---
name: ranked-climb-coach
description: "Climb ranked on purpose instead of on tilt — a VOD-review protocol (three deaths per game, one pattern per week), a tilt debrief that ends queue-rage sessions, and honest fundamentals-first improvement planning for competitive games like League, Valorant, or Rocket League. Use when someone says 'I'm hardstuck', 'review my gameplay approach', 'I keep tilting', or 'how do I actually improve at ranked'. Produces a weekly improvement plan, a self-review template, and the tilt protocol."
homepage: https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/skill/ranked-climb-coach.html
metadata:
  {
    "openclaw": { "emoji": "🧠" }
  }
---

# Ranked Climb Coach Skill

Hardstuck players grind games; improving players study *deaths*. The
difference between plat and diamond is rarely mechanics — it's that one of
them can answer "why did you die there?" with something other than "their
Jett is smurfing." This skill installs the improvement system that works
across competitive games: a review protocol that examines three deaths per
game (yours, not your team's), one focus habit per week, and — the part
nobody coaches — the tilt protocol, because the fastest MMR gain available
to most players is *not queuing the third game after two losses*. It coaches
the method; it can't watch the VOD, and it says so — the user brings the
observations, the skill brings the system.

## What This Skill Produces

- A **weekly improvement plan**: ONE focus habit, chosen from the user's own
  reported death patterns, with a success metric that isn't rank
- A **self-review template**: the three-deaths protocol with the questions
  that convert deaths into patterns
- The **tilt protocol**: hard queue rules, the two-loss checkpoint, and the
  reset ritual (a gamer-shaped [[stoic-setback-debrief]])
- A **fundamentals audit** for their game genre: the boring things that gate
  rank (CS/economy/positioning/rotation — genre-appropriate), self-scored

## Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):
- The game, current rank, peak rank, role/agent/champion pool, games per week
- Their own diagnosis of why they're stuck — then the last 3 losses described
  concretely (the gap between those two answers is usually the coaching)
- Tilt honesty: longest loss-streak queued through recently, what happens to
  their play after a bad game
- Time actually available — a plan for 6 hours/week that assumes 20 fails

## Framework

1. **Shrink the pool first.** Hardstuck + large champion/agent pool = the
   diagnosis, most of the time. Two mains + one flex until the next rank.
   Consistency compounds; variety is a hobby (fine! — but pick which this is).
2. **The three-deaths review.** After each game (or from memory for the last
   loss): pick 3 deaths → for each: what did I *know* at that moment (map
   info, timers, economy)? · what did I *assume*? · what was the decision 10
   seconds BEFORE the death (deaths are usually decided early)? · tag the
   cause: info / positioning / greed / tilt / genuine-outplay.
   Genuine-outplay is allowed to be the answer — but not four times a game.
3. **One habit per week.** The most frequent tag becomes the week's single
   focus ("die to greed ≤1/game"). Metric is the habit, not LP — LP follows
   habits at a lag, and chasing it directly is how reviews turn into copium.
4. **The tilt protocol, non-negotiable.** Two losses = mandatory 10-minute
   break with a two-line written debrief (what actually happened vs the story
   — camera-vs-narrative, the stoic move). Third queue after two ragey losses
   is where accounts lose their week. Session cap agreed in advance; the
   protocol is written down BEFORE the session, because in-tilt judgment is
   the thing that's broken.
5. **Fundamentals over highlights.** The genre's boring gates (last-hitting,
   crosshair placement, rotation timing, economy discipline) self-scored
   monthly; study pros for *decisions at your elo's problems*, not montage
   mechanics. Aim training and guides are supplements, not the meal.

## Output Format

```
## Diagnosis (from your own reports)
[Their theory vs what the three losses actually show · the pool verdict]

## This week's ONE habit
[The habit · why this one · the metric that isn't LP]

## Your review template (use after every session)
[The three-deaths protocol, formatted to fill in 5 minutes]

## Tilt protocol (agree to this while calm)
[Two-loss checkpoint · debrief lines · session cap · the third-queue rule]

## Fundamentals audit — [genre]
| Gate | Self-score /5 | The drill if under 3 |

## Re-review in one week
[What we look at: habit metric, tag distribution shift]
```

## Quality Checks

- [ ] Exactly one focus habit — a five-point improvement plan improves nothing
- [ ] The review questions target decisions-before-deaths, not the death
      frame itself
- [ ] The tilt protocol has hard numbers (loss checkpoint, session cap)
      agreed in advance
- [ ] The plan fits their real hours, with the 20% miss assumption stated
- [ ] The skill is honest about its limits: it structures self-review from
      the user's observations; it has not seen the VOD and never pretends
      otherwise

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not blame teammates anywhere in the output — the protocol reviews
      the only player the user controls; "my team" tags are auto-converted to
      "what could I have done with that information?"
- [ ] Do not prescribe meta champions/agents as the fix — pool discipline
      beats pool chasing at every rank below the one where it doesn't
- [ ] Do not fake game-specific authority — patch-current builds and matchup
      charts change weekly; point at the game's live resources for those and
      own the method layer
- [ ] Do not let rank be the weekly metric; habit adherence is the metric,
      rank is the lagging echo
- [ ] Do not skip the tilt section for "mechanically-focused" players — the
      two-loss checkpoint outranks any aim drill in MMR-per-hour

## Related

[[stoic-setback-debrief]] is the tilt protocol's parent; [[deep-work-blocking]]
for making practice time real; [[the-gym]]-style arenas for the negotiation
kind of ranked.
