roamed to get more kills and the team got ahead sort of on accident bc the guy was just getting kills and doing the traditional carry thing. Neither of them made calls for towers, dragons, or barons very often, and if they struggled in lane their impact on the game plummeted, but they were mechanically so good that the power difference between them and their lane made the team win mid game team fights in more games than not.
There are a ton of ways to win, but it's about finding what style works for you and learning how to play to those win conditions. When I played Heimer I needed to bully early game and push towers fast, then I could rotate and take other lane's towers or help them dive their lane, then take dragon or something. The whole team got ahead, or I could save losing lanes, bc I had early power and could abuse it. If I didn't win lane early (10-20 cs up and a kill or two) then the game was more of a coin flip. I've been playing Nunu and other jungles more recently and my team is usually up in dragons/barons/towers mid game, and often I don't do shit for damage, but I can protect my teammates so well that even if they aren't as good as the enemy they win team fights and a couple triple kills mid game makes up for a whole lot of not so good in lane.
Figure out what works for you. If you like big damage out play champs work on your mechanics, csing, and roaming until you are up in cs (like 10 or more), have a kill or two, and have killed at least one laner other than yours in 80% of your games by the time 10-15 minutes hits. If you do that you should start winning at a pretty fast clip bc you will have a pretty strong early lead and have at least helped out someone on your team a little bit before laning phase ends (if you aren't you need to seriously look at how you're team fighting and if you're rotating to help your team in mid game the right way). If you like more control/tank styles, work on not falling behind/out csing your opponent, tp/roaming to get kills for yourself or teammates in other lanes, putting more pressure on dragon/towers/baron, and surviving team fights while peeling/engaging for your team. When I wasn't climbing I went in as a tank and fought until I was dead unless my carries died. I've noticed a lot of games recently where I get focused hard (not just autos or short cd spells but ults and such blown on me) and I back out with a sliver of health while my team cleans up bc they have way more damage and ults than the other team, so even w/out the tank they can kite and cc and win. I stopped feeding gold to the enemy and my wins went up (6ish kda on nunu over 10+ games, and 5ish kda on 10+ games of amumu on my second account).
Good luck, and remember, the mini map is your friend. Watch for your team doing stupid stuff and then make it not bad by helping out and turning a moment where the support was caught out warding, into a kill for you :D
game, I saw that I made a lot of mistakes, and I see that I need to ward more and farm instead of trying to zone so hard, but I also saw that most of my teammates were incompetent with dealing with their lanes and keeping their ego in check. For example, our Kennen
was not feeding, but she wasn't getting enough cs and she wasn't taking advantage of her champion and zoning people out. The Lee Sin was also not able to counter-gank and counter jungle well enough. He didn't even have enough cs from his own jungle. Caitlyn
was just yelling at her support and blaming everybody and insulting them. She didn't even buy items when she was starting lane, and she missed so much cs, becoming useless. All she did was just push bot. Shen
was decent, but sometimes he mistimed his ultimate.
