Ranked Games

I played my first two solo-queue ranked games today and both of them had at least one classic rager. Like, people who blame everyone for everything except themselves. I've heard that ranked games are higher pressure so people get mad easier, but part of me didn't believe that. SURPRISE! But due to my awesome skills of course we won both. Just kidding. But there are some basic rules I follow that I've noticed greatly increase my chances of winning.

1 - Take at least 1-2 wards with you on every back (especially past laning phase), if you have room in your inventory. If your entire team does this, you'll have lots of vision! Don't rely on just the support to ward everything.

2 - If you face check unwarded territory, prepare to die. If you don't, you're lucky, but don't count on it. When in doubt, ward it.

3 - THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT: if you're behind, do NOT play like you're on par or ahead. I used to make this mistake, hoping I can kill my opponent before they kill me just by sheer outplay. At 1-3-1 vs. 3-0-0. Yeah right. Be smart about it. If you're going in for the kill, make sure you can get it, and don't chase further than you need to. Especially if you don't have vision. Otherwise, just farm safe, stay alive, and hope your team mates come to help you out. If they don't, then just try not to die until laning phase, then you can try to catch up then.

4 - During laning phase, wounding your opponent and forcing them to go back is just as good as killing them, as that prevents them from gaining CS which puts them behind. Don't tower dive without proper vision and preparation. 3v1 tower dives can turn into a triple kill if you get too greedy.

5 - STOP CHASING THE ENEMIES AROUND THE ENTIRE MAP. It doesn't matter if they're hobbling away with only 10 HP. If they're not a threat and you could easily kill him if he sticks around, then go grab a tower, grab their buffs, dragon or baron before their team mates come to back them up.

6 - If you ace the enemy team, DO SOMETHING, don't just go farm wolves and wraiths if you can take a tower.

7 - Check enemy respawn timers after you ace them. If you're taking down their base towers and you notice they're all back out after you've aced them, get the hell out. Your team is still wounded with low mana from the previous team fight and the enemy is all charging out of their base with full HP and brand new items. Many times my team has been aced this way because we stick around for way too long.

8 - If you're running through the enemy jungle, drop some wards in the bushes. That way you can keep an eye on where they are. That means you know where they aren't, so can grab dragon/baron/more towers/buffs/farm, or SURPRISE GANK!

9 - Know whether or not the game is hopelessly lost. Sometimes the game is still fairly equal, but morale is so low that the team surrenders. I've had games where we've come back by acing the enemy and just smashing through mid lane all the way to nexus even though we were behind in everything. But not behind enough not to be able to destroy their towers in a short amount of time!

10 - WHEN IN DOUBT, WARD. ALWAYS WARD BARON AND DRAGON.

11 - If bot lane just got 4-man ganked and you had just killed top lane, GET THE TOWER. Don't try to save your doomed team mates if it's not worth it. Don't worry, they're respawn.

12 - Know when to push lane and when to have the enemy come to you.

... can't think of anything else right now, but those things have really helped me win games even if the team is behind. Can't wait til I get my rank!

Okay, sleepy time!