Climbing the Elo Ladder: In Queue Tips

Once you've prepared properly for your Elo Climb, you need to maximize your chances once you've entered into champion select. Some of it is common sense, some of it is a little less intuitive, but here it goes:

• No rage. This applies at every possible point in a game. Not only does it increase your chance of getting banned (which will severely hamper your attempts to climb the ladder), it reduces your chance of winning. Always phrase things as nicely as you can, and apologize if someone takes it offensively (this is important, as text is easy to misinterpret the tone).
• Talk to your team. Let them know what you want to play, role-wise and champion-wise. If someone else wants that position, talk to them about it. Remember, its up to you to ensure you win. If the other person says mid is their best role, and you want it, you have to be the bigger man and take somewhere else. Sometimes they may feed, but if they feed in their best role, imagine how bad it would have been as their worst role. This also means that if someone is dead set on playing an odd champion (jungle Ez, AD Teemo, etc), you have to talk to them about it. If they don't want to change, saying "GG, noob" in champ select basically means you're going to lose.
• Suggest/Play/Watch for counters. If you see the enemy pick Soraka, and you can play Miss Fortune well, then pick her. If you see Cait, suggest Sivir for unlimited mana. Also, keep an eye out for enemy counters. If they have already picked Teemo top, don't take Olaf to lane against him.
• Pick to balance the team. What I mean by this is: Take what you're team needs. Not just for roles, but for anything that your team lacks. I have seen incredibly strong AoE teams (Morgana, Graves, Vlad, etc) get crushed by teams that simply have better initiate. So if you're team lacks any initiate, play one (Ashe, Galio, Sona, Amumu come to mind). If you're team has no hard CC, pick someone who does. Also, if you're team needs a peeler, hyper carry, bruiser, etc, pick one.
• Build Camaraderie. This means interacting with your team while in champ select, and being positive. Most people want to win when their team is awesome. So say hi, work with people, and be friendly. If someone says "STFU noob" then you be the bigger man or woman and ignore it. Some people will just never behave, so don't let it get to you.

So these are all simple things, some may be 'duh, of course', but they are all important. In fact, I would stress the team building as much as possible. As a team game, there WILL be games you will not be able to carry by yourself. And forcing a player to play something they aren't good at, or discouraging people from trying their best is an easy way to lose games. I've had plenty of games where someone wants my preferred role (AD Carry), and I support them. A lot of those games are just stomps, because they know what they're doing, and I know how to support them, and we carry 10/0/whatever. Remember, morale means a lot in a game where the likely hood of a comeback increases over time. So fight on, and never surrender!