BoxBox notepad thing

Don't overkill - Each player has a limited amount of resources with a regenerative period (cooldowns,mana,energy). Blow what you need to secure the kill but don't throw out Primordial burst on a target that has 150 health. League is a game largely based on resource management, use that ult on the target that it’ll barely overkill rather than the low hp teammate. Obviously this will vary, like if there is a fed assassin that needs to die immediately and overkilling is a much better choice than letting the Leblanc live because you tried to withhold spells. Also, barrier and other shields/heals cause more reason to want to overkill / fail to kill at all. Awareness of exactly how much it takes to kill someone can help a lot. (Remember that overkilling is still better than not killing at all)

Don't cc stack – If you as Pantheon and your friends Malzahar and Taric are sitting in a bush with an unsuspecting enemy champion walking in without vision, don’t blow your stuns/suppressions at once! The three of you can keep the enemy incapacitated for ~5 seconds if you chain them one after the other, but also as low as 2 seconds if all of you blow your cc upon the enemy entering the bush. I know it’s hard to coordinate who goes first, usually in that situation I prefer to hold my stun and assume someone else will use it, and then just chain it at the end of the teammates’ stun duration.

Deny xp – This one may seem kind of basic, but it really is kind of difficult to apply. If you land an early kill on your opponent and have enough health and level advantage to either kill or stall your opponent when they’re running back to lane (and if you know the enemy jungler isn’t there) go for it! Every 3 seconds or so you stall them from getting to lane means a missed minion’s worth of xp and gold. Know your limits though, it’s not worth dying for, and likely you’ll be fighting them and a full minion wave. Do this only if you’re pretty far ahead. Perhaps not a good idea pre-level 6 or so on most champions.

Deny xp to jungle – Instead of denying xp to the top laner when your jungler isn’t around, if you’re confident you can shut them down 1v1 later on, go for jungle camps! Denying the jungler his (or her, not sexist pls) experience by taking the big creep or even a buff and leaving the smaller creeps behind will set them behind, indirectly helping the rest of your team without having to actually walk there. It gives you a pretty nice gold lead too! (Also, if you’re sure you can do it, clear the buff when you steal it, time it, come back and rush it when it’s up!)

When to roam vs shoving top – Roaming and shoving are both effective ways to assist your team. Roaming lets you can simply just kill the other laner(s) or get a tower/dragon with the increased pressure, and shoving (when you’re winning lane) forces pressure top, pinning the enemy team into either sending the jungler/mid top to try to save the lane/kill you, or focus elsewhere and then lose top tower(s). Deciding is mostly based on the chance of success of each. Roaming is good when you have everything available (flash, ignite, ult etc) and can almost guarantee a kill with those spells. It’s especially a better choice when laning against someone such as Shen or Malphite, whom you can’t really kill under tower, but can’t be killed by either. Expending your time-based resources then coming back top where there’s no risk of death is a good way to spend those cooldowns when the only alternative is to hold onto it or burn it for little cause top. Shoving is good in the other cases, like if you can easily kill your opponent 1v1 and are pretty mobile. Just ward their jungle so that you know when you’re getting ganked and waste the enemies’ time! Hopefully with 2 or 3 people top, your team can focus on dragon or bot/mid lane.

How to bully lanes – Top lane has the greatest amount of bullying due to the close range combat that takes place. Doing small things to fit in extra damage when your opponent doesn’t have the chance to react is important. Against good players you’re likely not going to dominate and kill your opponent in lane without a gank. The most you can do usually is force them to recall, but that’s good too! 20 cs nets you a little bit more than a kill. If you have hard to hit skillshots, firing it when the opponent is last hitting increases the chance of landing it. Really useful on someone like Lee who relies on that for a large part of his damage. If you’re a ranged champion vs a melee champion, throw in an auto attack when they last hit. Throw in auto attacks whenever you can really, but if they have gap closers it might be best to just wait for them to direct their focus somewhere else

Riven: Fast combo – Will make a video on this later, Riven has a niche mechanic to do her AA Q AA Q AA Q AA combo twice as fast as normal. Best explained through video, hopefully will be done sometime soon.

Riven: Wall hops – Also best explained through video. Riven’s third Q is like Nidalee’s pounce in that it can jump over walls, Riven’s leap however is classified as a blink not a jump which gives it almost double the possible jump distance. (What this means is, kind of like flash or Riftwalk, if you’re jumping over a wall and your target is more than halfway across the wall, it will go all the way through. A jump however, like Rocket jump, will only go through if the target is completely over the wall)

Resource management – Similar to “don’t overkill”, everyone has resources. The most optimal way to deal damage is usually just use every ability as it comes up, but thanks to the game not being single player and the existence of junglers, that may not always be the right move. Expend what resources you know you can expend without risking dying to a potential gank or simply your opponent. Applies more heavily to non-mana champions since their potential power is expended and regenerated very quickly. Don’t blow your escape spell if there’s a good chance you’ll get ganked during the trade, but feel free to go in if you know you’re stronger and the enemy jungler shows bot and so on.

Lifesteal vs dueling stats – By dueling stats I mean stuff that really matter in an all out (probably level 6) brawl 1v1. So in this case I’ll compare something like boots or dorans and a vamp scepter to brutalizer. Brutalizer gives much more all in power and burst, but obviously no real sustain. Vamp scepter is better if you can’t all in your target, but can still win trades, or if your opponent is just too tanky like Shen or Malphite and you want to shove against them and not go directly for a kill. Against someone like a Zed or Riven or Lee or any squishy damage dealer I’d go brutalizer first to ensure killing potential.

Movement speed as a laning stat (when to and when not to) – Movement speed isn’t a stat that will help much in trades or fights most of the time (when melee vs melee with the exception of people who can kite like Zed). In melee vs melee, you can get boots when ahead to ensure your opponent can’t escape, and also to escape ganks. When behind, boots can be a good idea to avoid trades but still run up for farm (in some situations). In a melee vs ranged matchup, movement speed is crucial. Typically, the ranged champion has less damage but has range/kiting advantage to make up for it. If you move faster than your melee opponent, you can just kite forever and not take any damage. If you’re the melee champion, getting movement speed lets you close the gap more easily, and you’ll likely outdamage them regardless due to the nature of melee champions.

Hydra vs Bloodthirster – Hydra is better on melee champions in most situations. It costs 100 more gold, gives 25 less damage, gives health regen, less lifesteal, aoe lifesteal, aoe active. Even though it gives less damage, it almost makes up for itself with the active when used in trades. It also has a short cd (10s) so you can use it in pretty much every trade. Hydra also allows you to heal up faster on minion waves, and push faster without having to use spells which is very useful when wanting to shove while weary of a jungler gank. Get bloodthirster only when you really need that extra 25 damage for dueling.

Why manaless champions snowball harder than mana champions – Their resources regenerate much faster. An elise that kills someone in a duel will be low on health and mana and likely won’t be able to fight again until her cooldowns are available and her mana is high enough for more combos. As a result, without blue, she likely won’t be able to do this more than maybe twice (early – mid game). A riven or lee sin however, could walk in, win the fight, then have most of their strength (no ult) back up within 10 seconds ready to fight again. They can also easily heal back to full if they have a hydra.

Why cooldown reduction is broken on Riven – Riven’s spells give her damage, mobility, cc, and a shield. That’s utility and dueling power. Yes, getting cdr on Jax gives the same thing, but he’s still limited by mana. CDR on Riven directly lowers the downtime on her everything – damage, mobility, utility, etc.

Animation canceling – A lot of champions have animations that have continue after the effect has gone through. The big one is auto attacks, most champions have a fraction of a second wasted after each auto while they finish their animation. You can cancel this and thus lose less time during a fight by just issuing a move command. Riven is choc full of potential animation cancels and being able to perform them every time is how you see those Riven players deal tons of damage in a short period of time.

BIC canceling – I don’t remember why it’s called BIC canceling, something about buffer. Basically, if you self stun with something like Piltover Peacemaker and then right click to attack while still in the animation, Caitlyn will finish her Q then autoattack. The cool part is she can do this even while stunned (when done right). The best example I can think of is a Taric stun, slowly flying at you. You can aim your Q toward him then right click before you actually get stunned, but also before your Q animation finishes. If done right, Caitlyn will Q Taric, then autoattack him right after (while stunned!!). This can be done with other self stunning animations, but Caitlyn’s is the longest one I know of so I used her as an example. (Riven’s third q can do this too but the timing window is much smaller)

How to deal with Renekton - Cry

How to properly deal with unkillable tanks (shen, mundo, renekton, shyvanna) – Mentioned earlier in the section about roaming vs shoving. If you can’t kill them or push well against them, roam! Roam with your ult and flash and ignite, when it’s down you can come back to lane and farm passively – these unkillable tanks are usually bad at getting kills too so even with your summoners and ult blown you should typically be fine.

Riven: How to combo – Will make a video on this later

Baiting the jungler/mid – Explained with the shoving concept. Waste the enemy jungler and mid’s time, give your jungle and mid opportunities to roam and take objectives.

Suicide split pushing – Same thing as baiting jungler/mid, but with the intent of dying in exchange for enemy ults, summoners, and time. This is my favorite thing to do, pushing really hard, farming a ton, then sending the enemies on a wild goose chase for you. If they don’t want to chase, just come back until they do.

Importance of last hitting – 20 cs is more than a kill!

Risk value of a kill and why everybody plays safe at high elo – Remember how much a cs is worth compared to a kill. Remember how much a risk getting a kill contains. Usually, going for a kill also carries a chance of getting killed. If there’s a huge wave near your tower and you think there’s a 50% chance you could get a kill, don’t! it’s not worth it. 50% chance you get the kill and then farm, as normal, 50% chance you die, give the enemy a kill, lose all of those minions to tower, probably lose a tower, fall behind more than the 300 gold you gave your opponent, lose lane. Also remember that if you’re pushing and you think you can get a kill it may be worth it due to the denying of xp and gold to the enemy laner. A 1 for 1 trade is almost never equal, someone is going to miss out on more things almost every time. Carefully consider both your odds and the stakes before going in!