How to Get Back Into League After a Hiatus Break

Summer break is a time for outdoor fun. Classes are on break, the weather is great, and everyone is outside having a blast. Meanwhile, gamers are absolutely overwhelmed by these last few months with the release of Overwatch, Pokemon Go, and finally, the upcoming Legion expansion on World of Warcraft.

If you fit into one of the categories above, you might find yourself sitting around thinking, "hmm...it's been a while since I last played League seriously (ARAM doesn't count)".

If this is the case, perhaps it is time to get back on to the League grind. How do we start?

Introduction

Summer break is a time for outdoor fun. Classes are on break, the weather is great, and everyone is outside having a blast. Meanwhile, gamers are absolutely overwhelmed by these last few months with the release of Overwatch, Pokemon Go, and finally, the upcoming Legion expansion on World of Warcraft.

If you fit into one of the categories above, you might find yourself sitting around thinking, "hmm...it's been a while since I last played League seriously (ARAM doesn't count)".

If this is the case, perhaps it is time to get back on to the League grind. How do we start?

Step 1: Check out the new changes

Depending on how long since your last game, many things could have changed. Here are a few key changes from recent patches.

• Dragon changed to multiple species, and each species gives a unique buff.
• Cloud Dragon used to be lame and useless, now it is actually fairly strong.
• Ryze can teleport multiple teammates to a target location after a short delay...that's right he got ANOTHER rework.
• The first tower to go down grants bonus gold to teammates.
• New pings allow you to communicate jungle and other major cooldown timers. Just ping them the way you normally do; you can just click the jungle timers.
• Sona is kinda broken now.

Step 2: Figure Out Which One of Your Champions Is Still Good

Are you a one-trick pony? If that is the case, then your answer is simple, just keep playing that one champion. On the other hand, if you have a large champion pool, then head on over to either:

1. The division climber tier list to see what I think is best;
2. The FOTM Tier List to see what everyone else thinks is best; or
3. Go check out some statistic sites like champion.GG and do your own analyses.

Step 3: Refamiliarize Yourself With Controls

If you were playing at the top of your class when you last left the game, I hate to break it to you, but there are likely some flakes of rust around your gameplay.

When it comes to playing other games, many have the similar controls. However, just as many games have similar, but slightly different controls. It may take some time readjust your split-second timings to the correct keys. Hopefully, it will come back to you just like riding a bike.

Step 4: Practice

If you need to learn a few new champions or figure out what kind of strategies enemies are now using, maybe you can play a few normal games or hop on a smurf if you like the competitive aspect. Either way, give it a few games to flow back into the groove. Every loss you get takes two wins to get back up to where you could have been.

Step 5: Hit That Ranked Grind

After you do the above, it's time to hit that ranked grind for that sweet sweet LP.....

Did you come back recently after a long break? How long did it take you to get back into fighting form? Comment below!