Improving at LoL is not about finding a better champ, constantly outplaying your opponent, or discovering hidden off-meta strategies. It’s about consistency and developing a system for yourself that leads to long-term success rather than short-term results.
When I started playing League, I watched a lot of content. My whole YouTube feed was filled with tips and tricks, secret strategies, and overpowered meta (or off-meta) champions. “Do this braindead strategy to climb,” “Play this champ to print LP,” “Just play more,” “Just do this.”
The more information I gathered, the more confusing it got. I felt like I needed to do everything, everywhere, all the time. I needed to farm 10 CS per minute, attend every fight, split-push every side lane, and win every 1v1. The more I learned, the more League of Legends felt like an impossible game, a weird, toxic power play I had somehow decided to subject myself to.
I didn’t even want to be a Challenger or a pro player. My goal was not to be Faker. I just wanted to understand what was going on around me and feel like I was making progress. But this is where most advice misses the mark, because progress is not about results; it’s about process. What eventually changed for me was realizing that my results were merely a reflection of how I played the game, and even more so, of how I tried to learn it.
Improving at League of Legends is not about playing more or even winning more. It’s about finding an approach to the game that allows you to get slightly better with every game, the same way going to the gym helps you get a little fitter and healthier every day.
You won’t lift heavy weights on day one, just as you won’t win every game when you’re starting out. But you slowly transform your lifestyle by adding good habits, like exercise, to your life one by one. And getting better at League works the exact same way. Let me show you how.
Why more games does not mean getting better at LoL
Let’s start with how much you should actually play. It’s tempting to think you just need to play more because it allows you to get more practice, right? And for some players, getting the reps in can help a lot. But for most players, it doesn’t. To come back to the gym analogy: One day, one week, or even one month of half-assed exercise won’t do as much for you as a few mindful sessions under the guidance of a fitness coach, where you look at your posture, technique, current strength limits, and so on.
You can piss away hundreds of League games trying to figure out how to get better, but that’s like throwing everything at a wall and hoping something will somehow stick. In the end, it might work, but it won’t be something you can control or replicate. In order to develop the skills you need to improve mindfully, you first need to understand what is actually holding you back.
Your rank is not a number, it’s a curve
You can imagine your current skill level as a bell curve. Most of your skills will sit in the middle, defining your average level of play. Let’s say your rank is Gold. That would mean most of your skills are those of a Gold-level player, putting you in that ranked bracket.
But not everyone climbs in the same way, developing the same perfect, cookie-cutter Gold skill set. You likely have some skills above Gold level and some below, with your average landing somewhere in Gold. That’s also why you will experience games or situations where you feel like you’re playing way above your current rank, and sometimes way below, even though it’s difficult to admit.
So what does that mean for improvement? Imagine the bell curve in your head and think about those skills at the bottom. They might be Silver- or even Bronze-level skills while you are currently sitting in Gold, while those at the top are potentially already Platinum, or even Emerald. Improving those even further will do little for you, because you are already scratching your current limit. But looking at those bottom skills, those are the low-hanging fruit that will lead to the biggest return on investment.
So instead of just playing more games, what you need to do in order to climb is identify those skills, figure out which ones are holding you back, and tackle them one by one.
What a process for getting better at League of Legends looks like
But how do you actually play fewer games and make them count? Of course, just playing less won’t automatically help you either. The key is to build a system for yourself where you can play consistently, meaning roughly the same number of games every day while tackling those skills one by one. This way, you create a habit around playing that allows your brain to get into the right mindset the moment you load up League of Legends.
Let me show you an example of a process for improving at LoL:
- I will only play mid lane and Ahri when I queue up for ranked.
- I will play 3-5 games every day.
- I will work on one skill at a time.
- I will review this specific skill after every game I play.
- I will watch content around this skill to enhance my understanding of it.
Sticking with this example: For Ahri, a high-value skill to develop might be improving the use of her ultimate. It’s a crucial part of her kit, and how you use it can be the deciding factor in whether you win or lose a fight. So what this player could do to pilot Ahri better and more consistently is look at how they used their R ability after every game they play with Ahri and compare it to how higher-level Ahri players use it, slowly recognizing the differences.
If you do something like this consistently over a few weeks, the skill will start to become part of your muscle memory. Eventually, when you press R with Ahri, you won’t have to think about how you want to use her ultimate. It will come naturally to you because you isolated and practiced that specific skill over a longer period of time.
And once you no longer have to think about that skill, you can start working on the next one in a similar way, slowly improving your overall skill set.
Learning itself is a skill you need to learn
This way, playing fewer games will benefit you more, because there is a limit to how much you can play while maintaining this level of focus. If you play 20 games per day, you might use more Ahri ultimates in theory, but your ability to recognize patterns and adjust your approach will decline as you have less intensity and focus available while you play. The mentality is: Do the exercise right before you do it a lot.
But you might still find yourself sitting there thinking: How? How do I figure out those low-level skills for myself? How do I even review? And what if I lose all those games while trying to improve my Ahri gameplay? What if I get frustrated or do it wrong?
That’s also something I experienced at the start, and it’s completely normal. The reality is that all of those skills around process and habit building are skills you need to develop and improve over time, too. Your first few reviews will likely be overwhelming and confusing, and especially at the start, it will be very hard to trust your process.
You will lack evidence that it is working, so you will kind of have to put in the time on blind faith until you notice your improvement actually happening after putting in all the work to set yourself up for success. You can achieve this on your own, but joining a community like WTL, with a similar mindset, can help a lot with this approach.
Where feedback and guidance come into play
Getting coaching, for example, can help you identify your actual skill floor. You don’t need to guess what’s holding you back. You can talk to a high-level coach and look at your gameplay together in a one-on-one VOD review.
They will help you single out those lower-level skills and turn them into actionable learning objectives that you can focus on in your own games and review afterward. Once you feel like you’ve improved a specific skill to the point where you don’t have to think about it anymore, you can simply return for another session and repeat the learning cycle.
The same goes for reviewing your games, which can feel weird and unnatural if you’ve never done it before. You don’t have to figure it out alone, though. Members can post short clips of their gameplay in a dedicated Discord channel and get feedback from a coach, which is a great way to get fast answers on a specific problem in between full coaching sessions. There are also peer review channels where members review games with each other. A Silver player, for example, might organize a peer review with a Diamond player who plays the same main champion. This way, you can try to solve the puzzle yourself first and then compare your answers, getting even more out of every situation and game.
This can speed up the process quite a lot because you essentially double the learning value of the fewer games you play, especially when you combine this with other resources, like champion guides tailored to what you currently need.
Making the climb more efficient, and less lonely
And of course, the climb can be a lonely endeavor if you try to do it on your own, even more so when your mindset starts shifting away from how your friends approach the game. It’s hard to talk about consistency with someone who mainly wants that juicy LP right now. By joining an academy, you can connect with like-minded players who are going through the same journey as you are right now.
It becomes a lot easier to lift each other up this way, but also to hold each other accountable. Especially as a busy adult, you don’t have a lot of time to spare. You likely don’t want to spend weeks or months trying to figure out this process on your own when there is already a more streamlined way.
That’s what getting coaching and joining an academy are ultimately about. It’s about building and accelerating your own systems around League of Legends in order to have fun and succeed at the same time, while getting the feedback you might otherwise miss on your own.
So while it’s not necessary and you can develop those habits by yourself, if you want to climb as efficiently as possible in the shortest amount of time, finding the right role, champion and academy for you is the fastest path to actually getting better at League of Legends.
Frequently asked questions
How many League games should I play a day to improve?
For most players, three to five ranked games a day is enough. The number matters far less than the focus you bring to each one. Playing 20 games a day means you will use more abilities in total, but your ability to spot patterns and adjust drops off sharply as concentration fades. A smaller block of games you actually review will move your rank faster than a long session you play on autopilot.
Does playing more League actually make you better?
Not on its own. Volume only helps if each game is feeding a specific skill you are working on and reviewing. Without that, extra games mostly repeat the habits already holding you back. The players who climb are not usually the ones playing the most, they are the ones who identified their weakest skills and worked through them one at a time.
How long does it take to get better at League of Legends?
Working on a single skill consistently, expect a few weeks before it starts to feel automatic rather than something you have to think about. The harder part is the beginning, when you have no evidence the process is working yet and have to trust it anyway. Coaching shortens that phase considerably, because a coach can tell you which skill to work on instead of you having to guess.
Ready to start?
If you want to give it a try, you can find all the academy and membership information over on our academies page.
