Hey guys,

I am a VERY Casual player, who plays a couple times every time I get a chance with school and being pretty busy.

I was thinking of trying the ranked Solo / Duo queue with a friend or by myself. I am at around 250 wins as a player, but I think I am a little bit better than that low win total may suggest due to the fact that ever since I started the game I have been playing with 30s the whole time (all my RL friends were 30 and they were nice enough to teach me the ropes and carry me through - this consisted of many runeless games of getting bullied).


I have enough friends to play this game to fill 5's no problem, and will have a team with my friends as such. Its just sometimes I have very odd playing times and none of my RL friends are on and I am forced to solo queue which I do not mind.

I was thinking of starting ranked play during these times, just for the benefits it provides as the portraits, etc. As well as I think it may improve my skill level which is the goal of this game especially when I can not play it as frequently as many users. I only wish to get better at this game as it is a very skillful game which I enjoy the new challenges.

My problem with starting ranked does not lie within roles, I play every role and can do them equally as good, sure im obviously better with some champions opposed to others, but filling a role I honestly don't mind, when I solo queue I usually just take whatever's left (almost always jungle / support obviously).

My problem lies within the players, I have only heard negative things about queuing up ranked, such as trolls and players who do not wish to engage in the match seriously. This would obviously frustrate me as well as I heard the dodging period penalty is a whopping 45 minute wait.

I was wondering, should I just stick to normal - where play is usually troll like as a majority of the community has the attitude "dawg its just normals who's trying..." sort of, or should I adventure into ranked play and hope for the best?

Thank you for your posts, and feel free to add me as a friend if you are in a similar situation and would like to get some solid games in!

Some things to do before playing ranked:

1. Obtain multiple rune pages:
Ad champions commonly take attack damage marks or armor pen, based on preference. Buy the marks for both and test them out based on your own style.

2. Junglers often work well with attack speed(Shyvanna and ww for example), so it might be a good idea to make sure whatever junglers you main have their own rune page or at least one which is suited to a wide variety.

3. Watch steams to learn stuff like dragon timer, ganking locations, warding spots, how to reset a lane and more

Last thing I can say is normal games are akin to bot games

If a player who played bot games until level 30 called themselves good, you'd probably laugh becuase it was just bots. Well the same principle applies to normal games because it's as you said, no one(including myself) takes those seriously. Thus your experience from normals is no more useful than bot experience because the players are on a completely different level sometimes. You just don't learn the mechanics of ranked from normal games. So you could play to 500 1000 2000 and still end up playing like **** in ranked.

So if you really want to prepare yourself, understand the meta. Understand things such as supporting properly, which may include counter warding and using item actives like shureilya. It may also include jungling like a support(counter warding, camping) or how to roam as a mid. There are too many things to include and perhaps you already knew these things,but I cannot stress enough to make sure you understand the meta. This doesn't mean knowing that sona is a support,but WHY. So you don't inevitably throw a game at champion select by picking singed support. xD

Lastly you are going to lose a lot of games. Even the most renowned pros often end up with 50 to 60 percent win to less ratios

My advice is to not play ranked. ESP since your opening line is "I'm a VERY casual player". Its a horrible place to be lol. This is just me speaking from my experience tho. U may be alot better and not get stuck ~1k elo lol.

Best advice you can get is don't throw your placement matches. Your first 10 matches are "unranked" while it's trying to place you on the ELO ladder. This means you can gain lots of ELO in a short amount of time if you win these games. The best way to ensure you win these games is to play an ADC or mid or jungle that you can carry your team with.

The flipside of this is you lose your placement games, get thrown somewhere down under 1100 ELO and you will hate every ranked queue you ever play.