Gaining Elo 101: Akali is a Great Champion to Learn The Game On

If there’s one thing that all League of Legends players absolutely love, it’s ELO. We all want to be the envy of our friends, to brag about how Summoner’s Rift is our stomping grounds. With this series, I will try to lay out some basics to navigating your way through the depths of the dreaded “Elo Hell.”  

My first suggestion regarding this topic is to pick up and begin to love the champion of Akali. This may seem like a somewhat unorthodox pick, but she is, in my opinion, the perfect champion to learn the game on. While winning is the goal of each game obviously, you should pride yourself on learning from each match you play instead of just focusing solely on the outcome. What I mean by that is you should not only strive to win and be glad when you do, but know why you won. 

While playing and learning Akali, you are forced on the disadvantage in many games during laning phase.

This is an excellent thing when you’re trying to get better at the game. When learning Akali, you are not only learning a powerful assassin, but forced to adapt and gain knowledge of every champion you face, even moreso than when playing other champions. 

In League of Legends, there is a choice in every situation, and it’s these choices that decide the outcome of the game. What separates players in skill level is how quickly and intelligently they make these choices. A good player will be able to instantly analyze whether or not they can initiate a fight, or if backing off is a good idea (taking into account ultimates readied, levels of everyone involved, feed of everyone involved, red/blue buffs, et cetera).

On some champions, these decisions can be more difficult to quickly analyze, and therefore learn. Akali is, perhaps, the easiest champion to learn how to make quick and quality decisions on. During the laning phase of each game, as previously mentioned, you’re forced to learn the ins and outs of minimizing the dominance of every opposing mid lane champion you face; by the time you reach level 6, it’s easy to tell whether or not you can pull the trigger in any situation.

Her combo is easy to pull off, and she is the best champion in the game at capitalizing off of enemy mistakes. If an enemy Lux uses her Q on minions or misses an attempt on you (something an experienced player wouldn’t do, keep in mind, but this is about gaining elo at lower levels of play) it’s an easy decision even for a novice of the game to instantly pull the trigger and decimate Lux while her defenses are down. 

Unfortunately, I had a love affair with Lux my entire time leveling and during my trials through bronze elo.

She is the longest range champion in the game, and I wasn’t forced to learn how to trade, how to adapt to opponents, and how to take over a game on a champion like that. Once I began playing and loving Akali, it began to show significant improvement on my play across my entire champion pool.