How to DOMINATE ranked games.

DISCLAIMER: Following the mentalities and advice in this post does not guarantee you'll win your ranked games. This content is designed to help you improve your chances at winning by giving you some points to focus on. These are not fact, these are opinion.

Hi folks,

I'm posting this compilation of ideals and gameplay styles to help those stuck in their own personal 'Elo Hell'. My goal here is to enlighten you as to how to quickly and effectively obliterate the enemy team and secure yourself a win in a ranked game through the use of mental attrition. You may find this kind of mentality and playstyle to be your cup of tea or you might find it a terrible mindset. Ultimately, how well you do with it comes down to your comfort as a player.

First, you need to realize that you're playing ranked.

You didn't come here to have fun. You didn't come here to try out a new champion. **You didn't come here to socialize. **

YOU CAME HERE TO WIN.

Too frequently do I see people die and lose games because they didn't have their head in the game. They don't take it seriously. They die because they got a text on their cellphone from their friend and just HAD to answer it. They lost lane because they were too busy thinking about their classmate's boobs. They lost the game because their dog had to poop.

I'm going to be frank. Knock that sh!t off. You came here to do your best, to win the game, to climb out of the trench that is Elo Hell. Remove head from bum and get into the game!

Good, you're in the zone. You're focused. Now, you prey on the people who aren't. Your goal is to poop on those who aren't focused or can easily be broken. Identify which players fit into that category and constantly assault their weakpoints without pause. This is called Attrition. Using this technique you can quickly batter and break a team's will to fight. This is called Demoralizing your enemy.

Demoralization and Attrition go hand-in-hand.

When employed successfully, you can effectively shatter the enemy team's will to fight and hopefully cause them to surrender at the 20 minute mark or shortly after. That is the end goal. Make the enemy team feel so frustrated and powerless that they simply give up. That said, it is crucial that you don't do this verbally. Verbally harassing the enemy team is not only a reportable offense, but it encourages the enemy player or team to focus on ending your reign of terror. You want so subjugate your opponents, not whip them into a lather only to be mauled in the process.

Silence is golden.

One other thing about mentality that you want to focus on:

NEVER. FIGHT. FAIR.

"This isn't duelling pistols at dawn. This is WAR. You never want to fight fair. You want to sneak up behind your enemy and club him over the head" - Kara Thrace

There is no honor in killing someone 1v1. Doing so, you willingly give your opponent a numbers advantage. That's like giving your IRL would-be murderer an extra knife. You wouldn't do it because it increases his chances OF KILLING YOU. So don't do it in game. Don't give the enemy an advantage they don't need. This is a ranked game of League of Legends, not a round of mustachioed fisticuffs. ( )

As a player, with this mentality can come a sense of invincibility. Don't fall into this feeling. League of Legends is very much a numbers game as it is a game of skill. Regardless of how strong you are at any point in the game, if you are facing more that one opponent at a time, know that your chances of success drop exponentially. Making the mistake of underestimating your enemy and dying in the process can cause the visage of almighty dominance that you've been creating to melt and give the enemy their confidence back.

This leads us to the next point.

Don't go for a kill unless you KNOW you can get it. Sure, those super-luck adrenaline rush kills are a real high of the game, but they come at higher than average risk. Your focus is to demoralize your opponent. It's much more depressing to the enemy if they are killed outright in lane rather than getting killed because you dived them under their turret, escaping with 10 HP. If you can kill an opponent without putting yourself at risk, do it, by all means.

With that in mind let's take a look at some of the champions and roles that can help you achieve these things.

Roles:

Certain roles can help you really exude this demoralizing approach, while others make it a lot more difficult. Remember that our goal is to break the enemy team's will and force them to surrender.

Jungle - Perhaps the role best suited to breaking your opponent's will. The concept of not knowing where a powerful player is can be really scary to some, causing them to panic and mess up. Furthermore, scoring kills upon these people can reinforce that fear.

Top - Similar to Jungle, you're often times playing a somewhat tanky bruiser type champion. Against squishier and more vulnerable targets such as mid laners and ADCs, top laners make for an intimidating presence.

Mid - Mid laners often have to wait a little while before they become scary or powerful. Not ideal for the Surrender at 20 mentality we're shooting for but destructive and infuriating champions such as who snowball easily with a kill or two can prove this wrong.

Support - Few supports are intimidating or demoralizing. Hence why their called 'support' and not 'OMFG RUN!'. However there are a few good examples of demoralizing supports who can have high impact on a lane.

ADC - ADCs are least likely to be intimidating before the 20 minute mark. Relatively useless during the early game, they sit back and farm which isn't exactly scary or demoralizing. Though, a good ADC can harass while farming.

Champions:

Jungle - Pantheon

• Pantheon exhibits the perfect qualities of an intimidating and powerful early-mid game jungler. He is easy to play, has safe and yet lethal ganks, global presence, able to execute low health targets, and a virtually 360 degree point of ingress when it comes to ganking a lane post level 6.

Top - Riven

• Riven excels at beating people up and can become a huge threat if allowed to roam. Featuring high mobility, an execute ability, multiple forms of CC and an annoying amount of mid-fight sustain, she can easily snowball and cause enemies to try and avoid her as much as possible.

Mid - Talon and Katarina

• Both of these champions have annoying mobility and blink potential as well as very high damage outputs. On top of that, their ability to come back from moderate losses is unparalleled. Both of these champions can be scary and require little hard skill.

Support - Leona

• Hail the Queen of support, Leona. Featuring literal shit-tons of CC, if played aggressively she will be the stuff of nightmares for less mobile ADCs.

ADC - Jinx

• Jinx, while being an ADC, has a lot of potential to do well early due to her large amount of utility. Having access to a root, slow and a formidable and variable auto attack range, it becomes easy to snowball early and demoralize the enemy laners. Need I mention the global execute?

So there you have it. A quick mentality guide to help you win ranked games.

Feel free to leave questions, comments or criticism below!