Gold wins games, and the steadiest source of gold is farming: last-hitting minions to score CS (creep score). A player who farms cleanly is richer, stronger and further ahead every single game — no fighting required. This guide breaks down how last-hitting works, how to practise it, how to farm safely under your own tower, and the common mistakes that quietly cost you hundreds of gold.
What is CS, and why it decides games
CS stands for creep score — the number of minions and monsters you have killed. Every minion you last-hit gives you gold, and over a game those small amounts add up to more than most kills. A full wave of minions is worth roughly as much as a kill, and a new wave arrives every 30 seconds.
Because farming is so reliable, the player with the higher CS usually has more items. Completing an item before your opponent is a real, lasting advantage — it makes you win trades, survive ganks and take objectives. Improving your farm is the single fastest way to climb, whatever your role.
The core skill: last-hitting
You only get gold from a minion when YOU land the killing blow — that is a last-hit. Simply attacking minions does nothing for your wallet; you have to time the final auto-attack so it lands just as the minion’s health drops low enough to die.
The trick is patience. Watch each minion’s health bar and let it fall before you attack, instead of clicking the moment minions appear. Every champion’s auto-attack has a wind-up — the animation before the damage lands — so aim slightly early. Hitting a minion too soon just pushes the wave and steals CS from your future self.
The short video below walks through the fundamentals of last-hitting and why clean CS matters.
Train it in the Practice Tool
The fastest way to improve is the Practice Tool. Load in alone, stand in a lane and try to last-hit every single minion using only auto-attacks — no abilities. Missing one tells you instantly that your timing was off.
A common drill is to aim for a target, for example 100 CS by the 10-minute mark with auto-attacks only. Do this for ten minutes before a ranked session and your hands will remember the timing when it counts. Turn on the CS counter so you can measure yourself.
Know your minion types
Each wave has three kinds of minions, and they are not worth the same. Melee minions are the sturdy front-liners; caster minions are the ranged ones that deal more damage but die faster; and every third wave brings a cannon (siege) minion worth far more gold than the rest — often three to four times as much.
Because the cannon minion is so valuable, never let it die to your tower or your own minions by accident. If you must choose which minion to prioritise, the cannon almost always comes first. Casters are next trickiest — they die quickly and are easily stolen by your own minions if you are not watching.
Farming under your tower
When the wave is pushing into you, your own tower starts killing the enemy minions — and it will happily steal your CS if you do not adjust. You need to combine the tower’s damage with your own so that YOU land the last hit.
The rule of thumb: for melee minions, let the tower hit them twice, then last-hit with an auto-attack. For caster minions, hit them once yourself first, let the tower shoot once, then finish them. It feels awkward at first, but farming under tower is a skill you use in every game — especially after backing or when you are being pushed in.
Last-hit without shoving the wave
Good farming is not only about gold — it is about controlling where the minions meet. If you attack every minion on cooldown, you shove the wave toward the enemy tower, which drags you away from your side and exposes you to ganks. Instead, only auto-attack minions when they are low enough to last-hit.
By hitting minions only for the last-hit, you let the wave settle closer to you — the foundation of wave management. A wave that sits on your side is safer to farm, harder to gank, and can even be frozen to starve your opponent of CS. Learning to farm without pushing is what separates a good laner from a great one.
Common CS mistakes (and how to fix them)
The biggest mistake is attacking minions too early and too often, which wastes last-hits and shoves the wave. Slow down, watch health bars, and let minions come to you. The second is tunnel-visioning so hard on CS that you get hit by the enemy or a skillshot — keep glancing at the minimap and your opponent between last-hits.
Other common leaks: giving up on farm after you die (you can catch up fast by farming safely), ignoring the cannon minion, and forgetting to collect the side-lane waves in the mid game. The video below breaks down why players lose CS and how to fix each habit.
CS benchmarks and a simple routine
A useful early benchmark is around 7 to 8 CS per minute — roughly 70 to 80 CS at the 10-minute mark. High-level players push toward 10 CS per minute, close to perfect last-hitting plus jungle camps. You do not need to be perfect; simply beating your lane opponent’s CS is already a win.
Build a simple routine: ten minutes of Practice Tool last-hitting before you play, check your CS at 10 minutes every game, and after each match ask yourself where you lost farm. Do that for a week and clean CS becomes second nature — and your rank will follow.