League of Legends Season 13: Preseason Plan
Upon finishing Bronze 4 at the end of Season 12, I’ve decided to take a slightly different approach to preparing for Season 13. Want to try out my approach yourself? Well let me explain.
I jumped straight into ranked games when I hit level 30 on my account. This meant I had barely any games played, didn’t really know what most of the champions did, and certainly had no clue about most macro concepts. After a full season of playing I am definitely in a better position, but still have a lot to learn. So here is my step by step process for how I am going to approach this preseason.
First things first: champion pools.
Step 1: Champion Pools & Playstyles
Getting this right should be the first thing on any player’s list. If you’re playing champions you dislike or don’t fit your playstyle, it’s going to be an uphill battle. If you have no idea what champions, playstyles, or even which role you like then it’s time for some experimentation.
Have a look at the full list of champions (I recommend doing this on Mobalytics - their website is full of guides, builds, and lots more information on every single champion) and note which ones seem interesting to you. Also note which lane/role they tend to appear in. For example, are you mainly drawn to top lane tanks, or mid lane assassins, or bot lane marksmen, etc. Playing you champions you find fun is the name of the game - it will stop you tilting and keep your mentality more positive.
Once you find a couple of champions you like (I’d recommend only sticking to one type - assassins, fighters, mages, etc) stick with them for a while so you learn them and their play style.
If you want some help learning a new play style I highly recommend checking out Skill Capped’s YouTube channel - they have great guides on all positions and playstyles. And if you want to go the extra bit further, they have their own website with content you can get access to for a subscription fee. I’ve done this myself and would highly recommended it!
I’m currently working through my champions pool myself - I’ve mainly played assassins (Yone and Talon) and I’m experimenting with other assassins at the moment. Once I’ve decided on one to add to my pool, I’ll move onto the next step in my process.
Step 2: Focus on Fundamentals
So you’ve got your champion pool narrowed down to 2 or 3 main champions and you’ve got a good feel of their abilities and what fights they like to take. Now it’s time to re-focus on the basics of Laning and the early game.
For any laner this means focusing on getting good CS numbers (last hitting minions), recall timings, and taking good trades.
2.1 CS’ing / Last Hitting
First step to winning lane is always getting more gold than your opponent, so I’ll be aiming to get roughly 6-7 CS per minute every game.
Focus on learning when you can last hit with your auto attacks, and when your key abilities can kill minions at different stages throughout the game. This can be done through some research, but I’d recommend learning it intuitively through repetition. This process can be sped up in practice tool with things like the Lux bot game.
2.2 Recalling
Once you’re getting good CS leads on your opponents it’s time to start capitalising on your gold advantage. Gold doesn’t give you an edge until it’s spent on items. That’s where recalling comes in.
Recalling to spend your gold on items at the right time is crucial. To be as efficient as possible, you want to reset when you have enough gold to buy your key items - and no more. This way when you get back to lane, if you have a gold lead over your opponent, once converted into items you should now have an item advantage. This means your stats will be higher than your lane opponent, and that’s how you translate gold leads into winning your lane.
But there is more to think about when recalling than gold. You also should consider:
- Wave state (where is your wave now, and which direction is it pushing towards).
- Health (you don’t want to be basing with full health - your health bar is a resource that can be used to your advantage, especially if you’re ahead).
- Mana/energy (when running low, you don’t want to be sticking around in lane as you might be at a disadvantage when trading).
There are other things to consider, such as objectives and positions of other players, but these are the core fundamentals.
2.3 Trading
The final fundamental part of Laning I will be focusing on (and that I recommend you focus on too) is trading in the Laning phase. Good trades will look different for every matchup, but there are some simple tips and rules you can follow in most of your games. Some quick tips to get you started:
- Look to trade when you have a minion advantage (this is especially important early on when minions do more damage to you)
- Play around important enemy cool-downs (for example, Ahri’s Charm)
- Look to harass when your opponent goes for last hits
These are some great basics to focus on at first, but one of the most important parts of trading is understanding what kind of fights your champion wants to take, and what kind of fights your opponent wants to take. This may seem intimidating (with over 160 champions in the game) but it can be relatively simple when you group champions into buckets.
Assassins and burst mages tend to like short burst trades where they get in, use their abilities, and get out.
Long range mages like to continually poke their enemies whilst getting CS.
Marksmen and fighters, and other auto attack based champions tend to like extended trades, since they can deal consistent damage.
These are just some examples of the buckets, but as you play more and more you will understand the nuances of each champion, and even how different tune and item builds alter that. But this is a good starting point.when you understand what type of fights your champion likes to take, and what fights your opponent likes to take, you then have a good idea of what to look for and avoid, and what wave state is favourable to you.
Step 3: Consolidating Champion Mastery
Continue to pursue mastery over each champion in your pool. Tailor game plans to be more specific to each match up in your lane. Push your limits to test what you are capable of - test combos and maximise your mechanics. Try out different rune setups, item builds and summoner spells to get a feel for them in different situations.
For example, on Yone I’m going to be trying different runs set ups to be more burst damage focused (electrocute and the domination tree) in squishy matchups, and consistent damage runes (conquered and the precision tree) into tankier matchups.
I don’t have any concrete ways of testing these at the moment and that’s ok. This is one area where I think relying more on intuition and feel will be the way to go.
And that’s my plan for the next month or two! Good luck with your own prep for season 13, I hope you can take something from this yourselves. Stay tuned for more updates!