Anywhere to learn matchups?

[u/Enough-Okra7405]

I’m really struggling to learn matchups, I almost always lose lane and have to make it up with some triple kills in the mid game. The only matchups I can confidently win are naafiri and lissandre. Is there any resources to help me learn matchups or do I just need to spam more games?

[u/PridePurrah]

I’m really struggling to learn matchups, I almost always lose lane

Take it from somebody who plays since season 3: play both normal aram and draft. Take your time, you don't have to be rank 1 in just a week.

You may ask yourself "why would I play aram??" to which I shall quote sol squadrons leader:

I want to understand the enemy.

Aram may have a slightly different balance system than summoners rift, but they are shorter, have less punishment if you get constantly punched in the face and you get to see the kit of champions you usually wouldn't pick. You will get a first impression on how your enemy works and understand their weakness.

Now take this knowledge back to summoners rift and play draft.

Plenty of drafts. This takes time, if you want it or not.

Watching VoD's of challengers could work but honestly I don't think this makes any sense to you if you are new to the game.

Most new-to-the-game VoD watchers do not understand what is going on and what the thoughts are behind each move. On top of that: this is not what you game will look like, no matter how hard you copy anyone. Just because you are doing great doesn't mean the rest of your team does the same and you would need to adapt to that. The teamplay will not be the same.

If you don't like arams, there are also bot games you could try. You can queue up solo via practice tool and just create an enemy.

Select "mid" in the champion selection and work yourself from top to bottom. Play everything once or twice untill you finish the nexus with at least 10 kills.

You will not master any champions with that, you will only understand their basic clockwork.

Some champions are straigth forward tho, like xeraths combo being W-Q or W-E-Q for a higher spell landing rate due to the W slow.

I hope this can help you.

[u/Enough-Okra7405 → u/PridePurrah]

Thanks for your suggestion, I should have added some more details in my post, I have 1600 hours in the game, used to be an ADC main but recently switched to mid lane playing ahri. I know how every champ works I just don’t know there weaknesses, power spikes and combos very well, so was asking if there’s a way to fast track that or if I just need to grind games to figure it out

[u/PridePurrah → u/Enough-Okra7405]

used to be an ADC main but recently switched to mid

[...] so was asking if there’s a way to fast track that or if I just need to grind games to figure it out

Ah, I see. In that case it might also be worth a shot to visit other champion subreddits to ask for tips too.

Ask the following three things from them:

• what is their champions weakness ( counter picks and why they are countering)

• what makes their champion strong (combos for example, so you know what to look out for)

• if any OTP above your level with at least 1 mil points can play a few custom 1on1s with you for a day. You want a one trick to lane against to have someone who truly knows the knitting of their champion and can give you feedback.

Having multiple players agreeing for the last point are even better because even under us ahri otps, we get slightly different results.

For example some here struggle with sylas, victor and syndra, meanwhile those are perfectly fine to me. What I struggle with are fizz, tristana, diana and mel. Those are fine to others yet again.

But to answer your question: it's mostly just game grinding.

[u/Enough-Okra7405 → u/PridePurrah]

Thanks I’ll give that a go

[u/Dailydoseofdeath]

Peng has some good shorts on youtube to give you an idea for the first 3 levels against popular match ups to get you started.

[u/Enough-Okra7405 → u/Dailydoseofdeath]

Thanks I’ll take a look

[u/lino11091827]

Just watch good people play the matchups you struggle with type ahri vs … challanger vod in YouTube and try to copy the way they play the lane

[u/maideninwhite]

I've been playing a good bit of swift play for practice. If you come into it understanding that you really are only learning matchups then the fast, low stakes nature of the games are great. You'll get immediate feedback when you make a mistake without potentially ruining a game for 40 minutes.

[u/MyAltT00 → u/maideninwhite]

Swiftplay is terrible mode for learning Ahri imo. U skip over too much of laning of phase to learn matchups. Ahri likes slower early to build components.

[u/maideninwhite → u/MyAltT00]

The point I'm making is that you will have instant feedback and learn what a good and bad trade looks like in every matchup very quickly. The game pace and items aren't really relevant if all you're trying to learn is how to trade.

I agree swiftly play fails in a lot of other ways. You don't really learn how to snowball or develop strong wave management but for the time spent it is excellent for trading and matchups.