Are you a better player now than you were last week? Will you be a better League of Legends player in a weeks time? What if you had a formula that let you confidently answer, "Yes, I know I'll be better"? Imagine how good you would become.
I can answer that for you: you can be as good as the skills you're learning about. Use Summoner School with this to become in the top 1% of all players.
Learning is a complex skill developmental experts, psychologists, geneticists, neurologists, and other leaders are still trying to understand. While they debate about how the human mind and body learns, one thing is clear: good practice leads to mastery.
What is Good Practice in League of Legends?
Amateur LoL teams fail at practice. They think they improve by playing in ranked teams or scrimming another team. All they do though is play. Nothing changes.
You probably do the same in solo queue. You queue to get better, yet all you're doing is playing - you could be even making yourself worse. Pro DoubleLift previously refused to play in solo queue because of the firm belief he played worse in tournaments because of it.
You queue to get better, yet all you're doing is playing - you could be even making yourself worse.
Once you acquire knowledge and mechanical skills, playing League of Legends makes you better only when you consciously work on the timing and smoothing steps of the Player Pyramid (a model of LoL mastery revealed in Summoner School).
Player A lanes against player B who is of equal skill. To the spectator it seems each player does the same thing. Only will player A or B know if he is practicing for improvement through a series of deliberate steps.
You can always develop once you know how to practice. You can always advance leagues once you know how to practice. The goal is to move an area from badness to goodness or what psychologists call "unconscious incompetence" to "conscious competence". Unconscious incompetence is where you do not even know you suck at the skill whereas in conscious competence the skill is instinctive.
How Do You Know You're Better? A Simple Trick to Improve Performance
In business there's a saying, "What is measured is managed." When you track results you can improve them. A feedback system is the best way to gauge progress.
Sprinters have digital clocks with laser systems to track times. High jumpers have a measuring bar. Sport teams have the scoreboard. These are feedback systems for the athletes that lets them know exactly where they stand. If sprinters just ran with no times, that'd be demotivating and crap. What about us LoL players?
The best feedback system in League of Legends is the rank elo system - now seen with the ladder system. The elo rating system was designed by Arpad Elo, a Hungarian physics professor, to put chess players against opponents of equal skill. League of Legends uses the elo system in ranked games to match players of similar skill against each other.
Though your elo is hidden, it is reflected in your division and tier. A player can have good games and bad games. Overtime a player's division reflects his average play ability relative to other players. What does this mean for you?
It means if you're in so-called "league hell", you deserve it. There's no nicer way to put it. Stop complaining as tempting as it is. Please read this guide if you disagree with me. You can get better using the advice in Summoner School if you want to carry noob teammates.
Aside from the ladder system, another feedback system you can adopt is tracking your kills, deaths, and assists (KDA) every game in a spreadsheet. You can add your week's performance together then compare it to previous weeks. I realize your KDA is not everything. It is an imperfect tool, but one of few at your disposal to track performance.
The last feedback system you can use in-game is your creep score. Your number of minion kills tells you how you're doing at last-hitting. You cannot trick yourself with how good you're performing when you have a good feedback system.
Players hated the elo system and they hate the ladder system. If you do too, that's because you do not understand the astonishing short-cut secrets to get platinum (and higher) that pros want to keep hidden.
Now you know how to track performance to allow yourself to get better, it's time to go on a journey of improvement.
3 Steps to Be Pro-Like
1. Awareness of Present Skill
The first step to get better at League of Legends is understanding what you suck at to move out of unconscious incompetence. Unfortunately many players in "league hell" remain stuck at this step because they do not see their mistakes. They are too busy blaming teammates. I guarantee you make a plethora of mistakes every game.

It can be difficult to learn what you suck at because you do not know what you do not know. I have two favorite ways to identify mistakes.
Players in 'league hell' remain stuck... because they do not see their mistakes.
The best way to identify your mistakes so you begin the three steps to be pro-like is watching your games. The replay feature in the League client is a fantastic free tool available to watch your games and identify mistakes. Watch at least one game each day to see what you did wrong. In-game it is impossible to realize every mistake because you're focused on performance.
A second way to identify where you suck is feedback from others. Duo queue with someone better than you who wants to help you play better. If you have the money, consider paying a good player to coach you. An expert observing your execution is great at helping you identify where you need to improve.
Coaches in sport are powerful because of their objective eye. Amateurs think a coach's primary job is to tell pros what to do. More often though, a coach identifies what needs to change. A football player can know the right way to kick a ball and kick a ball 100 times in one practice session, yet have no idea he is executing a mistake until an observer brings light to his habit. This is why getting a League of Legends coach is a smart investment.
2. Knowing What to Do
The second step to get better at League of Legends is knowing what to do. There is much knowledge for you to gain!
Situational knowledge is best gained in League of Legends by playing and observing. If Ahri has a Deathcap and you have level 2 boots with 2 Doran's Ring, can she nuke you? Through experience you develop a feel for when you can kill or be killed.
A lot of LoL players like to learn what to do by watching streams. This has its place in learning, but many overrate what can be learned. Streamers are often pro players who make few mistakes. Due to their near-flawless play, it is easy to trick yourself into thinking you can duplicate their success. Be careful of such mental tricks otherwise watching streams can make you a worse player from overconfidence.
You do not get become an NBA player by watching NBA games. The difference between LoL streams and NBA games is that some streamers explain the reason behind their actions.
Another method a lot of players use to learn what to do so they get better as a player is self-discovery and experience. They read tonnes of guides, play a lot, and test different things. You can get better using this method. I did this for two years and it is the most common, time-consuming, and frustrating way to get better at League of Legends.
The quickest way to get better as a player is to follow a step-by-step system. I put every single tip I knew about how to win at League of Legends in a complete system so you can go from total noob to pro. It's Summoner School. All the top players I knew shared their best tips and reviewed it to make the course even more amazing. If you want a simple way to conquer the frustrations of solo queue fast, I encourage you to signup here.
3. Deliberate Practice
So you have identified where you suck at and what to do. The third step to get better at League of Legends is to make practice deliberate.
Three psychologists in their 1993 paper "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" explain that an expert appears talented from years of effort dedicated to the skill. A person with expertise for years did deliberate practice with the intent of improving skills. They practice for performance rather than for pleasure or rewards. The psychologists go on to say such good practice to develop skills require substantial mental effort.
What that means for you to become a better League of Legends player is you must focus during deliberate practice with the intent to get better. Do not only play for pleasure if you desire to be on your favorite pro's team in solo queue or be on stage at a big event. An athlete does not enjoy hammering heavy weights in the gym. He does so knowing it makes him stronger and faster. That is one difference between playing, practice, and deliberate practice.
The League of Legends booth at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Photo courtesy of @MarckVision.
Playing is what everyone does. If you do what everyone does, you get what everyone does.
Practice for most players is when they play to get better but use little mental effort. They might pick a new champion, try a new build, or play with their pre-made team in a scrim against others. Advancement with this kind of practice is mostly knowledge acquisition. You discover a level 6 Taric and Graves can nuke level 5 Soraka. Improvement is slow if any is made.
Deliberate practice is when you feel awkward performing a skill to acquire it. You are slow at the skill as you think about execution.
Use deliberate practice for several skills starting with one I call "ward observation". A good jungler knows the time and location of wards by observing when enemies return to lane. You have to deliberately practice this skill with substantial mental effort to possess it.
You might start by focusing on mid lane alone noting when the enemy has to back. When he returns to lane, press "tab" to track ward purchases then look where he places a ward. Instead of mindlessly clearing your jungle then ganking, practice this skill. Eventually expand it to other lanes so you become a "natural expert" at surprise ganks and not getting counter-ganked because you know their ward locations.
...practice for performance rather than for pleasure or rewards.
One simple skill you can deliberately practice right now is the use of hot keys. Every player should use q, w, e, and r keys for abilities. Take it to the next level with smart cast so you cast abilities quicker. Use numbers for active items, wards, and pots; "v" to tell allies to fall back; "g" to indicate locations on the mini-map; "b" to recall; and "p" to open the shop window.
Each hot key you learn feels clunky and unnatural. At times you forget to use the hot key. Deliberate practice requires effort to change habit so you become expert.
One skill to practice in your ranked team is communication of what to do at Dragon and Baron. When it is time to contest the objective, say what a teammate is to do. The teammate can be responsible for making the call to finish the objective, fight the enemy, or run. Do this each time to make it a habit so you become a stronger team.
Everyone can admire a beautiful high-rise building. Few appreciate how it is built. Practice is the cement and pillars of high performance. It is ugly to do yet makes you great.
How Much Is Ending Solo Queue Bull Sh** Worth to You?
I use to rage playing LoL trying to carry noobs. You may too. It’s not fun even though you enjoy the game.
You cannot put a price on being great at something you love.
How much have you spent on RP to buy skins, champions, and rune pages? $50? $100? Some players have paid over $600!
Having that cool Teemo skin doesn’t make you play better. Summoner School will.
Are You Willing to Sacrifice a Few Skins to Become in the Top 1% of All Players?
I hope so. When Summoner School was released, enrollment was $US47 per month. No guide covers everything to make players damn good. Students felt that was a great deal.
I recently moved the website to a cheaper web host and wanted more players who couldn't afford monthly bills to join... and was able to slice the cost of Summoner School for a limited time.
I may have to make it $47 per month soon to pay my graphics designer, support staff, and tech guy. To be fair though, if you signup now, you get lifetime access with no hidden nasties. You also get a friggen crazy guarantee of how good you will become. Check it out to get started today.