[crAzerk]

crAzerk's LoL Solo Queue Guide

Intro
I've always wanted to do this but never got about to doing it. Basically these are my tip and pointers for solo queuing in League of Legends, regardless of league. I'm Asian, this has to be good.

There are three main themes I will cover: Having the right attitude, Picking the right role, and Picking the right champion.

Picking the right role
To progress in solo queue, there are certain roles that allow you to progress faster than other roles by nature of what they contribute to the team. However, they (understandably) also vary in difficulty accordingly.

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From best role to play to worst, in terms of allowing you to progress assuming everyone are retards and you are good at your role:

1) Jungler

Junglers have the most game influence, at least for the early-mid game. Good junglers can help their lanes to build early leads and snowball into the mid-late game. You literally have influence on every single lane the moment the game begins. Depending on which jungler you pick, if you are good you can counterjungle as well, and cripple the opponent's jungler, which will impair how much he can snowball his team's lanes.
Junglers are also the most difficult role to play, in terms of game awareness and understanding. To go into detail about how a good jungler should play is beyond the scope of this guide, but understanding timings, enemy jungler positions, lane positions, and game sense are all essential to be a good jungler.

2) Mid Lane

Mid Lanes have the second highest impact on the game for three reasons:
1) You can roam top and bottom to assist them, as well as to the jungle to help your jungler.
2) (Outer) Mid Tower is the #1 priority tower in the early-mid game. Once it's down, you have huge map control.
3) Many mid-laners, if snowballed, have a devastating effect on the game
If you win your lane well, you can roam down or up to assist (losing) lanes, or even help your jungler to counter-jungle. If your enemy jungler is any decent he won't let his mid tower fall first, but if you can do so then it's a huge advantage for your team in terms of dragon control, jungle control, etc.

As for #3 to #5, I'm really tied as they all have pretty strong pros/cons, so it's hard to rank them. I'll arbitrarily rank them as close to what I believe you should use for solo queue.

3) Support

A good support can win his lane singlehandedly (remember those good Sonas / Thresh you fought?) for his ADC, zoning out the enemy duo with his superior mechanics and decision-making. The only exception is if your ADC sucks and the enemy duo is decent, then it's kind of hard to make things work. I never really liked duo lanes for this reason, as you are only 50% of the picture.

Another reason why I believe Support falls in 3rd place and not lower is because of WARDS. Map vision is extremely important if you want to win a game of LoL, and that's where a Support's game influence comes in, in dewarding, warding, and maintaining vision control over your enemies.
Why I am putting him below Mid/Jungle is because of how little you can do in terms of damage output / active plays. Of course, there are many instances of supports making clutch plays, but it just doesn't feel the same as a Jungler snowballing all 3 lanes and being everywhere on the map or a mid-laner going 5-0 in lane and 100->0 the enemy ADC.

4) ADC

Yes, good mechanics can net you high CS and a decent laning phase, but unless you are Uzi, you will have quite some difficulty in teamfights if your teammates have poor coordination/teamwork, which is quite often in solo queue.

Yes, superior positioning can net you the Top 5 Plays of the Week, but as ADC you don't have the luxury of initiating/peeling, or basically dictating teamfights. All you can do is kite and focus correctly. In solo queue, being able to dictate teamfights is quite essential in winning a game. I generally prefer the above 3 roles to ADC, for solo queue, though I certainly enjoy playing ADC as well.


5) Top Lane

Top laners are usually isolated from the rest of the gameplay for quite some time (with exceptions, such as those with globals). The main problem of playing Top in solo queue is that once you are behind, you can never get back if the opponent is decent and your jungler is stupid. And in solo queue, junglers don't quite have the understanding that you NEED gank/camps once you fall behind in lane.

Of course, on the other side of the coin is when YOU snowball, and you can wreck havoc in the mid-late game usually, or simply shove your top lane all the way to enemy's base before he can scream mercy. But assuming you are climbing in ELO, you are likely to face someone better than you eventually and the games will be difficult. Not to mention the various mismatches in lane.

And to bring in the teamwork expect, top laners are usually diving or initating team fights - if you get a half-assed team who doesn't join you when you jump in... you're screwed.

Having the right attitude

(There is no such thing as) ELO Hell
One common thing that you hear from many players from varying leagues, even up to Gold league, is this: 'I'm stuck in ELO hell. I am really good, but my teammates always suck/feed/dc!"

The thing is, there is no such thing as ELO hell. If you are as decent as you claim to be, and everyone else who plays in your ELO bracket are retards, by simple mathematics, your team always has one less retard than the opposing team.

Don't blame others
The biggest problem most people have is that they blame others