A match you know is a match half-played. Pros walk into a draft having read every player on the other side; most of us walk in blind and find out in lane. Reading an opponent is not a pro-only skill anymore — it takes a Riot ID and ten minutes, if you know what to look for and what to ignore.

This guide is the routine. It is written around the Olymps read because that is what we built, but the method holds wherever you get your data: what to pull, in what order, and where preparation stops and cheating starts.

Numbers are not a read

A stats page shows what: the champions they play, their win rate, their KDA. That is where most scouting stops, and it is where it should start.

A read shows when, and the gap between their wins and their losses. Take the sentence that changes a game plan:

Their first big item lands at 13 minutes when they win — and 19 when they lose.

Same build, six minutes apart. That is not a build problem, it is a tempo problem — and it tells you exactly how long you have before they come online, and that a slow lane is the plan, not a lucky break. No table of champions says that. A read of their own games does.

Everything below is built on that idea: their own games, wins split from losses, tendencies rather than a verdict on the person.

Step 1 — the free read, two minutes

Type their Riot ID on the scouting page or look them up directly. No account needed. What comes back, from their last twenty ranked games:

Their pool — what they pick, how often, and how it actually goes for them. The champion they play most is rarely the one that serves them best; the games count sits next to every win rate so a 100% on two games reads as thin, not as a plan.
What beats them — the lane matchups they lose, drawn from their own games with the sample size. This is what you leave open in a draft, not what a global counter table says.
Wins into — the matchups they queue up smiling for. This is what you take away.
Their lane at 10:00 — gold and CS against their own lane opponent, and the one-line reading: usually ahead, usually behind, farms but loses.
The coach's opening read — one sentence that links two findings into a cause, plus a 9-domain radar ranking them against the nine other players in their own lobbies.

The dossier is a public page with a shareable URL. Send it to your team; nobody else has to type anything. It refreshes every twelve hours.

Step 2 — the film room, when the match matters

For a game that matters — a Clash final, a bracket you want, a rival you keep meeting — the deep read goes to thirty games with their full timelines. It costs 5 AI credits, the same credits reviews use; every account starts with one free credit, plans refill monthly, and if we cannot read enough games you are refunded.

What the film room adds:

The map of their deaths — every death placed on the Rift, minute by minute: where they fall, whether they were alone, and the window where a second death follows the first.
When their games are decided — the exact minute wins split from losses, and why the lane goes when it goes.
The field report — drakes by element, turret plates, teamfights: how many allies alongside, who throws the first hit, how close they play to their jungler.
Champion by champion, with the brief — their build order to the minute, wins against losses, and the written gameplan: draft, lane, game, each order with its number.

Read it the night before, not five minutes before the draft. A plan you have not slept on is a plan you will not follow under pressure.

Step 3 — the team sheet, for Clash and 5v5

A coach does not prepare a player, they prepare a camp. Give the read up to five Riot IDs — or an Olymps team name, and the five fields fill themselves — and the plan comes back in the order you use it:

Ban these — the champions they actually win on: most played and best won, first.
Leave them this — the ones they keep picking and losing on.
Where the lanes crack — each player's own losing matchups, and what they answer with.
Who carries them — their players ranked by the /100 grade on their recent games.

The team sheet costs 6 credits. One rule protects you from your own confirmation bias: a champion under three games never enters any list. A plan built on two games is a guess, and a guess in a draft costs more than no plan at all.

Step 4 — watch them over time

If you meet the same players every week — a league, a rival community, a recruit you are considering — put them on your watchlist. They are re-read every week and you only hear what moved: a new pick, a swing in form, their main champion dropped, a change of role. Nothing changed that week? Silence. Two points of average between two weeks is noise, and a tool that cries wolf is a tool you mute.

Free accounts watch one player; Elite watches ten.

In the draft itself — the Eye

Preparation happens before you queue. There is one exception, and it is deliberately narrow: in the free desktop Companion, when you enter an Olymps, Clash or custom champion select, the Eye docks beside your client and reads the other side in seconds — the danger, the duo, the tilt, three orders. It leaves at lock-in.

Two things keep that fair. Ranked stays dark: ranked champion select is anonymous by design and the Eye does not read it. And it is free and symmetric: in an Olymps match, the other team can run the same Companion and get the same read on you.

What we refuse

Scouting on a platform that also runs the matches has to draw lines, and ours are public:

Before a match on Olymps, the briefing is free — for both sides. We know who you play tonight because we run the bracket, so the read on your opponent arrives on its own, at no cost, and they get exactly the same read on you.
We refuse to sell the deep read on tonight's opponent. Try to buy the film room on the side you face in a bracket and you get the free briefing instead. A paid advantage inside a match with money on it is a line we do not cross.
Tendencies, never a verdict. The read describes how someone plays. It never says anything about who they are.
Their public Riot history, never their Olymps data. A scan reads their ranked games through the official API. Their Coach grades, written reviews and missions belong to their account and never enter a dossier.

What is sold is depth outside a match, team preparation, and following a player over time. Never the edge in a match whose result we read from the Riot API.

The ten-minute routine

The night before a match that matters:

Free read on each opponent you know — two minutes each. Note the pool with games counts, and the one lane reading.
Film room on the player their game runs through — the carry, the shot-caller, the lane you will fight.
Team sheet if it is a five: the four lists, in order.
Write three lines for your team: what we ban, what we leave open, where we press early.
Sleep on it. Read your three lines again before the draft, not the whole dossier.

Then play the game. The read tells you how long you have; it does not play the lane for you.

Start with one name — a rival, a teammate, or yourself. Compare two players if tonight is a 1v1.

FAQ

Is scouting a player allowed?

Reading someone's public ranked history through the official Riot API is how every stats page works, and it is how pro teams prepare. What is not allowed anywhere is real-time assistance in ranked champion select — which is why ranked stays dark for the Eye.

How recent is the data?

The free read covers their last twenty ranked games and refreshes every twelve hours. The film room reads thirty games with their timelines.

Can I scout myself?

Yes, and you should. Type your own Riot ID: what beats you is the list you have been avoiding. The Coach then grades every game you play and names the leak.

Does the other team know I read them?

No. A dossier is a read of public data; nothing is sent to the player. In an Olymps match, both sides receive the same free briefing anyway.