The holiday season is here and plenty of gamers are finding themselves with extra time on their hands that they’re likely to spend playing League of Legends. For those looking to hone their competitive edge before next season, here are a few tips to best prepare for Season 12.
If you’re going to grind ranked queue during December, it’s worth understanding that there won’t be any in-game rewards for your commitment. Ranked rewards have been given out for this year, so further progression in preseason won’t result in borders, skins, or any other compensation.
The offseason is a great opportunity to become comfortable with new champions for your role, especially ones that diversify the roles you’re comfortable with during a match.
If you’re a well-polished Jayce one-trick used to bullying opponents in the lane, pick up a tank and practice peeling and playing to enable carries. If you’re more likely to lock in a level-reliant juggernaut, try out ranged bullies that punish enemy mistakes in the early game.
Most players limit themselves to certain types of characters too often, and having one or two pocket picks to perform different roles can be important. It also allows players to have better odds of being able to counter-pick opponents who select champions first.
Playing solo queue alone is well known to be a potentially tilting experience, so having a friend to play with can help a lot. Solo laners should try to team up with a jungler, and vice versa, as they’re the ones most likely to interact. This allows coordination around skirmishes with the enemy jungler, objective timings, and ganks most easily.
Bot laners should look for a player in the other role on the dragon’s side of the map. Support and AD carry need to be able to communicate and pings only go so far. The unfortunate truth of bot lane is that your success is reliant on your ability to cooperate and play as a team with your fellow laner.
Teamwork is a vital aspect of League of Legends, as much as solo queue might convince players otherwise.
These may seem like straight forwards tips, but they can be some of the most useful changes to make to improve your ranked experience in the new year.
Finding players with more experience and expertise is as easy as it’s even been thanks to champion main subreddits, Twitch, and other streaming platforms. If you’re looking to take your main champion’s play to the next level, look to highly ranked solo queue stars to learn the minutia.
These experts are often full of unusual trivia about their champ and tips to rank up your play with any given pick. Given that extensive time playing the game will just be reset come January, the holidays are a great chance to tune into your streamer of choice to gain some useful knowledge.
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