Bronze V to Bronze I: How to rise in the ranks quickly and effectively (Solo/Duo)

I guess you could say I " d" Welcome Summoners to my guide to rising in bronze, Solo/Duo

This aint some BS list to tell you to “keep trying” this is for the people who are determined. See: Shai Lebouef

This season I was placed in Bronze IV, and then I was demoted to Bronze V. Now here I am at Bronze I. No, I don’t think I’m special, or even that good. But what I’d like to share with all of you down here in the pit of Bronze, are the things that I used to rank up. My credentials should be in the fact that I did it without a smurf carrying me. I will be covering everything, from lanes, to team strategies.

SKILL

We’ve all seen it before. Wukong goes 22/4/6 and you still lose because 1 or 2 players feed. Sometimes, you can be that person and you don’t even know it. If you’re not like our buddy Wukong , just follow these simple steps

1.Don’t feed

That’s it. Those are all the steps. It’s really easy. I’m not talking about a couple of deaths. But once you hit 0/3/0 at around 14 minutes, you have to make a choice. You can blame everyone else and feed some more in your own hubris. Or tell yourself enough is enough, and do whatever you can to help your team without helping the enemy. It’s not a mistake if you learn something from it. How do you not feed? Play safe, no matter who you are. Only get kills or cs if there’s an absolute zero * chance of dying. That doesn’t mean ignore team battles, just value your life more than the enemies.

KNOW YOUR ROLL if you smell what is cooking.

Three things.

1.have a lane that you know very well. 2.Know all the lanes to some degree. 3.Be familiar with other champions.

Everyone has their specialty. In league, you are one of the 5 Planeteers. So it makes sense that you have a specialty. A lot of people in solo que aren’t that confident, and will fill if they see you “pref” a lane. Don’t be that guy. You need to play in your all star role; this is your LP on the line. On the other hand, don’t be a spoiled brat when you can’t get your lane. This is why knowing all the other lanes are important. My last promo ended with me playing Shen Top. I’m terrible at top, but I know it enough to keep my team going. It also helped that I didn’t feed, hence the previous section on skill. Don’t feed.

Keep in mind, ranked accounts for the fact of OP champions with bans. You can only use Sejuani or Annie for so long before the next game has them banned. Your favorite champion could be banned. I’ve seen every champion banned, all of them. Yes THAT one too. But guess what, you have a backup plan. Oh, you want to ban my Leona? Well my friends Morgana , Janna and Alistar would like a word with you.

VISION

This is the part where I repeat other guides, because I can’t stress enough how important it is. When it’s 20 minutes in, and your jungle is poorly warded. Don’t go looking at Soraka. She can only place 3 wards, which I remind, have a time limit. 9 times out of 10 when you backed, you had some gold left over. Enough for maybe, a stealth ward? 3 minutes of vision.

Take it a step further. For 250 gold at level 9, you have infinite stealth wards. The greater stealth totem is Rito’s most generous item. Stealth wards save your life, and sometimes grant you an advantage of a kill, which immediately makes up for the already miniscule amount of money you spent on vision. So what is it? Do you not like money?

Here’s another tip, which can help in the middle part of the game. If the enemy team is starting to push into your jungle, the Vision ward is great. It will never go away until an enemy destroys it, which guarantees vision on something. It’s like life insurance for your ward. A great team will have 2 vision wards up during the mid game, which helps when contesting Dragon. It’s also fun to use as bait. But that’s for another thread.

WITH YOUR POWERS COMBINED

This is the last time I’ll make a Captain Planet reference, but I’m making it for a reason. If you’ve gotten this far into the guide, you’re probably good enough to know that team battles are important. So I’ll skip that. But there’s a huge list of context sensitive scenarios where your participation matters. I’ll just list them off.

1. Peel for the carries. – Protect your team instead of chasing a low hp enemy-
2. Ping, for almost anything. Use all of them.
3. When contesting dragon, treat the enemy team more serious. Let dragon go if you can’t survive.
4. Reward your team more than punishing them. GJ > Uninstall.
5. Take your team’s advice. They might be jerks sometimes, but they can be right.
6. Watch your farm. A minion wave equals around 150g which is half a kill. ;)
7. Don’t feed.

LANE SPECIFIC RULES

Following these rules for your lane helps a little, but a little goes a long way.

ADC: Know that you’re a target for kills. It’s the most risky lane because getting fed makes winning the game easier. But you’ll always be weak as s#&%. Don’t just rely on supports to keep you alive, help yourself too. Ward that river bush, I know you have the money for it. Remember that your support’s job isn’t as sexy as yours. Janna may not do that much damage, but it matters when she shields you, gives you a speed boost and tornados enemies off of you. Give thanks for assisting your double kill. You know they’re helping.

SUPPORT: You matter too, so don’t go ham trying to be a martyr. I main support, my best games are 0/2/27. The “2” is important because I didn’t wanna die. Because of that I was able to guard the turret when my ADC got killed in a bad play. ADCs can make mistakes, so make sure you don’t encourage it. In late game, all you gotta do is peel the ADC or anyone low on HP. In team battles you should be metaphorically running around with defibrillator. Depending on the champion, you can help by engaging or disengaging. You’re a smart person, you can figure it out.

MID: Since you have two angles for ganks, and one ward, you should hug the side that’s warded when you push. Don’t push too much for too long. Protip: If the enemy is hugging a side, there’s a good chance that’s warded to. Junglers take note. If you’re losing, don’t feed. Sacrifice some farm to hug the turret and stay alive. Eventually the enemy will leave lane. Ping missing and get some more farm as the enemy wastes time being thirsty. Get wards. Dragon is next to your lane, meaning 4 enemies can be close by at any time.

TOP: Do NOT push until the river is warded. Even when that’s the case, you’re still at risk of a gank more than anyone. It gets lonely at top. If you push so hard but you can’t secure a kill, consider backing and getting items. You’ll have plenty of time to get back to lane WITH boots. Saving TP and making it easier for jungle to gank. Keep an eye out for your team mates. There’s a 1/10 chance you could gank mid with the jungle and secure an easy kill, worth. More importantly, watch the dragon. Be the first in your lane to leave and help your team. If you succeed in taking drag, the enemy will hate their top, lowering their moral which will give you a confidence advantage.

JUNGLE: Consider yourself Support 2.0: reloaded. Wards are great. Since you’re gunna be running around, do your team a solid and place a ward every now and again. They’ll thank you for it. JK, no they won’t but this isn’t a popularity contest, you’re trying to win. On very rare occasions, I buy a sightstone . And no I’m not playing Lee sin . It’s an extra HP boost with wards, which gives me the option for a Sweeping Lens . Most likely I’m not going to get to my full build, but again, this is for rare occasions. Your presence is scary. If a lane isn’t doing great but is pushed too much to gank, show up anyway. Do a little dance and watch them run. Play some mind games. Just keep in mind your presence can determine what the other team will do.

HOW GOOD ARE YOU

This is a different part of the guide because I’m not gunna be talking about game mechanics anymore.

K/D is not the name of the game. Kills obviously help, but key word is “help”. To win games, you need to be a good player. You need to be competitive, serious, and confident.

If you initiate a surrender at 20 because the enemy team is ahead 6 kills, you’re not going to rank up. Not surrendering increases your chances of winning, fact. I’m sorry, but how badly did you want to win? You can tell yourself that it’s bronze and that no one cares, you can say that you’re being realistic in that you’ll lose. But you’re wrong. You ARE wrong![Teemo](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/Teemo.png) . Get out of here. How did you even get this far in the guide if you quit so easily?

Something I notice in human beings in general is that most of them don’t even know how to care about things in general, let alone ranked league games. These are the people that hurt the team most in ranked. If you’re “just doing it for fun,” ask yourself what’s fun about it, and reconsider the que. It doesn’t matter what ELO this is. 

Ranked Que is for people who have fun BY being competitive. I’m one of these people. I have fun by winning games BECAUSE we tried our best and pulled through. It’s not satisfying if I win a game because the enemy had 2 people disconnect. If you disagree with that, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with just playing for fun, just don’t go into ranked. Seriously, get out. Nobody wants you here.

Ranked is for people who are serious, good or bad . A bad player who’s serious will stop feeding when you ask him nicely, and sometimes that’s enough to win the game.

When I say, “be competitive” keep in mind that it has nothing to do with trash talking, and being butthurt when you lose. It’s normal to be mad from a lost game, but when you’re name-calling, you’re being a bad sport, that’s not competitive. Just say GG and move on to the next game, or take a break. I’ve lost 2 promos and still ranked up 3 times in a week. As long as YOU didn’t lose the game, you’ll be just fine.

One more important tip is to always learn. Games teach you something, albeit abstract, but just know that multiplayer games have ZERO skill ceiling, you can never be so good to where you can’t get any better. Because of this, keep mental notes of every mistake you make, it’s ordinary to make mistakes, but it’s extraordinary to change up your game with every slip up.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Leona Support. It’s really good. It’s actually the easiest thing to do to win games. I put this at the end because it’s useless without the previous list. Seriously she is OP. almost never gets banned. Just watch for Lulus.

Thanks for reading this guide, I hope this helps. “Don’t let your dreams be dreams.”

tl;dr, don't feed.