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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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,

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.