How to get better at League of Legends

Is it any surprise that so many players are trying to get better and better at it all the time and that the skill ceiling is higher than the peaks of Mount Everest? Of course it isn't.

It also stands to reason that newcomers to LoL are facing an almighty struggle when it comes to getting good at the video game, as they have more than a decade's worth of champions and items and in-game knowledge to soak up – and no doubt they are getting raged at all the time by aggressive teammates, as is sadly all too common when it comes to online multiplayer games.

Do not worry, though, because we are here to help – it turns out there are many great tools and methods that an enterprising League of Legends player can use to improve at the game, from effective tutorials to watching pro players and rethinking in-game performances. Here is how to get better at League of Legends, no matter what the metagame throws at you.

What is LoL? A primer to Riot's decade-spanning MOBA

League of Legends is a 2009 multiplayer game developed by Riot Games and a foundational title in the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre. It features two teams of five champions drafted from a massive and ever-expanding pool, relying on teamwork and a unique set of abilities to take down neutral creatures and defenses on the map so that they grow in power and eventually take down the opposition. Fighting in designated "lanes" and the "jungle" that lies between them, it's a unique mix of player-versus-player battles and some PvE goodness, with great room for strategizing and skill expression at all levels of play.

LoL esports is one of the most popular competitive video games out there, with its world championship series, the League of Legends Worlds tournament, attracting hundreds of millions of viewers across the globe as the greats battle it out for the trophy. Its popularity is so massive that collaborations include Louis Vuitton for the trophy design and Linkin Park for the annual theme song.

In 2024, the grand final of LoL Worlds will be contested between title holders T1 from South Korea and LPL Summer winners Bilibili Gaming from China. Like most strategy-oriented esports, League is also dominated by Asian teams.

How good am I at LoL? League of Legends ranks, explained

So how exactly can you tell if you are getting better at League of Legends or not? Well, the game has a built-in system for that, like almost all other live service games. There is a matchmaking system with a wide variety of ranks and tiers that determine and signify where you currently stand in terms of the total player population, with these ranks getting adjustments and resets on a seasonal basis to incentivize players to progress and climb through the ranks again.

The system features ten tiers and four subdivisions for each, built around yearly seasons that involve multiple "splits," similar to how competitive League of Legends events work. Crests, Banners, and Borders are used to display your previous accomplishments on the LoL ladder, with different designs signifying how far you have come.

Check this article for a more comprehensive explanation of how the League of Legends ranking system works, as it will provide you with all the information you could ever need about the ways you can climb the LoL ladder.

Five instructive and educational League of Legends content creators to follow

There are many ways to learn more about League of Legends, but one of the most effective pathways to improvement involves watching intelligent LoL content creators and getting the most out of their interactive content. It's like getting a group lesson from the greats, all from the comfort of your home! From item builds to general strats, LoL content creators have incentives of their own to provide you with up-to-date information about the game in an easily digestible format, and keeping an eye on the content output of these players and fans will help you stay one step ahead of the competition who might still be relying on the meta builds from three seasons ago.

Broken By Concept: The League of Legends SoloQ Improvement Podcast

Hosted by two professional coaches, this long-running podcast series has been offering a veritable treasure trove of insights and competitive tips across the years, with over 220 episodes available in the archives for fans and players looking to improve at LoL. It's a fantastic resource that dives into basically all aspects of the League of Legends ranked experience, from psychological roadblocks like ranked insecurity to dissecting their own competitive experiences in Challenger-level coaching. It is a fantastic way to look at all levels of LoL gameplay and to simultaneously get insights into the personal and the game-focused side of all things needed to get better at League of Legends.

The r/summonerschool subreddit

If you are looking for a collection of thoughtful, intelligently constructed set of community resources, then the r/summonerschool subreddit, "a League of Legends subreddit dedicated to helping others learn and improve," is an excellent place to be. Relying on Reddit's well-known algorithm to separate the wheat from the chaff, the most interesting discussions and the best-constructed helpful content always rise to the top, and there is a good reason why the subreddit has been going strong for over a decade now, rising to the top one percent in terms of size on the entirety of the platform. There is just a massive archive of insightful content and a steady stream of up-to-date materials for you to check out, making r/summonerschool an excellent way to supercharge your League of Legends learning experience.

PekinWoof – the Challenger mid with approachable content

A former competitive player for Coast, Dream Team, Big Gods, and FlyQuest Academy,, with a penchant for memeing as much as laning, PekinWoof is a popular and consistent League of Legends content creator whose educational streams and videos have helped many players escape Elo hell, especially in the mid laner role. He is also great fun to follow on social media, too, embracing the lighter side of LoL alongside all the tryhard stuff.

Broxah – the calm and methodical master of the jungle

Throughout our research, Broxah's name came up over and over again as a fantastic choice for educational League of Legends content. A former LoL esports professional, Broxah is a truly excellent jungler with a lifetime's worth of experience on Lee Sin and a cold, calculating attitude that makes him a fantastic teacher for anyone looking to figure out the ins and outs of getting better at League of Legends. His YouTube channel is over 200 thousand subscribers strong, and with over one thousand videos to check out, you have an essentially infinite library of well-constructed educational content to explore – and that is before you get into the livestreams.

Purge – why not take a quick trip down the Dota 2 lane as well?

This may seem like a silly suggestion at first, but the more you think about it, the more it will make sense to you. While LoL and Dota 2 are different games, they do share the same foundational MOBA basics, and the big-picture ideas related to teamplay and personal growth easily carry over across the two titles. Checking out the content of an educational creator who is focusing on a similar but different game can help you hone in on the mutually applicable ideas, while also giving you a new understanding and appreciation of what makes LoL great. It's a new perspective and a potentially very fruitful one to consider!

So, there you have it: a fantastic set of resources to use to get better at League of Legends in the content creator department. (Or, to recap: basically, anyone but Tyler1.) But what exactly should you focus on in your LoL improvement journey, and what other tools are at your disposal to grow as a player and a person? Let's dive into more details, shall we?

How to get better at LoL? Four aspects to focus on

Improving at a game as multifaceted and complex as League of Legends comes in many forms, with aspects ranging from expanded gameplay knowledge to picking up some interpersonal skills. Here are five elements you should consider focusing on if you are looking to get better at LoL.

Stay up to date with the League of Legends meta

Like all live service online multiplayer games, League of Legends is also subject to constant changes in terms of updates and patches provided by the developers. Be it a collection of new goodies, fresh champions, and interesting items, or balance adjustments aimed at dealing with outliers, everything is always shifting back and forth on the Rift – and it wouldn't be much fun if you could stick to the same strategy for over a decade. LoL is a game of evolution and learning, and you need to keep up with the latest developments to stay ahead of the competition.

This means patch notes and discussions are required reading for the enterprising League of Legends player, and the educational content creators discussed above often create patch breakdown videos and articles where you can quickly pick up the most important changes made to the game so that you can take advantage of them in your games.

Focus on self-improvement after every game you play

Looking at what others are doing and what past champions have done is a huge element of getting better at League of Legends, but without a doubt, the best way to grow as a player is to always ask yourself the question after each and every game: what could I have done better? Every game you play offers you an opportunity to improve in some micro or macro aspect, and if you take the time to review your game in a meaningful way rather than jumping straight into the next one in search for the next endorphin boost, you can improve much faster than those players who just blindly leave this treasure trove of information behind after their match. There is always something to learn. As the saying goes, if you only make a mistake once, then learn the lesson from it forever, you'll become the best of the game in no time.

Improve your communication

League of Legends is a game of information, and if one team does a better job disseminating it, they will be at a huge advantage. It is also a team game, like it or not, and many players, especially at lower levels of the ranked ladder, underappreciate this aspect of the gameplay experience. LoL's origins as an RTS mod still shine through to this day as there are many, many strategic elements to consider in the game even as you control an individual champion.

There's non-stop action in all the lanes and the jungle that lies between them, and knowing the state of play across the board is crucial when it comes to making correct decisions based on accurate assessments. Should you get in on the teamfight, or will you get smoked? Where are the wards, and what are the blind spots? Crisp comms are a key part of the game – focus on the most important pieces of information and keep your teammates up to date at all times, and you will see a marked improvement in your win percentages (and rank).

There is another, perhaps even more important, aspect to this – not just what you say, but how you are saying it to your teammates. Tilt and rage are two of the most destructive factors in League, and there is a reason why Riot is so aggressive in combating toxicity with separate queues and harsh punishments for players who can't stay in line. If you can keep your cool or, even better, help others keep theirs, you will be able to eke out comeback wins and surprise ganks where players of lesser mental fortitude would wilt and wither instead.

Get involved with competitive LoL: watch and bet on League of Legends esports

Competitive League of Legends features the best of the best, and it only makes sense that the elite would be responsible for the innovations that you can take advantage of in your pub games. Picking up what they are putting down before others do is a great competitive advantage, and watching the pros put the best practices into, well, practice, is one of the best learning tools out there. There's a reason why the recommended educational League content creators above are – or were – all involved in competitive play in some form or other across the years!

Another fantastic way to engage with competitive LoL is to bet on League of Legends esports. With a little bit of extra tangible incentive on the line beyond just your pride, you will be even more motivated to put your prejudices aside and to try and make the most accurate predictions possible based on all the research and information you can gather. The more you understand of the possibilities and matchups of the professional scene, the better you will be able to ascertain the state of play in your own matches and drafts as well – and any winnings you might pick up along the way by betting on League of Legends are just the cherry on top, really.

Here are a few examples of the tips and tricks and gameplay elements you can pick up on by paying close attention to competitive League of Legends, most specifically this year's world championship tournament:

Four things you could learn from this year's League of Legends Worlds games

As discussed above, there is nothing as helpful as paying close attention to the League of Legends competitive scene. To underscore this point, we have picked out five pivotal moments that served as great teaching tools from the 2024 edition of Worlds, which also serve as a great introduction to LoL esports for those of you who aren't yet involved with the action.

Mentality is key – PSG Talon

Despite having missed out on the main event for two consecutive years, PSG Talon managed to excise their demons with a successful Play-In Stage campaign at Worlds, carrying the torch for fans of the Pacific Championship series. Ultimately, PSG's jungler, JunJia, credited the team's success to something intangible, an element that isn't at all related to their specific gameplay: he called their "mindset" team's greatest asset in an interview, and it was what helped them claw their way back after an opening series loss to paiN Gaming.

And yet, the team swept 100 Thieves in the decider, with clean execution and strong teamplay serving as the difference against the North American side. No tilt, no rage – an excellent mindset indeed.

Teamfights are often decisive – Gen.G

South Korean powerhouse Gen.G almost fell short to FlyQuest in a massive upset in the Worlds quarterfinals, but their impeccably crafted teamfights in game five of the series ultimately turned the tide. After a cagey start to a high-stakes affair, the multi-champion encounters at Dragons and Baron were what made the difference in a tense encounter between two great teams.

🇰🇷 @GenG SCORES A TRIPLE KILL! IS THIS THE END? 🔥 pic.twitter.com/7BAN3DdvS7

— LoL.Bo3.gg (@LoL_Bo3gg) October 20, 2024

Experience matters at all levels of play – T1

When the same roster makes three world championship finals in a row, you sit up and pay attention. The current T1 squad, helmed by the legendary Faker, is no exception to this. From the perspective of a more casual League of Legends player, there is still a lot to take away from their exceptional accomplishments, and not just in terms of game-specific knowledge.

Simply put, there is an unmatched amount of experience surging through the squad, and similarly in regular ranked play, it's worth paying attention to what players with thousands of hours in the game have to say. It offers the sort of perspective no strategy guide can provide, and it can make all the difference in a closely contested affair on the Rift.

A dominant lane advantage can make all the difference – Weibo Gaming & co.

Yet, individual performance can still not be underestimated in professional League of Legends play. For instance, a statistical analysis of the 2024 LoL Worlds Championship shows just how much of a difference it can make if a player is consistently superior to their opponent in their own lane. Faker is obviously the standout athlete in this department – again, pointing to the impact and importance of the veterancy aspect of the play – but Zeus and Oner, not to mention Weibo Gamin's Breathe, with a 77% lane domination metric over 13 matches, shows just how important this metric can be in a game of League of Legends.

💰| Players who won the most lanes in these Worlds 2024 - Main Event

won lane = gold lead at 14 minutes compared to his opponent

So Faker was ahead in gold at 14 minutes in 7 of his 8 games and on average he had a 721 gold lead#Worlds2024 pic.twitter.com/j5ug3vMZdK

— Monsieur Yordle 📊 (@MonsieurYordle) October 24, 2024

Be sure to put careful thought into your champion selection and item build, and focus on the fundamentals in terms of control and gameplay, and you, too, can make a similar impact in your ranked matches. Enjoy your time on the ranked LoL ladder!