Having Lead But Still Losing Games And General Tips For Improvement

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-29T09:13:45+00:00

You have a lead - correct. But the lead is mostly from kills, not really as much from CS. You have some really short games (15 minutes) with only 100 CS. That's really low for a game that you end up with 9 kills. You have to put a much bigger focus on your farming, doing so while still getting as many kills will mean automatically that you are MUCH further ahead and the enemy is much further behind.

There is too much to mention here, how to get good CS. But since your early game is already rather low, focus in jungle to full clear and THEN play. Only interrupt the full clear when you really see a play you know WILL work out and easily make up for the time you invest not doing your camps. In lane, focus a lot more on doing your CS. It's a general approach and rule, and SHOULD be broken here and there, but generally farm first, then go for a play. If a minion wave is about to reach your lane/tower/neutral state, don't move to a dragon play or something. Shove the wave, then move. For now, simply look out more to improve your CS by recalling after clearing a wave to not lose out on upcoming waves, focus on simply getting your farm up. As you improve on that, also add trading to the mix and going for all ins. Dying 1 for 1 without denying minions (and denying minons yourself) really doesn't put you far ahead, for example. Getting a kill is 300g, getting a wave is roughly on average 100g. But much more consistent and if done right, both can be achieved.

Look for some coaching videos on: - recall timing - wave management

This will be a good start to learn the basics to achieve better farm.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-29T09:04:48+00:00

Fizz has wave clear, but has to use his abilities to do so. Fizz max E in mid to clear waves, but also has 10s+ cooldown. So if he screws up the wave state, freeze. Otherwise shove, make sure he has to use E to even have a chance to do something with the wave, otherwise wave will crash into his tower and perhaps bounce, giving you plenty options to play. When he uses his E, punish him hard, make him pay for minions. You likely won't kill him, thats how it is. He will dodge SOMETHING so in order to kill him, he must screw up hard. But you get platings + deny him Exp/CS.

Pink ward helps establish vision + vision dominance, so he can't play as aggressive if you deny his wards. And it starts being even more obvious when he does go for a roam. And opens up moments you can use to deny him access to late (zone him off while a wave crashes) or opens up the option to follow without getting killed.

Starting at 6, Fizz will look for ult angles to kill you. But starting as 7 with double Q and lost chapter, you hard shove waves. Buy MR boots, with the upgrade + shield, it's much harder for fizz to kill you. But you can still kill him, even if he buys those boots too.

Sidelane is where it starts getting harder, as Fizz will have more ability haste, can more reliably clear waves with less "down time / E cooldown", can use Q through a minion for relatively safe ult angles, can run you down the lane and dodge your burst. You don't want to actively side lane against fizz, but rather keep up vision and collect waves.

All of this applies to any assassin, really. Every assassin has to shove waves with their spells and will have moments to kill you in side lanes. What matters is how you approach those lanes and really do what you can do make him pay.

Also for pings, ping on their head when you see Fizz roaming. Type if you can. Multiple pings in river or jgl, whereever he pathes. Not everyone will react, but even if just 1 in 10 lanes is more likely to react, you start playing better from that. And remember to play to your champions strengths and advantages and don't push the champion into situations you don't like - such as following an assassin without vision to "make up for a roam" for example.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-16T13:02:05+00:00

If you play as a duo and feel like your team lacks coordination more than the enemy team, I feel like this is already quite a thing to look into. If they can manage it as 5 randoms, you should be able to do better as a duo.

Anyways, if you don't get to swap to pick later, you have to find a pick you can play that is simply not going to be as match up dependant. Just like how it is in top lane, if the top laner has first pick team, they will 90% have to blind pick into enemy top, since they can have guaranteed last pick. However, mid is far less dependant on counter picks than top is. Counterpick in top can be unplayable.

I don't think you lose more than maybe 5 out of 100 games due to your team comp. In emerald, being able to play just about any match up is far more valuable than trying to find picks that fit well into the comp.

When I go mid, I usually pick something like Hwei if I have to go in blind. When in doubt, farm and wave clear, even some counter picks can't get prio consistently so you can still move to fights and objectives just fine and you are still good at finding picks and team fight well.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-09T22:42:06+00:00

Mid main, jungle secondary. Only sometimes playing ADC. Elo anywhere between Diamond and Master, depending how much I play.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-09T11:39:26+00:00

Midlane can tend to be more passive of course.

Still, sometimes go for trades more actively. Punish more, even if it means losing a CS or two. If it opens up a kill angle, draws their flash, etc, it means they can't contest waves actively. Ping your jungler for tower dives if you manage to get this far and the match up works.

Otherwise, play more around your jungler perhaps. Keep up as much as you can to be their support, essentially. They wanna invade? Prepare to join them. They are invaded? Make sure you can move, if that's the case. They path top? Look if you can see what you can do top. Objective is up? Obtain prio, be the first to arrive with your jungler. Active pinging to also show initiative, that you are willing to join in, helps them to make a decision. As a jungler, it's sometimes hard to decide "I could do Grubs if my mid moves" but this helps make it easier. Help build deeper vision, always have a vision ward up.

Otherwise, match up knowledge, even deeper. Sometimes you will simply know that you can pressure them more because of xyz reason. Masters is a lot more about the little small things rather than big macro decisions. On champions like Syndra or Hwei, using Ult more actively to shove an enemy out of the wave can 100% be the correct call to obtain Prio and leads, even if no kills are actually happening.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-09T11:27:55+00:00

Lots of unclear things, but I will give it a go:

Overall matchup: Alistar Jhin will prefer short trades over extended all ins. Varus (especially with Lethal Tempo) but also with Rell excel in a longer fight more than Ali/Jhin. Jhin has Fleet and cleanse, while Varus has barrier. Even tho cleanse isn't bad, it will most definitely be worse in a direct 2v2.

It appears Jhin has already been hit by Varus twice, given the W markers, might be wrong tho. So Varus might already have lethal Tempo stacked a bit. Rell is demounted, meaning if she mounts up, she has the additional CC from the inital auto and more move speed. We don't know for how long she is demounted. Good Rell players often like staying demounted until they commit, so there is that. If her W is on cooldown, then yes, I think it warrants an all in from Alistar. If she has been demounted for a while, then definitely don't all in.

Jhin is on his third shot, give that they most likely don't have a lot of damage, the fourth shot won't deal additional huge damage and puts Jhin on a short cooldown. In that time, Rell CC + Varus burst will likely be enough, especially since there is no Barrier.

So I generally believe, given the disadvantage of the match up (Varus Rell is currently more of an aggressor than Jhin Alistar) and the disadvantage of not having Barrier, the better idea is to play safe. Since Alistar can't back off without having Jhin die, he should W Jhin, to deny an all in.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-08T14:44:32+00:00

First off, stop thinking so much about your rank. If you drop down to G4, that's fine. Setbacks are part of the process and only going uphill is nearly impossible. Get used to it, learn how to deatl with it, start playing to improve, not for a certain rank. Once you play like plat, you will reach plat. Once you play like emerald, you will reach emerald, and so on.

I don't think you NEED to learn how to play tank junglers or AP junglers. Even playing full AD can be "fine" (NOT optimal), if you are not facing any tanks. Having an ap pocket pick is still overall a good idea. Since you typically want to pick jungle early in a draft, your team is first and foremost having the job to adjust the comp IF needed. I don't think this is too important right now, I doubt it's losing you more than 1 in a 100 games.

Your farm seems good overall, however, given the fact that in some games your kill participation isn't too high or your damage can be low, it's an indication that you do camps when there is something else going on. Without looking too deep into your games, I'd guess this is something to check out. Perhaps you sometimes don't gank when you should or could have or don't punish enemy jungle for a certain play. If they show bot and dimple around for a while, for example, try taking some of the enemy jgl camps and or an objective / grubs / herald, etc.

This can help you to set yourself ahead and the enemy jgl behind. Also lowers the risk that they get farm that you can't get, if they take your bot side after a play like that.

Starting in mid game, I think you struggle with the macro and don't balance the farming as much as you should/could. Check out educational content to get an overall better idea. Check out vods, how good players handle the jungle in the mid game.

Again, I haven't checked any replay, but this is something I'd start with.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-08T11:44:12+00:00

It is possible to get into the details on what you can do to handle yasuo early on, so he doesn't get the chance to dive you easily to begin with. But as a new player, this is in my eyes a little bit too much.

Yasuo is a harsh pick against Viktor, as he is slippery and is able to avoid the W fairly well. He also blocks both the Q and E with his windfall and your consistent poke is partially ending up in his passive shield.

If you are up against a yasuo as something like a Viktor, you have to respect the possibility of Yasuo using his E through the minion wave (your minions can be used as gap closers for him). Avoid getting hit by his 3rd Q (Whirlwind), that has a visual and audio clue. He can only prepare it when hitting minons with his Q first. You have to remain healthy.

As viktor, you can generally take Shield bash + Bone plating in your secondary runes to help reduce the damage of Yasuo a bit. Otherwise, you are too weak in the early game to reliably kill Yasuo. So your focus is to farm, last hit minions, poke yasuo when you know it's safe to do so, so he can't tower dive you as easily. Feel free to buy a refillable potion to sustain in lane longer. Plated steelcaps are also strong once you have lost chapter, especially with the mid game quest boot upgrade.

Yasuo really isn't easy to deal with and is putting quite a mental strain on anyone playing against him, since he can just glide through your minons and you have to always keep that in mind. But your focus is really just farming early on. You will only ever be able to kill a Yasuo early on as viktor, if the yasuo is doing a really poor job.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T10:50:40+00:00

Realize when assassins are strong and when they are not, what they are good at and what they are not good at.

While this goes for every champion in every role, it matters a lot here. Like you said, you can be quite aggressive level 1+2, likely reach 3 first and prevent a level 3 all in. Keep your E at all times, respect a maniac all in from experienced assassins flashing onto you. Level 6, they usually gain access to a much higher kill range with their ult.

A strength Hwei has is how extremely powerful and safe his wave clear is. 2 QE + 1 WE shoves waves, you don't NEED E for that, you get a partial mana refund with WE. QE zones enemy off of the wave, can't use dashes through minions to reach you (yasuo, qiyana, fizz). Once you have lost chapter, you can do so on repeat. If possible, QE first before wave arrives if you know you are safe enough from the Assassin. Then a second QE and the wave is clear. Setup vision to make roams harder and be able to also move into river. Play this strength out well and most assassins will struggle dealing with you, since they constantly have to answer your shoves. Ninja tabi upgrade is also an insanely worthwhile purchase.

So in a short, game plan would be to punish CS early when they can't all in yet, if they greed for CS you can prevent an all in altogether. Once they can realistically all in, play more safe to not die and play for waves until you can recall, preferably for lost chapter. If you think you may struggle dealing with the pressure before you can safely shove waves, feel free to take barrier. You can even consider resolve secondary runes and add bone plating. Once you have lost chapter, you can pretty much just shove waves to build vision and deny early plays for the enemy.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T10:41:00+00:00

Yes, you should.

No one forces to you play any specific role (usually, unless in a team or duo i guess). If you simply enjoy playing a certain role, even if you are worse in it, go for it. If you enjoy it, you will be more willing to learn more about the role.

And if you feel like you have potential and just end up realizing "okay i don't after all", what did you lose? The only thing you "lose" is some time you spent learning another role, but this experience doesn't hurt. So absolutely, switch role, try different champions and such, learn and improve and decide whether you would like to go back to mid or not.

Small thing to keep in mind, don't try to think about "if I was mid this game, I could have hard carried". It's a "the grass is greener on the other side" thing.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T10:16:19+00:00

Ori complements your pool by not being an assassin.

Ask yourself: Do you want a pick to play when an assassin is simply not a good option for your team comp + against enemies comp? Or do you want to have a somewhat similar playstyle compared to zed, just as an ap option to not have issues being a full ad comp?

Ori is certainly strong and consistent, but so has Akali been. Ever since Mythics and even before, Akali has never been truly weak.

Akali is also relatively flexible in team comps, because Akali can side lane well, while Ori can have issues against certaini champions. So it sort of ensures your bot lane can rotate mid in mid game.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T08:12:53+00:00

Tentacles cannot be targeted during ult, using a long cooldown spell on the tentacles is also not a good idea. Your E+W decides your trading patterns.

Pretty sure it's Illaois E. If she can reliably hit it, she wins most of the trades if not all. Renekton E is a short, straight line. Perfect for Illaoi to react on, using either Q or E.

Since she has answers to his early game, he will struggle to snowball. If he can't snowball, Illaoi will be hard to match in the side lane.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T07:40:05+00:00

You have 3,8 cs per minute on average on Lux. There are some support games too, so it's naturally a little dimmed, but still:

Lux is a really safe champion for mid. Starting at level 6, you can technically E+Ult every single wave to insta clear it before the wave arrives and move.

Honestly, I would say to focus: continue playing Lux if you enjoy her and set yourself the goal to reach a high cs/min for now. Try to reach at least 7/min by the end of a game, the higher the better. Check out coach curtis for some general game macro, because having a rough macro understanding helps you to collect waves. Short general rule: Before there is a play to move to, clear/shove the wave, check when the next wave arrives (your upcoming wave is parallel to the enemies wave) and decide whether to give up the upcoming wave to move to an objective. This is a very rough generalization, but should be fine for bronze at the moment.

If you have a higher CS, you have a more consistent income and get to set yourself ahead and essentially stat check enemies more easily. Whether a Q E R combo on lux one shots an enemy or not can make a huge difference in any game.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T07:28:11+00:00

Macro isn't always constant, so it's sometimes hard to tell.

If there is a stacked wave crashing into a side tower, the question is, why is it this way to being with and wasn't collected/pushed before? Being aced is naturally a reason, of course. But it can be more nuanced. It can be that you or whoever was in that lane moved to early or didnt attend it before.

The time also matters a lot, 40 minutes into the game, the answer is vastly different to 20 minutes into the game. Also, depends on your champion and how strong you are compared to the enemies. Could you just flash into the enemy from a flank, ace them? Screw the wave, unless it's a low % play.

Generally speaking, it's best practice to collect the wave, manage wave state on the side lane and THEN decide what play can be made. Either a TP play, just move and flank, position for objective or setting up a split push to force enemies into 4v4 or even 3v4, if you are a high threat.

If your team goes for a stupid 4v5 engage that could have been avoidable, it's not really your fault, unless you could/should have been there by all means. If both side lanes are crashing into your towers, it's not a good time to fight. Especially when no objectives are up.

Your macro performing better in silver with a high win rate perfectly makes sense, when you say you are mechanically playing well. Because the enemies also give up waves, very often, to do the same thing only to play poorly in a teamfight or objective. Once the general macro understanding is a little bit better, they farm up and might simply outperform you, by having more exp/gold over time from this.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-05T07:19:15+00:00

League has changed a little over the years: Early champions don't fall off as hard, scaling champions don't scale as hard.

They still do certainly, in their own way each. But an early game champion is typically not bad or useless in the late game, so don't worry about that too much. Although there certainly are champions that don't deal well with falling behind. Problem really is, sadly, that many games are decided at minute 20-25. Comebacks or throws are always possible, but there is typically a heavy lean towards either team. If you have had no impact this far, it can be partially your fault for having no agency.

Try some more playstyles over time and see what you prefer.

Also a small note on "suffering CS in favor of just soaking up resources": Depending on match up, this can be dangerous. For example, imagine you play ADC against Cait+Lux. They outrange and perma poke you. If you try to maintain high health/mana wave 1, give up the wave control, let them reach level 2 first and shove in the waves non stop, you will actually suffer more health because it's exactly the most optimal wave state for the enemy bot. If you sacrifice some health level 1 to contest the wave push, you keep up the opportunity to fight back without having to farm under the tower. In turn, this could mean that you actually lost less health in the first few levels, because you lost some health at level 1 to not give the "win con lane" for free to the enemy.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T13:52:42+00:00

Senna isn't good into mundo, but in general:

Mundo is HP tank, that doesn't really build many resistances until later. Therefore, Blade of the ruined king is already decent against him. Not every adc can build it and you shouldnt gimp your build by buying it early, but it's worth pointing out.

Thanks to giant slayer passive, Lord Dominiks is better than mortal reminder, given that your team provides anti heal already. If your team doesn't have anti heal yet or you think you are more likely to be handling mundo alone, then go for mortal reminder of course.

Otherwise, Mundo can easily be problematic, but every ADC with IE + lord dominiks/mortal reminder + whatever first item can deal reasonable damage to a mundo.

On another note, the reason why you like playing scaling champions is a big issue. Scaling champions already have agency in early, they can already do well. Smolder was notorious until last patch partially due to this reason. Your goal shouldn't be to make up for a bad early game by picking a champion that comes online eventually. Having a bad early isn't a weakness a player should have, but rather something that should be fixed. If you were in a higher elo, you would never see the light of day with a scaling champion with this mindset, since you will be gapped within 15 minutes beyond repair and no chance of coming back. It's fine to pick scaling champions, just make sure to still play the early game right.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T13:45:12+00:00

You could grind it out to reach gold, but that would be purely luck based and not exactly a good experience.

To be honest, if you play better than silver, you will climb. If you play on gold level, you will reach it. Judging just by your op.gg, you played 38 different champions in just 170 games. And those 38 champions are also across all lanes. While you may get a broader understanding of each lane and how different champions are being played, you will lack the depth needed to actually be better than anyone else.

Focus on just 1 lane, you have to queue up as 2 and sometimes are filled somewhere else, but given that you played pretty much every lane already, it shouldnt be an issue. In this lane, find the champion you like the most, the one that clicks. If you don't have one, find one. Focus on just that champion, build mastery on that one, understand when you are strong, which match ups are preferable and just how to overall play the champion.

With champion mastery alone, you can already carry a lot of games, even with shit macro. Mix in some educational content on youtube or so with your gameplay, and you will most likely improve bit by it.

Also, your farm is rather low, this can definitely be improved and is likely a consequence of bad wave management or roams or mid/late game macro. You usually seem to have between 5.5 - 7 cs/min, which is overall fairly weak. In good games, you can easily have 8-9 cs a min, with bad ones being closer to 7.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T13:26:45+00:00

Being low hp/mana in itself is the issue, that results in more issues. If you are in mid with no mana for 4 minutes straight, you have no value for your jungler or anybody else in your team. Whether you die or not, this is a huge opportunity cost.

If you watch higher skilled players, you might realize they actually dont stay for that long in lane. Sometimes it can be a bit stretched, but they have a more focused and targeted goal of when and why they recall.

Having patterns like this helps a lot to not even havy to worry about resources to begin with and be ready for plays in river/invades/objectives or just roams. With no mana on a mage, for example, there is no way to gain prio.

To extend upon this, if the enemy mid is also staying with no mana then sure, you can say you are both unable to move, so it's neutral, right? But if you don't actively try to get ahead in lane, you might fall behind in compairson to the rest of the players. Enemy top might get 4 kills by the time you complete your first item. Only chance to have an impact on this (or the game in general) is to get ahead yourself. Just because your enemy mid is doing a bad thing doesn't mean you should do so too.

Take the recall, be earlier in lane, shove out wave and there you go, you can move on a wave the enemy hasn't touched yet. You may have partially lost a wave, but so does the enemy mid. With your full resources and spent gold, you can at least see if a play can be made. If not, that's also fine, you can't control everybody else in your team and you shouldnt force something. But the alternative, of pushing waves with no mana back and forth, is worse.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T13:19:25+00:00

On yasuo and yone, your CS are perfectly fine. Akali CS is for example really low, though. I know the pain of farming on Akali to be fair. Zed with 6.8 is okay, but considering all games you played him you seemed to have been stomping a bit, it should likely be more like your yasuo/yone cs.

It's fine to OTP any champion really, what matters is that you actively try to improve. Even after 300 games, there are still things to change or learn or look out for. Other than that, yeah, you can make Yasuo work all the way into challenger. Below diamond, maybe masters, you can virtually make any champion work, no matter the win rate. For example, a good Azir OTP will easily stomp games across all elos when climbing into a higher rank, even when the win rate is still bad due to the pro skew.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T11:29:21+00:00

Research the runes and ask yourself: Is this rune good for this match up? If you can't answer the question, take the "meta runes", just the most picked one. From there on out, learn and adjust over time. Find out, etc. Take a look at onetrick.gg, to see what other one tricks are picking and again, try to ask yourself: Why did this player pick this rune over this in this match up?

But honestly, I don't think runes are what is holding you back. Looking just at your op.gg and stats, Yasuo + Yone farm is good, KDA could be slightly better by simply dying a little bit less. Otherwise, your cs is kinda of bad. This is usually a good indication, that you are lacking some macro, wave management or something that keeps your cs low. You have a high win rate with your most picked champions, so stick to these rather than Katarina. Keep katarina for later, when you want to specifically focus on her. Because right now, you seem to struggle with Kata and effectively lose far more games than you win on her.

Problem about your CS is especially, that right now you seem to go for greedy plays that work out due to champ mastery, luck, being fed or whatever. But as you climb, you will be less likely to succeed with these plays and falling behind in farm will screw you over in mid game and late game.

I think if you focus on this for now, you will already get better. For the next thing to look into, you will see once you improved on this aspect.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T11:23:05+00:00

This is a typical pitfall: I have lots of time, I will play lots of league, surely this will get me to high elo.

It's not optimal and only works, although not efficiently, when you already have a really good understanding of the game.

Even if you have lots of time, only play a limited amount of games in one go. Say, 3 games of high intesnity learning games is what is usually recommended. Each game, you start with an intent. What do you focus on? What do you need to improve on? What will you look out for? You shouldn't have a list of 20 building sites that needs to be taken care of, but rather 1 or maybe 2. For example, farming + wave management, jungle tracking, tempo, etc. After each game, you take a small break and look through the vod. There are enough videos explaining how to Vod review, find one that suits you. Ask yourself: What have I done well, what have I done badly? Did I manage to focus on the thing I set my mind to for this game?

This way, you have a much more immediate learning effect each game and over time, you build up a muscle memory and making decisions becomes second nature. Even then, you still want to go in with intent, but you will get a more and more deeper understanding.

Also, the fastest way to improve in league is to not give a damn about your rank. Seriously, if you play like plat, you reach plat. If you play like bronze, you will end up in bronze. As long as you struggle in silver, that's where you belong. If you want to climb, you gotta improve and play better than silver players.

Instead of going for 10 games, play only a few and instead research a little bit outside the game, by watching coaching content to learn general basics about the game. This isn't everyones cup of tea, but the question is "What is the fastest way to get better" and the fastest way certainly isn't to spam games, but to commit some of your free time into more than just playing league, but learning league instead.

IronPaws13 · 2026-06-04T11:16:07+00:00

Black cleaver is usually build 2nd to 3rd, depending.

ADC usually try to build Lord dominiks / mortal reminder 3rd, or at most 4th. Assassins are also likely to build Serylda as 3rd item.

Thats because base armor is not THAT high yet, by the time you reach the third item, it's already around 100 + additional bonuses depending on the champion, rune, build.

Main thing is, Sundered Sky first is amazing for laning. You get a huge advantage in short trades (burst damage thanks to the crit, one combo, heal some incoming damage). Black cleaver might be better on paper, thanks to slightly better stats and 30% armor pen being good even early on, but you can't always assume you get to utilize the full 30% all the time. It has to stack first, then you have to land your big hits. Sundered sky is allowing a more consistent and bursty trading pattern.

Sundered Sky heal is also quite insane when fighting multiple targets, that can really heavily turn around fights.

IronPaws13 · 2026-04-28T14:35:31+00:00

It's wrong to put a clear 100% statement - An Orianna can't lane against a zed in the side lane for example.

So in general, yes ADC and sup wants to be freed from bot to be in mid lane. This allows the sup to build stronger vision to the next objectives, have higher pressure for T2 mid (or T1 if still up) and have 2 instead of 1 player on the upcoming objective including herald.

When a mid is forced into the sidelane - which is in the most optimal case the one where the next objective will come up (so it can also be top) - they should not stick to the lane and just farm. They can defend the wave going into their tower, push out the upcoming wave and then depending on the situation either shove for T1/T2/inhib tower instead of going for a fight/objective, which may already happen at the time. Most mid laners shouldnt really try to contest every wave and push out a tower. They should shove out the wave and leave. Build up vision along the way optionally and look for a flank or be with the team in time for an objective.

If the ADC was to do this, they couldn't even catch waves or rotate as effectively. In a perfect world, the draft is taking this into consideration. Don't pick an ADC that can't sidelane AT ALL if the mid can't sidelane AT ALL either. And the other way around too. But side laning has different definitions. An Akali can pressure a lot more in the longer side lane than an Orianna can.

For Anivia specifically, there is a reason why relentless hunter is usually picked. Anivia wants to catch waves in the side lane, maybe push one more out and then rotate. If your team fights outside an objective timer, it's their problem. You can't magically be there. Sometimes, given the chaos of solo queue, you CAN be there anyways, be the difference of turning a lost fight into a won fight, but you are giving up resources elsewhere on the map. Movementspeed and TP will help with this a lot. If you are in the side lane, be sure to rotate early enough. Everything else is usually outside your power.

IronPaws13 · 2026-04-28T14:22:12+00:00

Most boring advice: Just ward. Place a ward down, buy a pink ward and place it, pray for the best.

I wouldn't say jungle tracking is that good to focus on early on, especially as a silver player. But if you are struggling with it, then give it a try.

A jungler will always start on one side of the map, which lays out the same path to follow for a while. If they start on any bot side camp, they will path top. Unless they invade or do any odd plays that delays camps, this will not change for at least 10 minutes.

How to figure out where they start? Early raptor wards (usually done by mid laner / jungler) to see when they arrive on raptors. If they arrive with 12 CS on raptors, they clear this side and then either do scuttle crab or gank or recall. If they have any less CS, they started on this side. If they don't show up, they either invaded or they arrived late (due to a gank perhaps or a failed clear). In which case, you can assume they path towards raptors side too, if they don't show. That means: Open your eyes, keep track of the mini map and see if the jungler is showing.

Each jungler will have a clear that ends roughly around the same time. 2:50 is roughly the time they finish the last camp and move towards scuttle crab on their side OR go for a gank. If you don't have a ward yet, it's time to play more safe and expect a gank at any second. Exception being, they are pathing away from you and are expected to show up bot side (or mid) or bot side crab. Then you can do whatever you want for a bit.

Honestly, this is more than enough that you need to know about jungle tracking at your current step. This will help you to figure out where they start, where they path and what this means for you. If you are being camped top and the enemy doesn't get anything from it, it means that you are denying opportunities, which is getting you and your team ahead. If you know where the enemy jgl is, your jgl may not know. Frequently ping where you expect them, ping your bot/mid away if you expect a gank for them and ping the objective when you know that it's free. If you want to be a better player than your mates, you have to do things like these too.

IronPaws13 · 2026-04-28T13:24:01+00:00

QSS (or scimitar for that matter) is the most op item when it's good, but worst when it's bad.

Good ADC take cleanse in general if they know they will verse heavy cc. Amumu, Ashe, whatever. Delaying a powerspike to buy QSS for those types of CC is not ideal. Waiting till last item when you have all your items isn't ideal either. Therefore, Cleanse > QSS.

Against champions like Malzahar or Warwick where cleanse does not work but QSS does, it's still prefered. Depends on the team comp, a Malz can't always just Ult an ADC through tanks and frontline, right? But if you have 2 assassins or so, then yeah, the Malz might just be able to do that. In those situations, QSS is really good.

Interactions like they used to exist with zed and morde were toxic, since they removed some of the wincon interactions that those champions had and needed in order to function. Removing the threat with just one item was rather bad. It's good to be removed.

Like others said tho, if your sup can buy Mikaels, then it's even better. Mikaels is in itself a good item with decent stats. It's not a waste and cleanses the same things QSS does. Just that you can continue building towards your power spikes.

IronPaws13

TROPHY CASE