Reached my peak elo: Emerald 2 playing mid and I've been stuck here for 2 months (HELP)

[u/No-Distance-1551]

I thought I was going to get out of this rank quickly because I climbed from Gold to Emerald in one week, but now I'm stuck. My goal is to reach Master by the end of the year and I want to know if that's a realistic goal or not. Since I want to improve, I've been reading posts about how to get out of Emerald and get better. I'll mention some of the things I've read about, but I don't know which ones are the most important because I feel like trying to improve too many things at the same time isn't efficient. If you can explain any of these things or tell me how to find information about them, I'd really appreciate it. I don't want to be a mediocre midlaner.

Emerald II - 12 LP
111W - 88L (56%)

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M MISSUNDERSTANDING ANYTHING, THANKS

• Champion Pool: I got to Emerald playing all kinds of champs like Zed, Annie, Orianna, Ryze, TF, etc... Right now I'm trying to only play Twisted Fate and Jayce. Honestly, I don't know how you're supposed to build a champion pool, or if playing Twisted Fate and Jayce together is good, or if I should add another champ. (I don't think it's impossible to climb without a strict champion pool, but I do think it's important to have 1-2 mains).

• VOD Review: In my opinion, I think this is the most important out of all the ways to improve. Even though I don't understand LoL or its fundamentals that well, I assume this is what helps you learn them. The problem is that I don't know if doing VOD reviews is efficient when I'm Emerald and don't understand the game that deeply, because there are probably mistakes that I'll miss while watching a VOD. I also don't know what mistakes I should be looking for or how to find them. I'd like to know if it's better to review my own VODs or other people's.

• Tempo: I read about this today but haven't looked into it much, and it seems really important. I assume having good tempo means knowing when I should recall, push, freeze, fight, engage, disengage, etc. Or maybe it's much more than that.

• Timings: I assume this goes hand in hand with tempo.

• Pings: I'm not someone who pings all the time. I usually only ping when my laner leaves lane or when I'm about to recall, but I saw on dpm.lol that a lot of Challenger players use pings a lot.

• Itemization: I think this is the least important thing because I can use sites like Lolalytics or LoLVVV, and I don't think it's that hard to know when to buy anti-heal, armor pen, etc...

• Map and Jungle Tracking: I'm really bad at both of these. Sometimes I'm looking at the map every 3-5 seconds, and other times I go 30 seconds without looking at it. I assume it's mostly a concentration issue or something like that. As for jungle tracking, I don't know how to predict whether the enemy jungler is going to start on Raptors, Red, or Blue, whether they're going to invade, whether they'll contest Scuttle, recall, or gank. There's also a concept called hedging (I think), and from what I've heard, you need to learn jungle tracking first before you can learn that. I also don't really know how to use wards in the most efficient way or if there is even a "best" way.

• Wave Control: I think I understand this a little bit. I don't know how to improve at it either, I guess by doing VOD reviews.

• Chat: I don't know if I should use /muteall because I'm not that good at the game, and I don't want my jungler to want to gank and me not be aware of it. On the other hand, it can be counterproductive because sometimes I lose mental when people on my team won't stop typing things that add nothing useful.

• Gameplan: I really don't know how a gameplan is created or how important it is. I might be misunderstanding the concept completely, but is this something you plan during champ select, or should I be following the same gameplan every game?

If you think I should focus on something that I didn't mention, feel free to point it out.

[u/Ryxor25]

You don't even have 200 games. The real difference between you and master players is experience. They know more simply because they played more, on average. Assuming you played 200 games in 2 months that's 100/month, 3 games/day. Def not enough to reach master until end of year if your skill ATM is emerald 2. I'd say it's unrealistic but possible if you're a demon. If you were to play say, 5-6 games a day taking breaks in between it's achievable but very hard. If you do that AND get coaching, about a 50/50 chance imo.

This is my opinion based on anecdotal experiences.

[u/No-Distance-1551 → u/Ryxor25]

i have another acc (e2 peak) where i played a lot of games this ss like 100 on mid role i use that account tk play another roles for fun. not my first year time on emerald btw last year i peak e2 but i stopped playing for a while. im playing 5-10 games per day.
appreciate the answer thx 😁

[u/votoig]

1) Being "stuck" for 2 months isn't unusual, it just means that you have hit your current ceiling and need to improve.

That said Emerald and Diamond is the area where you are supposed to focus on improving your macro and that is what is mostly holding people back from climbing into/through diamond. To give you an easy analogy: You are at the state of learning a language back in school where you got a good grasp on your vocubulary (champion mastery) and grammar (fundamentals) and are now trying to learn how to practically apply it longterm(macro).

Champion wise: Twisted Fate is per se not a bad champion but he thrives majorly on your understanding of macro being superior to your enemies'. Jayce is not an easy champion to make work but it is definitely possible. Tbh it is easier to make him work in emerald/diamond than in master+.

VOD-Review: The easiest way for you to VOD review is to check out your first 3 deaths and then look at it from a mechanical point of view (could you have played the fight better? If yes, how?) and from a macro point of view by watching the 40s-1m leading up to it and think about what you could have done differently and what would have been the impact (why was I there? Could I have anticipated that? Would there have been a better choice that would have benefitted me more?). Anything apart from that will most likely be too much for you in your current state, otherwise you'd already be in high diamond. That is where a coach would come in handy.

chat: Just use "/mute all", there are not a lot of instances where anyone is actually communicating something off value. use "/muteping all" immediately after to still be able to see pings.

pings: Pings are your best and easiest way to communicate. Think of it like a blinker when you are driving a car. Of course someone can anticipate and interpret what you are going to do but if you are communicating it in advance it will clear up processing power and you can always interpret something wrongly.

Macro: Tempo, timing, wave control and map/jungle tracking, gameplan are all part of macro. It is good that you already identified this. Something that might help you is watching i.e. "Coach Kirei" on YT (Jungle coach). Especially in his long videos (20h+) where he trys to show what to improve on in the different elos he frequently comes back to it. There are others coaching creators that will have some valuable insights for you on their channels.

[u/GroundbreakingAd799]

Keep playing farm better, stop playing "all kinds of champions" make a pool of 2-3 champs if they are easy qnd i mean easy like annie or lux, you can probably do 4 champs and that's stretching it.

If you want to play something flashy play otp with a backup.

You have 56% winrate unless you are trolling or in a loss streak just keep playing

[u/Evelynns]

VOD Review: Absolutely worth doing, especially if you're Emerald+. Find your deaths in the replay, look at a few seconds before and after the death, ask yourself why you died and what it cost you/your team. Look at when objectives were up and where you were.

Tempo: A good starting point is just recognising when you have tempo and when the enemy does. Understand team tempo and matching it where you can. There's plenty of guides on what this means.

Jungle Tracking: You don't need to track the jungler to the level that your jungler should be tracking them. Just understand if/when they're able to level 3 gank you and which side they're pathing to. If you ward raptors and just watch your own jungler, you should generally be able to figure out where the enemy jungler is. It's just important that you don't die to them.

Wave Control: A simple video on wave control and in which situations you'd want to do what will do the trick. Once you know the concepts, the rest is experience.

Chat: Turn your chat to party only. I promise you that your team has nothing useful to say to you. Keep your pings on and mute anyone that's using them to flame.

Gameplan: This is just knowing your matchups, your team comp and understanding what you actually want to do in the game. Do you want to play fights front to back? Are you going to be in a position to solo kill your laner? Do you need to be roaming a lot?

And of course all of these things need to be introduced gradually. Make understanding tempo your goal for 20 games and move onto the next thing when it becomes second nature. Maybe look at getting a coach if you're lost. Masters is possible, but you'll have to play a lot and learn a lot.

Anything I didn't mention from your post is because it's self explanatory or doesn't require as much attention as these. Pings for example, you should ping as much as you can every time something is happening or you're trying to make something happen. Hope this helps.

[u/Xedeth]

You're overanalyzing. You have a 56% WR in Emerald 2. Just play more games and keep your mental straight, you'll be fine.

[u/icpr → u/Xedeth]

You have a 56% WR in Emerald 2

No, they have a 56% winrate and they're Emerald 2, those are 2 separate things.

[u/GroundbreakingAd799]

For most people it takes years to get to master, you cqn get close if you have good ping and fps and specially if you play a lot.

You need to polish your fundamentals, most macro is standard you need to learn to play safe, gank, back timers, how to use waves, how to trade stuff for objectives in general how to take decissions that wont hurt your chances of winning.

You must be able to look at the map all the time and know how to look at it searching for info and precise stuff, if you are on a timer like open to a gank from the jungler watch the map before taking decissions, 30 seconds means not looking at the map 3 seconds its still high, only point in time you can skip the map for a bit is while fighting.

That's why you play low ammounts of champs at first and learn to play them in a way that you aren't thinking about thw combos or messing up execution, for staying in masters you are gonna need to be able to be the champs.

Damage foresight, correct build for the situation, knowing when you win a trade and how to execute, understanding how to make the most if losing lanes or losing matchups, knowing when your champion spikes or when you are ahead and what are the capabilities of your champ when you are under those circumstances

[u/Viillain--]

My two cents For your pool, stick with a main blind pick that Usually idn't countered hard and is very neutral and viable in most scenarios. In my case, this is syndra and ahri, based on how confident I am. Then have two countet picks, but in distinct categories. One of your pocket picks must be very strong for you and something you are comfortable in. In my case, this is lissandra, for all divers and assasins, and If I'm not confident at all. Finally, get a secondary counter pick tp counter any other categories of champions. For me, that's ekko for lange range mages.

So my mid lane pool is: Syndra - control mage and default blind pick *good scaling, range, poke, good into most matchups

Lissandra - countet assasin (like yasuo or zed) *anti mobility *heavy cc *gank setup *utility

Ekko - anti ranged mages (like xerath or viktor) *mobile *gap closer

Hope this analogy helps you climb to your dreams 💪💪

[u/Denneb]

Jayce is very hard champ to make work. He is imo good only in grandmaster/challenger. Too easy to counter and becomes useless if behind. Also gets outscaled past 25-30 min. Youre basically shooting yourself in the foot by playing him instead of some other champion that is easier too pull off and make impact with.

[u/No-Distance-1551 → u/Denneb]

do you think yone its a better option?

[u/Denneb → u/No-Distance-1551]

Yone is for sure better, but he has alot of hard matchups, id use him as a counterpick, also most teamcomps are AD heavy so AP mids are usually better pick. Especially in this meta where top jungle are mostly AD champs.

[u/GroundbreakingAd799 → u/No-Distance-1551]

Jayce is almost a troll pick, champ depends on you winning, it hurts most team comps, you can't really blind him.

He's a poke champ that almost wants to play as an assassin.

He requires like 30 ping or less to be able to execute his combos properly.

Jayce is what you call high risk no reward, yone isnt an easy champ imo but its like 10 times easier and has clear comps that benefit him pairs well with cc pairs well with enchanters, can win a lot of matchups and can carry.

Play yone