7 Habits Of A Highly Effective LoL Player

Ever wondered what the best LoL players do so effectively that sets them apart from everyone else? Consistency is one of the biggest differentiating factors and apply to all of these habits so keep that in mind as you continue to read. I'm UberGiantsBro and these are 7 Habits Of A Highly Effective LoL Player.

Habit 1. Effective LoL players play at their peak and stop when they start getting tired or start playing sloppy.

Back when I was trialing for the state Futsal squad, they ran us through all of the fitness trials before moving on to the shooting drills. I thought this was weird. Wouldn't it be better to have us do the shooting first when we were fresh and our legs weren't tired?

The reason they did this was actually pretty simple. They wanted to see how we handled shooting with tired legs and with our adrenaline pumping, 'under load', as it were. They were testing us to see how we would perform with stress and under realistic playing conditions.

The transferable lesson here, as it were, is that it's crucial to practice on or near a stress level - an arousal level (teehee, arousal) - that is similar to what you would be performing with in a highly competitive scenario or when you think you would be performing your best (think maybe that promo series where you played really well).

stress and arousal

This means that you want to be playing when you are feeling fresh. The 'optimal arousal level' and 'peak time to play' varies for everyone but generally you'll find that you perform your best after 1 or 2 games, as these get you in the zone. I've found for myself that I tend so play sloppy when I am physically tired near the end of a big day, so I know now to generally just avoid playing late at night when my brain just wants to shut down.

Arousal and stress (a little bit of stress) makes you aware and keeps you alert in game. When you start letting your guard down, well that's when you start making silly mistakes, slipping up in lane, losing track of the jungler or just flat out feeding. The most effective practice is when you are in the right mind frame.

The most effective practice is when you are in the right mind frame.

So here's what you do; when you start losing concentration or start getting tired, stop playing LoL. Take a break. You will only play worse and possibly develop bad habits, and the time you spend playing sloppy you could spend doing something that would be more productive like going to bed earlier or doing your chores or something.

Some people like listening to music to get themselves in the zone. Maybe you play your best after a short jog or some other physical exercise to wake you up. Alternatively, you could #getfitwithsnoopeh in between games to keep yourself alert! Check out Snoopeh doing pushups with Froggen on his back.

The important thing to remember is to stop playing when you notice yourself getting tired and playing sluggishly. This is the time where you are most likely to go 'on tilt', and tilting is one of the biggest elo killers that you want to avoid.

Habit 2. Great LoL players instinctively look to analyze and correct their own mistakes before thinking about what others did wrong.

I recently did an article on using Immediate Reflection to improve in LoL which I would highly advise you check out if you haven't already.

I truly believe this is the hallmark of a great LoL player, especially, especially true in League of Legends where the typical reaction to anything bad in a game of LoL is to blame others.

Could you imagine how much more fun to play (and in turn, competitive) League of Legends would be if every player was more concerned with what they could have done better themselves in every situation rather than what others could have done better? What a powerful concept.

Adopt this attitude of self reflection and practice this skill when you play and I guarantee that with time you will be well on your way to reaching your League of Legends goal. For more info on how to take ownership of your mistakes and the beauty of immediate reflection, read more about what I believe to be the secret To improving fast at LoL.

Habit 3. Smart LoL players focus on something specific and put what they learn to the test and practice it until it becomes routine.

Believe it or not, Doublelift - NA's best ADC and one of the best ADC in the world - used to be 'just a good ADC'. He always use to be great at cs'ing but he was generally very passive and average at harassing. Focusing on being more aggressive and smarter with his harass is what Doublelift says turned him from a good ADC to a great ADC.Doublelift is the greatest... everyone else is trash

Harassing is a specific skill, and Doublelift had to concentrate especially on this part of his game until he became good at it. It doesn't just happen, you have to put extra focus on it to improve.

When you find something that is not so great in your game, focus on improving it. Techniques for finding these things include replay analysis (which will be discussed later on) and duoing with another good player.

Near the end of the first LCS split, team Dignitas were facing elimination. Crumbzz (Dignitas' Jungler) stated in this interview that it was really going in to scrims and practice with intentions of focusing on something specific that carried them through the elimination process. Unfortunately you can't time stamp with Gamespot videos but the part of the video I'm talking about is at 2 minutes in.

Habit 4. Pro LoL players play as if they are in the lead, but they know their limits.

There are a couple points I want to make with this habit that mostly revolve around a Pro player's mindset in LoL. Firstly, there's this whole thing about being positive that can help you play as if you have an advantage from the get-go.

For any of you that are familiar with the Law of Attraction (there's a wiki link for you), this idea won't take a lot of effort to get your head around. If you focus on the positive stuff, more positive stuff is likely to happen. Great.

Now how does being positive help you play as if you have an advantage? It basically comes down to knowing that you have the ability to change the flow of the game, even if you are behind.

knowing that you have the ability to change the flow of the game, even if you are behind

It's the confidence in your own ability as a player and knowing what you can and cannot do. Think about these two mindsets and you'll see what I mean;

Player A. Uhh he's 30 cs ahead of me and we're 8 minutes in. I think this game is over.

Player B. Uhh he's 30 cs ahead of me and we're 8 minutes in. It's k he's basing now and I might be able to pull some cs back. I'll try to farm it out and have a bigger impact than him in the teamfights - Malphite is weak early and a beast later on anyway.

Player B has a better mindset, he knows that he scales well and that he has the ability to get back in the game. He is confident in his Malphite pick and that later he can still crush team fights.malphite-coral

Focusing on this keeps him more positive and has an immediate impact on his cs'ing and communication with his team. He is now a positive, unstoppable rock.

My second point is that Pro player's are confident enough and sure enough of their own ability that they know if the enemy slips up, they will be there to capitalize. They just have to put out enough pressure safely and within their known limits to give their opponent opportunities to slip up.

I played mid against MandatoryCloud" (mid laner for Team Vulcun) and even though I was on my most comfortable champ at the time, Lux, I felt like he was always 5 steps ahead. Yes that is a Swain quote, yes he was playing Swain. The point is that he was confident enough in his play and on his champ that he knew how aggressive he could be while still playing relatively safely.

One of my teammates used to say, "If I can't play aggressive in my lane, what better am I than these randoms?"

Obviously there's more to it than just playing flat out aggressive, but the essence of what he was saying is very true. It's knowing when it's a good time to play aggressive that is the key. [Smooth transition to next habit, oh yeah]

Habit 5. Switched-on LoL players rarely get greedy, they know when it's safe to take an advantage and when it's a dangerous risk.

Ever been caught out farming that one last minion wave before going back to base or trying to take that inhibitor only to be caught with your pants down by Homeguard boots? I know I have, I'm sure you have. HotshotGG has.

Switched-on LoL players rarely get greedy. They take what advantage they can safely. They are confident enough in their own ability that they know they don't need to take many risks throughout the game to win.

They are confident enough in their own ability that they know they don't need to take many risks throughout the game to win.

It's often been said that the team that makes the less mistakes in League of Legends wins. I think this holds considerable truth, and often the majority of mistakes stem from that 'solo queue greed' for kills, cs, towers, objectives or whatever.Greed often comes down to knowing what you can do when you're fed and what you can do when you're not fed/when a certain enemy is fed. For example, I've seen plenty of Singed players farm well and maybe even get a couple kills in their lane, but when it transitions over to a team fight they give up easy kills for free because they think they are indestructible.I recently played a solo queue game which illustrates common solo queue greed perfectly. In this game, the enemy team just got greedy/cocky again and again and it eventually led to their demise. Check out the greatest comeback in solo queue history.

A large portion of not getting greedy is again, knowing your champion and your own ability well enough (experience, practice) to know what you can and cannot do in every scenario. Knowing this will limit the amount of times you get caught being greedy.

Habit 6. The best LoL players use their time efficiently, this includes time allocated specifically for replay analysis.

They focus on one skill at a time if it is lack luster, they focus on one role at a time if the ranked queue allows them, they take time to fix aspects of their game through replay analysis.

Dyrus, when commenting on having a dedicated replay analyst in preparation for All-Stars, said, "It feels like cheating."

Unfortunately most LoL players don't have the luxury of a dedicated replay analyst however this doesn't mean replay analysis shouldn't be done. Take the time to correct (or even discover) parts of your game that are letting you down.

Go through your replay, preferable straight after you play the game, and actively watch for mistakes that you made. Don't just sit there and watch it like a movie, you won't notice much. Here's your chance to be critical of your play, but don't get down about how bad you are!

Once you find something that you can work on, put extra effort into focusing on that skill or part of your game until you get better. An example is if you notice yourself missing a lot of last hits under your tower, you might choose to practice pushing out the wave (trimming) better so you don't have to last hit under the tower so much, or maybe you might concentrate on perfecting your last hitting technique under the tower with that specific champ instead ie. I don't have AD runes on this champ so I have to hit these ones twice.

Habit 7. The up and coming LoL players learn from resources available to them that speed their way to becoming a better player.

Wouldn't it be amazing if some high level players took everything they knew about the game and combined it into one super awesome, amazing, ultimate League of Legends guide for your ease of access? Wouldn't that just speed up your improvement like no other resource?

When I was new to the game, I accessed sites like Mobafire fairly regularly to learn the good builds for my champions. But even then, I didn't exactly understand why I was building the items that I was as most guides didn't go into that. At Summoner School you learn the theory behind everything you do.

What is Summoner School? Summoner School is a complete League of Legends guide created by 3 Australian brothers who wanted to share what they'd learned through their years of (sometimes frustrating) solo queue and competitive experience in an easy to access format. These 3 brothers (myself being one of them) all went from being Bronze/Silver level players to Platinum/Diamond level players and now want to help you do the same!

Feel like you've missed the boat in terms of having the time to be a highly effective LoL player? Nonsense. League of Legends is just heating up and there is plenty of time for you to achieve your LoL goal. So go check out Summoner School right now, hit me up on Twitter @UberGiantsBro to let me know how you're finding it and have a great day!

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5 Reasons Why You’re Stuck In Silver League

Transcript

1. You suffer from the 'Dunning-Kruger' effect.

Taken from the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

In laymans terms - you're bad at LoL but you think you're the best. I would estimate about 90% of LoL players suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is why I've (and I'm sure you have) had friends who refuse to play LoL simply because of the amount of 'big headedness' in the game.

If you're reading this, that's a good sign. Learn to accept that you're not the perfect League of Legends player. Even a lot of high level players are held back from improving because of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

2. You don't mesh with your team.

You might not think meshing with your team is important, but the fact of the matter is that you need your team to be fighting to win the game, not fighting each other. Sun Tzu in his book The Art of War said,

A united nation is strong, a divided nation is weak. A united army is strong, a divided army is weak.

One of the ways you can mesh with your team is by establishing some quick rapport. This generally takes less than 20 seconds to do and can set you up for an enjoyable ranked game.

Some of the ways you can establish quick rapport include talking about recent LoL changes, joke about someone's user name (laugh with them), complementing someone on  a champion pick and so on.

By the way, what you just read was an excerpt from Summoner School. This is what really sets Summoner School apart from anything else I've ever seen about LoL and what gets me so excited to be a part of it. It teaches you more than just mechanics, it teaches you life skills and how to interact with people in League of Legends so that you can win more ranked games and have fun doing it.

3. You're not a flexible player.

Think about this for a sec, what sort of teammate would you rather get queued up with? Someone who must have a specific role and is threatening to feed if they don't or someone who is willing to compromise and work with the team. Despite common 'Silver League theory', League of Legends is a team game. It takes teamwork to win.

Don't expect your team to be flexy for you, be the flexible person and work with your team.

Learn to play more than 1 role. You don't have to play all roles and you can still have your 'preferred' role. Just have a couple roles that you are comfortable with and you'll have a much better time in Yolo Queue.

4. You don't ward enough.

If you're stuck in silver league, chances are you don't ward enough. There's really not a lot to it - wards are your best friend in LoL. Buy more of them. If you're jungling, you could even consder buying a sightstone to help your team out.

If you want some good examples for WHERE to ward, check out Gbay's video on 'Everything You Need To Know About Warding'.

5. You don't understand how to push your advantage.

League of Legends is snowbally game. However, since the  season 3 changes to the way killing spree and experience bonuses work from killing a champion, there is now more of an opportunity to come back in any game of LoL than there ever used to be. This is even truer in the lower leagues where players have a habit of throwing their advantages away.

If you understand how to push the advantages that you gain and not throw them away 'willy nilly' like most Silver players do, you can drive home any game that you get ahead in and punish your opponents for making silly mistakes.

This is something that a lot of top level players do WAY better than the average low ranked player, they push their advantages. A massive part of this is knowing when to take your advantage and group to end the laning phase and when to stay split.

Unfortunately I don't have enough time to cover that whole topic right here, if you'd like to find out more hints and tips to help you raise your league right now, check out Summoner School at thelolguide.com.

So that's all for 'Why You're Stuck In Silver League'. I'm UberGiantsBro, you can follow me on Twitter @UberGiantsBro. Have a great day!

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How 200 Ping Made Me A Better Player

Transcript

While I've gotten used to 200 ping as an Australian LoL player, there are definitely things you can't do as EFFECTIVELY with 200 ping. For example I find it tough to react to a Morgana bind in time, I have to predict and anticipate it's direction rather than react to it to dodge it.

So UberBro, how can that possibly be a good thing?

Let me explain. When you take something away from someone, it's safe to say that they've lost that thing and that they're now at a disadvantage, right? But what happens sometimes is that disadvantage may allow the person to focus on another skill, and as a result that skill is now stronger and better than it was before.

I want to use an analogy here. You may know a person or have at least heard about people who for whatever reason become blind, and after a while their hearing becomes that much more effective because that's what they have to RELY on all the time. It's a similar thing.

So for me, while it's obviously not that severe, it's still the same concept! In terms of League of Legends, I've become less reliant on my reactions (due to my ping) and more reliant on other skills such as prediction and reading players. I'll use one of my favourite champions to illustrate this - Lux.

In lane I've learned to watch a players movement pattern more closely and use that to predict where he'll be or when he'll go aggressive so I can more easily take advantage of his position with an e auto harass combo, rather than simply reacting to when he moves forward for aggression.

If you are reacting to that aggression rather than anticipating it, you're generally going to lose. Is this something I would have learned without 200 ping? Possibly. But I have no doubt that that skill is stronger for me than it would have been simply because I've had to rely on it so much.

I've always been jealous of players with like 30 ping, but then I remember that I may not have developed or even learned some of these other skills without my ping, so in essence that's how 200 ping made me a better player and I think that's pretty cool.

So do you have a weakness in your game or something that could be labeled as a disadvantage to you? Here's what you do.

Step 1.

Identify one weak point in your game. Pause for a moment and make a note... Please don't say your disadvantage is having bad teammates! Don't ever use that as an excuse if you want to improve yourself.

Step 2.

Once you've identified something, take note of how it effects your game play in normal circumstances. Maybe you have poor map awareness and this makes you an easy target for jungle ganks.

Step 3.

Admit it and work on improving. Whatever it is, being aware of it (and being able to ADMIT it) is the first major hurdle. Realise that you are not the perfect League of Legends player. For a complete and step by step guide on how to rise through the leagues right now, check out summoner school now. I helped create summoner school and being in the top fraction in the world - literally the top 0.01% in the world, being in Diamond 1 - I know what I'm talking about.

Well I hope you've learned something here, I can appreciate that everyone will have a different point in their game that they'd consider a weakness. It's cool to have a weak point, you just have to acknowledge it and work on it. Until next time! Follow me on twitter @UberGiantsBro.

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How to Handle Trolls in League of Legends

Transcript

What is up, I am UbergiantsBro and today we're discussing how to handle 'Trolls' in League of Legends. We'll be discussing what a Troll is, then why Trolls troll - focusing on intentions, and finally some techniques that will help you handle Trolls better.

A Troll is a nasty label so always be careful how you use it and give people the benefit of the doubt when you can. Remember that you are playing with real people, not robots. With that warning heeded, let's proceed.

What is a Troll?

So firstly, what is a troll? A troll is someone who deliberately ruins the game for other players. The key word here? deliberately. Many people make the mistake of failing to recognise a players intentions.

Believe it or not, the majority of players in solo queue mean well.... Sure, your teammate may do a dumbass facecheck going to your blue buff at level 1, but his intention was to protect your team's blue. That is not trolling.

The same is to be said when a jungler comes to gank your lane but messes up and the opponent gets away. Your jungler isn't trolling, otherwise why would he gank your lane in the first place? He clearly has good intentions but he messed up. Who cares? Everybody messes up at some point.

Four Paws does a good job in describing this in his video Gain Elo through your Mindset when he discusses intentions versus actuality.

Why do Trolls Troll?

So a troll is someone who does these things DELIBERATELY. We've all played with them before. But why do they troll? What drives them? It all comes down to this; attention. Trolls troll because their trolling rewards them with a cheap troll laugh at others expense.

People have their own reasons for needing attention and recognising this fact can actually change your mindset from being angry with them to being sympathetic towards them. Trolls troll because they are missing out on something in real life so they come to League of Legends for attention.

I am not going to go into the psychological aspect of why trolls are the way they are too much - if that interests you and you want to read more there is a great article on the summoner school website that goes into that. You can check it out by clicking here.

How to Handle Trolls

So we know that trolls crave attention. Without attention trolls would have no audience and they would then have no cheap laugh. But how do you handle trolls? One of the best things you can do is to ignore them and to not let them effect you. Do not get angry at them. Don't rage, threaten or whine at them either. Doing any of these things only feeds their cause.

Instead of getting angry, try this technique taken directly out of summoner school the next time you are faced with a troll; Say something like, "I'll send you roses to your door with a love note if you get exhaust over revive" or "Please, if you get exhaust over revive I'll order a hot chick dressed up as Nidalee to come visit you."

Unfortunately some trolls are beyond help and all you can do is put them on ignore and try to carry them as best you can. Remember to report them after the game with details of what they did so that the tribunal can handle them.

You can't expect to change trolls, what you can do though is change how their trolling effects you. Concentrate on that and you will find handling trolls easier.

The Maths is On Your Side

"But I always get the trolls on my team, always! What do I do??"

Well let's do a bit of maths, because everyone loves maths, right? There are 10 players in any given league of legends game.

Let's say 1 in every 10 players is a troll who intentionally feeds once he gets in game. For the sake of this example that means that there is exactly 1 troll in every game. So the chance of getting the troll on your team is 50% because each player has a 10% chance of being the troll yeah? But you are not the troll...

And because you are not the troll each player's chance of being the troll has gone up to 11.1'(recurring)% (excluding you), so your team now has a 44.4% chance of having the troll while the other team now has 55.6% chance of having the troll. It might not seem like much of a change, but mathematically over a period of 100 games, that means you could expect to have 11 less trolls than normal. The maths is on your side....

That's all I have to say about how to handle trolls for now, for more useful info check out the ultimate League of Legends guide that will help raise your league and maybe, just maybe, you might even start to enjoy ranked games!

I hope you learned something and that the techniques I've showed you here help you to handle trolls better. For League of Legends related tidbits you can follow me on twitter @UberGiantsBro. Have a great day!

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When to Push in League of Legends

Transcript

G'day it's UberGiantsBro here, and today we're going to be talking about 'When to Push in League of Legends'.

Firstly, what is pushing?

Pushing is shoving the creep wave to the enemy tower by killing creeps as fast as possible. The general rule for pushing is that you want to push as soon as you kill your lane opponent.

The reason for this is that you want your opponent to miss as much gold (and exp.) as possible while at the same time allowing you to farm that extra wave of creeps so that you can go back to base ASAP. However this is not ALWAYS the best idea as will be discussed soon.

The inverse of Pushing is Freezing (or holding) the lane. Freezing is holding the creep wave by only last hitting minions and/or trimming the wave so that it stays where you want it to. It is a characteristic of a good player to know when to push and when to hold a lane.

There are some key questions that we need to ask ourselves here that will help us understand and decide WHEN to push:

Is it safe to push?

Use common sense here. If people are MIA and you are on low health after a kill, you should probably not stay to push. However if you see that the mid and jungler has 4 man ganked bot, you are safe to finish pushing the lane to secure your advantage.

What is my pushing potential?

Recognize the difference between playing a fast pusher like Morde compared to a notoriously slow pusher like early game Ryze.

Is there more gold to be had elsewhere?

Whether it be roaming to another lane, helping with dragon, potentially stealing an enemy buff or simply farming a wraith camp, there is usually an opportunity to claim more gold elsewhere on the map. Be careful you are not putting your teammate behind.

Do I need to base?

If you are sitting on a large amount of gold it is often smart to push your lane and base (provided it is safe of course). Most good laners will recognize this so be sure to recall in a safe position and call your jungler to farm-farm the wave.

Map Awareness is another subject on its own but it is important to mention that sometimes it can actually be SAFER to push if your champion is a good pusher or relies on lifesteal or spellvamp to sustain.

A good example here is a Cait and Nunu bot lane. This lane is generally very powerful in solo queue because they can push fast which keeps their opponents at their tower. This makes it harder for them to counter harass and the pressure or lack of bot lane coordination may cause opponents to miss CS under their tower.

That's it for when to push, for League of Legends tidbits you can follow me on twitter @UberGiantsBro.

End your solo queue solo queue frustrations now with the most detailed League of Legends guide called Summoner School. I help develop Summoner School. Inside it you discover all the skills, strategies, and tips you need to carry yourself out of elo hell then maybe even become a diamond player like I did. Check out the ultimate League of Legends guide now.

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