I'm Going Pro

Well, not really. But I have been playing with a lot of pros recently; including WildTurtle, who holds the #1 spot in Challenger. Basically, he's the best Solo Q player in the NA region. I peaked at 80 points, but have fallen to the low 70s since. I haven't yet been able to get my name out there, but people are beginning to recognize me as "the guy with the slow computer". Yes, I've been playing on the same, old laptop since I began playing this game one year ago. Once you begin playing in the high ranks of Diamond 1/Challenger, the game becomes a lot more enjoyable. Everyone at that level understands that winning isn't everything, but improving is. They aren't so concerned with winning that they flame, but they aren't bad enough that they make many mistakes. Some of the games do get troll, which makes it a lot more fun to play.

Orianna Reveck, the Lady of Clockwork

I've been playing a lot of Orianna recently. She's an incredibly strong champ, with a unique kit that is very potent if used correctly. She is one of the higher skill cap champions, with a very high skill ceiling. The plays you can make with her are endless. If you want to improve your mechanics, I'd highly recommend learning Orianna. She's also a very good champion to carry with, so she's great for climbing as well. She proves high damage, utility, and a strong AOE ultimate.

Here's a cool trick I learned with Orianna after watching Bischu, a Challenger mid player. If you ult with the ball on top of you, you can flash while the animation is going off. This catches most people off guard, and is nearly impossible to react to. The typical ball-on self -> Flash -> ult is still hard to dodge, but at a high level of play, people will flash this almost instinctively. With this trick, the animation for her ultimate will start before you flash, so it appears that the ultimate will miss, until a split-second later, when they've gotten hit by a suicide-bomber Ori ult. I don't have any footage unfortunately, but I've done this a few times when I was ahead. Again, it's not very practical, as it basically is a suicide if you do it during a team fight, but it's very fun and the reactions are hysterical.

Paint skills op.

Solo Q Tip: You know those sites that give you stats of other players? I'm talking about Lolking, LolNexus, and others. Don't use them. Sure, they might give you a preview of both teams, and you'll be better prepared. But you'll play differently because of it. Even though you might not think it affects your play, it does. If you see someone has only 5 wins, but incredibly good stats, you'll know they're a smurf. If you have to lane against them, chances are you'll play more scared, and be afraid to make bold plays. If you see someone on your team has bad stats on a champ, you might be compelled not to gank for them. You'll never improve if you don't try new things.  I used to use a site like these for nearly every game I played. Sure, it was helpful, but it made me play in a game-specific manner. It might help me win those single games, but it didn't help me improve overall as a player. It's like a coach teaching repeatedly teaching a single play and nothing else. The players would be able to execute this play perfectly, and there will be times where the play will work. However, if there's no variety, the opposing team will quickly catch on and be able to defend against it. I stopped using those sites when I had just hit Platinum, and I climbed through Platinum faster than any other Tier.

Good luck on your journey through Summoner's Rift.

The Wild Roller Coaster that is Diamond 1

I'm now sitting comfortably at 40 points. Of all the times I've heard of elo hell, Diamond 1 just might be it. Even though it's one of the smallest tiers, it's got the widest variety of players. You have the I'm-not-getting-challenger-so-I-can-mess-around people. These are basically the people that try new champions, builds, and do crazy things because they know they're already at the highest rank they'll ever achieve. I'm one of these people. Then, you have the arrogant flamers, who think they're better than everyone else because they're Diamond 1. Newsflash to those people: so is everyone else on the team. The next kind are my favorite to play with. They take the game really seriously. They communicate exceptionally well, and losing isn't an option for them (except 50% of the time). These are the I'm-getting-to-challenger-and-nothing's-holding-me-back players. They're the ones that will ping ten times for one thing. They will fill the chat with multiple sequences of words to express one idea. They will time every thing they can: summoner spells, objectives, inhibs, even wraiths and wolves.

Riven, The Exile

Here's some cool tricks I've recently learned with Riven.
1. You can shoot her ult during your E animation. Her E is a short dash that also provides a shield. During the animation of the dash, you can fire the second part of her ult without interrupting the dash.
2. When in her ult, Riven gains extra range on all her abilities. With her ult active, Riven can hit blue buff over its wall, without actually having to go over. It's not very practical, but I did see it happen once in a Challenger Korean ranked game.
3. You can perform Riven's Q-AA-Q-AA-Q-AA combo around twice as fast by moving slightly after each AA (auto-attack). This is very similar to attack-animation cancelling, commonly performed by marksmen.
Here's a video of an avid Riven player showing the trick

And here is my tip for climbing. Watch streams! You can learn so much by watching good streamers. There are some streamers that mess around and rarely give advice, but even with them, you can still try and notice what they do well and imitate it. Some streamers that are very informative, as well as being incredibly good players, are Cadburry, Voyboy, WildTurtle, and dayladavid. You can find their streams on twitch.tv.

I'll probably post on my blog in this format now. I'll give an update on how my personal league experience is going, followed by a cool trick or something I've learned recently, then a tip for climbing.

Good luck on your journey through Summoner's Rift!