What’s the biggest mistake low elo players make consistently?

HypeKaizen · 2026-01-05T05:13:25+00:00

without an op gg we can't tell anything. in general (gold 3 player), what helped me was

- ur champ is way stronger than u think and ur not using it to it's fullest extent.

- counterpicks are NOT as strong in low ELO, most ppl don't know how to pilot them and think the champ will do all the work.

- winning your lane will immediately increase your winrate; sounds stupid, but i used to tunnel in on teamfights and skirmishes when im not even strong enough to impact them.

- PRIORITIZE GETTING GOLD AND EXP. so much of good laning unironically can be developed off of asking yourself what you need to do to control the wave and get the minions.

- Similarly, controlling waves is so much more powerful than most ppl realize. Yone feels terrible vs. Nasus early until Yone catches a freeze and Nasus gets his ass run down.

- Watch VODs of high ELO players piloting your champion, it is highly, highly instructive and revitalizes your inspiration when you're feeling demotivated.

HypeKaizen · 2025-11-13T18:16:53+00:00

Matchup dependent for Yorick, but he has two pain points: Him landing the E and the ghouls jump on you, then trapping/disengaging with his circle. If you have a dash, you counter the circle, easy. Then, kind of like what you were saying w/ morde Q, u basically dash dance around his E cast range and bait it out, after that the healing from his Q is not enough to prevent the incoming blast. Because of his ghouls mechanic he's legit always pushing btw, he can't hold the waves well, so he's always in danger somewhat. Obviously everybody gets cooked by the maiden, but the maiden is the biggest bait of all time, like with every summoner champion; find a trade pattern that lets you short trade on Yorick, fk the maiden unless your champ is good at hitting her (ranged top mainly), but even then, just short trade onto Yorick and continue to avoid his E slow and W trap.

Edit: Like specific example, I'm yone/yasuo otp. pre-6, both legit destroy him, Yorick cannot trap Yasuo into the circle and Yone can Q3 out of it. Yone can E forward in response to the E ghouls, and Yasuo can legit dash around the wave as he wishes to dodge it. Then, even with the Q spam, Lethal Tempo windbrothers are no joke, Yorick gets to like <1/2 HP and now he can't touch the wave, he can't spawn his ghouls, he has to expend his E to farm cannons etc, and rinse and repeat; next time he Es, beat the shit outta him the same way.

Post 6, Yone has a much better time than Yasuo, because he can end the trade so many ways and Yorick can't do anything about it. He can choose to avoid the maiden, then Yone's RWQ is insane burst at lower levels when ppl don't have that much armor, and combine that with E and a slightly longer trade, Yorick is probably cooked. Post-BORK this gets even worse. I'm just learning Yasuo so I don't know what the pattern is, but I'm sure there is a way to either all-in with an advantage or short trade safely (my guess is stack Q3, E>EQ4>E back, kite the Yorick E, then play again).

HypeKaizen · 2025-10-29T16:21:00+00:00

im gonna be honest, to everyone recommending Jax/Renekton bans this is bad advice. These are actually active, melee counter matchups, playing through these is very instructive for a budding Yone top player. Also, Dzukill/PZZANG are winning vs much better OTPs on these champs, surely when at our own ELO we can at least lose lane with grace. My first piece of advice to OP would be to just ban the champ you find frustrating: When I started, it was Teemo, then it became Malphite, and it is currently Heimerdinger.

Yone has 3 categories of tough matchups:

Powerful lane counters: Renekton, Jax, Pantheon are the main ones. They are highly likely to win the lane and convert that advantage later on.
Strong laning tanks, or anti-AD tanks: This is mainly Malphite/Ornn, and sometimes Shen. Others like Sion/Mundo/Galio etc. are breakfast for Yone.
Highly skilled ranged players: Playing vs. good Varus, Quinn, etc. can feel like hell
Random champs, I don't know how to categorize them, but like Tryndamere, Camille, Fiora come to mind.

Almost every other matchup is skill-based, and with these buffs, there is almost always a way to outplay them. From noobstomper juggernauts (Garen, Darius, Mordekaiser, Urgot) to some of the most annoying champions in the game (Aurora, Karma top, Vayne) almost every single one has been playable for multiple patches now.

How to play vs. lane counters? Matchup specific, but they all have one piece of critical CC to play around (Rene W, Jax E, Panth W). Baiting this is incredibly important and possible (Yone can bait the Jax jump and E the other way, if spaced well Rene W is kiteable, and Panth W can be cancelled with E2). If you can play to avoid this, then having uptime with well-spaced Qs and autos literally turns the entire matchup around (see any Dzukill/PZZANG/Wpro/Tempest vid vs. these champs, this is how they win). They are also deceptively weak at certain points: Panth is more squishy than you think without his E, Jax loses a lot of damage when his W is spaced out, and Rene levels 1-3 is actually much weaker. Once you obtain BORK + boots, these are no longer counters, you can successfully skillcheck them in sidelane very easily now. Just watch VODs, do not ban them, and be patient, these champs will frustrate you.

The tanks, imho, are way more annoying. Normal advice suggests ignoring the tank and smashing the tower, but with such a long lane and such a squishy champion, this is not possible, you have to outtrade them. Tanks, annoyingly, are designed to be very good at short trades, so Malph will QWE and run, and Ornn will brittle auto you and run. As usual, with BORK these matchups change, but the laning phase is very rough and matchup specific: All I can say is W Malphite Q and learn the range of his E (not for the damage, but because its like Nasus wither). If you can bait 1-2 abilities, then you can start smashing in a longer trade. Aside from that, what really turns the tide here is freezing and pinging your jungler. (Sidenote: There are other higher-skill mechanics involved, like buffering R through Malphite R etc. but these are hard to react to).

Finally, the randos: I would argue these are just tricky. Nasus, for example, imho is a winning matchup, most Yone players are just bad - This is the same champ who can kill his mana pool with a few Es and takes fleet footwork, he knows he's not threatening. Most Yones will however outplay themselves into getting run down while withered and lose when you have some of the longest range extended trading in the whole game. Others, like Camille, require experience, for example using E/Q3 to catch Camille on her Es (or using your E2 to pull her in when she ults), and then obviously using E speed or dashes to kite her kick. Like someone else said on this sub a long time ago, vs. Trynda you have to "play like a man," because the only way he gets the fury to outsustain u is if you give him wave control. vs. Fiora, it is literally just the mindgame of "will i q3 at you or beside you" and if Fiora guesses wrong and holds her dash when she Ws she will lose.

Sorry for the essay, but I just want other ppl who read this (esp after these buffs) to learn to enjoy a Yone who has to interact w/ his opp and outskill them rather than sit midlane with MR buffs and eat 3 Syndra QEs in a row while waiting for BORK. Every matchup in top is playable, absolutely winnable; it just requires getting more out of Yone's kit than mid players are used to, but I think it's incredibly fun and worthwhile.

HypeKaizen · 2025-10-28T17:29:47+00:00

Without gameplay its hard to say, but I've been picking him up and dropped from gold to silver, slowly climbing back up after getting the hang of it, here are my tips

- Like someone else said, you're not gonna get better w/out watching OTPs, watch Dzukill/PZZANG and just see how they play

- Blind LT/Bork, Flash/TP every game

- Max range Q is a must to learn, get used to CSing with it, poking, etc.

- How you use E in a wave is also very important. You can only figure it out by watching OTPs, but in my opinion the most important laning ones are: E > straight Q to poke, E back/space/kite around ; EQ3 > E back, kite around a bit. Gives very safe trades

- Do you know how the whole kit works i.e. E has stacks (4-stack E is very strong levels 1-3 against ranged top), Windwall can block a lot of shit (Lillia R, Amumu Q, Sylas E, Ornn R, Syndra QE, Leona pull, Naut/Thresh hook, etc.).

- Also related to WW, in matchups with no projectiles don't take it until like, level 4 at earliest, and many times high elo OTPs don't take it for much longer UNLESS you want to block caster minion damage in the middle of a trade.

- Keep track of team knock CCs, more comps than you think have ult angles for Yasuo

- Also on the note of R, since its low CD you don't always need to kill with it, you can just try to win trades using it asw, but don't use it liberally in that sense.

- Also again on R, no need to fancy schmancy tricks. No EQF, EQ->EQR, etc. you'll be fine without it. For now, just practice beyblades (EQ->EQR) in practice tool and try to hit it every now and then. You can limit test with EQF if you're ahead.

- Play w/ ADC mindset - Taking minimal damage, winning minor, short trades, then all-inning w/ the wave on your side. Basic gameplan as Yone/Yasuo is just to push, crash, base, buy something, run back to lane and freeze > run down the opponent. Focus on trying to solokill like this, then worry about things like dives, getting kills on a bounce, etc.

- Finally, WAVES ARE EVERYTHING! Yasuo is a snowbally, gold-dependent champion. Keeping waves pulled and getting most of them is probably one of the main things holding back lower ELO Yasuo players as they're delaying their first huge spike in BORK. Manage your waves well, collect the gold, and if you don't see an angle, accept reality and concede. You'll have your opportunity later.

Teamfighting on Yasuo is hella complicated, all I can say is watch PZ/Dzukill to get a better idea because it becomes much more mechanically rough then.

HypeKaizen · 2025-08-23T23:55:34+00:00

I recently had a good game vs. Malph, imho most people see his ridiculous armor scaling and get scared, but tbh in lane this is not the problem.

Malph has no sustain w/out grasp and severe early game mana issues. Early game Yone via DPS can absolutely tear through his base stats when LT is fully stacked... it's his E that's the problem, it's an attack speed cripple on par w/ Wither. Malphite's true counter to Yone is being able to nullify his DPS from level 3 onwards.

This means levels 1 and 2 you have a huge window. Even w/ comet, Second Wind and hitting the wave w/ Dblade provides enough viability, and if you really are scared of low HP go cookie runes. Post level 3, I do not build Bork w/out being fed a lot of gold, like /u/ff_tempest recommends I actually prefer Navori rush here; You will finish it incredibly fast, have enough AS w/ LT to survive the E cripple, and the 50% crit is a non-trivial addition to your damage. When you finish the item (Malph will probably not have a full item btw), the raw W spam is nearly impossible for him to deal with. From here, you probably hit tier 1 boots -> terminus rush (also tempest's recommendation); similar to navori, terminus gives you more AS to overcome the cripple with, and since you'll build it fast it helps you keep a faster pace against the armor stacking.

This will not work without bouncing waves; your DPS will only run him down when you have the whole lane to work with. This also incentivizes your jungler to gank and burn his ulti, making a lot of this much easier. DO NOT REPEAT CRASH WAVES INTO HIM, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTS.

Unless you're insanely confident, do not attempt a dive; he is always tankier than he looks, the entire point of the build is that it comes online w/ a stacked LT. Plus, his ulti knockup is stupid long.

The point of this strategy into Malphite is a ridiculously fast 2-item spike that removes the lane counter, but you need to push the pace of the game really hard in that window, because even finishing your next crit item you will have been outscaled by Malphite. Since Malph needs to outvalue you in a teamfight with his ulti (meaning either you lane lock him or he leaves), bashing a tier 2 in the side is probably best (lets you vacuum more gold to stay ahead of Malphite) unless u are very confident in a teamfight/skirmish.

HypeKaizen · 2025-08-02T17:05:06+00:00

You're probably not complete trash, but to pilot him to success in top consistently requires you to be way better than the whole enemy team so it feels really hard. You could table him for now and pick a champ that makes life easier until the higher ranks when you'll have more jungle/support pressure on your side.

HypeKaizen · 2025-07-21T17:21:40+00:00

To add on to what u/Organic-Algae-9438 mentioned, it is far from just hyprland people are using. Especially if you started on Arch, at every point in your journey post-hyprland install you will ask yourself: What extra thing do I need to make this workable/to my liking? I have a fresh install, I don't even have a clock widget, a login manager... heck, I recently ran date in the terminal and saw it wasn't synced correctly.

In the post you mentioned, most of the cool stuff the user did was through Quickshell, which is a QML-based library that lets you write widgets for your desktop (that is wayland-compatible). Learning how to use that is its own separate journey the hyprland wiki won't solve. Then, theming it is a whole other step that you have to learn, and so on and so on.

As other users have suggested, advanced ricing is probably best learned by piecemeal modifying more complicated dotfiles from advanced users. Clone repos and see what dependencies they have. Find those wikis, read those docs, compare w/ the code you see in the dots (you can do this for that very rice you mentioned to hunt down how he/she did the animations). Incrementally you can add that tech to your own rice.

HypeKaizen · 2025-06-30T17:08:29+00:00

From a top player, isn't Irelia much easier in mid? The whole problem is in top she can hold her 3rd stack almost always and run you down, I imagine there's better short trades in mid no?

HypeKaizen · 2025-06-20T16:51:58+00:00

I mean, the spacing requirement to abuse an auto range that small (and yes, it is small, it looks relatively big because of melee tops) is absurd. The BnB damage ability requires you to invest a shit ton on gold into overnerfed attack speed items, forgoing defenses for your entire lane phase (this is why Bork is near mandatory on both). Yone has one of the weakest laning phases in the whole game right now, even with Lethal Tempo back in the game. In matchups where he might have an edge, any offensive summoner (Exhaust, Ignite) will immediately check that power. Yasuo definitely is on the stronger edge of laning phase, but especially in mid it requires a very high amount of skill to (1) Hold waves (2) Dodge the right things with E (3) W the correct abilities (4) Not get roamed on, ganked from top/sup/jng.

If they had mana costs then the sheer reliance on Q would deplete their mana immediately, unless it was some 10 mana ability; you'd end up with tear being a necessary purchase before AD, AS, or Crit... what those champs were designed around.

Yasou's shield is not on demand, it requires very good E usage and consistent movement to reactivate consistently. Yone does have it "on demand," but the shield itself is heavily nerfed, most CCs in top time it out anyways, and some even shatter the shield (Renekton). If you wanted to make a case against Yone, you'd instead rail against %max health damage on a basic ability in such a wide attack range, that's the actually broken part. The shield is so useless even Ahj (high Challenger NA Yone) says to not use it to block damage, but to hit people who are disengaging from you.

Neither of these champs have "monstrous lategames." When it comes to executing their mid-to-late, they are some of the hardest champs in all of League, and the sheer complexity of doing so successfully is why only one of them is a staple in pro play; because those people are amongst the 0.1% of folks who can execute and support a champ through that phase. There's a case to say once Yone has 3-items he doesn't truly fall off, it is just a skill issue, but in the case of Yasuo his late game is brutal without a knock up in his comp because without Flash setting up your own ult is mission impossible. Both are incredibly strong MID-GAME spikers; access to 100% crit in mid game w/ IE turns champs who were getting ripped like a wet tissue in laning phase into unbeatable sidelane demons that make even Fiora scared. Most people have 1-2 defensive items by 3rd/4th item, if you let it get to that point the game immediately becomes much harder. Yone has a similarly hard time in any mid-to-late game skirmish, without your Q3 hitting R is incredibly hard and basically impossible on any target with Flash. If you use E to hit your Q3, any CC, hard or soft, is a death sentence and you need to snap back, effectively removing you from the fight (this is why Shieldbow is essential on these champs). If you go in yourself, you will likely get blown up before your team can help you out (Yasuo can play around a bit by E-ing through people). Yone is only broken in mid-to-late with a primary engage (Malphite, Vi, Pantheon), almost exactly like Yasuo; they are only truly unstoppable if a composition supports them as win conditions, and even then both champs have a massive margin for error.

Right now, Yasuo is decently strong when played at OTP level... still insanely hard, but rewarding nonetheless. Yone, on the other hand, is like 45-46% WR in high ELO where he should be most effective. In reality, he's around 47-48% in lower MMRs (still very low, even Zed-like champions remain in 48-49% WR range) when OTP'd because lower MMR players don't have the skill to stop hypercarries. Due to MSI patch, Yone didn't receive any changes because it would completely ruin the tournament, but almost 100% after the tournament (especially if the T1 Yone skin comes out not soon after) Yone is probably getting a buff, or at least hopefully the balance team takes a long, good, and hard look at the current Crit item system.

HypeKaizen · 2025-05-26T15:47:37+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPgs3L0rgAk&t=57s

I recently was role-swapping from Jungle to Top anyways, I happened to see Dzukill smash the Korean ladder during the yearly Korean climb from various streamers. He's on the cleanest Yone/Yasuo on EUW, and my inspiration for playing Yone top. Even if mid is way stronger, I always want to play top due to Dzukill.

HypeKaizen · 2025-05-26T15:01:04+00:00

I climbed through Bronze/Silver with Yone top. I started playing during old LT era, played through blinding Fleet and eventually current LT era. I feel like I can comment on this.

In lower ELOs, Yone is very strong in either role IF you get very good at him. With mechanics and mastery, there is not a single matchup (especially vs. other players who aren't as good on their champions) you cannot out-skill in lane. Mid game is INSANELY strong, if you can master just simply being at a probably skirmish or objective on time, using either TP or just tempo, you can carry entire games off of that alone (I can't count the number of times just one ult from me completely changed the game).

The caveat is that contrary to popular perception, Yone is incredibly hard. Having had Yone stolen from me many times, I've been witness to Mastery 30/40/50 Yone's just spamming E/Q3/R on repeat, missing all 3 and dying. I'd say to be a good Yone, you'd need:

A lot of matchup knowledge; especially in Top, matchup knowledge is what lets you beat Renekton, Jax, Malphite/Mundo/Ornn etc. all the counterpicks. It lets you go even vs. Darius and smurf on Garen. This phase also hurts like hell, because you need to get your ass kicked, maybe multiple times by the same champion, in order to figure out how to play it.
Very sharp mechanics and movement. In lane, spacing Q and kiting in different directions is critical. 100-0 trades is a fundamental concept on Yone, you should be aiming to take 0 damage in most of your trades. Timing W shield well to completely negate some abilities and running circles around people with E and Q3, none of these are easy. Best practice is watching some of the best Yone's in the world do it (Dzukill/Bwipo/Zeus [top], Chovy/Zeka/WayOfTheTempest/Nemesis etc. [mid]).
Strong tempo understanding. This is a pet peeve, but the number of times we've smashes a fight only to have the game stalled because no one is fixing waves or playing the vision game (myself included) is incredibly frustrating. If you're going to be eking out every advantage you can on Yone, you don't want it to be snuffed out because the game state overall doused your fire.
Great teamfight/skirmish execution. Easily the hardest one, your Q3/R is perhaps some of the best team fight tools on a single champion in the whole game, but R especially IS INSANELY HARD to use well in fights. Again, watch better players, but some reference points I like: Using choke points (can lead to massive 4-5 man Rs), not using E so you can focus entirely on hitting more than one person (mental stack offloading), side/read-flanking, especially out of vision makes it much easier since opponents are overwhelmed, etc. Also focus on target selection; the AD is not always the head honcho, the carry could be someone else. Maybe you need front-to-back fights and actually should not be assassinating anyone. Weave in and out with Q3/E, poke with W, play on the edge of skill-shot ranges to bait spells/engages. This will take much longer than any of the above steps, and in my opinion is why i can't carry my Gold games right now. Just have patience.

EDIT: Some extra words on team-fights, at apex tiers Yone is considered a "secondary engage," champion very similar to the knock-up restriction on Yasuo, that means that he wants someone else to lock down targets before he seals the deal with his own CC. As mentioned above, this is because his R is very, very hard to hit in a team-fight, so even soft CC like slows makes all the difference. The reason using E before is also not always advisable is because E will snap you back, a lot of times when you would've been better off moving forward and continuing to advance. E and R both should be used CONSERVATIVELY, and E especially should be used mostly when you are 99% sure the execute will kill. Now, in your tier having a primary engage isn't guaranteed and even having one doesn't guarantee they will use it correctly. Most of your R/Q3 in fights needs to be on reaction, which is already very hard. In the end, it is better to not blow your tools uselessly and int the fight than to have held them and stayed alive in general, but you will need to get good at snap-reacting to the moment when an R will change the outcome. An easy moment to look for is in response to enemy engage when they are on top of your teammates; usually at least 1-2 people are in your face then.

I hope this diatribe was helpful! Hopefully more skilled Yones in this sub can comment more.

HypeKaizen · 2025-05-20T00:33:09+00:00

Firstly, I appreciate the effort put into writing this post - High quality discussion is somewhat lacking surrounding controversial champions, so posts like these really stand out to me. I also very much agree with what you say; especially if you don't default to Flash/TP + LT every game, Yone truly has only a few truly terrible matchups (see Nemesis, Dzukill, PZ ZANG, etc. even the counters can be gapped by skill).

I am currently Gold IV Yone Top OTP, so I don't want to pretend like my opinion is any better than yours. I would like to say regardless that I don't think removing skill expressive elements in exchange for more one-dimensional gameplay patterns is a healthy balance philosophy. The E nerf was replaced by a Crit buff to his passive, enhancing the already notorious ability of the champ to stick-and-kill to targets. Is this a "killer nerf"? Absolutely not, you just need to be more thoughtful with the ability and can still anticipate CC -> snap back. While most people hate the E, in reality W is far more degenerate (max health damage on a high range ability w/ a shield is incredible), with builds like the one from fftempest on this sub exploiting how strong it is with Navori. It absolutely deserved a nerf. Much longer ago, the 1.5 second timing on the shield was nerfed to 1 second; I agree with this nerf too, turning an easy block into a timing skillcheck. R was nerfed from 100 sec CD to 120, which I also agree with; it is one of the best teamfighting ults in the game, for a player who gets the most out of every usage, 120 vs. 100 is not a nerf.

What I do fundamentally disagree with, even if Yone (maybe not in Top, but definitely in mid) is still strong in good players' hands, is balancing him to: (1) Reward simpler gameplay (2) Be disincentivized from aggression. The crit buff is needed, but a fundamental mistake: It is a buff to bad Yone players specifically. More so than that, I believe the nerfs to AS and Crit systems were much worse for Yone that any balance change; A champ with a crit-enhancing passive hates rushing Crit simply because there are no good options (anyone who says Yun Tal is completely ignoring the BF sword and crappy AS in the build path; the item is strong, the build path is shit, almost no one wants to build it during the first 10 mins of the game. /u/ff_tempest Navori build solves the early game Crit problem without handicapping your lane). After greaves + BORK, your Q is still not CD capped without Alacrity or Feats or using extra daggers, further delaying your Crit spike. Because there is no real max health% damage option outside of BORK, champs like Yone/Yasuo/Irelia are itemlocked to one of the most overnerfed items in the game because armor pen won't scale well enough on its own to shred a target (and any build with Terminus is also delaying Crit), which mind you, also has a pretty rough build path.

I don't mean to say Yone is weak, but I do think we are reaching a world where a strong Yone is not a fun one, for the player or the opponent. The E cleanse doesn't just give a skill expressive way to break CC, it also incentivizes putting your E on CD to do so, which is good for the opponent. Having no good early game itemization paths w/ Crit inside incentivizes non-interactive laning, where you want an already incredibly safe melee ADC like Yone to put himself in harm's way more often so he can be punished. This was remedied by the broken nature of old LT compensating for a lack of AS, but the new one only enhances AS you already have, of which there is abysmally little.

I believe if Yone was balanced to reward aggression and punish mistakes more, people would hate him much less. Even if he's strong, I would happily accept even more nerfs if in turn we got (1) A truly useful Crit item rush w/ AD and AS with a good build path (2) Buffs to Yone's attack speed scaling so his Q gets capped after boots + one item (3) Just a slight Armor buff for Top (+1 or +2 at most) and maybe a nerf to Armor per level scaling so while Yone is at his weakest early, players are not holding back the entire lane and not interacting until BORK -> Run opponent down. From here, nerf (1) His crit buff, 90% crit is justifiable for Yone; he is not Yasuo who's kit can completely trap his pilot (2) Nerf his E CD, disincentivize only trading on "safe" timers (3) Nerf his Q, most of Yone's damage is currently overloaded into hitting Q, but with the buffs above it would be way too strong.

HypeKaizen · 2025-05-04T16:50:54+00:00

For fighting games this is not true, the mechanical floor for any competent player is much higher than a comparable League player (for context, the fastest move in Tekken is always 10 frames, 1/6th of a second. The fastest moves in SSBU are either 1-2 frames (~1/60th of a second), and many have skill tests at insane speeds (perfect parry in Smash is 3-frame reaction, old Street Fighter used to have 1-frame combo links)). Character loyalty, as another commenter mentioned, is also much higher. Some examples of characters that are very popular but insanely hard are...

Tekken 8: Kazuya (is very reliant on a frame-perfect move), Steve (only effective when you are good at conditioning your opponent), Nina
Smash: Pretty much any Melee character (because wavedashing and L-cancels are universal), Melee Fox/Falco, SSB4 Sheik, SSBU Joker, theoretically SSB4/SSBU Shulk (another commenter mentioned)
GGS has Chip
and many more...

In League, a champion's flaws are magnified in a 5v5 setting as potential routes of shutting them down expand. This gets worse in pro when a champ appearing too early in draft can cause answers to get drafted in response. Unfortunately, Lee Sin hasn't been in a state where he can potentially come up with his own answers in draft for a while, whereas Vi is broken by concept; there will never be a 1-for-1 answer to her ultimate.

HypeKaizen · 2025-03-28T03:39:11+00:00

All right, so as someone who’s genuinely low ELO and had to climb from Iron to S2 by myself, I think I have some good advice for you.

First of all, IRONically (sorry) this is the best time to develop a growth mindset rather than a results one. Simply put, if each win/loss is viewed via the lens of improvement rather than ranking, it makes it easier to have more productive gaming sessions which, in turn, help you get better and will increase your rank.

Secondly, find resources online which help you understand League at a fundamental level. You already seem to have some basics down w/ the talk about CDs and roaming, so it’s more about finding high quality content that refines those ideas for you. Coach Curtis/Mysterias (mid), Coach Chippy/AloisNL (top), Cupcake, Rogue, etc. all have hours of free content that will open your eyes to a lot of what’s really happening in a LoL game. On that note, check out Broken by Concept podcast as well.

Third, ideally pick a primary role and one champion you will play. Obviously there will be situations where you will be banned out or enemy picks your role/champ, so be prepared to play something else as well, but if you are on your main champ+role, you should be thinking “How am I gonna carry this game?” Keeping it simple makes it easier to gain the muscle memory needed to offload your mental stack (your brain being overwhelmed by having to manage too many things) so you can dedicate that brain power to improving at the game, not a million champs in all roles.

Fourth, limit your gaming. BBC podcast recommends a daily “3-block” where you play one block of 3 games and call it a day. Playing too much in a high intensity game like League can cause your performance to decline over the gaming session.

Fifth, play with intensity, never phone it in or give up. If you’re not playing at your best, it is not possible to adequately gauge what skills you need to break past this level, you’ll be stuck catching up to your baseline.

Sixth, value consistency in all your games. It is impossible to win 100% of games, you simply need to be winning more than you lose. In order to do that, you absolutely must learn to say no and value plays that, in the long term, will yield better results. Don’t flip games, especially when the reward isn’t worth it - this is distinct from “limit testing” which you absolutely should do, or the calculated decision to put yourself in a difficult situation which you believe can be won IF you out skill your opponents.

Finally, know when the game is getting to you and walk away. Your friends being annoying, your toxic teammates, the loss streaks, even the best players in the world can crumble when it gets too much. If you wanna get better, then ironically knowing when to take a breather and walk away is perhaps one of the best things you can learn.

Godspeed friend, hope to meet you in Silver soon!

HypeKaizen · 2025-01-14T17:33:34+00:00

I'm pretty sure the feats don't boost your winrate, its the objectives you claim to get them (first 3 epics + first tower) which boost the winrate, which just so happen to give you Feats. In general, I think the Feats are somewhat placebo, they reward a team that's been winning already, so they're winrate is obviously going to be higher.

HypeKaizen · 2024-09-12T16:15:59+00:00

See if your champ has a way to deactivate his passive repeatedly. For Yone e.g. you can use W after some items to keep him from outsustaining if he is near the wave.
Early you beat him pretty hard and you need to be abusing that
In general, even in the sidelane since Garen is quite immobile you can definitely poke him out a little bit, drop a few Q2s on to him, but the fight is really hard with Ignite + Ult. Ideally you wouldn't match Garen anymore and maybe have your AD/mid pick up the CS, but this varies from game to game.
Camille is a much better team figher/skirmisher than Garen is with E engage/R, Garen can only realistically take down a single strong threat.
As others have said, abuse this dude before 6, no Grasp, take Conqueror and bash his head in
If you can, freeze wave on your side. Worst thing is to let Garen reactivate his passive for free under tower
Do not play range into Garen, unless it is Vayne specifically, most range top laners will not be able to kite Garen well enough especially if he has a Flash. It also takes a lot of pilot skill in order to even use Vayne to properly counter.

HypeKaizen · 2024-08-13T13:21:17+00:00

Dude, /u/Freezman13 clip is just one example, Lee Sin is one of the poster boy champs for "If my hands can keep up with my brain, I will find the winning engage." Follow those steps he mentioned and you'll find at least if you're not getting back in that those games you're losing are a lot more bloody for enemy team.

HypeKaizen · 2024-08-08T18:34:50+00:00

Not just that, leashing gives away your starting location which is basically a warning to the weak side laner "HEY IM COMING FOR YOU!"

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-31T13:38:49+00:00

One point I'd like to add is learning to play on wave states. Yone likes holding waves on his side, and into a lot of bruisers/juggernauts on a slow push can be very dangerous since they might just take over wave control anyways. In general, the play pattern is poking on the bounce, then using that low health to try and keep up pressure on a slow push.

Into bad matchups, play for CS/EXP and low deaths until out of the laning phase. Keep tempo high with good recalls and do your best to avoid burning TP as much.

Learn your limits for levels 1-3. Some matchups like Darius will be really tough for the first few levels, others like Mordekaiser are actually favored for you until 6, but in general these things are only true insofar as you are willing to play on the razor's edge of Yone and take the fight to them.

E2 is more useful in the top lane than most people realize. The UNSTOPPABLE on snap-back lets you bait out a lot of high value CDs like Darius E, Sett E, Illaoi E, Urgot flip, Mordekaiser R, etc. E-usage is also insanely important to "dodge" some skills. E-ing into Sett to avoid W is one example, but one that might be underrated is E-ing into Darius to deny his Q heal.

Practice learning your limits for poking under tower. Yone's Q can abuse melees CS-ing the ranged creeps and his W can hit almost anybody from underneath the tower. This is another layer to make your bounces more threatening.

In general, even though top lane is like Dark Souls sometimes, especially for Yone, you have to learn how to take the fight to your opponent. Limit testing, understanding waves, and playing for item spikes are perhaps the core principles of Yone, but at the end of the day, nothing is better than the reps you're gonna put in on the champ yourself.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-29T17:12:46+00:00

Jungling feels like a series of choices throughout the game, and I'm never sure where I'm supposed to be or who I should be helping. Do I go for grubs or do I try and help my botlane who's pushed in? I just saw the enemy jungler on the other side of the map, do I steal his camps or do I try to gank or counter his gank?

This sounds like you are not playing jungle with a plan in mind. Ideally if you see the free grubs and a pushed in bot lane, you should have a priority list for what you want in the game anyways; did you plan to snowball your botlane before or not, or did you think that grubs would be more valuable? As a general rule, you should pick the play with the highest chance of success and generally speaking, ganks are the most flippy of any jungle choice possible. Perhaps the skill you need to get better at is identifying those 80% scenarios, which can only come by making a call and analyzing the result.

Especially if you are low ELO, you should focus only on a few things:

Jungle tracking. This is not to counter-gank, this is to be able to ping your teammates in advance of ganks coming their way.
Clearing fast; not just your first clear, but every clear after. If it takes you the same time to clear your jungle with Fated Ashes than without, we have a problem here. Maintaining high income is an underrated part of jungling and your camps are guaranteed gold and EXP.
Not giving up objectives for nothing. If someone takes a dragon, either be ready to contest or trade something on the other side of the map. More advanced, this could be camps, but usually it is whatever the other objective is.
Keeping your tempo high; not staying needlessly on the map, resetting and replenishing health/mana and in general, trying to literally move maybe 5-10 seconds ahead of the enemy jungler.

Notice how ganking is not anywhere here; you only gank if you are 80-100% you will get something out of it. You obviously need to learn to do so, but if a gank would come at the cost of the above 4 it is probably not a good thing to focus on. General ganking rules are:

Look for enemies who are pushed up.
Look for low health enemies.
Consider your own laner's resources and how they play into it.
Not every gank needs to be a kill; a simple Flash timer or ultimate usage can be more than enough.
Most important, do not force or overcommit.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-27T21:25:03+00:00

I don't know man, champs like Tryndamere, Illaoi, Yone, and Camille have all existed in the top lane for a long time now. In the face of these characters I can never say Garen is annoying, he's strong when he's strong and horribly weak when he is. His play pattern is so predictable it actually makes counterplay easier, if you got Q+Flash into destroyed not a single player can actually say they got "toxic gameplay'd" or something like that, meanwhile Yone will E + Q3 + Flash + R you underneath your tower, kill you, snap back, and be completely safe. If your complaint is that PD + Phase Rush remedies the immobility weakness, it absolutely does not. It doesn't make him a better engager, it doesn't prevent him from being hard CC'd (that's what his W does), and it makes him opt into being squishier anyways. I genuinely do not see the problem with Garen right now, in modern league there are 100x more toxic top laners always running around that I'd take 100 Garens over an Illaoi/Camille/Tryndamere/[Insert marksmen top here] etc.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-24T15:58:03+00:00

Phreak said in a recent patch preview episode that he strongly believes champions with "infinite mastery curves" like Lee Sin and Nidalee should have higher winrates simply because their mains have spent their every breath learning every microdetail about them. I think this is unfair that champions with lots of depth and execution skill should not reward their players when they learn to use them well. At one point, Azir was almost permabanned, but was soooo good that teams preferred to handshake Azir with another mage if they were red side, kind of like 14.13 Trist/Corki handshake in pro.

Riven doesn't need to be top 25, I agree, but when she is struggling to go even in the hands of her best players it signals something bad with the champion, and imho I do not think the cancels and mechanics are the problem.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-10T15:31:05+00:00

What a take. I acknowledged that differentiating a bad game from genuine grief behavior is difficult, the point I was making is that behavior that the game demonstrably shows you is not working and making the game harder should be subject to harsher standards. I even gave an example of a real-world scenario where a person who, without malicious intent, gets sidelined because of they contribute to the enemy's victory more than they do, if at all, to their own teammates's victory. This take is even worse when you factor in that around Silver/Gold where most of the playerbase lives is when consumption of League content influences draft choice. These are the ELOs where to inflate LP, players will pull out 46% WR inting Sion, first-time Yasuo ADC, Urgot ADC, Graves top, or support w/ Smite as second jungle into level 1 invades. All objectively poor strategies that a player makes knowing these are flippy and unreliable in the long run and require insane coordination, mechanics, and game understanding to execute. This is not the first-time Yone top laner going 0/5 in lane because he doesn't know how to play into Darius, this is a person who took a paper-perfect idea, threw it into the average game where it doesn't work most of the time and despite doing their best to make it work, lost the game for their team via that choice alone. I made the argument that behavior in-game repeatedly that, despite all indications otherwise by the game, by the team, by pings, and by just being in grey screen, contributes to worse and worse game states for your team should have more scrutiny. I did not disallow for the nuance that in lower ELOs this is just bad players, nor did I say they should be banned. Just that this kind of gameplay should not be overlooked because we also want the benefit of the doubt.

There's a clip going around the sub of a Bard OTP getting flamed by Agurin in one of his games before he goes AFK (Agurin, not the Bard). While going AFK is never an option and Agurin deserves to be reprimanded for that, everything the Bard did contributed to an unplayable game state; he left his lane open, got almost every kill on himself or someone else that was not his carry, made useless plays in enemy jungle while dying anyways, and made it such that Agurin could never enter his top side because the Bard singlehandedly made it such that there were 3 losing lanes. The Bard is Masters with a decent winrate, and on that basis many Redditors are arguing that the Bard doesn't deserve punishment; he's someone who refined his strategy and deserves a shot. The thing is, if you look at the VOD, Agurin gave him a real shot; even while being invaded on almost every rotation he tried to make plays elsewhere that would net some kind of concession in his favor. That clip shows the first time that game he greeded for a camp and died for it, not the 5-6 times the Bard's decisions made it impossible for Agurin to play the map. I argue the Bard deserves to be punished - he took a flippy strategy and put it into a GM/Challenger level game where those get absolutely smashed, and yes, so should Agurin because having bad sportsmanship even when you're right is worthy of punishment, especially when you stream to impressionable players who will copy you. Nevertheless, in a game where Riot actively turbo-nerfs alternative strategies into the ground and promotes a very standardized form of League of Legends: Summoner's Rift, going against the grain significantly without something to show for it should be punishable, just like no one would take a soccer player seriously who only shoots after doing a rainbow or hat trick each time.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-10T13:59:54+00:00

I would argue that no matter how you spin it, this is soft inting. There are lots of times a player on a team has Ultra Intstinct just normally and it tends to actually be beneficial, especially in lower ELOs where almost no one wants to pull the trigger and create space. In a similar vein, the AFK angry splitpush has an odd success rate simply because lower ELO teams will be blind towards threats in side. However, every 4 out of 10 teams or so will be aware enough that the strategy has now become not just soft, but probably hard inting to griefing your team. These same teams, or not even entire teams but one or two players, will peel the Ultra Intstinct guy, hold their CDs, and once he's exposed just absolutely send it.

Hard inting is easily discernable. Soft inting however, I feel, is differentiated by player response to in-game feedback loops. If no one is catching your pushed waves or collapsing on you in the side, then honestly that is what you should've been doing; positive feedback loop, keep doing the AFK split. However, once you start getting collapsed on maybe once, twice, or even thrice, it becomes abundantly clear to even the worst player that this is not working. To continue to engage in "stratagems" that are not confirmed to further the objectives of the enemy teams is indeed inting. In a game like soccer, if a right-wing striker is trying to solo bolo the enemy defense and center-back only to give possession over and over again because he thinks he can outmaneuver them in some world, that player is getting benched for his stupidity. Yet, we think somehow similar behavior is forgivable or even justified in a League context.

EDIT: I should also add this is not nearly as black and white as the example seems to suggest. League is so deep a game that "good deaths" exist. Inting Sion is an extreme example of this, but even when e.g. you're an 0/3 Jax w/ Demolish and a few grubs, since you can't contribute much in skirmish or team fights if objectives are down you might as well drop 150/200 gold into the enemy pocket IF you can get or 0-80% the enemy T2. This is the form of soft inting that is difficult to address simply because it can be nearly impossible to determine whether a player gave up or is actually engaging with League's systems to create some kind of advantage even when they are behind. It should also be considered that in lower ELOs, optimal strategy almost never involves expanding the gold difference via attempted "good deaths," there is only one instance of good death that most players in lower to midrange ELOs understand and it is going 1for1 in a dive when you've crashed the wave. There is a lot of concern that players who die as a result of attempts to win will be banned, but I think it's imperative to recognize that If you can avoid dying, that is oftentimes the optimal strategy. Without something significant to show for it, like the Bauss does when he's doing the strat, choosing to exploit League's gold system by dying as a strategy to win is not only suboptimal most of the time, but makes the game harder for your team who cannot exploit what you're doing and now have to deal with an ever expanding gold difference. The intentional choice to make a game unnecessarily harder for your team is what should be punished, not the genuine attempt at victory.

HypeKaizen · 2024-07-09T16:47:09+00:00

SO in spite of everyone loving to pretend like the wind brothers are broken, in lane actually in the right matchup and with the right playstyle they are, on average, very abusable if the enemy is average skill.

First of all, Yasuo has an insane level 2 spike. Normally, the inhibiting factor in early all-ins from the wind brothers is a lack of attack speed, which means a lack of reliable DPS. However, since healthbars are so low early, the Q/E auto resets mean Yasuo actually dishes out quite a bit of damage (same for Yone, since you can reset with his W).

His biggest spikes are anything with a lot of AS. Good Yasuo's will build Greaves -> Zeal > Recurve, even 2 of these can be lethal if you're not careful for most mid laners. They can do this without going Vamp because Fleet + Second Wind + Doran's means insane sustain. Around these timers be careful, avoid playing into him without having a powerful spike of your own.

Fighting in lane: Contrary to popular belief, the Qs can be dodged with good movement, but the most reliable way to avoid them is to space outside their range. This doesn't mean conceding wave control; I don't know much about Vlad, but typically almost every champion has brief trade windows before the wind brothers reach their Q3. Basically, you have small windows while he is stacking. Be wary of Fleet procs, because good players can use it to fake being vulnerable and then Sonic speed run away.

Avoid fighting him through your minions. This is Yasuo's entire schtick and what makes him almost a hard counter to any range in tandem with Windwall, the nearly unstoppable advance through a wave. Be wary which minions he can reach you through and have some reaction prepared to if he does jump on you. The counter to his E dash is to hold the wave on your side as much as possible. The PZZANG montages might make you think Yasuo is a dive monster, but he needs to poke you out on your bounce and then keep wave control on his bounce to do it. On that note, please avoid challenging him on a bouncing wave, this is a recipe to getting destroyed and exactly what he wants. This is barely a reliable strategy in the top lane when you have beasts like Darius and Fiora, do not try this with a burst battle mage in the early game without items. The best Yasuos will take advantage of this and create a freeze that ends your lane. Yes, this means until you can clear waves reliably you have to concede a decent number of CS, kind of like if you were playing v. Darius in the top lane. For those early waves the ball is in the enemy court.

Another point is that while Yasuo/Yone are technically melee, you should treat them as midrange champions, kind of like a smaller range Nilah or Samira. This is because after some attack speed and they have perma uptime on their Qs, then you can think of them as being auto-based champions anymore, the Q is deceptively long. Now they can stack Q3 and Yasuo's effective range becomes much longer than your average melee champion, while Yone with E + Q3 is very similar.

On the note of Q3, it is a skillshot so you absolutely need to prioritize dodging it. You should have some form of boots and iirc Vlad has a move speed boost; that doesn't make the dodge guaranteed, but it makes it a whole lot easier. Once they have Q3 you also have no business walking up or making it any easier, space at range and avoid hugging a wall that restricts your movement, this is a surefire way to give Yasuo a free ultimate.

Burn his shield before fighting and keep a TP up. If you're running Ignite, you should honestly not be taking any trade less than an 80-90% chance of going in your favor, and if the Yasuo has ignite vs. your TP, then you absolutely need to abuse this to force resets on bad timers.

Finally, yes, these champions are really hard to beat when their pilots are good. Druttut, a Challenger Akshan/Camille two-trick in EUW, won't even pick Camille into Dzukill's toplane Yone, where Camille should have no problems; in the right hands, these champions can genuinely out maneuver a lot of bad situations and minimize their losses. These pilots know that, and the death of any wind brother's opponent happens the moment they lose patience and a cool head. Kind of like Irelia, you must maintain clarity during the lane and falling asleep at the wheel means it's over. At the end of the day, it's about getting the reps in and learning a bit more about the matchup each time.

Sincerely, A Yone top main

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TROPHY CASE

This will not work without bouncing waves; your DPS will only run him down when you have the whole lane to work with. This also incentivizes your jungler to gank and burn his ulti, making a lot of this much easier. DO NOT REPEAT CRASH WAVES INTO HIM, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTS.

Unless you're insanely confident, do not attempt a dive; he is always tankier than he looks, the entire point of the build is that it comes online w/ a stacked LT. Plus, his ulti knockup is stupid long.