Low Elo How to gain Elo

On November 02 2012 11:36 samthesaluki wrote:
Ok so let me start off this guide by saying that this is a guide for myself, but I thought it might help other low elo players to improve. Some of the stuff I say will be hypocritical, seeing I don't follow it myself. However, I'm writing it so that I can remember how to improve.

Ok the first thing I will discuss is:
Elo Hell Now I know this brings up much debate so, to be honest, I'm only bringing this up to tell you to forget about it. The purpose of this guide is to improve. Whether or not elo hell exists or not does not matter. It is something you can't control. If you blame elo hell you won't get better, so you won't gain elo. It doesn't matter if your teammates are terrible, everyone gets bad teammates. You just have to focus on self improvement.

Ok so with this said, at lower elo's it can seem like its you vs the world. Your teammates suck and lose you games, so at lower elo's I'm pretty sure it's universally agreed that you have to "Carry". Basically if you want to gain elo YOU have to win, and to win you have to do the best with what you got. If you have 4 bad teammates, YOU have to be the difference.

"But But I win my lane every game and I still lose." Trust me I've been there. I've said it myself, and will probably say it again. This attitude will get you nowhere. Instead you should be thinking "what MORE can I do?" Just winning your lane isn't enough to win the game.

Ok to win, lets so start at:
winning lanes If you're not regularly winning your lane you don't deserve to be at a higher elo. If you're winning your lane, that's not enough.

Winning lane gets broken down into two things:
CS aka creepscore and kills If you're regularly winning your lane by doing both of these better than your opponent, this is good. Still, it doesn't mean you've won the game.
So at this point you need to think, "how can I do more than just win lane?" One part of winning lane is kills. These provide you money to get stronger. Stop when you get a kill think to yourself, "now what advantage can I gain from this kill?" It could be as simple as gaining more cs ,or it could be something bigger such as grabbing an objective such as a tower,dragon,baron etc. Ok so assume you've stomping your lane. Just having better cs is good but how much is that really helping your team? Now, you need to take your tower. Next kill, you need to gank one of your other lanes and turn that into killing a tower or taking an objective such as dragon.

Also, if you're really ahead, buying extra wards for your team (even if your an ad carry) will give extra vision and map control to your team, which help them make less mistakes. For example having wards will assist in not getting caught and knowing when it's safe to grab an objective.

Even if you have to drag your team to a win, it can be done. Some games are unwinnable but most games you'd think weren't winnable actually might have been if you had put the extra effort in.

Another aspect of winning is
Working as a team If you can see that you're the best player, LEAD your team! Ping objectives and keep your calm. This is one of my biggest problems. I rage hard, which doesn't help anyone. Your teammates, no matter how bad they are, will not play better if you rage at them and most likely play worse.

Ok so you've released you can't carry consistently yet. You are doing everything above, but still aren't gaining elo. Maybe then you as a player are at the elo you should be, but that doesn't mean you can't improve! Here are a few things I can think of that will lead to
Self improvement.

Mechanics such as cs'ing. I for one, know that I need to improve my ability to cs. I cs very poorly and it makes a huge difference. I'm pretty sure that around 15 cs is equal to a kill. So say you have 100 cs and they have 40, the difference is roughly the same as a 4 kill difference \.

Map Awarness: Looking around the map to see where opponents are located or if they're missing. Try to spot possible ganks.

Champion Mechanics Ok, so a lot of people have said that playing only one champion is the best way to gain elo. Why is this? Well, mainly because you will know the in's and the out's of your hero. You will know bad matchups, good matchups, everything! This doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to play any other champs. You should have experience with a handful of champs, just incase you can't get the champ you want.

Positioning This is a skill I need to work on myself. As an ad carry, (which is the role I play most in ranked atm) I don't really know the best way to position myself. In things such as teamfights, I generally have good positional skills. I need to work on my positioning in lane.

All in all there is no quick fix for gaining elo unless you want to cheat yourself. Trust me, it takes practice, and the only way to practice is to play tons of games. I also have got a lot of advice from higher elo players and joined a practice group (LiquidPractice for those interested) where I play with and against higher level players to try to improve.


I mentioned the playing part but I forgot to add this. Watch streams of pro players!!!! The two main sites I use for this are Solomid.net and Clggaming.net

Auswahlaxiom is learning how to play when he's behind.
I also forgot to add this (credit to Aus for reminding me): Things don't always go your way and you have to learn to play from behind when you're losing. Unfortunately this is another thing I am really bad at. If any higher elo player wants to write a little section about playing from behind, what to do, etc i'll add it in here.

Ok so here is a TLDR bulletpoint on how to gain elo if you're low elo.

- Rid Yourself of Elo Hell excuse
- Winning lane is not winning game. Carry harder
- Never Rage, no matter what
- Be a Leader
- Focus on Self improvement

Those points above are effective ways of how I can achieve my goal of next season, gaining elo.

I currently play at about a 1100-1200 elo level comfortably. I'm not anywhere near the 1380 elo level of play, even though that's my peak elo. My goal for next season is 1600. I can achieve this if I follow my guide which I put together with tips I picked up from higher elo players. Can I achieve my goal, even though it's extremely far away? The only way I'll make it is if I follow my own advice/guide. If I don't follow it, there's no way in hell I'll make it.

Thanks to all the people that have helped me so far improve as a player. I have not put it all to good use and I plan to rectify this. I hope that if you're reading you can see that not everything is lost on me, I just don't execute what I have learnt (which I should).

If you have any comments/suggestions/constructive criticism, or anything I could add (especially helping me with my grammar), please let me know.




um if anyone more experienced could help with this id much appreciate