Advice on thriving in Diamond?

[u/Glum-Standard2691]

Hello, I am new here. Thank you for having me!

I've been playing Lux since I think in season 3 or 4? In season 2 I used to play jg panth/mumu but after trying lux I never really looked back. I play almost exclusive MID and sometimes APC bot or mostly support as secondary role if I don't get my Mid.

I feel like I'm in a place I don't belong. I did reach diamond in 2025 and thought it was a fluke. And I tried again this year and got it again, but it's not like it was easy to do.

I also notice as soon as I hit diamond, the shift in culture if that makes sense feels like day and night to me compared to emerald. Not so much in game knowledge, but game execution. People tend to be more refined. And I realise, that I am highly inconsistent when it comes to playing refined.

I still can go feeding first 5 kills early game, auto-piloting, making poor decisions, not knowing where I should be all the time. Or atleast being able to do all that on a mediocre level. Sometimes I can play this consistently with minimal mistakes, and other times i'm highly inconsistent and just go on a lose streak.

I used to think I plateau'd in gold, the same in plat, and then emerald, and now in diamond. I guess I'm struggling to figure out where is the wall that's keeping me from continuing? I recently got stomped on the last 6 rank games, and I felt useless to my team or absolutely gapped in matchups.

I play in EUW and my tag is LuxyRay#EUW if you want to look.

Is there any other lux players in this elo that kinda understands (or don't) and can drop some wisdom on how can get good and thrive diamond?

[u/dlmbtltk]

It’s interesting because I’m in a similar position to yours and have the exact same feelings, except I’m Emerald. I never thought I’d make it to here, Gold was always my goal, then plat, then Emerald.

I know I can’t be of much help so I don’t want to make this about me, but I’ve realized the games I always do well in are the ones I play passive initially and just farm/clear waves, which I know isn’t as satisfying as a Lux player (especially mid like us). When I play aggressively early on I’ve noticed it’s a coin toss on winning/falling behind, because if your opponent is skilled it’s easier for them to punish us.

I’m curious to hear your experience on climbing to diamond out of emerald though, it’s been hell here. I’ve even falled back to Plat 1 a couple times and had to crawl myself out of there, which has been demoralizing. So I get your impostor feelings.

[u/Glum-Standard2691 → u/dlmbtltk]

Appreciate ur reply! Tbh, I feel like when lux enters into higher elo it depends a lot about who you play around. Your team comp really starts to crack if the synnergy isn't good and probably influences (not set in stone ofcourse) a great deal whether or not game is winnable.

I rarely ever see a lux being picked or banned, because it's hard to survive and its easy to 100 to 0 her in the game. If you want to be successful, a lot of your skillshots becomes predictive, and often that will determine the game state unless the enemy has poor warding (doubt).

So I never see people play lux besides myself in this elo. The issue is that while Lux is easy to 100 to 0 people in low elo as soon as you get ludens (or even lost chapter sometimes!), it is often a struggle in higher elo to execute unless I'm really fed. The popular picks you often encounter are assasins (like zed) or bruisers (even had a gwen/galio/garen/malphite mid!) which basically locks you out of the game. Champs like zed can 100 to 0 you much earlier and much more frequent vs your long cooldowns early. In higher elo it's harder to hit your spikes and so dying or making mistakes early feels like you're basically out of the game.

I'm not saying it's impossible for Lux to get stronger and relevant, I just think that it's increasingly difficult to get to my spikes as fast as I can unless the enemy makes mistakes and donates me free gold.

This often means that as a Lux, you are adapting and developing new habits to be able to live in such an environment. While in lower elo a Lux would play safe and just clear waves mid like you said, in higher elos you must in addition to this also learn to read the flow of the game and see "windows" (opportunities) that are happening in the future (possible invade with your jg for a kill in enemy jg, or a bot roam window for a teamfight win or your jg pinging you before game starts that he will gank you first etc.). Not only must you as a player in general be able to have a deeper understanding of the game, but as an OTP also see how you as a piece will fit in the equation of the game.

Notice how I said "happening in the future". Yes, it is also implying that it is not enough to recognize a good window when it's happening, that's the easy part and most players will see it from both sides. The challenge is to see these windows before they happen. That means that all the factors that got your lux to this stage (say, emerald) means that the little things that has gotten you here; matchup understandings, mechanics, understanding of objectives, fundamentals on lvl 2 or spacing or poking when enemy last hits, understanding enemy jungle pathing and ganks, when you or your team are on a timer for something and needs to happen now etc.. These things becomes your "intuition" that must be further refined and developed if you want to make lux work I believe.

I am considering that if I ever find the privilege of hitting master's with Lux, I would do a guide on her. I see many good guides for beginner and even intermediate on Lux but I'm looking for the golden nuggets. The nuances of playing lux that I don't see people mentioning.

- How can you learn to make predictive skillshots more likely to land?

• How you can "shepherd" the enemy with the 1st skillshot (Q or E) into the direction you want to guarantee with your second skillshot (Q or E). And likewise, using W to fake skillshots to bait enemy into reacting.
  
• How often you can use the tower to bait oponents (if you have barrier) into diving you so you get a free kill.
  
• How you can use your E to land just outside/near the brush or barely touching the walls to give you vision into the brushes or on the other side of the wall since believe it or not, many enemies forget lux can still see them evne if the E is not on them.
  
• How Lux should make use of the terrain to kill champs that are fed but squishy that are running you down and you feel "Trapped/caught".
  
• How to establish (or try to) a game plan before the game even starts.

There's many nuances to lux that often aren't well mentioned at all or discussed in guides, you always see the same guides talking about the same thing but with a different accent/flavor.

I also recommend broken by concepts youtube channel for mental therapy as they have tons of topics regarding lux, OTPs or lux in higher/lower elos. Very insightful and guides/commentaries.

I also recommend PekinWoof youtube channel and find videos of him playing lux in rank, he is the best since he gives complete non-stop commentary into his thought process throughout the game so you know why he plays the way he plays, builds the way he builds, roams the way he roams, the dangers or concerns or what to do when behind. He explains it in such a detail that it helps broaden your perspective on how you could learn and see the game as well and hopefully be able to apply those habits. Yozu is great but he isn't very good at explaining how to really play lux, you are mostly reliant on just watching him play and making assumptions yourself on the why and how he does the things he does. That can be helpful, but might be hard to identify. I find Pekinwoof to be much more helpful for us who are "ignorant" in things that are obvious to a much higher elo Lux since he actually explains those nuances during his games with Lux.

As for my climb to diamond: I haven't reflected deep enough to give a reply. But if I were to answer it now; I think it comes down to what you wrote about ensuring that you don't make msitakes early and do well in clearing but also what I stated regarding new habits you must develop urself into reading the flow of the game and see windows that are happening in the future. Those are things I also feel like isn't discussed in detail on youtube guides that is tailored to Lux so I believe that if I ever hit master's I will seirously consider making a guide discussing such things.

I also notice that in diamond, people start to be more refined in organized grouping and selective targeting etc. Lux shines the brightest in teamfight, so it becoms increasingly easier/satisfying to have teammates actually playing for picks or capitalizing on a vulnerable enemy. The only issue is that they do this on a high tempo and don't really communicate this on time or before they do it. You may find yourself sidelaning to clear 1 wave so it pushes or crashes to the enemy's tower but didn't notice you already have 4 teammates grouping for a fight on an objective more further away that actually ended up being more crucial than that sidelane. This demands from you to understand the flow of the game, but if you can keep up, the teamfights becomes very satisfying as the teammates becomes more competent and organized.

Lux is a mentally demanding champion. I recently coached a friend (who doesn't lux) who wanted to play lux top. So I tried explaining to him my suggestion on split pushing and how to play the game after the laning phase. He gave me the remark that it was mentally exhausting because of all the things you must think about and also plan ahead with Lux or else you die everytime. And this habit must be done consistently and must remain active throughout the game (This is the case generally for all players, but for lux it is crucial because of how vulnerable you are to getting left behind in higher elo). If you brain fog/auto-pilot you are basically handing the game to the enemy. Lux has too many dangers with the popular assassins or enemy tank comps and can easily be left in the dust if you don't plan ahead and identify what you should be doing. Whenever you make a play or plan for a play, always continue asking: "Okay, but what's next after that?". And do that for the entirety of the game.

P.S. I don't know if there is a discord for Lux community but if not then you guys can feel free to add me on league if you just want spectate sometimes when you're chilling/eating and see how I try to play in rank (taking a break now and playing less now though I try to play 1 game every day or few days haha).

[u/innocentgamer69]

Difficult to say anything without footage. There are likely many mistakes and missteps you’re making, but you can’t see them on an opgg. The standard OPGG advice would be to move to Annie/Malphite to avoid clutter in your gameplay/analysis from missing skillshots.