We have a General Discussion and a Ranked Diaries thread but not really a strategy thread. Jon started a Jungle strategy thread, but let's make a REAL thread for discussing strategy in Solo Queue.
Ranked Solo Queue, Summoner's Rift. This will not be for Premade 5s.

I'm not really interested or qualified in writing a full guide, but I want to write some points below.
I'm only a decent player (Consumptus NA) so I would really appreciate all input/tips/help adding to this from anyone as long as they make a strong case.

• Winning League of Legends by Objectives
  • I think the fast-push and split-push strategies of many top teams in many tournaments pretty much makes this point a fact.
  • Take towers, take dragons, take red/blue buffs. Baron is usually unnecessary to winning Solo Queue.

• Mechanics
  • You'll want to be able to last hit creeps for gold
  • You'll want to know what each champion's skills do and their most basic combo's/skill synergy, etc.
  • You should be able to press the skills you want when you want them. Fool around with keybindings until you're comfortable. If you're starting out, I highly suggest Smart Casting almost everything.
  • Play the Tutorials and read the ingame skill descriptions

• Champion Select
  • Understand what the team comps are trying to do.
  • Usually in solo queue people will pick strong solo laners for early and midgame.
  • Watch out for Globals (Shen, Twisted Fate, Pantheon)

• Lvl 1 Shenanigans
  • You mostly won't see this in low Solo Queue, but if you're confident it can really work.
  • Look at team compositions. Strong Junglers or strong initiates can be a sign of Lvl 1 shenanigans. (Lee Sin, Blitzcrank, etc.) You'll want to ward entrances or ward your buffs.
  • I wouldn't worry about this until you have a decent understanding of the rest of the game (Silver 1+ would be my baseline... and even then it's not always worth it).

• Laning Phase
  • One of the most crucial things is understanding how your matchup works. When is your champion strong. When your opponents champion is strong. How and when can the junglers gank. Also, awareness of the other lanes is important.
  • Look at summoner spells. This can affect the first point. If you have Ignite vs their Teleport or Barrier, how does that change the matchup.
  • Wards are probably the single most useful item in the game. Ward when you're ahead, ward when you're behind, ward when you're pushing.
  • I personally think you should always be pushing. There's almost no downside and if you push faster you can pin your opponent to their tower constantly.
  • Always be looking for opportunities to roam, especially if you're in a solo lane. If you're ahead and strong, push quickly and roam. If the enemy is freezing the lane, roam and push another lane. The enemy is pushed and you can punish them for it, etc.
  • Very early roams (pre lvl 6) can be effective, but it largely depends on how strong your lanes(cc or no cc?) and how pushed the enemy are. If in doubt, don't go for it and wait for more gold/exp
  • Understanding what the Laning phase is: Farming more gold than your opponents. You can look up the statistics on how important and dominating an early gold lead is.

• The Mid Game
  • You want to take all 3 outer turrets and ward deep in enemy jungle. That's when the midgame starts usually.
  • Push lanes anytime you can, and keep them pushed. MonteCristo wrote an excellent article about Blaze's minion control. I'd like to point this article out mainly to showcase how strong minions are. They can push towers themselves, and Blaze really took this to an extreme. Thanks Zerg Lurker.
  • What to do when you're ahead
    • Ward deep, Oracles if necessary (you see enemy team buying and warding their own jungle).
    • Take objectives: Push towers, take dragon, take enemy jungle
    • Punish the enemy team for being behind in gold. Gank them when they try to farm. Group and five man push a lane when they have people away trying to farm.
    • Use your gold lead to secure your gold lead.
  • What to do when you're behind
    • Wards in your jungle. You have to know when you can safely farm.
    • Identify what you need to get back into the game.
    • Farm as much as possible. Keep creep waves away from your towers.
    • Identify opportunities to come back. Fight the enemy when they're split, if you can take them. Gank them in your own jungle as they rotate, etc. This usually means grouping up first.

• The Late Game
  • Late game is basically where whoever's team is most skilled will likely win solo queue. Or whoever gets the retard who runs off by himself.
  • Counteract stupidity by warding.
  • You want to really focus on your role in your team as well as understand what other people are trying to do. It's usually best to kill the ADC with people who do damage. If you have no damage, focus on peeling for your ADC.
  • Usually it's better to bait a baron by denying vision and catching the enemy team than actually doing baron.
  • Be mindful of how much damage baron can do, as well as the Magic Res shred/Aspd debuff on its attacks
  • I hate this part of solo queue, as usually it's one fight and game over. I would suggest you encourage people to end by midgame; use you have to leave soon as an excuse if necessary.

(Part 2)

Ok, that was a general guideline for a game. But games are very dynamic and people are very mad in Ranked. Once you get higher in ELO people care less and more about having fun/making plays. So here's some general tips on how to make plays for each role.

• Top
  • I absolutely hate Top lane. It sucks and it's snowbally and you really have very little room for error. If you can establish a commanding lead you can do quite a lot to snowball a game. The earlier you do this, the better.
  • Identify what the enemy champion is likely to do.
  • Early level cheese is probably your best bet for snowballing/carrying lower ELO.
  • If you're purple side, you can invade the enemy(blue side) blue at 1:50 CAREFULLY, and set the enemy jungler back.
  • Watch your jungler for ganks at Purple side Red buff at around 2.40
  • Go to Purple side Red buff at 7.40 yourself if you're ahead. Plan ahead and time the enemy Red buff
  • Push the lane and roam into top side jungle; stealing jungle, ganking mid, ganking their jungler
  • Watch out for lvl 2 ganks top from strong junglers/laners (which is pretty much every champ who goes top)
  • If you're strong you'll want to buy Potions and trade safely constantly. You don't always have to go in, but by trading constantly you'll force the enemy if their behind to bring more presence top.
  • Always go for a kill on the enemy laner if you're ahead if it's safe. Chunking the enemy and forcing them to back is almost as good if you can deny them the creeps to tower.
  • Mid game you'll probably be one of the strongest champions in the game so you'll want to establish your dominance. Gank lanes and push them to get the towers. Roam and steal jungle.
  • Wards are always helpful. Early on, ward your side of the river. Later in Midgame, ward their jungle and punish them when they try and cs.
• Jungle
  • I personally like jungle, although it's not my favorite role. Again, this role is very snowbally, either way. Another good role to carry low elo from.
  • Level 1 shenanigans is more about team composition than specific junglers, but strong junglers can always make a play at lvl 1.
  • You can either ruin the enemy jungler, or gank lanes. I think ruining the enemy jungler is stronger in the long term, but each champion has their own strengths.
  • As you kill camps, WATCH THE LANES. You really have to have an understanding on the relative strength of each lane. You see a Riven constantly abusing your Nasus top early. Go gank for him.
  • Watch out for level 3 (double buffs cleared) fight at the slower jungler's red. Clear your buffs and then head to enemy red buff to find the enemy jungler usually. If you can get first blood here you've pretty much secured the early game for your team. Be mindful of the enemy laners closest to you. If they retreat from their lanes, they've probably seen you.
  • If you kill the enemy jungler early, punish them. Invade their camps constantly and steal everything. Buy wards and ward their buffs and time them. They won't be able to gank as well down levels/gold.
  • Always watch the laners closest to you for signs of them collapsing on you.
  • Try and time wards/summoner spells. Ask your laners, although in low elo noone has any idea.
  • If you have a buff, make use of it. Gank lanes, invade enemy jungle, have some presence on the map.
  • Level 2 gank top or mid (mid is harder) can usually secure that lane early. Usually purple side, since you can start red buff and then gank top
  • Always bring up the scoreboard (default tab) now and then to check enemy items. Especially if they just went back to buy.
  • I personally think it's better to gank mid and top with your first set of buffs since they'll be the ones to carry midgame.
  • Gank winning lanes. Gank lanes that are just a little behind. It's debatable which one is more important. Usually it depends on the specific champion and your own playstyle. I would suggest you identify which of your teammates are the most skilled/will carry hardest at that point in the game on their champion and gank for them. Early on that means the strongest early game champions (Riven, Draven, Kayle, Ahri, etc.). There's also merit in ganking for a slower carry like Vayne or Kassadin.
  • Identify when you can take dragons. Early dragons are very strong plays. Enemy mid and jungle just went to gank top. Go take dragon and gank bottom. You just ganked and chunked/killed mid or bot. Go take dragon.
  • Counterganking is another very very effective strategy. I would advise against it unless you have wards (wards are useful. yarly) and see them coming since it requires a very good understanding of the game and player psychology.
• Mid
  • Mid is one of my favorite roles and very very dynamic. Lots and lots of different champions can play mid.
  • IDENTIFY what the enemy champion is likely to do.
  • Mid is also very easy to snowball. It's a short lane so ganks aren't as effective as the longer lanes. This let's you 1v1 the enemy champion quite effectively with a little awareness and wards.
  • Early cheese isn't as strong here, since most midlaners need some levels. Still, pre 6 kills can still happen, especially with someone like Pantheon. PLAN AHEAD. Either play full sustain and scared as shit until you're strong enough or ask for ganks.
  • Warding both sides of the river lets you know when the enemy mid is roaming. This is especially important if their ahead and constantly pinning you to turret.
  • Understand when you are strong. Don't be afraid to roam even through wards if enemy is overextended. You are probably on a champion that is very strong midgame. Abuse your power spike.
  • I think mid is all about learning how to roam. As such, an early mid tower is a very strong play. Push whenever you can, usually after the first set of buffs has run out on the enemy jungler.
  • Roaming is all about timing. Timing and location are everything.
  • Pin the enemy to tower, or force them to back and then go roam. I usually go bottom to pick up dragon or chunk the lower level'd duo lane. Helping top to snowball is also very viable, as your top laner and you as mid lane are probably going to carry midgame.
  • Mess up the enemy's game. If you're mid it's probably worth it to use everything. Ulti, flash, ignite. Even if you don't get a kill the game is still at the point where you're very very strong.
  • Everything's down? Push the lane constantly. However, make sure you're farming. Getting Mid tower is again, a very strong play.
• Support
  • Support is all about presence in the lane and on the map.
  • Aphromoo shows us how it's done.
    • STAY TOGETHER. You can see in this video how far the Taric runs away, and Aphromoo and Ezreal gets an extra autoattack each on Corki.
    • AUTOATTACK. Also in this play is masterful kiting by Aphromoo, flashing past Taric so he couldn't autoattack again while also letting Aphromoo autoattack. Especially important if you're melee, although all the top supports nowadays are ranged.
  • Identify any level 1 shenanigans. You might want to go utility masteries for the extra ward early. Ward your buffs if you have a weaker jungler.
  • Watch out for Level 2 Cheese, from jungler or the enemy laners. Lvl 2 Jungler ganks are less common now with how important the first buffs are for exp, but still a good play. Pushing early to reach level 2 first as a duo lane can allow you to make a play.
  • Harass the enemy. this usually means buying potions as well, and it ties into staying together. If you see the enemy AD going into CS, move up and autoattack. If the enemy is focusing the AD, autoattack as much as possible. Use everything(Exhaust) early in all in's.
  • Wards are useful. Make sure to ward deeper in enemy jungle if you take the tower or are ahead. Also be mindful of how the enemy can gank you. Through lane, behind dragon pit, through the river, TP gank, etc.
• ADC
  • ADC is probably my favorite role. I mostly mained ADC in Season 2, where I had a high 75% win rate on Graves which I'm super proud of.
  • Identify the lane. Who is stronger when. How can you trade.
  • Usually you want to farm as much as possible and let your support make plays. To carry yourself, make plays yourself with the top tier ADC. You should still focus getting as much gold as possible, as you'll no doubt me much more powerful later in the game.
  • What plays you make really depends on which ADC you're playing, but here are some general guidelines.
  • If you're playing a harass ADC, harass the enemy. Obviously. Caitlyn is a prime example, with her gigantic range early you can autoattack very very easily and safely.
  • If you're playing a burstier champion, trade often and buy potions to sustain yourself until you can all in.
  • If you're playing a pushing champion, push constantly while focusing on farm.
  • If you're ahead, learn how to deny creeps by either freezing or pushing to tower.
  • Early on, push as much as your opponents are pushing. If you see them trying to cheese you at level 2, autoattack the creeps and push the lane so you stay even.
  • IDENTIFY WHEN YOU ARE STRONG. This is super important for making plays as ADC. You should think both in a game sense (early, mid, late) as well as tactically. You just bought Bilgewater Cutlass as Vayne before the enemy has bought? You have a BF Sword to their lifesteal? Try and all in or chunk them.
  • Once you have 2 damage items, you're pretty much even in terms of damage to solo laners. Once you have your LW, you're pretty much the destroyer of champions.
  • Definitely try and farm anything you can. During Midgame, it's almost never worth it to freeze a lane. Push the lane, go farm jungle, push another lane. Group up whenever if it's needed. Midgame, you aren't too strong yet so make sure you are at teamfights to pick up kill/assist gold.
  • Watch out for burst and gap closers. These two are the most dangerous things to an ADC. Think ahead and plan ahead. What can you do.
  • Once you have like 4 items and you're level 16+ you can pretty much kill anyone. Realize how strong you are and autoattack. Ask your team to protect you.

Ok, I want to stop here. I'll continue this with a sort of general mindset while you're playing.

Thanks for all the replies. Definitely keep the discussion going.

 

I'd like to add Positioning to mechanics too. At its heart, where you move your champ in relation to everything else. Up against Vayne? Don't sit next to walls unless you've got the skill to bait out her Condemn. Don't overextend since more often than not you can't rely on your team to catch up and save your ass.
Move between attacks/spells so that you're not an easy mark. More importantly, learn the ranges of champion autoattacks and spells so that you don't take harass for free while going for CS.

Of course, a good bit of decision making goes into this mechanic as well. Are you looking to protect yourself, or deal some damage? Move forward to harass or kite back? There are also a lot of walls and ledges on the map that can be dashed/jumped/flashed over but you'll have to move fairly close to them.

Another specific is knowing cooldowns on your team, yourself and your opponent. Summoners like Flash and Barrier up on you and down on opponent? Shen ult up? Enemy escape? Perfect time to strike.

Timing is crucial to advanced play too. Basics to know are buff timers, dragon respawn time, but there's also those less easy to remember like enemy champion respawn timers and how long it takes for them to return to lanes from base.

Map Awareness often gets reduced to a "sixth sense" or a hunch when casters discuss it, but it's something that can be learned with experience. Even if you don't have perfect ward coverage of enemy movements, you can somewhat predict the path they take in the fog of war because you know where they aren't, which ties in to timing as you need to know how fast they move and estimate an arrival time.

The article actually explained a great strategy that contradicts keeping lanes pushed whenever you can: Blaze froze lane against themselves top after it was pushed early which denied a ton of farm and exp to Frost, and the allied minion buildup allowed them to shove all 3 lanes simultaneously. Of course, theirs is an incredibly successful and nuanced strategy.

Generally, teams just shove all lanes as hard as they can and group to take an objective like dragon, then go back to laning.

 

I want to emphasize map awareness. Wards are, of course, the most useful tool for this, but not the only one.
Constatly glance at your minimap or if you can, watch it at the same time as you play. Don't wait for your teammates to say MIA. If you can't see the icons for the enemy mid/bot/top lane, chances are he is MIA even if the corresponding ally didn't announce it.
Keep in mind where the enemy jungler showed up last. From there, and depending on how much hp he left with, it is possible to predict his path. Depending on the champion your enemy jungler has, it is possible to predict his path on the first few levels, and act accordingly.
Map awareness includes knowing where all the players of both sides are, how far the minions are pushing each lane, and how yo can exploit it. Was your lane enemy low and went into the fog of war? Chances are he went back to base. If you are not too low yourself, this is a good opportunity to roam or counter-jungle.

tl;dr: Minimap, yay!

 

TLDR to solo queue.

Ward. Don't die. CS. Don't Rage. Play who you're good with.

 

Gank ALL the lanes.

Solo Q is largely about demoralization tactics. BS large damage? Invasions? Towers? Dragon/Baron? All good stuff.

All take a secondary position to fucking as many people on the other side over as hard as possible.

If you can get 2 people to completely stop caring about the game and start infighting, you've just won for your team. Get 3? Crushing victory. 4 and you've got your 20 minute surrender.

This entails doing highly visible stuff, not "smart" tactics. You're using fear tactics.

Can you 1v2 and kill both while getting away instead of taking tower? Go for the kill then take tower later because those 2 kills will snowball the enemy's idea of you way harder.

Can you dick around crushing people with obscene pokes and survive instead of taking dragon? Might want o poke some more then. That morale drop when you lose 25-50% of your HP off one attack and have no response (Looking at you, Jayce) will make people hate each other more than something like "Oh they got 200 gold for dragon".

Do they have baron/dragon warded and can you take it quickly and safely solo without dieing or killing their ward? Do it. Why? Because they just saw you take freaking dragon from right under their noses and it's a pain to see happen. As long as you know they aren't taking baron/towers, make it happen. Or crush their morale more by stealing baron and protecting your tower successfully right after.

Basically, play like you're a real life Draven.

 

This is so true. I jungle a lot and sometimes I'll choose a lane and just camp it. Usually mid since I feel like it has the most influence in a of games. Once the enemy midlaner starts raging at you and says "camp more" I know I'm on my way to winning.

"I've got my tent set up."

Oh the rage I've induced with that phrase.

 

Exactly what Red said. Never underestimate the power of one good all chat insult.

 

Morale is huge. It's not just about demoralising the enemy team though, you also have to try and stop the rage from screwing with your allies.

DST. Learn it, use it, love it.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I've updated with some playmaking tips for each role.

I agree that mindset and morale are important, and I'll write some more on that as well as the general mindset you should have.

Keep the discussion/tips going!

 

A mistake many AD carries do, especially early game, is be overly aggresive and lose farm in order to harrass.
In order to position yourself for a sneaky auto attack at the farming enemy adc, you'll probably lose creeps, at least one. The less than 100 dmg that you will do is not worth the lost gold. Only trade when the minions are high enough hp that they won't die within the next two seconds, because auto attacking the enemy usually means they will auto you in return, so you will have to move away. In that time, you may have lost as much as half or more of the wave.
Harrassing is important, true. Harrass if you have more presence, harrass if the minions arent low or if you're setting up a jungler gank, but unless you are confident that it will eventually lead to a kill or force the enemy to fall back, it's not worth it. Your job is to get as farmed as quickly as possible.

It is possible to time both perfectly and harrass between minion kills, but not many people can pull that off without problems.

 

DST is complete crap. I carried my way to gold using the tenants I laid out in the ranked thread, and never once did I try and make my team feel good. Carry so hard that you can't lose without major throws and over time you will definitely rise. The key part of that statement is your ability to carry that hard though.

 

How to harass 101.

1. Only aggressively harass on champions that are capable (or against baddies that don't react to your harass).
2. Hit your opponent everytime they last hit.
3. Control your minion health so that you can last hit when you can.
4. If you have control of lane, you can purposely throw in an extra auto sometimes, so that you can kill your minion first before your opponent last hits. This way, you don't lose gold/cs and can still harass effectively.
5. Ward, as harassing like this will eventually push your lane (in general most suited for bot lane, at least in early early laning phase).
6. Don't waste cs just for the extra poke, but sometimes trading back is necessary because enemies might be trying to harass as you cs as well (if you position well, usually you will win the trade due to minion damage, and one extra auto as your enemy backs up, but you lose the cs).


Number 2 is very important to laning, and will be enough to change your laning level from Silver to Gold when done properly. If you can cs effectively while doing so, then you are at Plat level laning

 

Can not rephrase number 3?

 

I think what he means by #3 is that you'll sometimes need to autoattack a minion because your own minions are chipping down the wave at varying rates, and evening out their HP for last hits is better than losing cs altogether.

Cannon minions are high priority targets since they're worth ~40g, so you can actually use them as bait.

#2: If you watch the health of your own minions as well, you can tell when your opponent will move in for the last hit, and that will give you an opportunity for free harass or even a kill if they overextend enough.

Edit: On DST- I don't ride my teammates' dicks for every little thing but I go out of my way to give credit where it's due, say gj/nj when they get a kill or burn an enemy summoner, steal an objective, or we win a teamfight. It keeps morale up and keeps us in the game.

 

What Zerg Lerker said is true, but what I really meant by #3 is that sometimes, no, a lot of times you end up having to cs at the same time as your opponent. That's fine and all, but if you cs at same time that means you won't be able to harass.

At the same time, if you are getting harassed when you last hit, you can match last hitting at the same time as your opponent, making it dificult for them to poke you without losing cs.

These are just little things tbh, but sometimes it's the little things that helps you win a lane.

 

Another thing that I find is really important is having good buy times. What do I mean by this? It's mostly about knowing your matchup.

Let's say you pick Yasuo and the other mid picks Leblanc, you will get shat on if you are both at the same level of skill. So what do you do? You push the first wave and second wave to her tower and recall, some would ask what would be the purpose of this and it's simple: you get a few pots and a ward gaining control of the lane seeing that you can safely out-trade her and have vision control (you will lose 3 cs more or less).

 

Wait, since when did Le Blanc shat on Yasuo? It's a pretty even match up tbh, with all the counter play lying on Yasuo (his wind wall can block almost all of Le Blanc's spells).

Also, this is NOT a reliable tactic. If the opponent is any good, they will counter push back. Not all the way though. What could end up happening is your wave gets pushed perpetually, and you end up not being able to farm in fear of jungle ganks.

 

Leblanc shits on Yasuo for these reasons:

A) Let's say you chose not to shove the lane and just last hit (and try to exchange evenly) Leblanc will get lvl 2 around the time his jungle is done with his buffs and get a gank for her. If she is smart she will get the chain and then you are dead(or you blew summoners which means you are an easy kill and you need to farm under tower which leads to Leblanc roaming).

B) Sure windwall can stop two of leblancs skills but the only thing she needs to do is distortion past your windwall (or reposition herself) and do her combo.

C) Even if the Leblanc is bad and she is losing lane, Yasuo (pushing to tower) is super weak against ganks. So even if you somehow manage to win your matchup you will get ganked and die (or blow summoners and die later).

Leblanc can just out-trade almost anyone midlane at any point in the game. That's why she is almost perma ban at higher elo brackets. I've tried this tactic, winning my lane with it and I've seen bjergsen doing the same ( I got the strat from him).


Also what I said was push the 2 first waves to tower and back (you won't get ganked if you are backing at tower), this will reset the next wave, so you can actually out-trade her with your vision control and extra pots.

 

I have a question about Syndra. I've noticed that Yasuo's wall does not block her Q (manifesting those balls). I suppose it's because they are not projectiles.

What happens if you Q behind the wall, then E the ball? Will it still push out the ball and cause the stun? Or will the E die as soon as it hits the wall, and not touch the ball at all?

 

The latter, as far as I know. Since it is a traveling directional ability, it will not pass through the wall. Ranged directional abilities which hit all points simultaneously(such as Lux's Ultimate) are ones which will bypass his Wind Wall.