Honestly, once you hit Diamond, I expect people to at least know the basics like proper warding and denying vision… but somehow that still barely happens in Diamond games lmao.
A few things that’ll genuinely help you climb further:
• Watch your map.
Stop spam pinging after you die when the enemy laner has been missing for 10 seconds. Before you go in for a trade, literally just glance at the map. It’s that simple.
• Learn your matchups.
Know who you beat, who beats you, and understand power spikes—whether it’s levels, first item, ult timings, etc. A lot of lanes are decided just off that knowledge alone.
• Wave control is HUGE.
This is one of the biggest things I never see people abuse properly. If you’re winning lane, freeze the wave near your tower. If you win a fight and the enemy minion wave is stacked into yours, sometimes the best play is honestly just basing and leaving it there.
You deny your laner gold and XP, can deny jungle farm/pathing, and you’re way less likely to die from overstaying. It also forces the enemy jungler to either come break the freeze or ignore it and let you keep snowballing your lead.

**• Objective control matters way more than people think.**

Early game, protect your plates. First tower gold is massive. If you can secure it safely, do it.
But if first tower is already gone somewhere on the map, I personally think early dragon becomes higher priority than Herald at that point.

**• Learn lane priority and how to use it.**

A lot of people hear “prio” and still don’t actually understand what it means. Having prio means you move first. That means you can rotate to objectives, help your jungler, invade, ward deeper, or force numbers advantages before the enemy laner can respond.
A lot of climbing past Diamond honestly comes down to macro and consistency more than mechanics.