Has Your Season Gone the Way Mine Has?

Mathgodpi·Oct 19, 2018·12 votes·7,160 views

Nearly 1000 ranked games; I'm still hardstuck due to factors outside of my control.

Over the past 37 games (35 if you don't count remakes), I've kept detailed track of what has been happening in each game. Though 35 games may not be a large sample, I can genuinely assure you that my whole season has, for the most part, gone the way as described in the spreadsheet.

I'm sure there are others out there who can relate, so if your season has gone similar to how mine has, please share your experiences here.

73 Comments

AFilthyCaitMainOct 19, 201810 votes

Nearly 1000 ranked games; I'm still hardstuck due to factors outside of my control.

This is never true and no one should ever tell themselves this. THIS mentality is what stops people from climbing. You become ignorant to your own mistakes. According to a lot of people, 40% of games are free wins, 40% unwinnable, 20% are decided by you. this is why so many champions hover around 40-50% winrate. if they win half of the games they decide, the champ should have around a 50% winrate in theory (doesnt happen bc skill levels and stuff). The reason smurfs are able to get insane winrates is because theyre able to turn even UNWINNABLE games around thru outplays and getting fed af first.

Tldr: 40% of games are free wins, 40% unwinnable, 20% are decided by you. So never blame others for why you cant climb.

MathgodpiOct 19, 20183 votes

You're just parroting a simplistic talking point that I've already heard repeated and repeated a thousand times by many people. It's a soundbite that sounds compelling, but it totally ignores what is actually happening to some players.

I don't have a "mentality" problem. After each loss I download the replay and take a look at my own mistakes. I'm hard on myself. I also take a look at the match as a whole and determine what caused the loss. Overwhelmingly I find that my teammates do in fact feed and/or make terrible decisions to the point of making the game unwinnable. Over my whole 1000 game season, the number of games where losses were actually due to my mistakes can be counted on one hand.

So if you actually paid attention to the spreadsheet, you would know that I'm not being placed in unwinnable games 40% of the time, I'm being placed in unwinnable games more than 50% of the time, aside from a couple of winning streaks several months ago. I've been losing 2/3 of my games since hitting gold 4 about 100 games ago, and these losses are honestly truly not my fault. I am convinced that there are some sort of prisoner-island things going on behind the scenes.

AFilthyCaitMainOct 19, 20185 votes

{quoted}

You're just parroting a simplistic talking point that I've already heard repeated and repeated a thousand times by many people. It's a soundbite that sounds compelling, but it totally ignores what is actually happening to some players.

I don't have a "mentality" problem. After each loss I download the replay and take a look at my own mistakes. I'm hard on myself. I also take a look at the match as a whole and determine what caused the loss. Overwhelmingly I find that my teammates do in fact feed and/or make terrible decisions to the point of making the game unwinnable. Over my whole 1000 game season, the number of games where losses were actually due to my mistakes can be counted on one hand.

So if you actually paid attention to the spreadsheet, you would know that I'm not being placed in unwinnable games 40% of the time, I'm being placed in unwinnable games more than 50% of the time, aside from a couple of winning streaks several months ago. I've been losing 2/3 of my games since hitting gold 4 about 100 games ago, and these losses are honestly truly not my fault. I am convinced that there are some sort of prisoner-island things going on behind the scenes.

Youre probably losing due to you not knowing what youre looking for in relays. I notice in your games you dont seem to get fed all that much and you die a lot. You cant expect to carry when youre not getting fed yourself and dying a lot.

If faker/qt/t1/etc were placed in low elo they could easily get out. So why cant you?

The fact of the matter is just that youre playing like an S1/G5 player. if youre losing 2/3 of your games consistently, whos fault is that other than you? even if you get a shit ton of unwinnable games like i have, you should still be managing around a 50% winrate after a while.

Youre in denial that anything is your fault, youre not looking for what YOURE doing wrong, but rather how to shift off the blame to.

Refer to this as this is whats commonly happening when people get hardstuck and start blaming their team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

MathgodpiOct 19, 20181 votes

I've always pointed the finger at myself, believing that the problem was me and I had to do better. However, after 1000 games, it is apparent that, despite me always scrutinizing my mistakes and trying to be the best player possible, yet still not climbing, it has reached a point where the problem can only logically be coming from elsewhere - that elsewhere is the matchmaking system. The common theme in ALL my losses is that one or more of the following happen:

Two of my teammates feed relentlessly all game long, making themselves essentially nothing more than free-farms for the enemy team.
Three of my teammates do ok in lane phase (not great, but not feeding either), only to go crazy in mid game and dive recklessly at the enemy team over and over again and basically donate free kills.
My jungler spends the entire game leisurely wandering around, off in his own little world, clearing camps very slowly, refusing to gank for teammates, often wandering into dark areas randomly and getting picked off. Then he builds tank items and spends the mid & late game split pushing very slowly and ignoring the team.

When I say that a game is unwinnable due to teammates, I'm saying it because I have correctly assessed that the game was not winnable due to the way my teammates were throwing. All you have to do to corroborate any given case is to watch the replay of the game in question. Instead, all you seem to want to do is try to spin everything against me, undermine my credibility, and make me out to be someone who doesn't understand how league games are won and lost.

You're coming at this with a preconceived notion that I don't know what I'm talking about, and you're not considering the possibility that I actually do understand the game. You accuse me of bias, yet you've turned a blind eye to your own!

As for my own play, I've looked for honest help everywhere - Youtube videos, the Karthus mains reddit, heck I've even watched a high diamond karthus player smurfing in silver to see what he would do to win that I supposedly haven't been doing. My jaw hit the floor - I do everything he does in the exact same way he does it. He climbs, I don't.

Ultimately the debate comes down to this: everyone acknowledges that there is such thing as a game that can't be won due to how poorly teammates are playing. So if such a scenario can happen, the only point of contention is how often it actually does happen. Since hitting gold 4 I have, in my honest, deepest, most sincere opinion, been placed in these unwinnable games about 2/3 of the time. I'm hoping that Riot can look into whether or not some low-level employee has a vendetta against me and is screwing over my account.

AFilthyCaitMainOct 19, 20182 votes

{quoted}

I've always pointed the finger at myself, believing that the problem was me and I had to do better. However, after 1000 games, it is apparent that, despite me always scrutinizing my mistakes and trying to be the best player possible, yet still not climbing, it has reached a point where the problem can only logically be coming from elsewhere - that elsewhere is the matchmaking system. The common theme in ALL my losses is that one or more of the following happen:

Two of my teammates feed relentlessly all game long, making themselves essentially nothing more than free-farms for the enemy team.

Three of my teammates do ok in lane phase (not great, but not feeding either), only to go crazy in mid game and dive recklessly at the enemy team over and over again and basically donate free kills.

My jungler spends the entire game leisurely wandering around, off in his own little world, clearing camps very slowly, refusing to gank for teammates, often wandering into dark areas randomly and getting picked off. Then he builds tank items and spends the mid & late game split pushing very slowly and ignoring the team.

When I say that a game is unwinnable due to teammates, I'm saying it because I have correctly assessed that the game was not winnable due to the way my teammates were throwing. All you have to do to corroborate any given case is to watch the replay of the game in question. Instead, all you seem to want to do is try to spin everything against me, undermine my credibility, and make me out to be someone who doesn't understand how league games are won and lost.

You're coming at this with a preconceived notion that I don't know what I'm talking about, and you're not considering the possibility that I actually do understand the game. You accuse me of bias, yet you've turned a blind eye to your own!

As for my own play, I've looked for honest help everywhere - Youtube videos, the Karthus mains reddit, heck I've even watched a high diamond karthus player smurfing in silver to see what he would do to win that I supposedly haven't been doing. My jaw hit the floor - I do everything he does in the exact same way he does it. He climbs, I don't.

Ultimately the debate comes down to this: everyone acknowledges that there is such thing as a game that can't be won due to how poorly teammates are playing. So if such a scenario can happen, the only point of contention is how often it actually does happen. Since hitting gold 4 I have, in my honest, deepest, most sincere opinion, been placed in these unwinnable games about 2/3 of the time. I'm hoping that Riot can look into whether or not some low-level employee has a vendetta against me and is screwing over my account.

If youre doing literally nothing wrong, why arent you in pro play? The probability of you playing absolutely perfectly over 1000 games and still not being able to climb is L I T E R A L L Y impossible. Like dude fuck. Im playing ADC, a role with some of the least agency early-mid, and still managed to climb to G3 and still climbing.

It is impossible for you to be in 66% unwinnable games over such a large sample size. If you think so many games are unwinnable, there is something you are just NOT getting. That is the fact of league.

If youre doing nothing wrong, why are you still Silver/Gold???

And you think that a rioter would really do that to someone? really??? Thats almost exactly like someone at a restaurant PURPOSELY giving you terrible food.

Get rid of your mentality and youll more than likely see improvement. Your current mentality is that youre this special snowflake who does nothing wrong and a rioter is keeping you at low elo. Just face the facts that you are not playing like a Plat+ player.

Or you know. You can keep this mentality and get angry all the time and blame everyone else for what you do wrong.

MathgodpiNov 12, 20181 votes

I never said I'm doing nothing wrong ever, my argument is that my mechanics on my champion are about as good as it gets, and the rest of my game has no glaring weaknesses. So while I'm not perfect, I'm certainly much, much better than say 80% of the people I get teamed with (who just feed in lane and/or do absolutely nothing in teamfights).

There are people in my elo who clearly don't have the slightest clue what they are doing, have about zero mechanical skill on their champions, and appear to be treating the game like it's a big joke. Despite consistently playing so much better than them, I'm still stuck in this elo WITH them. Can't you see how unfair that is?

Yes I do think there is some impropriety going on behind the scenes. Maybe because I don't buy skins, etc, the system has determined that I'm not sending money to Riot, so the system puts my account into some sort of purgatory. Or, it might have something to do with the reporting system, as people falsely believe that I deserve to be reported, so they report me.

Not sure what's going on, but it does not seem likely that I deserve to be stuck in gold 5, considering that the majority of players I get teamed with are about the equivalent of intermediate bots.

PopperofskiOct 19, 20181 votes

Or you could just stop denying this is league of statcheck and the people with more numbers win, and more numbers winning tilts even the most steadfast player because riot wants to gut their own player base down to fucking call of duty players and fortnite players

Daddy AntsOct 19, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Or you could just stop denying this is league of statcheck and the people with more numbers win, and more numbers winning tilts even the most steadfast player because riot wants to gut their own player base down to fucking call of duty players and fortnite players

This game has been more about the champions you pick and less about individual player skill for a long time.

IllabetheNov 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

This is never true and no one should ever tell themselves this. THIS mentality is what stops people from climbing. You become ignorant to your own mistakes. According to a lot of people, 40% of games are free wins, 40% unwinnable, 20% are decided by you. this is why so many champions hover around 40-50% winrate. if they win half of the games they decide, the champ should have around a 50% winrate in theory (doesnt happen bc skill levels and stuff). The reason smurfs are able to get insane winrates is because theyre able to turn even UNWINNABLE games around thru outplays and getting fed af first.

Tldr: 40% of games are free wins, 40% unwinnable, 20% are decided by you. So never blame others for why you cant climb.

Not entirely true...

If a Jhin or a Jinx gets a 300 gold lead, that means 2-3 minutes where they have a Stormrazor and no one else does. Which they turn into 2-3 more kills, and begin the snowball no one can stop. That is IF they realize they have that kind of influence in that brief window. Some adcs don't, and let you get back into the game. But a competent one always knows this, and if they can help it, I guarantee they try for that double snowball.

IfnethOct 19, 20189 votes

Sounds like you have a problem with tilt. After a thousand games, you have to admit that the only common factor is you. Unless you want to talk about being ‘held back’ and stuff, if you want to climb, then recognizing the problem is step one.

Looking at your op.gg, what I see is a pattern of very low death wins and very high death losses, suggesting that you give up and stop caring whether you die after a certain point of feeding or the team getting behind, but then get fed in other games and say, “See? I’m actually good!”. The real problem is that your ego is so invested in every game that you’re protecting it by saying that the problem must be outside. This study of your past games is another way of keeping it away from a reality you can’t totally control.

And that’s a fact. Only smurfs can even hope to win every game, while you’re on your main just trying to get better. Let me repeat myself. You’re trying to get better. Not climb—rank comes naturally as you improve. Get your mind off the LP and onto how you’re doing, and what you’ve done, in the game. That’s something you can actually invest yourself into, rather than individual games.

Looking over your Karthus, I can also criticize your build. Karthus rushes Rod of Ages into Morellonomicon and Zhonya’s Hourglass. You’ve been building Tear and Lost Chapter. They’re tempting on a spell spammer, but remember that Karthus’ mana restore on Q should be enough to keep you sustained, especially with an early Catalyst and Rod. Also, don’t buy The Dark Seal unless you’re trying to recover a lane or need to snowball to win, and don’t upgrade it to Mejai’s until you’ve stacked it. It wastes gold that could be funding your core build and tilts you when you lose the stacks.

So, just play the game for fun. Take a step back and roll with the losses. Much of the fun of League is in not giving up when things look kind of bad, and in trying your hardest anyway. It’s actually amazing when it works. Sure, surrender the 0/20 at 20 games, but understand that 5/10 at 20 is tough but winnable, especially when you’re playing a scaling monster like Karthus.

WiegrafOfValorOct 19, 20182 votes

It's quite common to have low death rates on your wins and high death rates on losses in this last few metas.

Riot is encouraging this snowball behavior in the game, therefore I don't see that as an argument that OP is tilting and it's a bad player because of that. Looking at your stats I can noticed the same pattern.

Also just because he's playing a sub optimal build doesn't mean that's the reason he's losing. Most likely he's losing because he's playing his favorite champions instead of the flashy favorites Riot is shoving on our throats.

That doesn't mean I don't agree with the fact that the player should aim to improve and he's the a factor on every one of those 1000 games, but to say that he's the only common denominator, that's wrong. Riot has been pushing their agenda and influencing too much on how games should be played, that takes away a lot of the hands of the player, and some of us have a lot more problems adapting to this.

IfnethOct 19, 20183 votes

Winning teams have better statlines (since teams with better statlines tend to win) but double digit deaths like the OP had not too long ago are usually a sign of tilt even when losing. I don’t feed when I lose.

He builds Mejai’s Soulstealer almost every single game, and Dark Seal on those rare occasions he doesn’t upgrade it, even when dying a lot. That’s 350 gold early followed by another 750 gold later. He regularly builds Archangel’s Staff, even though Karthus doesn’t need it. That’s over 3,000 gold by itself. If 4k gold in misplaced stats isn’t holding OP back, I’d be surprised.

This isn’t about Riot. Indeed, you have it backward. The meta’s never been more open, both on the ladder and on stage. Anyone can play anything. If OP wants to climb with Karthus, then he really can. The onus is on him to start building the right items and taking the right approach to the game. He won’t get better if he just keeps building Mejai’s, dying a lot by forcing coin-flip fights whether ahead or behind, and hoping to get fed.

MathgodpiOct 19, 20181 votes

After a thousand games, you have to admit that the only common factor is you.

Absolutely false. The other common factor is the matchmaking system which has complete control over who I get teamed with.

I've only started building dark seal/mejais recently when I saw a diamond smurf doing it in a silver game. Before that I seldom bought dark seal.

I've been buying AA staff on the advice from someone on the Karthus mains reddit, who pointed out that the extra mana from RoA can be converted into extra AP due to Seraph's passive. Also, Karthus benefits greatly from a larger mana pool and CDR.

Nevertheless, I'll try doing what you suggested, rushing RoA/Morello/Zhonya's. However, I sincerely doubt it's going to make any real difference in regards to my win rate.

You're attempt at spinning my high-death losses into a theory about me having an ego problem is quite clever (and it's obviously winning over a lot of people judging by the upvotes on your post), but if you actually take a step back from your pre-conceived notions and instead try to understand those deaths in the context of what is happening in each game, maybe you'll begin to understand that the reason why I'm not climbing has much, much, much less to do with my play than you're making it out to be, and much more to do with the matchmaker than you seem willing to admit.

When I'm stuck in a game with teammates who obviously have no idea what they are doing, and a skirmish or teamfight appears to be close to starting, I am faced with two choices. Choice 1: fight with my teammates as best as I can and hope for the best, or choice 2: abandon my teammates to avoid dying and hope for the best. If I choose choice 2, it is pretty much guaranteed that all of my nearby teammates will die and not get a kill in return. If I choose choice 1, I will certainly die, as the enemy team usually prioritizes killing me first (since they know I'm the only player on my team that can hurt them), but I can usually get at least one kill in return and deal heaps of damage to the other enemy players, but it usually doesn't matter as the rest of my teammates also die without getting any kills.

So that's why you're seeing losses where I have a lot of deaths. I'm choosing to fight with my teammates in hopes that they have some idea of how to fight properly, and by some miracle we will in a teamfight. But it seldom works out well. The alternative, however, is not any better as avoiding skirmishes/teamfights simply results in my team getting annihilated and the enemy team being able to take turrets/dragons with impunity.

For more context, you can take a look at what I typed in response to the other posters in this thread.

IfnethOct 20, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Absolutely false. The other common factor is the matchmaking system which has complete control over who I get teamed with.

It’s also the common factor in everyone else’s games, though. People are climbing and falling all the time. So, the key is looking at yourself.

I've only started building dark seal/mejais recently when I saw a diamond smurf doing it in a silver game. Before that I seldom bought dark seal.

And he bought it because he knew he was about to stomp, so he bought a snowball item to get even more ahead as he did. You’re not a Diamond smurf in a Silver-Gold game. You’re a Silver-Gold player trying to get a little better every time. cough Ego cough

I've been buying AA staff on the advice from someone on the Karthus mains reddit, who pointed out that the extra mana from RoA can be converted into extra AP due to Seraph's passive. Also, Karthus benefits greatly from a larger mana pool and CDR.

Oh, that’s just bad advice. The conversion on AA got gutted patches ago, so unless you’re a mana hog like Ryze or Anivia you don’t build both. Only a SE gets much AP from Mana stacking, leaving you with a pile of kinda-useless, early-game items that build into an item Karthus doesn’t really need, either.

In general, op.gg has the right builds. In this case, it would be better to just get a straight-up battlemage fourth item like Liandry’s Torment, which grants you the raw AP, Health, and DOT you need. Or get a Void Staff to punch through MR.

Nevertheless, I'll try doing what you suggested, rushing RoA/Morello/Zhonya's. However, I sincerely doubt it's going to make any real difference in regards to my win rate.

I’m relieved you’re willing to try. As for the items, a meta build really makes a difference. In this case, you can hit a Sorcs-Oblivion Orb MPEN power spike and deal true or almost true damage for ten minutes.

You're attempt at spinning my high-death losses into a theory about me having an ego problem is quite clever (and it's obviously winning over a lot of people judging by the upvotes on your post), but if you actually take a step back from your pre-conceived notions and instead try to understand those deaths in the context of what is happening in each game, maybe you'll begin to understand that the reason why I'm not climbing has much, much, much less to do with my play than you're making it out to be, and much more to do with the matchmaker than you seem willing to admit.

It’s actually just the common signs and reasons of tilt. Much of it just comes down to ego invested in a match outcome. The matchmaker has not singled you out.

When I'm stuck in a game with teammates who obviously have no idea what they are doing, and a skirmish or teamfight appears to be close to starting, I am faced with two choices. Choice 1: fight with my teammates as best as I can and hope for the best, or choice 2: abandon my teammates to avoid dying and hope for the best. If I choose choice 2, it is pretty much guaranteed that all of my nearby teammates will die and not get a kill in return. If I choose choice 1, I will certainly die, as the enemy team usually prioritizes killing me first (since they know I'm the only player on my team that can hurt them), but I can usually get at least one kill in return and deal heaps of damage to the other enemy players, but it usually doesn't matter as the rest of my teammates also die without getting any kills.

Whether your teammates make a bad engage or get caught, or whether they make a good engage or a pick, your job as a carry remains to do as much damage as you can without dying. This is important to understand. Your team needs you to deal a lot of damage and to stay alive. It’s not a choice.

When you or your team are doing well, that means not throwing a lead by being too aggressive. When you and your team are doing poorly, that means doing as much damage as you can and then escaping right when you have to.

So that's why you're seeing losses where I have a lot of deaths. I'm choosing to fight with my teammates in hopes that they have some idea of how to fight properly, and by some miracle we will in a teamfight. But it seldom works out well. The alternative, however, is not any better as avoiding skirmishes/teamfights simply results in my team getting annihilated and the enemy team being able to take turrets/dragons with impunity.

Again, you don’t have to make that choice. You must adapt even to bad situations. Ask yourself: wouldn’t an amazing carry be hard to catch even if you could get his frontline?

MathgodpiNov 12, 20181 votes

You still don't seem to understand what's going on. My teammates basically don't exist, so the enemy team can use their dashes to jump on top of me and do whatever they want. The only way to avoid this is to back off far away, allowing them to take objectives with impunity. It absolutely IS a choice. When your team doesn't exist, going 1v5 against a team that is not only very fed but are also highly agile, highly skilled, and use their abilities/autos/item actives at just the right time, makes for an impossible situation. That's exactly what's been happening CONSISTENTLY. If you say otherwise it's because you haven't watched all my games in their entirety. I HAVE.

As for that diamond who smurfed in a silver game... guess what, he DIDN'T stomp. He went 9/7/5 and only barely won because his ADC carried. Again, I don't do anything different from what he did in that game. He's diamond, I'm trapped in gold.

It is entirely possible that the matchmaker does different things to different accounts. It's possible that some people are being screwed while others aren't.

IfnethNov 12, 20182 votes

What I did notice was that you took my item advice and went from Silver to Gold. ;)

While the tanks generally needed to enable immobile, squishy carries to teamfight are not meta, any champion with some health and resistances can frontline. Divers and Juggernauts, which are meta, do build these stats and therefore can at least somewhat protect you.

The purpose of a carry is to constantly adapt to the threats and opportunities presented by the movements of both teams, maximizing damage without dying. Carry champions are designed for this purpose, and their players must prepare themselves for it. The skill required is called positioning, named for having to position where the enemy can be safely struck.

If you fear your teammates cannot afford you any safety, then play back far enough that you are sure you are safe, try to understand the situation, and play the ensuing fight based on that understanding. If you’re wrong, then correct your idea and apply the improved one the next time. You will be wrong sometimes and feel bad because you thought you were right, but it’s the only way to learn.

That Diamond player may also not have been tryharding, whether by playing off-main or off-role or by not punishing every small mistake. He bought Dark Seal for the flexing luls. Just keep rushing your core unless you get an early kill (get Dark Seal) and you will do just fine.

Also, consider this video series. It will teach you everything you need to know about League. And yes, there’s a teamfighting section, too.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iko2tqmDpJQ

EcophileNov 13, 20182 votes

Lmao you are so nice to this boy. He literally refuses to admit his flaws and the ennemies' strengths, but you keep supporting him. Good luck!

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

MathgodpiNov 18, 20181 votes

@Ifneth Wrong again, I was gold 5 when I posted this thread and I'm gold 5 now. I once hit gold 4 about a month BEFORE making this thread, but I've been losing about 2/3 of my solo queue games since hitting that peak. That was all before I started taking your item advice (which I've only done in recent flex games, as I've given up on solo queue for now).

The diamond smurf absolutely was playing his main champion is his main role, which also happens to be my main champion in my main role (Karthus mid). He didn't do anything different from what I always do.

That video series doesn't explain what to do when the enemy team groups as 5 at around the 15 minute mark, and stay grouped as 5 for the rest of the game, they don't split up for any reason, they go from objective to objective taking whatever they want with complete impunity, and any time they see me they use their gap closers, cc, etc to lock me down and kill me. How do you deal with that if you don't have a team? It's simply impossible.

IfnethNov 18, 20182 votes

What I saw was that you were Gold, then dropped to Silver, then climbed back up to Gold after we talked.

If a Diamond player didn’t do anything that you don’t, then he wasn’t trying. If he were, then he would have probably solo-killed you, deep warded to waste your jungler’s time and secure objectives, then solo-killed you again or dived you, all while supporting jungle invades and possibly roaming. He is to a Gold player what the Gold player would be to a Bronze player.

You need to look at the games you play as a whole, rather than at individual games, where either side can end up barely winning or outright stomping. Otherwise, you will forget to look at how you can take control of the game before it gets out of hand. Sometimes, your teammates will carry you, but if you want to climb, then you will have to carry them. Win lane, rotate, snowball, out-shotcall, and out-play.

After all, how do you think you got to Gold?

TanerianOct 19, 20186 votes

Lol.

You're not here to discuss anything. Your mind is made up.

KDA isn't a great bar to set for overall skill. If you have amazing kda everygame, you lack in other areas. Maybe its pushing objectives at correct times, maybe its figuring out which teammates you need to assist more. Maybe you make too many assumptions about what a teammate should or will be doing. Maybe they make bad choices and you are not accounting for it, expecting play equal to yours. Maybe the way you conduct yourself tilts your teammates. Maybe you legit take too many kills, and should try to let teammates secure them.

All of those things will contribute to your "skill".

The idea that after a thousand games you are just "unlucky" while using the same MM system as every other player is ridiculous, and statistically implausible.

It doesn't mean you are bad. You are just missing something in your game. Discovering what that is can be very difficult.

There is a reason there aren't diamond+ streamers constantly being stuck in silver/gold.

MathgodpiOct 19, 20181 votes

Actually, you don't seem willing to discuss anything. Your mind is made up.

Is expecting my teammates not to recklessly dive into the enemy team for no reason an "assumption", or is it basic game knowledge?

Is expecting my teammates to not pick non-viable champions for a given role and go 0/8 in lane with said champion, an "assumption", or is it basic game knowledge?

Is expecting my jungler to attempt more than zero ganks during the lane phase, and to not spend the entire game ignoring every skirmish and teamfight when he's built purely tank items an "assumption", or is it basic game knowledge?

Is expecting my team to not wander into the enemy jungle and fight there with no vision an "assumption", or is it basic game knowledge?

Is expecting my team to not start baron when the enemy team is alive and the area behind baron is not warded an "assumption", or is it basic game knowledge?

EleshakaiOct 19, 20184 votes

I have absolutely no doubt that the things in that spreadsheet are factually accurate. The problem is that it is focused on two things: 1) What you did well and 2) Blaming your teammates.

Yet I guarantee you that even Faker or Uzi do things wrong. Even when they win games, there are things they can look at and go 'oh, I could have done this better'. THAT mentality is what allows them to climb to the top.

The mentality that 'no matter how well I did on paper, there are things I can improve on and the game was always mine to win' is what gives them the edge.

What I would like to see instead is a spreadsheet where you list the mistakes you made in every game, win or lose. The lessons you've taken away from every game. And I wish you could approach the game with the mindset of 'what can I do to improve?' as opposed to 'why am I not winning?'

It's easy to acknowledge the good things you did. Much harder to recognize the mistakes you made.

Here's an example. I went 11/2/19 on Leona as support. Early on in the game, there was a kill that if my judgement had been better I could've left for my adc without risking his death. Later on, I engaged the enemy support without flash, forgetting that there was an active blast cone. The support used it to push me into an awful spot, throwing a 10 kill bounty to the enemy team. Later on, I engaged on the wrong person, resulting in the closest to a teamfight loss we had during the late game and my second death. Additionally, during the lane phase I didn't optimize my targon stacks very well. I won that game. I got an S+ for it. I carried the HELL out of that game, in some cases 2v1ing enemy champions. But that doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes. That there aren't lessons to learn.

MathgodpiOct 19, 20181 votes

I've looked for honest help everywhere - countless Youtube videos, the Karthus mains reddit, heck I've even watched a high diamond karthus player smurfing in silver to see what he would do to win that I supposedly haven't been doing. My jaw hit the floor - I do everything he does in the exact same way he does it. He climbs, I don't.

EleshakaiOct 19, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I've looked for honest help everywhere - countless Youtube videos, the Karthus mains reddit, heck I've even watched a high diamond karthus player smurfing in silver to see what he would do to win that I supposedly haven't been doing. My jaw hit the floor - I do everything he does in the exact same way he does it. He climbs, I don't.

Ultimately the debate comes down to this: everyone acknowledges that there is such thing as a game that can't be won due to how poorly teammates are playing. So if such a scenario can happen, the only point of contention is how often it actually does happen. Since hitting gold 4 I have, in my honest, deepest, most sincere opinion, been placed in these unwinnable games about 2/3 of the time. I'm hoping that Riot can look into whether or not some low-level employee has a vendetta against me and is screwing over my account.

You realize what you're accusing right?

You're accusing Riot of HAVING THE ABILITY TO READ THE FUTURE and using it to mess with you, rather than any of the other uses they could put it to to actually profit.

MathgodpiOct 20, 20181 votes

{quoted}

You realize what you're accusing right?

You're accusing Riot of HAVING THE ABILITY TO READ THE FUTURE and using it to mess with you, rather than any of the other uses they could put it to to actually profit.

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm merely exploring possibilities.

It doesn't make sense to me that I'm getting A- or better (usually better) letter grade in nearly 80% of my recent games, yet have lost significantly more games than won over that stretch.

What I THINK happens is that the system has a way of knowing how skilled you are (based on individual stats such as KDAs and damage to champions, etc, not based on W/L ratio), and the more skilled you are, the more heavily it stacks teams against you. I also think it takes the most skilled players in any given elo and places them head to head (not necessarily in the same lane, but in the same game). I think this leads to me being put on a team against enemy smurfs much more often than on the same team as a smurf.

I also think there's a possibility that someone at Riot, such as a low-level employee, could be hand-picking certain accounts to mess with, and could be either manipulating MMR values to stack teams against me, or ddos-attacking my teammates in games that are roughly even at the time, to suddenly tilt the balance of the match in favor of the enemy team. Again, I don't know if this is actually the case, but it does seem possible that it could be happening.

What I do know for certain is that there have been stretches of games where my teammates have experienced huge ping problems out of the blue (sometimes as high as 1000ms ping), random disconnections, or lag spikes during team skirmishes. The players are always genuinely shocked and surprised that it's happening. This leads me to believe that it doesn't usually happen to them, but it does FSR when they are teamed with me.

EleshakaiOct 20, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm merely exploring possibilities.

It doesn't make sense to me that I'm getting A- or better (usually better) letter grade in nearly 80% of my recent games, yet have lost significantly more games than won over that stretch.

What I THINK happens is that the system has a way of knowing how skilled you are (based on individual stats such as KDAs and damage to champions, etc, not based on W/L ratio), and the more skilled you are, the more heavily it stacks teams against you. I also think it takes the most skilled players in any given elo and places them head to head (not necessarily in the same lane, but in the same game). I think this leads to me being put on a team against enemy smurfs much more often than on the same team as a smurf.

I also think there's a possibility that someone at Riot, such as a low-level employee, could be hand-picking certain accounts to mess with, and could be either manipulating MMR values to stack teams against me, or ddos-attacking my teammates in games that are roughly even at the time, to suddenly tilt the balance of the match in favor of the enemy team. Again, I don't know if this is actually the case, but it does seem possible that it could be happening.

What I do know for certain is that there have been stretches of games where my teammates have experienced huge ping problems out of the blue (sometimes as high as 1000ms ping), random disconnections, or lag spikes during team skirmishes. The players are always genuinely shocked and surprised that it's happening. This leads me to believe that it doesn't usually happen to them, but it does FSR when they are teamed with me.

…… or far far more likely: You're simply not as good as you think. And by focusing on how good you are in stead of how you can improve, you've created a situation where you look for excuses.

MathgodpiNov 12, 20181 votes

Except... I've spent countless hours watching guides, replay reviews, etc, trying to incorporate the advice into my game, but it never translates into more wins. I mean our team is down by 10 kills at the 15 minute mark in 50% of my bloody games, and nothing seems to change regardless of the adjustments I make to my game.

EleshakaiNov 12, 20181 votes

……. tinfoil hat hype.

FioraWillCarryOct 20, 20181 votes

I actually have an insane theory that Riot matches people who buy more skins better. It would make sense. Happy customers spend more money. People like me who has never spent money on the game, get matched with trolls, feeders, tampons, apes, potatoes and trashcans.

It's not really that farfetched to be honest. Riot has a massive database for all matches played on all servers ever. Riot has data on how many times you used each ability on every single champion you played. Any insane piece of information you could think to query, they have it. You want to know how many times you got first blood playing Khazix in the jungle? No problem. They have it. You want to know which champion killed you the most across every game you've ever played? They can answer that too. Want to know what part of the map you've died the most in all games you ever played? Yep, you guess it, they can answer that. Want to know which champion you killed the most in all games you ever played? Again, they can answer that. Want to know which lane and champion combination you feed the most on? Yep, they have the answer. Any question you could think to ask about your games, they have the data. It is not impossible to create a heuristic algorithm that uses the data to arrange teams such that they could determine the outcome of the match before champ select even begins. And they can use that to favor some players over others. Who do you think a business that makes it's profits from micro transactions will favor?....people that spend their money.

Streamers are de-facto advertisers so it wouldn't surprise me if Riot manually turned on the "get good team mates" switch on the streamers' accounts. And when they hit Diamond or Challenger, we think we could do it too, not ever realizing that Riot's heuristics made sure they got there. It would encourage the rest of us to try which means more time playing which means a higher chance we might buy something.

It wouldn't surprise me if we found out that Riot employees have some secret directive from the top to support such a system.

So you want better team mates? Buy skins and shit.

And if you think I'm crazy. I'm a programmer by trade and if I owned a game like League, I'd do it without thinking twice. It's not illegal. It's impossible to detect and it's good business. There's just no reason for them not to do this and when people starting suspecting and talking, they get written off as crackpots that need to "git gud". It's really the perfect scam.

MathgodpiOct 21, 20181 votes

Today I was playing some normal games on a smurf. The first several games went just fine - no apparent teammate problems.

Then in one game, someone told everyone to report me.

Starting the very next game, for several games in a row, I was consistently teamed with inters, trolls, people flaming each other in chat, people disconnecting from the game, and even some using racial slurs.

It was like clockwork.

At this point I have an extremely hard time believing that accounts aren't segregated based on the reports they receive. It seems likely that almost 100% of reports never actually get reviewed by human beings and the whole thing is almost entirely automated.

EleshakaiOct 21, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Today I was playing some normal games on a smurf. The first several games went just fine - no apparent teammate problems.

Then in one game, someone told everyone to report me.

Starting the very next game, for several games in a row, I was consistently teamed with inters, trolls, people flaming each other in chat, people disconnecting from the game, and even some using racial slurs.

It was like clockwork.

At this point I have an extremely hard time believing that accounts aren't segregated based on the reports they receive. It seems likely that almost 100% of reports never actually get reviewed by human beings and the whole thing is almost entirely automated.

Yes, the system IS entirely automated unless you raise a support ticket. But it doesn't segregate people, it simply punishes them with chat restrictions/bans.

MathgodpiOct 21, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Yes, the system IS entirely automated unless you raise a support ticket. But it doesn't segregate people, it simply punishes them with chat restrictions/bans.

You don't know that it doesn't segregate people. You're just assuming it doesn't.

Based on my experiences in ranked this season (and last season as well), I would suggest that there's a very strong possibility that it does segregate accounts based on how many recent reports those accounts had sent against them.

Any time I'm playing a game where my team is flaming me in chat (the reason is usually dumb, such as I took blue buff or I didn't suicide into the enemy team with them), they encourage each other to report me, and I can reliably expect that in my next several games I'll be teamed with people who will int, flame each other in chat, disconnect, experience 1000ms ping, or do other nonviable things deliberately just to troll.

EleshakaiOct 21, 20181 votes

{quoted}

You don't know that it doesn't segregate people. You're just assuming it doesn't.

Based on my experiences in ranked this season (and last season as well), I would suggest that there's a very strong possibility that it does segregate accounts based on how many recent reports those accounts had sent against them.

Any time I'm playing a game where my team is flaming me in chat (the reason is usually dumb, such as I took blue buff or I didn't suicide into the enemy team with them), they encourage each other to report me, and I can reliably expect that in my next several games I'll be teamed with people who will int, flame each other in chat, disconnect, experience 1000ms ping, or do other nonviable things deliberately just to troll.

uh huh. And the Illuminati are the reason we couldn't get electric cars for so many years. And aliens examine hobos to put trackers in them to watch humanity.

MathgodpiNov 12, 20181 votes

Yeah you're right, it's totally insane to even think that Riot has complete control over their own servers and their own matchmaking system. To think they would manipulate things to maximize their profits... oh man, you're right, it's insane that I would ever think a for-profit company would try to boost its profits. Craziest conspiracy theory ever!

EleshakaiNov 12, 20181 votes

………………. except... people have been ASKING for this for years and Riot has been stalwartly saying they have no intention of ever doing anything like that because they feel it would be an ineffective tool to use towards their goal.

If they WERE actually doing it, admitting it would make them look so good to the people who WANT a system that does that sort of thing(segregates toxic players) and it would actually BENEFIT them to admit it. Denying it like they have been wouldn't help them in any way.

MathgodpiNov 18, 20181 votes

{quoted}

………………. except... people have been ASKING for this for years and Riot has been stalwartly saying they have no intention of ever doing anything like that because they feel it would be an ineffective tool to use towards their goal.

If they WERE actually doing it, admitting it would make them look so good to the people who WANT a system that does that sort of thing(segregates toxic players) and it would actually BENEFIT them to admit it. Denying it like they have been wouldn't help them in any way.

The vast, vast majority of people who play league are casual players who would not take kindly to knowing they are being segregated based on reports their account receives from other players, and punished in an entirely automated way.

You would see a gigantic drop in the player base if any such admission was ever made.

MasterDCloneOct 19, 20184 votes

My experience this season is that it's gone well the climb has been a lot of fun win or lose, i try not to take ranked too seriously and it helps me climb tbh, i try not to look at my teams mistakes at all and more just look at how to exploit my enemy's and then put them on tilt, i have been playing quite a bit in gold 5- silver 1 elo recently because a friend and i are duoing quite a bit and i have to say the difference in attitude between high gold and low gold is very different, in high gold the people generally don't chat, they don't tilt and we just joke around maybe because it's end of season but low gold, my lord people are writing essays in chat flaming, i don't gank a lane and they threaten to afk, but in the end it's all fun and games because it is just a video game.

Tip: have a positive atitude and take this shit less seriously.

Also mad respect on being a karthus otp, karthus is my second most played champ in ranked cuz I can auto fill him anywhere

Sorin AlucardOct 19, 20183 votes

Yes

ZaFishboneOct 19, 20183 votes

It can be frustrating to have bad teammates, yes, but sometimes it gets reversed and you get good teammates, who carry you, and even in this meta comebacks are still possible, if you try hard enough. The fact is, even with bad teammates, 1000 games WOULD be enough to climb, if you really were better. You could have come on the boards asking for honest help, but instead you just came to vent and brag. Stay hardstuck forever, kid.

Clockwork MouseOct 19, 20182 votes

Ranked is really not worth it. The game might have been competitive years ago, and maybe it is in some ways still. But, serially, half the champ pool is not viable for winning. There are just objectively better champs then some and that is not fun. And what do you get out of climbing to gold+? An ori skin, a border, and maybe a backpack along with bragging rights.

Heos00Oct 21, 20182 votes

Ranked is not worth this season, this season has been difficult even for proplayers to climb, its pretty RNG and one-sided compared to other seasons. Stop playng until the next season, if the game needs you to grind even more independant of your play then isn't worth for your mental health and your time

Just DuoQ, if the game remains the same for true SoloQ players the next season then uninstall lol, extremly hard to climb without playing high impact roles and champions for early game.

KazaJhodoNov 12, 20182 votes

Absolutely. 50/50 winrate bro. Riot thinks that is a working matchmaking system.

Its just nonsensical trash. At least take me out to dinner first.

flibitydooOct 19, 20181 votes

The balance team really wants "the winning team to win the game quicker" aka "if you so much as get a 300 gold lead you auto win the game and there is nothing anyone else can do about it"

MasterDCloneOct 19, 20182 votes

you're taking the words out of context they don't want the team with the lead to get a quick win they want games that have already been decided to resolve themselves faster. They are trying to improve come back potential with the preseason changes coming in, but they also don't want games to drag on when one team has clearly won

flibitydooOct 19, 20181 votes

It doesn't matter what **they want **out of those changes

the changes happened and as a result it makes snowballing much stronger

You can argue that first tower gold didn't have that much of an increase to the winrate of whichever team got the first tower. Doesn't change the fact that it still raised it.

Anything that's done to hasten the game when one side has a lead will always lend more power to the winning side, it doesn't matter what the intention is, the end result is a harder snowball.

MasterDCloneOct 19, 20181 votes

The changes for this preseason haven't happened yet, early this year they were trying to push a snowball meta but what the balance team currently wants is what i said and their changes planned for preseason are looking to that. They aren't trying to give the team ahead an advantage because they already have the advantage of being ahead. The problem people are facing is that they can't finish a won game because the other team can hold too easily which is something very frustrating too deal with, and thats the specific scenario they are planning to fix. Most of preseason is just focused on giving teams come back potential

MathgodpiOct 19, 20182 votes

One simple change they could implement to make games less one-sided, yet not drag on for extended periods of time, is to remove all gold from champion kills/assists and significantly increase death timers. That way the troll who goes 0/8 in lane isn't dooming his team the same way he is now. Also, giving up an ace at 25 or 30 minutes would in most cases mean gg instead of the game dragging on for another 10+ minutes.

MasterDCloneOct 20, 20182 votes

Most feast or famine champs would die in an instant with that change, it sounds simple on paper but in practise it would lead to some very big problems, because late game champions would also get killed off because only getting gold off farm would take way longer to do. Early game champs would become ridiculously strong too. But yes it would solve the one sided problem, the drag out problem and would be a great fix to trolling, i honestly wouldn't mind that as a game mode.

MathgodpiNov 12, 20181 votes

The champions you mentioned could be re-tuned to compensate for the issues you mentioned.

EcophileOct 20, 20182 votes

That is an idea, should probably make a different post though.