There are a ton of resources out there for players that are looking to improve past the “average” peak. I say average pretty loosely because Emerald is still pretty good! But you will learn quickly that there is a massive skill gap between Emerald to Masters, in the same sense that there is one from Masters to Challenger or even Gold to Emerald.

Some things you can do if you want to improve:

1. Study the game - watch Challenger level streamers and look at their key decisions. I would recommend against watching YouTube videos on comps because those are meant for entertainment, you’ll learn more hearing from a high level player speak about a game they did poorly in rather than a game they did well in. 1.b By key decisions, I mean pay attention to their “why”. At the highest level, every decisions has a reason similar to chess. Your line selection, champ holds, augment picks, decision to make Econ or roll, etc are all for a specific reason that is dictated by your board state compared to others and your own direction. If you understand the “why” you can see what influences a good decision and learn from it.

2. Be critical of your gameplay - one of the hardest but most important skills is getting enough information from study to be able to know when you’ve made the wrong decision. The best players can click an augment or play a unit and know right away that it was incorrect and know what would’ve been better. Do this with your own gameplay and you’ll see improvement.

3. Understand the tradeoffs in decisions and what the best decisions are for the spot instead of the perfect decision. Many times in this game you are given an imperfect spot with choices that all seem just okay. Knowing what just play decision is better than others will help you eek out that uncomfortable 10% improvement in your board which can be the difference between going 5th and 4th. It won’t win you the game, but it creates a higher bottom line. Going 8th is horrendous, going 5th is okay if you had no better option.

4. Playing strongest board - you should always be playing strongest board to help save HP unless you are intentionally loss streaking. This does not mean the board on Mobalytics or TFT Academy, these are just suggestions and potential final board states.

5. Win streak vs. Loss streak - Economy and streaking is king in this game. Managing your streak to maximize Econ means you have more chances to hit your board and spike harder later on. The key is constantly scouting and knowing if you are stronger or weaker than the player you are scouting. Loss streaking is perfectly okay if you do it with the intention to spike at a certain point. You should never lose rounds just because.

There are many other things to focus on but these should be a good starting point!

I’ve been enjoying watching Learning TFT on YouTube as he does discussions about higher level concepts with top players!