League of Legends is a game with vast resources. As one of the most popular online games and esports, there is a near-endless supply of great content to entertain and teach. However, sometimes you have to keep in mind that getting through a large quantity isn’t the only factor. You must be able to pull quality information out of your resources and then be able to apply them to your own gameplay to truly learn from the best in the game. This article’s purpose is to help you understand how to utilize Pro and Challenger VODs, replays of their games, to grow as a player.

Take Your Time

Make sure that when you sit down to review Pro and Challenger VODS that you give yourself plenty of time to focus and understand. Don’t be scared to pause and even switch between videos to focus on phases of the game. The important thing is not how fast you can make it through the VOD, but how much information you can pull from it through effective review.

Infer

League of Legends is a dynamic game where conditions are always changing. To master this game, you must be able to take changing conditions in stride and optimize your decisions based on these factors. Dopa himself says that what sets himself apart from other high ELO players in his ability to always make an optimized decision. This optimization should be the primary goal to learn whenever using VOD reviews since many other factors are more about practice.

There are steps that you can apply to a situation in a VOD that will allow you to learn from what a Pro or Challenger player does in a game of League. The first of these is inferring.

To infer, you need to wait for a decision tree to appear in-game and then pause. What is a decision tree? These are moments in the game when new information is presented, or you’ve reached the conclusion of a different decision opening up new options that you must decide from. Decision trees can arise from many situations such as; opposing jungler showing on vision, crashing a minion wave into your opponent’s tower, or bouncing a wave off of your own tower. Each of these situations results in decisions that could have different correct answers in any different game or even phases of the same game.

Once you reach a decision tree, pause the VOD, create a clear choice of what you think is optimal in that situation and write it down. Make sure to be decisive and clear, this is for your own learning so if you try to protect yourself by avoiding giving a concrete answer to avoid being wrong then you are limiting yourself.

To give an example of this I will show a few clips of DoinB in solo queue courtesy of LOL Replays Collection. Pay attention to the area surrounding the Aatrox on the minimap.

What new information has been revealed to DoinB’s team? And what decision would you make based on this new information?

In the clip, the opposing Jungler and Mid laner are missing and his Top laner goes down to check Tri Bush. This leads to him finding Lissandra and Ekko in the brush. At this point DoinB’s Top laner is in a 1v3 while he and his Jungler are in the adjacent jungle and Mid wave is slow pushing towards DoinB. How should DoinB react to the situation at hand? We will continue with this example throughout the article.

Observe

The next step is to hit play and pay attention to what decision the player makes and how they execute that decision. If the player goes for a roam, pay attention to not only where they roam but also the path they take to get there. If they see a jungler notice, not only if they play safe but how they play safe. If they go for a trade, pay attention to their and the opponent’s basic ability and Summoner spell cooldowns. When analyzing their decisions, it’s important to have all of the details available to you. Write this where you wrote your own inference so that you can directly compare the two.

As you become more advanced, make sure to steadily advance to smaller decisions and paying attention to how players plan ahead. Pro and Challenger players are generally looking minutes into the future and making moves that will benefit them in that time frame. Eventually, you will want to reach this level of decision making.

Following up on the past DoinB clip, you can see the decision-making process in action as DoinB hesitates a bit near the river entrance before walking up to top lane to assist his Jungler. This results in him narrowly stopping the Ekko Parallel Convergence from landing allowing him and his Jungler to pick up 3 kills in exchange for only losing the Aatrox. It is also important to observe that with wave positioning in Mid, Akali manages to not lose any minions. Overall, this cost DoinB almost nothing because he was able to fully analyze the situation and realize that the 2v3 was possible at little to no cost after losing Aatrox.

Analyze

Once you reach this step, you can analyze individual situations for small details, but you should look to compile multiple games and scenarios. By collecting a multitude of detailed scenarios, you can tie together reasoning and determine the purpose behind decisions and how one can best carry the game in any scenario.

In one scenario, you can begin to understand why they make decisions by looking into resources and enemy positioning. In collections of scenarios, you can begin to understand how they secure and snowball leads consistently to create consistent wins. Although, when analyzing decision making understand that even optimal plays have the possibility of variance. Do not use results-based analysis when analyzing. Instead, search for the intended result and the optimal opportunity that was the thought behind the play.

When looking at these scenarios begin by comparing your speculative decisions with the decision actually made in the game. Highlight the differences present and analyze the results of the decisions made in the game. Analyze how these decisions begin to affect the rest of the game by generating and snowballing leads and attempt to understand what might have been lost or gained by your decision being executed. Once you have done this, use your compiled scenarios to find common threads between plays. With these common threads, you can begin to understand how Pros look at games to consistently build leads that allow them to win a large percentage of their games.

This can be easier said than done, spend time paying attention to which details consistently factor into decisions. Once these are narrowed down utilize them to grow your knowledge of the scenarios at hand and learn from them. You must pay attention to the player and their opponent’s cooldowns, the minion wave positioning, ally positioning on the map, vision of the opponent’s positioning, and other smaller factors. For example, minion wave positioning can affect a player’s map positioning and mobility. Cooldowns of basic abilities and Summoner spells will also affect a player’s stance and whether they are willing to go aggressive or take defensive positioning.

The goal of this analysis is attained once you find yourself consistently lining up with the decisions made in the VODs you are watching. This shows that your knowledge and critical thinking are beginning to match the best of the best. However, this is not the last step as one still must be able to apply the decision making in split-second scenarios and consistently put themselves in winning situations with effective plans ahead of time.

In the scenario highlighted during the VOD with DoinB you can quickly narrow down the decision tree to two choices. On one hand, you could decide to go mid and attempt to punish Ekko by crashing a wave into his tower. The flaw with this decision lies in the fact that since the wave is currently slow pushing towards DoinB, Ekko is already losing CS for all the time that he is out of the lane in the current situation without DoinB tending to the wave. This leads DoinB to select the second option which is collapse on the three-man play with his Jungler and attempt to punish them for their aggression on the Aatrox. They end up making it in time. Was this play optimal for the situation? I would say yes, without DoinB moving the opponents most likely get a 2 for 1 kill trade. Since DoinB rotated they end up getting a 3 for 1 kill trade for themselves and deny minions in two lanes as well as getting plating gold. Looking at all the variables that are available to DoinB it seems that there aren't any other plays that would have resulted in better gains for his team, this makes the play optimal.

Apply

Application of the concepts you are able to discern from watching Pros and Challenger games takes practice. It is crucial to be able to be actively engaged in every moment of the game and understand the gravity of every decision. You must be able to fend off autopilot before you will truly be able to apply the lessons to your games. Active thinking during play involves looking at the minimap constantly, tracking cooldowns, and predicting your opponent’s actions and reactions. These consistent actions will help you to make decisions that take into account all of the information available when you don’t have the ability to pause to make your decision. Once you can master these active thinking strategies you can begin to apply your lesson learned from VODs.

Throughout watching VODs piece together which factors you believe to be the most crucial for decision making and put together the information that presents itself in real-time. Use active thinking along with the decision making that you analyzed in the VODs to put yourself in positions that you believe would match that of a Challenger player. You shouldn’t expect instant perfection, it will take time and a lot of trial and error. You will have many games with poor decision making and you will have games where good decision making seems to end poorly anyways. One must be persistent when using this method to grow.

I also advise not to start out analyzing your own VODs until you are consistently correct when watching Pro and Challenger VODs. It isn’t helpful to look at your own gameplay without understanding what optimal gameplay can look like. Once you do understand what proper decision making looks like, you can use your own VODs and search for recurring errors that you can eliminate.

I hope that this guide can help open your resources and understanding of how to use them. Good Luck on the Rift!