I coach League of Legends players who spend most of their time in solo queue, usually working with people between Silver and Diamond who feel stuck despite playing several games a day. I focus heavily on VOD review, lane decisions, champion habits, and the small mistakes that quietly turn manageable games into difficult ones. Most players who contact me already understand their champion and know what objectives do. What they usually need is someone to identify why the same problems keep showing up.
I Start With Decisions, Not Mechanics
One of the first things I learned from coaching was that mechanics are easy to blame because they are visible. A player misses a skill shot, loses a trade, or fails a flash combo, and the mistake is obvious on the screen. The larger problem often happened 20 seconds earlier when that player walked into the wrong position or took a fight with an unfavorable wave. That is where I usually start.
I recently worked with a mid laner who kept describing his problem as weak laning mechanics. During two replay reviews, I noticed that his bigger issue was recalling at awkward times and returning to lane after losing a full wave. By the 10-minute mark, he was regularly behind despite trading reasonably well. Fixing his recall timing helped far more than spending another week practicing combos.
I normally pause a replay before the mistake becomes obvious. I ask what information was available at that exact moment, such as the enemy jungler’s last known position, the next wave, current cooldowns, and the number of nearby teammates. The player has to make the decision again without knowing what happens five seconds later. That exercise exposes habits very quickly.
Good coaching should make decisions simpler. I do not want a player remembering 40 separate rules while trying to lane against an aggressive opponent. I would rather give someone two clear priorities they can actually follow for the next five games. Small changes are easier to test.
How I Structure a Useful Coaching Session
I rarely spend an entire session watching one long replay from start to finish. A typical session works better when I review selected moments, stop frequently, and compare the player’s intended decision with what actually happened. In a 45-minute review, we might spend ten minutes discussing only the first few waves if those waves reveal a repeated problem. The amount of game time covered matters less than the quality of the discussion.
Players also benefit from seeing how different coaching formats approach the same problems. I have had players look at League Coaching when they wanted a structured service focused specifically on improving their League of Legends play. I tell them to judge any coaching resource by how clearly it turns criticism into something they can practice in their next games. A long list of mistakes is much less useful than two or three specific adjustments.
During my own sessions, I keep notes short enough that the player will actually read them later. I may write something such as, “Do not contest river before pushing the wave,” rather than filling a page with theory about priority. Then I ask the player to apply that single idea for three games. At the next review, we can see whether the habit changed.
I also separate mistakes by importance. Dying while trying an unnecessary mechanical play is annoying, but repeatedly arriving 15 seconds late to an objective can affect several players at once. I want the student to know which error deserves attention first. That prevents practice from becoming scattered.
I Watch for Patterns Across Several Games
One bad game tells me very little. League has enough variation that a strange matchup, early invade, or unusual team composition can make a normally sensible decision look terrible. I prefer reviewing at least two games before deciding that something is a genuine habit. If the same issue appears three or four times, I start treating it as part of the player’s normal decision-making.
A top laner I coached last winter believed he struggled mainly because his teams ignored his split pushes. After several reviews, I noticed he was often pushing beyond the river without tracking more than one enemy player. He would die, lose pressure, and then feel frustrated that his teammates had not gained anything elsewhere. The problem was not split pushing itself but the timing and information behind it.
I asked him to use a simple rule for the next group of games. Before crossing the river, he needed to account for at least three enemy champions or have a clear reason for accepting the risk. It was not a permanent rule, because experienced players eventually need more flexibility. For practice, though, that restriction made his decision-making easier to observe.
This kind of pattern work matters because ranked players often remember spectacular moments more clearly than ordinary ones. They remember the missed smite or the teammate who went 2 and 11, while forgetting the five smaller choices that reduced their own options. I try to redirect attention toward repeatable decisions. Those decisions are usually where improvement becomes measurable.
Champion Pool Problems Show Up More Than Players Expect
I have coached players who rotate through seven or eight champions in a single week and then wonder why every matchup feels slightly unfamiliar. Playing many champions can be enjoyable, and there is nothing wrong with that if variety is the goal. For someone focused on climbing, I usually suggest a smaller pool. Three champions is enough for most players I work with.
A limited pool gives me cleaner information during reviews. If a player uses the same champion across five games, I can compare wave control, trading, recalls, and map movement without constantly adjusting for a completely different kit. The player also spends less mental energy remembering basic ranges and cooldown interactions. That leaves more attention for the map.
I do not force people onto champions they dislike. That rarely lasts. Instead, I look for a primary champion the player already enjoys, one reliable alternative, and sometimes a third option for difficult drafts or bans. The exact setup depends on the role.
Support players may need more flexibility than a one-trick top laner, while an ADC player can often benefit from learning how different attack ranges change lane spacing. Even then, I prefer deliberate variety over random switching. Playing six champions badly does not solve a problem that comes from avoiding one uncomfortable matchup. Repetition reveals weaknesses faster.
Ranked Improvement Needs a Practice Goal
One of the easiest ways to waste ranked games is to queue with no practice target. A player loses, immediately queues again, and hopes the next lobby will feel better. After four games, frustration increases but very little has been learned. I would rather see someone enter the session with one specific goal.
For a jungler, that goal might be checking lane states before starting the second clear. For a mid laner, it could be avoiding unnecessary trades during the 30 seconds before an important objective. An ADC might focus on keeping deaths below two while maintaining reasonable farm. The practice target should be narrow enough to remember during a stressful game.
I sometimes ask students to play only three focused games instead of grinding eight unfocused ones. After each game, they write one sentence about whether they followed the assigned habit. They do not need a detailed journal or complicated tracking system. The purpose is simply to connect the game they played with the skill they were supposed to practice.
Ranked points can make this uncomfortable. A player may make better decisions for several games and still lose LP because the results do not immediately follow the improvement. I remind students that short streaks are noisy. I care more about whether the targeted mistake is disappearing from the replay.
What I Want a Player to Notice Without Me
My goal is not to make someone dependent on coaching. If a student needs me to explain every death after six sessions, I have probably failed to teach the review process clearly enough. I want players to become capable of pausing their own replay and asking better questions. That skill continues working long after a session ends.
I usually teach them to examine the minute before an important mistake. Looking only at the death often produces a shallow answer such as, “I should have dodged the hook.” Looking earlier may reveal that the player stayed for an extra wave with 900 gold, had no ward, and knew the enemy support was missing. The missed dodge was only the final event.
That shift changes how players talk about their games. Instead of saying, “There was nothing I could do,” they start identifying the point where their options became limited. Sometimes the correct answer really is that a situation was nearly impossible. More often, there was an earlier decision that made it much harder than necessary.
I still enjoy seeing a player climb a full division, but the rank change is not the part of coaching I find most useful. The better moment is hearing someone explain their own mistake before I have to pause the replay. Once a player can recognize why a decision failed and describe what they will try differently in the next three games, the coaching has started doing its job.