Imagine Dragons drummer Daniel Platzman is also a Silver V League of Legends player. Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg is one of the best professional players in the West. The skill difference is gigantic, and that’s what makes the following video produced by Riot Games so fun to watch.
Platzman locked in Varus mid-lane for his match and Bjergsen sat behind him, offering him tips throughout.
The game wasn’t horrible. Platzman had some nice Varus arrows and sniped quite a few of the enemies down, but the gameplay is a bit hard to watch for anybody of a higher elo. At one point the enemy Kalista just sits in a Nunu ult and gets popped. Yikes.
Bjergsen gave out some solid advice throughout the video that we could all use in our own ranked games.
Ultimates are worth trading for flashes.
Ultimate cooldowns are anywhere from a minute to two minutes, whereas flash has a five minute cooldown. If somebody flashes your ult, that’s a win for you, since your ult will be back up before their flash. Just do it again within five minutes, and they’ll probably die.
Use Corrupting Potions when firing skillshots.
When firing a projectile that takes a little while to land, like Varus’ Piercing Arrow, if you use your Corrupting Potion after you fire the skill but before it lands, you’ll gain an efficient amount of mana and when the skill hits, it’ll do the Corrupting Potion damage. Unless you’re really quick or have some kind of macro set up, you should stick to using this technique for slow skills, like Malphite’s Seismic Shard, rather than Ezreal’s Mystic Shot.
If you’re behind as a carry, build offense and vice-versa.
This piece of advice might be better for higher elo players, since they have the mechanical skill to catch up easily when they have damage. Lower elo players might lack the ability to assassinate an enemy or land a key skillshot to do that improved damage and instead might just get popped by the enemy team. However, if you get really ahead, you become public enemy number one, so having defensive stats is extremely worth it. This feels really situational, but what do we know? Bjergsen is a pro, so he probably knows what he's talking about.
Buy elixirs during turning points.
Elixirs are among the best items to invest in before a team fight that can turn the game away. The extra stat boost is helpful, and though the cost at 500 gold might seem steep, Bjergsen notes that a Elixir of Wrath is going to be much more helpful than another long sword when you fight.
Defensive summoner spells
Bjergsen recommends defensive spells for mid-laners, especially since they become a prime target. Heal, Barrier, Exhaust and Cleanse are all good, but situational. Cleanse is great if you notice that the team has a lot of hard crowd-control. Exhaust is ideal against assassins like Talon. (Of course this is only applicable really in draft pick, since you can see who you're for sure going up against.)