The Diamond rank is a revered tier in League of Legends. That cerulean blue crest is distinguishable from a mile away and has held a timeless status over the game’s history as that stepping stone to high elo. As you start seeing the tip of the ranked ladder over the horizon, you can proudly consider yourself a skilled player on the rise!
Achieving Diamond is the culmination of years upon years of built-up knowledge and constant commitment to the game, you can’t reach this level of play overnight. It signifies that you’re way past the fundamentals and essential mechanics of the game. It’s not just a matter of learning anymore, it’s about mastery. However, this doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to learn. While players here may have gotten a hold of some advanced concepts and strategies, chaos and toxicity in this tier leave a lot to be desired, and a lot that you could imporove upon!
What does being a Diamond player truly entail, and how does the experience in this tier compare to others? Let's delve into the crucible of this rank, exploring its struggles, player behaviors, and what it takes to climb to Master and beyond.
Reaching Diamond rank typically demands a level of commitment and time that exceeds what most casuals are willing to invest. As such, it houses a mere 4.1% of the entire game’s player base, placing Diamond players among the top 5% of ranked competitors!
This distribution highlights the magnitude of the skill differential between Diamond and the ranks of Emerald and Platinum, which together make up 27% of the ranked player base. For many, Diamond is essentially the doorstep to high elo and the pinnacle of what they aspire to achieve in League. This is the cool boys’ club, and lower-tier players look up to it as the getaway to a game that feels like professional esports matches and highly coordinated teamplay, and whether that’s true or not (spoiler: not really) doesn’t negate the fact that these players dedicated countless hours and thousands of matches to reach this rank. Let’s give them props for it, why not?
Stark differences are also apparent even between Diamond divisions themselves, as Diamond 4’s population of 2% almost exceeded that of Diamond 3, Diamond 2, and Diamond 1 combined. Even though this phenomenon is also present in other tiers, in Diamond specifically the skill gap between different divisions often feels as vast as the difference between entire tiers! So how about we delve into the intricacies and gameplay within Diamond? And is it really as hard as Diamond players put it up to be?
As we’ve mentioned, Diamond players are regarded among the best of the best, underlining their remarkable mastery and sheer commitment to the climb. It’s fair to expect players of this skill level to possess a thorough grasp of basic-to-advanced game mechanics such as map awareness, trading patterns, and power spikes… Additionally, they should have a comprehensive understanding of the current meta and be adept at adapting their playstyle to exploit opponents' weaknesses and respond effectively to changing game dynamics.
As a Diamond player, you should have honed basic mechanics enough to basically manage waves and track opponents on autopilot, reserving your mental energy to analyze your matchup and spot enemy missteps, otherwise, you wouldn’t be in Diamond in the first place.
However, if —let’s say— an Emerald player would be dropped in a Diamond 3 lobby, it wouldn’t post a major challenge: Teamplay still isn’t quite refined, and good coordination isn’t as prevalent as in higher elos. The only edge the Diamond player has is the ability to exploit the more frequent mistakes made by lower-tier players, using these opportunities to gain an edge throughout the match. You could reach Diamond as long as you don’t throw!
With thousands of games up their sleeve, Diamond players are more capable of noticing game patterns, anticipating opponents' moves, and adapting their strategies in real-time. This extensive experience allows them to recognize subtle cues and trends that can give them a strategic advantage and climb to be among the elites.
At the end of the day, Diamond is still the Wild West of the ranked ladder; Teams would still blunder decisive team fights and bad plays would be made. Ego is also a defining factor in Diamond games as the belief of being in the top percentile gets the best of most players, which ends up undermining the broader team dynamic and strategic play. As such, forging a solid mental attitude —and disabling chat— is necessary to climb in —and out of— Diamond.
At the end of the day, Diamond is still the Wild West of the ranked ladder; Teams would still blunder decisive team fights and bad plays would be made. Ego is also a defining factor in Diamond games as the belief of being in the top percentile gets the best of most players, which ends up undermining the broader team dynamic and strategic play. As such, forging a solid mental attitude —and disabling chat— is necessary to climb in -and out of- Diamond.
You’d also be surprised to hear that simpler champions would still be viable in Diamond. Since games essentially boil out to which throws first, confidence in your champion eliminates one point of failure in your team. So if you’re feeling certain in your Master Yi or Veigar skills, hold on to them! Invest your time into honing your communication instead and you should survive in Diamond. But if you're aiming to advance further, what steps should you take?
The universal principle for climbing across all ranks —not only Diamond— is to be one step above your opponents. If you keep playing like a Diamond player, you’ll keep being a Diamond player without constant improvement. While it’s true that the higher you go up the ladder the less wiggle room you have to polish, there still is! No matter how much you believe that you’re the next coming of Faker just for reaching D4, there is still more to learn and refine about the game than you might think.
Since your mechanical skills should be top-notch at this level (they are… right?), focus on min-maxing on other aspects of the game which will eventually give you the upper hand over your opponents.
It’s also worth mentioning, again, the monumental skill differential between high and low Diamond. That is actually the reason why Emerald tier has been created in the first place, but it didn’t seem to fix much in real terms. With this foresight, you should —as a D4 or D3 player— treat the climb to Master as climbing up 2 tiers instead of one. With that said, what should you do to claw your way out of Diamond?
This might seem trivial, and you should’ve been doing it by now, but picking a couple of champions to truly perfect is one of the pillars to climbing out of Diamond. I’m not talking about a few champions, I’m talking about 2 or even just one. Being a jack of all trades won't get you far among the upper echelon of players, you’ve got to be a master of one specific pick and role to reach, you know… Masters. If you think about it, all those Grandmaster players you watch on YouTube and Twitch are really known for their main, because that’s what got them there in the first place: XPetu got there with Shen, Tobias Fate got there with GangPlank, and Thebausffs climbed with Sion (that may be an extreme case, but I digress).
Yes, I’m advocating for one tricking because it’s honestly the easiest way to climb, and the most fun too. You’ll get to have a solid game plan from champ select, you’ll know how to approach every matchup, your win conditions, power spikes, trade patterns, strengths, weaknesses, and playstyle. These are all fewer things to worry about in your games as you’ll get to confidently pilot your champion and play consistently. Consistency is key at the end of the day, and you can’t get any more consistent than through being an OTP!
Challenger players could pick up a champion and forge out a gameplan before minions spawn, you’re not there yet so have a solid backbone to rely on throughout your climb. If they’re banned, don’t blend with your team comp, or when you get auto-filled or counter-picked sad Toplaner noises you can fall onto your pocket pick or straight-up dodge! A 3 LP loss made to negate a 60% chance of losing 20 LP is statistically optimal, so don’t be afraid of dodging when necessary.
I understand that one tricking might not be for everyone. Even so, try not to have more than 3 champions in your pool. This will enable you to focus on more important aspects of the game, like macro. Speaking of macro…
In a vacuum, a Diamond player could confidently hold his ground against a Grandmaster player as his individual skill level and champion mastery are often highly refined. So why do high Master+ players streamroll through Diamond lobbies? It’s quite simple: They commit fewer mistakes and make better decisions! Just don’t throw lol.
Okay, it may not be as cut and dry, but that’s essentially what it boils down to in higher ranks. Diamond players still make catastrophic mistakes pretty often, and miss out on countless opportunities to snowball leads and claw their way back from a losing position. You’ve got to pay more attention to what’s going on around the map. Pan your camera over to your teammates, see what they’re doing, how their minion wave is behaving and how their enemy laner might respond. Track the enemy jungler, their CS, and where you might be heading if you were in their position.
Take into account all of the information you have at your disposal and plan out your next move accordingly. For example, if the bot lane wave just crashed and your ADC is resetting, be aware of a potential support roam to the midlane. If both junglers started on the same side, you might want to push the wave aggressively to set up for a skirmish in the river. Spot bad plays before they unfold, and if the enemy doesn’t do the same –which they often won’t– you’ll naturally be one step ahead in most games.
Good decision-making isn’t something you’re born with; it’s a skill developed through experience, by making mistakes and learning from them. While micro skills can differentiate between those who have played hundreds of games and those who have played thousands, macro understanding distinguishes someone who has played thousands of games from someone who has played tens of thousands of them. This skill will naturally develop as you play more, but it's essential to recognize your mistakes and build on that knowledge for future games. Take some time each day to review replays of your matches, and trust me, you’ll dumbfounded by the simple mistakes you’ve made and the potential openings you could’ve taken.
Each player has their own playstyle, their area of expertise per se. During your multi-year long climb to Diamond, you naturally gravitate towards a particular tactic or strategy that suits your comfort zone. It could be a manifestation of your champion’s strength or an approach that feels intuitive to you, whether that’s constant roaming, freezing lanes, invading the enemy jungle, or split pushing.
It’s essentially a position that you feel comfortable navigating and adapting to the ebb and flow of the game. Patterns start to become apparent, allowing you to make well-strategized moves on a whim —returning to the macro perspective.
Dragging your opponents into your territory where you could predict every move they could make is a serious advantage. No matter how razor-thin it is, an edge is still an edge, and it’s these small incremental leads that ultimately lead to positive winrates.
It goes without saying, but the days of brute-forcing your way up the ranks are long gone. League of Legends is, after all, a 5v5 game for a reason. You win as a team, and you lose as a team, no matter how hard you stomped your lane opponent.
Effective communication is crucial for success in the Diamond rank and beyond. You have to make sure that you’re on the same page as your teammates by supplying them with useful information and calling out shots when necessary. Tunneling on your own game plan without much consideration for your teammates’ goals will undermine your performance in the long run, leaving you frustrated as you vent on Reddit with “WhY dOes My tEaM sUCk?!!” posts. So in order to optimize communication:
Anyone else feels like they just got off a 12-hour shift in the mental asylum after a couple of ranked games? Toxicity is rampant across all ranks in League of Legends (this is what we’re known for among gamers anyway), and Diamond players… take it a step further. This tier is notorious for its sheer amount of toxic crybabies that love to shift the blame onto anyone but themselves. Games often feel more like mental warfare than a battle arena with egos higher than a fighter jet and self-proclaimed victims that give sociopaths a run for their money
If you give in to tilt from teammates, you'll inevitably start playing worse, and all your game knowledge might as well go out the window. It might not always be teammates; Perhaps it’s that towerdive you failed, or getting your camps stolen, or even throwing a decisive teamfight. Whatever it is, maintaining solid focus and mental fortitude is the number one factor in winning your games! You could have the Chovy’s skills, but if you make Gold-level mistakes –and let your ego get the best of you– you’ll struggle in your climb.
Keep a positive mindset throughout your games. Everyone has their ups and downs, their rank ups, and 10-game loss streaks, so take some time off the game whenever you start feeling frustrated or tilted. Climbing is a numbers game; Your short-term setbacks have little to no impact on the broader picture. Don’t linger on past mistakes, simply learn from them and move on with your newly acquired knowledge.
With how volatile Diamond games can be, keeping your calm is often enough to get you ahead. It’s also possible to join the dark side and push your opponents over the edge through chat and emotes. We don’t condone BMing, but the climb is the climb, by any means necessary!
If you’re willing to test your wits in the Diamond, don’t miss out on grabbing a Diamond-ranked account from our wide selection of Smurf and rated accounts on our store page. It’s completely risk-free as all of our accounts are hand-leveled from the ground up!
You’re in the big leagues now, and if you want to progress to Masters and beyond, it's crucial to take your climb more seriously. Just as aim trainers are essential in games like Valorant, the Practice Tool in League of Legends serves as a powerful training ground to refine your combos and work on your weaknesses.
Establish a consistent training routine to sharpen your skills and enhance game awareness. The first step would be to actually realize your mistakes in the first place, so make it a habit to review your replays, scout your losses, identify what went wrong, and regularly work on those areas.
There is a plethora of educational content available on YouTube and over in our newsletter, so make the most of these resources and apply what you learn in your games That’s what we’re doing here in the first place! There are dedicated YouTube channels offering Challenger replays of your main champion in every matchup imaginable, learning from other peoples’ mistakes is just as valuable as learning from your own.
You have to be one step ahead of other Diamond players in order to outpace them on your climb. Do what they don’t—train, practice, and transform yourself into a formidable opponent and a decisive shot caller!
The number of games required to make it into Diamond doesn’t have a straightforward answer. Numerous factors come into play including your current *MMR, consistency, and win rate. If you’re starting from Gold 3 –the average rank in League of Legends–, you would be **1100 LP** away from from Diamond 4. While this might seem like a disheartening figure, remember that you've already made a similar climb of 1000 LP climb from Bronze 4 at some point. You can do it!*
Assuming a realistic 55% win rate on your games, it would take you around 220~250 games. This is entirely achievable even for semi-casual players and can be accomplished over multiple splits and seasons, as your MMR doesn’t fully revert with each ranked reset.
It should be noted that this value fluctuates substantially based on your hidden MMR and the win/loss streaks you’ll eventually encounter along the way. As long as you keep it consistent –and don’t mindlessly throw games– you’ll be on the right track! If you find yourself stuck in Platinum or Emerald on your journey, be sure to check out our article on *League of Legends Ranks* for more tips and insight to help you climb up to Diamond.
As you try to get out of Diamond, you’ll often be greeted with a sharp decrease in LP gains. This is widely regarded as the hardest tier to climb out of for a reason! Many hardstuck players hover around +21 LP per win and -20 LP per loss, which means that, without a respectable winrate, that Blue crest on their profile page will be staring back at them for a long time!
Since Diamond is a barrier that’s known for preventing bad players from advancing to Master and beyond, aiming for a consistent 55%+ win rate should be your goal. MMR plays a crucial role at this tier, so maintaining a strong win rate is essential. With an average gain of 22 LP and loss of 18 LP per match, you should be looking at around 100 games to make it to Master.
Again, this number is a rough estimate. The true value depends greatly on the consistency of your performance; it might take you 50 games to reach Masters, or you could be hardstuck D3 for several seasons! As mentioned earlier, maintaining a positive mindset, ignoring the occasional +17 LP gains, and focusing on improving your play will eventually boost your MMR and help you climb out of Diamond.
Absolutely! Demotion is a threat across all tiers in League of Legends, and Diamond is no different. It's important to be prepared for the possibility and know how to recover when it occurs. The two factors that come into play in this process are Loss streaks and rank decay:
Loss of LP: Once you reach Diamond 4 at 0 LP, you risk dropping to Emerald 4 at 75 LP. While an immediate loss won’t demote you right away, as you typically have 2–3 games to recover. However, this buffer will diminish if you keep bouncing back and forth on around that 0 LP mark, you may eventually fall to Emerald –with a low enough MMR– after losing with less than 15 LP in your back pocket.
If you’ve just been promoted to Diamond, you’ll be rewarded with a Demotion Shield, preventing you from demoting for 10 games. You’ll be prompted with a notification on your profile page when this shield is near expiration.
Ranked Decay: As you approach the Apex Tiers, ranked decay becomes a factor. In simple terms, if you don't play ranked games for a while, your LP will begin to decrease daily.
One ranked match adds 7 days to your rank “Banked Days”, up to a maximum of 28 days. Each day of inactivity consumes one of these days. Upon depleting all your Banked days your accounts will start losing 50 LP per day until you either play a ranked match or fall down to Emerald 1. Keep this in mind before taking a break from the game: If you're planning a two-week vacation, play a few ranked games beforehand to avoid decay and you should be good to go!
It’s possible for Diamond players to duo with players from Emerald 2 to Diamond 1. However, Diamond is a special case when it comes to duoing, as you’re not totally free to play with anyone. You can only queue with friends who are within 2 divisions of you, which means a Diamond IV player cannot duo with someone in Diamond I. Additionally, some players may have an MMR that would classify them as Master if they perform exceptionally well. Since Master+ players can only queue solo to prevent win trading, a Diamond II player with a high enough MMR may be unable to duo queue at all! If you don’t want to deliberately lose games to dial back your MMR for duoing with your buddies, hop on Flex Queue instead –Yes, that thing exists apparently.
Keep in mind that when playing as a duo, the matchmaking system averages out both players' MMRs for each game. Although you can only duo with friends within 2 divisions of your rank, the skill gap between Diamond IV and II, or Diamond I and III, can still be significant and challenging for many low Diamond players.
Rest assured that all your hard work will be rewarded! As you play ranked, you'll earn Split Be sure to track your progress in the ranked tab in the client. As a Diamond player, earning 80 Split Points—about 5 or 6 matches—will secure you a Victorious Skin, unlike low elo plebs that need 1000 points to do the same.
Additionally, you'll receive extra chromas for your Victorious Skin corresponding to your rank and all the tiers below you. Whether you prefer the sleek green Emerald chroma or the striking blue Diamond chroma, they’re all yours to choose from! With this split’s Victorious Skin likely going to Sona, keep grinding and you'll secure all the stunning variants of her skin!
Remember, to be eligible for Victorious Skins, you must maintain an Honor Level of 2 or above by the end of the split. Ironically, this is the most challenging aspect of this system as Diamond players aren’t particularly known for their exquisite diplomacy.
The true appeal of Victorious skins, and what sets them apart from other skinlines, is their exclusivity. They become unobtainable once a ranked season ends, making them a standout showcase of skill and dedication to the game. It's no wonder they are considered some of the flashiest skins in League. Even though they make for nice trophies to have in your inventory, players whose champions have already received a Victorious Skin might have to accept that their main is unlikely to receive another one in the future and that older skins are impossible to come by… or are they? Fortunately for you, we have accounts available that include all Victorious Skins from Season 1 to Season 11. These are perfect for you to finally complete your collection and flex on your mates! For a detailed breakdown of our archive of Victorious Skins, make sure to visit our Victorious Skins page and explore our full Skindex. Still craving more ultra-rare skins? We’ve got you covered with every exclusive skin under the sun available on our store page.
Skins aren’t the only rewards you can earn after concluding a ranked season in Diamond. You’ll also receive an exclusive summoner icon reflecting your peak rank at the end of the split. Trust me, it will definitely strike fear in your opponents during your placement matches in the following season!
You'll also sport that distinctive glistening blue crest on your loading screens and icon border, and it will carry over to crown your profile in the next season.
While navigating the rough terrains of Diamond Elo, keep in mind that this rank is both a testament to your skill and a step into even bigger challenges. With this being the case, having an inherently good mental game and always aiming to improve communication regarding your teamplay are key for ranking up even higher. The Apex Teirs are staring back at you, and for the victor goes the spoils. So get back out there and “git gud”, or at least keep trying.
Stay focused, stay sharp, and remember: in the trenches of Diamond, your strongest arsenal is perseverance and adaptability. Happy climbing!
