How we test

Where the games come from

We read the public record of finished League of Legends games through Riot’s developer API: which champion was picked, which items were bought and in what order, which runes were taken, and how the game ended. We use the current patch and the one before it, and we cover every champion in the game.

These numbers come only from games that have already finished - we never read a game in progress to work them out, and we never store player names. The companion app does read your own live game, on your own PC, and that is explained on The Companion.

Why your rank matters

A build that wins in the top few percent of players is not always the build that wins in Silver. The same champion is played differently, games end at different times, and the items that matter change with it.

So we work the answers out separately for each rank band and show you the one that matches the rank you picked. If we do not have enough games at your rank for a particular champion, we tell you that on the page instead of quietly showing you somebody else’s answer.

Checking our own advice

It is easy to look right on the games you learned from. The only fair test is on games you have never seen.

So we split the games in two. We work out the advice using one half, then grade it against the other half, which it was never allowed to look at. Advice that only worked on the first half is not advice — it is a coincidence, and we remove it.

When we say nothing

A win rate worked out from a handful of games is noise dressed up as a number. We set a minimum number of games before anything is published, and if a champion, a rank or a matchup falls under it, the page says so rather than printing a figure.

We also rank by the win rate we are most sure of rather than the highest one we happened to see, so a big lead on very few games does not jump the queue.

The same goes for close calls. Where we cannot honestly tell whether our first suggestion is better than our fifth, we say that on the screen, and we tell you to take the champion you know best. That answer is less impressive than a confident ranking. It is also the true one.

How often it is refreshed

New games are collected continuously, and everything on the site is worked out again every four hours. The patch the numbers are drawn from is shown at the top of the site.

What we do not do

We do not decide your game for you. Climb Sensei is a reference you read before and after playing. It never presses a key, never moves your mouse, and never changes anything inside the game.

We do not show you anything about another player that you could not already see yourself, and we do not try to hand you information the game has chosen not to give you.

Questions

If something here does not add up, write to admin@climbsensei.com and you will get a real reply.