Why YOU SUCK at MID LANE (And How To Fix It) - League of Legends

Summary

This comprehensive guide reveals why most players struggle at the mid lane in League of Legends and offers actionable steps to improve. Mid lane is one of the most skill-expressive roles, and subtle mistakes can impede consistent performance. The focus is on understanding and utilizing action timers, gaining more from spells, and knowing when to assist teammates or prioritize personal growth. Mastering these aspects can significantly elevate mid lane gameplay, making players more competent than the majority of the LoL community.

Highlights

• Recognize the significance of action timers in trading effectively. ⏳
• Avoid the trap of assisting teammates at the cost of your own lane. 🚫
• Skill shot accuracy is less about mechanics and more about timing. 🎯
• Manage resources better by playing around them strategically. 💡
• Achieving control in mid requires understanding spell value and timing. 🧙‍♂️

Key Takeaways

• Master action timers to dominate mid lane trades. ⏱️
• Understand the importance of resource management in lane. 🧠
• Prioritize personal lane growth over helping teammates prematurely. 🛡️
• Be aware of your character’s strengths and play around them. 🚀
• Grasp the fundamentals to ascend beyond 85% of players. 🌟

Overview

Struggling with mid lane in League? You're probably missing out on some core principles that could easily boost your gameplay. From action timers to resource management, understanding these concepts is crucial for a dominating performance. It's not just about landing skill shots but knowing when and how to utilize them in the heat of battle.

Many players prioritize helping teammates prematurely, which can lead to unsustainable leads in their own lane. Mid is about self-growth first; the ability to rotate and help others will naturally follow once your lane prowess is solidified. This self-centric approach ensures stability and consistent performance.

Furthermore, knowing the right resources and strengths of your character significantly impacts your potential. Whether it's timing your actions or embracing your champ's unique abilities, focusing on these elements can set you above most players. Utilize these strategies, and your mid-lane game will transform.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Mid Lane Struggles The chapter 'Introduction to Mid Lane Struggles' is designed to help players improve their skills in the mid lane position of the game. It acknowledges that mid lane is one of the most mechanically and skill-intensive roles. The chapter focuses on identifying and correcting subtle mistakes that players frequently make, which hinder their ability to win lanes consistently. By addressing these common errors, especially among low elo players, the chapter aims to guide players toward more successful mid lane strategies.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Importance of Spell Utilization The chapter 'Importance of Spell Utilization' addresses the common issue of inconsistent results in gameplay, particularly regarding skillshot accuracy in champions like Syndra, Oriana, and Lux. It suggests that the main reason players struggle with this is a lack of value derived from their spells. The chapter advises that improving performance starts with changing one's perspective of the laning phase, implying that mindset and approach are crucial in enhancing skillshot accuracy and building consistent leads.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Action Timer Concept The chapter introduces the concept of treating the mid lane in a game like a turn-based system based on action timers. It discusses the importance of considering each action, like trading or hitting a minion, as a critical decision point. Players must decide whether to engage, execute an auto attack, or potentially concede if the risk is too high. The focus is on the timing and strategic decision-making necessary during each 'action', emphasizing the consequences of failing to act appropriately.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Mistake Analysis: Xerath vs Ahri In the chapter titled 'Mistake Analysis: Xerath vs Ahri,' the focus is on understanding the importance of last-hitting minions in League of Legends. The narrative explains that many players often overlook the significance of last-hitting, treating it as a mere formality. However, the text elaborates that mastering the art of last-hitting goes beyond securing gold; it requires understanding action timers and leveraging turn-based trading. These elements form the fundamental strategy in the laning phase, preventing the game from devolving into a simple skill shot contest.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Level Advantage Mismanagement The chapter titled 'Level Advantage Mismanagement' discusses the importance of understanding and utilizing level advantages during the midlane phase in games, particularly in skillshot-heavy matchups. It highlights that many players in lower ranks, specifically those in platinum and below, often neglect this critical aspect, which could substantially improve their laning phase. The chapter aims to provide insights that would help players in these ranks to enhance their performance and gain an edge over the majority, as these ranks constitute 85% of the entire player base.
• 06:00 - 08:00: Mid Lane Resource Management The chapter on 'Mid Lane Resource Management' focuses on the early stage of a mid-lane match-up, involving Zerith and Ari. It highlights the importance of not making the first move hastily. Zerith makes an early mistake by using up his Q skill when there was no pressure on Ari. Ari, on the other hand, is in a position where she can decide her approach freely - either dodge, engage, or reposition, as her cooldowns are still available and no minion is at risk. This scene exemplifies how retaining flexibility and making informed decisions can be crucial for lane dominance, especially at this skill level.
• 08:00 - 12:00: Prioritizing Self over Team The chapter 'Prioritizing Self over Team' describes a situation within a game where a character named Zerith makes a mistake by missing a crucial skill shot, placing himself in a disadvantage. This creates an opportunity for another character, Ari, to take advantage of Zerith's vulnerability. However, Ari fails to capitalize on this chance as she does nothing, choosing not to act at a critical moment. The narrative highlights the idea that some actions are more imperative than others in gaming and possibly broader contexts, emphasizing the complexities of decision-making and the impact of individual priorities over team effort.
• 12:00 - 16:00: Understanding Important Resources to Exploit This chapter discusses the strategic importance of understanding and exploiting resources in competitive scenarios. It highlights the differences in an opponent's behavior in response to different types of opportunities, such as last-hitting various minion types (caster versus cannon). The chapter emphasizes the significance of paying attention to these differences to gain advantage. The provided example illustrates a character named Ari's tactic of balancing auto attacks among multiple minions, likening the loss of these minions to missing a cannon minion, indicating the importance of opportunistic resource management in gameplay.
• 16:00 - 19:30: Zed vs Vel'Koz Case Study In the 'Zed vs Vel'Koz Case Study' chapter, Zerith attempts to predict an opponent's actions but makes a series of mistakes in judgment. Instead of attacking where the opponent currently is, he positions himself where he thinks the opponent will attack next. This decision leads to a poorly timed action, missing an opportunity to successfully utilize his abilities against the opponent whose options were limited. The situation further deteriorates when another chance arises for Zerith to capitalize on the advantage of having his ability ready while the opponent's was not, but he fails to execute effectively. The narrative highlights the strategic errors in decision-making within the context of a high-stakes in-game scenario.
• 19:30 - 20:30: Conclusion and Skill Cap Promotion In the concluding chapter, we observe a pivotal moment where Zerith attempts to show promise by aiming a skill at the appropriate moment while Ari is executing a last hit. Despite the timing being accurate, Zerith misses the mark. However, this is not considered a mistake as the decision to act was strategically sound, proving his burgeoning skill set.

Why YOU SUCK at MID LANE (And How To Fix It) - League of Legends Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 All right, guys. In this guide, you're going to learn exactly why you suck at mid lane and the simple steps that you need to take to fix it. With mid being one of the most mechanically and skill expressive roles out of all five of them, it can often be really easy to miss some of those subtle mistakes that you're making, which are the reason why you continue to struggle to win lane consistently. So, in this guide, we're going to be taking a look at these easy to miss mistakes that most low elo players make and how to easily avoid them. From our years of teaching low elo midlaners, we've come to realize that
• 00:30 - 01:00 one of the biggest reasons why almost everyone sucks at getting consistent results is simply because they don't get value out of their spells. This is especially true when reviewing players on skillshot based champions like Syndra, Oriana, Lux, and so on. If you feel like you have extremely poor skill shot accuracy in lane or that you generally just can't build consistent leads, then listen up here. This problem is almost always resolved by completely changing your perspective. That's right, I said your perspective of the laning phase before you ever start thinking
• 01:00 - 01:30 about your specific matchup, your game plan, your jungler interface, or really anything of the sort, you need to treat mid as a turnbased lane on an action timerbased system. So, here's a quick snippet from the laning part of our new midlane essentials course to explain why. For our purposes, an action is a time where you or your opponent have to trade, hit a minion with an auto attack or ability, or ultimately concede if the trade or last hit looks too risky to go for. Basically, an action is anytime that you have to input an auto attack or ability, or else you'll get punished for
• 01:30 - 02:00 it. Either it be losing out on CS or losing a trade. Most players just accept last hitting as a given without putting much thought into it. After all, the first thing you learned when playing League is that you need to CS. But think about it. If we weren't required to last hit minions for gold, every laning phase would pretty much just be a 1v one skill shot contest like Mundo Dodgeball. That's why you need to understand action timers and how to play around them. Actions or turn-based trading are the foundation for almost every single
• 02:00 - 02:30 midlane trade. And yet, when we watch low ELO, it almost seems like no one even tries to consider this during the laning phase. To show you what we mean, we're going to be reviewing a skillshot heavy matchup here between two platinum elo midlaners. Now, as a quick note, do keep in mind that players platinum and below account for 85% of the whole rank population. So, by following what we're about to teach you here, your laning is going to immediately be better than the vast majority of players. Anyway, let's get into the lane we're reviewing here. We're going to be keeping track of how
• 02:30 - 03:00 many times both players mess up so you can get a good idea of how dominant you could be in this ELO if you just learn this concept. The lane begins and Zerith immediately readies up his Q. This is mistake number one. Take a look at the lane through Ari's perspective. She isn't forced into any specific action right now. There's no low minions and she still has her cool down up. Technically, Ari is free to do literally anything she wants right now. She could kite up, down, left, or she could even go straight into Zerith and try and fight back because she's not in the
• 03:00 - 03:30 middle of a forced action. It's literally exactly what our course described, a game of Mundo dodgeball in which Zerith missed his random skill shot. And now the situation turns with Zerith down a spell and being forced into an action to last hit. Right now, it's a perfect time for Ari to punish. So, she AFKs and well, does nothing. We all know this story. Great. Ari is clearly feeling generous and does something even worse than this, though. One thing to understand is that certain actions are more forced than other
• 03:30 - 04:00 actions. For example, there's a difference between when an opponent has to last hit a caster minion versus a cannon. During a caster last hit, they are much more willing to give it up to potentially dodge your spell. Now, on the other hand, during a cannon, they are far more likely to commit to last hitting it. Think about that as you pay attention to what Ari just did. She alternated auto attacks between all three melees, so they all got low at about the same time. If she were to lose all three, that'd be the equivalent of missing a cannon minion. So, she's forced herself to line up her queue so
• 04:00 - 04:30 she can last hit them all at the same time. Seeing that happen, Zerith's immediate instinct is not to queue her while she'll predictably stand, but instead he walks over to stand exactly where she's obviously going to queue. Now, I'm thinking it's pretty fair to add five to our mistakes counter for how insane that sequence of events was. It's ridiculous. Next, both of them are forced into an action to last hit a minion at the exact same time. However, Zerith has Q, whereas Ari's Q is still down. He had the advantage and could queue both. Another mistake to add to
• 04:30 - 05:00 the list. And moments later, Zerith finally shows some promise and looks to Q during Ari's last hit, but unfortunately misses. Now, we're not going to count that as a mistake, as it was actually the right thing to do. Ari on the other hand knows that Zerith's Q is now down and he has to last hit and she does nothing again. Our next few mistakes are a little bit more nuanced, but if you've been able to follow along so far, you should be able to understand how what both players are about to do makes absolutely zero sense. As the
• 05:00 - 05:30 second wave arrives, Zerith wants to fight for level two, so he cues these caster minions here. The mistake by Ari here is once again not thinking of the lane holistically and instead looking at it as an isolated skill shot game. Think about it. If she simply stood still outside her wave and she didn't even try to dodge. Zerith now has two choices. If he cues her, she has an even bigger advantage in the level two race. Not only that, but Zerith would now have a forced action to try to last hit these two caster minions only with auto
• 05:30 - 06:00 attacks. It would be very easy to deny or punish that timer. Now, let's discuss what actually happens if Zerith went for option two, which was to cue the minions. So, the problem with this particular cue by Zerith is that it doesn't change his problem. He's still behind on the race to level two. Ari's going to kill the melee first, leveling up, and then Zerith is going to be forced to auto attack this melee, giving her a timer to punish with a two ability advantage. And she throws that away and cues the wave instead. Funny thing is,
• 06:00 - 06:30 she still has an advantage because Ari can last hit with her W and trade at the same time. So since both these minions are getting equally low, she can harass Zerith as he's forced to last hit again. Once again, Ari does nothing. Okay, so at this point, we should all be thinking it is abundantly clear just how little players think about action requirements during the lane phase. Neither side played around these timers at all, except maybe one time by the Zerith. We literally could not go 5 seconds without either of them making a mistake to break
• 06:30 - 07:00 down in this video. This is why most low elo midlaners really do suck and are so inconsistent in their laning. Listen, and I know that word is a little bit harsh, but I'm talking about myself here. You're playing the skillshotbased role. You absolutely need to play around these action timers or you're going to look exactly like this Ahri and Zerith do every single game. You can tell that they just throw their spells randomly without much thought put into it. And it's not about your mechanics that are bad. Your biggest issue is 100% the timing for how you actually go about
• 07:00 - 07:30 your trades. This is the foundation for trading in mid lane. If you want to genuinely improve and instantly become better than over 85% of the rank population, then you need to sign up to Skill Cap and check out our mid essentials course. There we go deeper into how to properly understand forced actions in mid to completely dominate every lane phase. Not only do we cover laning, but we also cover everything else that you need to succeed as a mid laner. And if you want to see these concepts in action, then you could check out our completely educational Smurf
• 07:30 - 08:00 commentaries that show you how to carry in your ELO on your main champions. It's pretty amazing. We're so confident in these courses that we offer a five division rankup guarantee. And if you don't improve while actively using Skill Cap, we just give you your money back. So, if you genuinely want to improve, click on the discount link below and sign up today. Let's move on to our next big mistake. So, to understand this, we first need a little context for the game that we're about to go into here. Again, we're looking at a platinum ELO game between a Leblanc and a Huay, who is
• 08:00 - 08:30 about to do something you should all be familiar with, myself included. Throughout the earlier levels of this lane, all Hui does is uses QE on the wave over and over and over again. We have all played against this type of Haye before. They don't want to try to lane versus you. They just want to spam shove over and over and over again. But the really nice thing about this game in particular is that Leblanc actually punished him for it because Hoy barely tried to interact with her. She got some good trades off and eventually managed to kill him. Leblanc now has a great
• 08:30 - 09:00 lead coming back to lane with two ampeds to just a tier of the goddess. Needless to say, she should have a huge advantage during trades right now. Which brings us to a huge mistake a ton of midlaners don't realize that they're making. After another great trade by Leblanc, the lane it's going swimmingly. She then clears the remaining wave at the tower, but this is where the downfall really begins. As a mid laner, it is an extremely important concept to always try to be on the wave first. This is true at level one, but even more so later into the game. It's especially
• 09:00 - 09:30 important starting at level five, as you're about to see. After clearing the wave, it is imperative that Leblanc walks forward with her minions here to contest the next wave. Instead, she goes to place a random ward, which she doesn't need right now. And as a result, we gets first contact with the wave and does his usual QE. Okay, skill cap. Who cares about that though, right? You need to remember that one of the most important break points for most midlaners happens at level five. This is the point where two cast of your main spell on the back line kills the
• 09:30 - 10:00 casters. The problem with what Leblanc just did is she gave Hui an easy out by pressing Q. Even if Leblanc runs right at Hoay right now, he can just kite backwards a bit and wait for his Q to come back up. Then when it's ready, he walks forward, Q Ease again, and destroys the rest of the wave. Even if Leblanc tries to trade with him, she'd be forced back by all the minions still alive. Hoy could then just base or roam or whatever, depending on how that trade went. We see a similar dynamic in the actual game. After his Q, Leblanc tries to run at Hoy, but he kites backwards
• 10:00 - 10:30 for a bit, waiting for his cool down. Now, there is a Blitzcrank gank that goes on as well, but we're just going to ignore that for right now. As you can see, with his Q back up, we can just walk up and kill the rest of the wave instantly. Leblanc missed that opportunity to trade because she gave him that initial QE cast for absolutely no reason. On the next wave, Leblanc makes a similar mistake. She should be forward ready to attack way for using spells on minions. Instead, since she's so far back, Hua gets to QE the wave again. We see the same issue once again.
• 10:30 - 11:00 Leblanc hits level six first and obviously wants to all in with her advantage. But Hoe just kites backwards while his Q comes off cooldown. Then when it's back up, he walks forward to QE again. You can see just how much Leblanc is struggling to interact with him here. Hoy missed the caster minions with his previous QE. So he walks forward to finish off with Q. LeBlanc is clearly tilting here because she cannot interact with him. So she desperately goes for a very forced all-in. Needless to say, it doesn't end all too well for her. And just like that, she threw the
• 11:00 - 11:30 biggest lead she got in the first place. You absolutely cannot allow your opponents to get first contact with the wave for free, especially starting at level 5. You're basically handing them priority. You're making trading impossible for yourself, and it just makes the lane feel absolutely unplayable if you allow them to clear that wave like Huay did in this game. While most low elo midlaners don't care enough about not letting their opponent get first hit on the wave, they do care way too much about helping their own teammates instead. Probably one of the most common issues that we notice from mid laners is trying to help their team
• 11:30 - 12:00 way more often than they really should. And now a reason for that mentality is because everyone's always saying that mid's biggest strength in the game is their ability to impact the entire map. And while that is true that mid is the center of the map and can easily rotate anywhere they want, it doesn't mean this is the most important thing you should be doing. This is mostly a huge mentality issue. It's a thought process where players just prioritize others over themselves too often. And it is primarily a mid-lane issue because it's in the center of the map near so much action, but you are a carry role that
• 12:00 - 12:30 should care about your own lane state way more than anything else. The rest of the map should always be secondary to your own lane. As they say, you can't help others before you help yourself. Like this situation for example, in yet another Platinum ELO game, Silus takes a great trade onto Twisted Fate and he's forced back and has to base. As that happens though, there's a chase going on in the river. Normally, it'd be commendable how fast both players react right here. They clearly have good map awareness. That's a good thing, except for the fact that they're both actually trolling themselves way too much. So,
• 12:30 - 13:00 let's start with Twisted Fate. Think about it like this. Silus is extremely low right now, but he went to go help his Blitzcrank. If Twisted Fate had just ignored this play, based, and teleported back, he can now trap Silus in lane at really low health despite a bad early trade, TF would have complete control over the lane. So, not only would he build a lead for himself, but he would also have priority to help out his team in the future pretty dang easily. And now, let's focus on Silus for a second here. He just dominated his lane right now. He just needs to reset and make
• 13:00 - 13:30 sure he's in a position to capitalize on his lead. Listen, we know that this feels bad in the game to do, but it's often completely acceptable to use your teammates dying to push in your lane knowing you're safe. In this case, Silus knows his Blitzcrank is being chased by the enemy jungler. That means he's 100% safe to move up and push this wave instantly without fear of being punished. Now, if he crashes that wave, he can reset, come back, and set up a freeze versus a flashless Twisted Fate.
• 13:30 - 14:00 Honestly, it'd be potentially game-winning, especially with a great roaming support like Blitzcrank. Instead, that small delay caused him to miss his chance to crash the wave. He's collapsed on by Re and Ekko, and of course, he goes down, losing that big advantage. This is what we mean when we say low elo mid laners care way too much about what's going on in the map. Silus threw away that lead by trying to help, which defeats the whole purpose of playing his early lane well in the first place. Now, on the other hand, Twisted Fate threw away his opportunity to
• 14:00 - 14:30 salvage this lane 1v1. If he hadn't been bailed out, he would have been owned by the Silus. He had the opportunity to save his own lane without any help. And that is actually how you carry games, not by banking on hope. You have the better team every single time. We're serious here. Midlaners overhelping their teammates. It's by far one of the most common reasons they suck and throw their leads all the time. A mid laner can have an impossible to lose lane setup, but then they'll notice something going on in the map and immediately move to help. Right now, Victor should know his Thresh is probably dead, but he's
• 14:30 - 15:00 also gotten perfect intel on the enemy Zen Shia. If he just went back to mid and played the top side of the lane, he is ungankable from the Zen on the bottom side. He can continue to build a massive lead over this Vex. instead he throws away his lead trying to be a good teammate. All right, so moving on from that one final reason for why low elo midlaners suck at being consistent is not understanding the current resource they should be playing around in lane. The most obvious thing to play around in every single game is obviously going to
• 15:00 - 15:30 be your opponent's health bar. But this is actually only one of four resources that you can actively be playing around to dominate your matchup. Now listen up cuz this is important as mid lane is by far the most diverse role in the whole game. We all know this and different champions are far better at playing around different resources than others. For example, Landra is extremely good at playing around a summoner spell advantage because of her ease long range and ultimate stun. Anytime her opponent doesn't have flash or cleanse available, she can set up ganks extremely reliably.
• 15:30 - 16:00 Despite AD assassins being a little bit mediocre right now in the meta, they have always been amazing at playing around items. Because most lethality items build out of a ton of long swords, they're going to often have a big advantage with efficient purchases compared to a mage counterpart. Understanding the current most important resource you're playing around is really going to make you a much better player than almost anyone you encounter. Most low elo mid laners don't even think about it, which is why they suck at making consistently good game plans to win lane. So, enough talk to show you why. Let's take a look at a final
• 16:00 - 16:30 platinum elo game versus a Zed and Velkos. So, the matchup goes basically how most guides would tell you to play it. We're completely aware of how good the average player in League is these days, and it seems like both sides really know how to play a melee versus ranged matchup. Zed is playing patiently, conceding CS early until he hits level three and can start fighting back. Velcos, on the other hand, is building a small CS lead early on and harassing anytime he can. However, everyone knows how to do that already and every guide on YouTube is going to tell you to do it, too. To win games in
• 16:30 - 17:00 League these days, you need to plan a little bit better. So, that in mind, as Velcos cancels his recall attempt here, we have a little bit of a question for you. Who do you think is currently in control over this lane? Here's both sides CS and items. Your immediate instinct might be to think that Velcos is doing well. Zed is at half HP. He's already used his potion. And meanwhile, Velcos is still full HP with both pots left. But in reality, it's actually Zed who's probably going to be favored in this lane right now. Keep in mind that energy or resourceless champions are extremely
• 17:00 - 17:30 good at playing around their opponent's mana bar, especially before they have some sort of mana item. Because you can just spam your abilities, it's often going to be a good idea to simply just keep the mage pushed in, forcing him to expend mana just to last hit. Now, with that in mind, a couple of moments later in our game, Zed goes for this trade. What do you guys think? Is this a good or a bad trade by Zed? Well, let's see what happens first. Turns out Velca was getting a gank and well, Zed is forced to flash away to
• 17:30 - 18:00 safety. But if we go back to the trade, getting ganked isn't the reason this was bad. It's simply that it doesn't make sense to trade right here. Zed went for his breadandbut WQ combo and dealt some okay damage. But this is what we mean when players don't understand playing around the most important resource in the lane. Velkos had full HP and he still has two health potions left. It'd honestly take like three or four of these combos to even threaten to kill Velcos. And with Velcos even having TP, this just doesn't even make sense altogether. Think about it. The Velcos
• 18:00 - 18:30 isn't going to take these trades over and over and over again and just die. Even if Zed did keep getting these good trades, Velcos would eventually just TP back before he dies. So, going back to this moment here, it doesn't matter what Velcos's HP is. He's never going to die. So, it's not a resource that should matter to Zed whatsoever. Instead, he should be punishing the fact that Velcos is really low on mana. All Zed has to do is literally spam abilities on the wave until he gets a clean crash and can set up a recall. That's it. There's nothing Velcos can do to stop that with his mana
• 18:30 - 19:00 bar, which would give Zed a freebase timer to heal back up and buy actual damage items to try and score a kill later on. And finally, on the flip side, Velcos obviously didn't understand this win condition either. He had a perfect recall opportunity that he canled for absolutely no reason. Zed's on low HP, but being low on HP doesn't really matter if he doesn't have the mana to actually threaten a kill. So, Velcos just needed to commit to the base, buy items, and TP back, and he would be winning. Instead, like in every other example we reviewed today, it seems like
• 19:00 - 19:30 whichever mid laner just gets bailed out by their jungler is the one who randomly just kind of ends up winning. If you want to learn how to actually be consistent in your games though and consistently keep tips just like these in your back pocket at all times and not be a coin flipper like every other mid laner we've watched today, then remember to sign up to Skill Cap and check out our comprehensive midlane essentials course where we discuss all of this and so much more. Anyway, thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one.