PSA Silver and Bronze: The little things you're responsible for

Guys, all across the boards there are complaints about toxicity, match making, pre mades etc. I'd like to take your mind away from all of the reasons you may have wandering around your head that are typical and blameful to focus on what you can control: you.

You're playing League of Legends. Its difficulty can vary vastly. This season even more so than before. You could be with all solos, a few duos, or 4 mans, BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE CLIMBING STILL.

The game has gotten more difficult with Riot's changes, not because the game has inherently gotten more difficult, but because Riot gave you what you wanted and most of you are pissed about it. "What could that possibly be?" Glad you asked imaginary salty player. Last year having no role locking in rank was the nightmare.

It didn't matter if you were the next whatever-beastly- -f yeah-top main, you might have to play that really crappy list of support champions on your roster. Now, that 5 role anxiety is down to 2. More of the F yeah- -slam yo mom- mid mains got their chance to prove their stuff consistently, and the redistribution of skill has most of you unable to accept that you were either A) Not as good at the game as you thought you were or B) You're refusing to adapt the more nit-picky skills of this game and are frustratingly punished for it.

"wut" Its ok random player, I'll clarify.

Map awareness of both enemies and allies is now more crucial than before.

Warding random places, not at all, at the wrong time, or even using the wrong ward costs you and your allies (you need sweepers, pinks, blues and yellows to be effective ideally)

Early Deaths have less reward and late game has higher death timers so those solo carries are more dependent on communication AND (you guessed it) map awareness

Greedy plays and selfish player behavior reward you less on a consistent basis

As always CS and Objectives

"STILL NOT GIVING AF OR GETTING IT". Don't lose me just yet salty player, we may yet reach enlightenment.

Basically everybody is bringing their A or S game to the table every game if they can help it, so naturally if you were climbing because you were better at 5 roles on average vs 2 specific roles it makes sense. It just means your 2 specific roles have to get that much better to climb.

"But Pre-mades Sorin, PRE MADES". Your attitude is off. If you really think you aren't climbing just because of smurfs and pre mades, think again. "But Noobs and feeders and toxic Sorin, so toxic!" Change your gameplan. You know most players are selfish and tilted You know not every player sees that sweet gank opportunity that you went in alone on You know that your enemies could possibly have better communication than you You know that your enemy laner could just be flat out better

The story is all familiar right now, but Silver and Bronze players, most of us act like we're keeping all these things in mind and still losing. Own up to it. If you're losing its mainly on you. I know there are a lot of tutorials, but here's what I've been doing most recently.

1. Treat every game differently. You know your allies might be cool, they might be assholes. Play those first few minutes with chat up and being friendly. If you see ANYONE starts doing typical noob shit in chat (this ally, gg , why?, scrub, etc) I announce Im muting and only communicating with pings. Why? You dont need the distraction or the extra reasons to dislike your allies. If i give up FB or am doing bad in first few minutes, i mute. Why? You dont need to hear the feelings about your mistake. You made it, move on before your allies can be salty.

2. Mute salty/ taunting opponents. Don't flame your teammates. They make mistakes too and they might be worse at the game than you and your opponents. Same idea applies. Less tilting is the goal here. You can also taunt opponents to bait for tilts. Morale needs to be up

3. PLAY LIKE THE ENEMY IS BETTER AT COMMS AND VISION EVERY SINGLE GAME. If you assume that gank is waiting, if you assume its bad without vision, if you're constantly paying attention to where everyone is, you're less likely to die to ganks and all-ins. You're less likely to push up and bitch when your jungler who's farming to 6 can't make it to save your unsafe ass. Past Laning phase, if you treat those fleeing enemies like "oh they're leading me to a gank and death", you're less likely to follow. THIS IS HOW YOU DEAL WITH PREMADES.

A.) Pre-made laners tend to turn rapidly aggressive out of nowhere signaling their jg/ ally is comin for your booty B.) Pre-made laners tend to turn rapidly passive when aggressive first, signaling their ally is coming lol C.) Half way in your lane is now your danger zone without a ward in river. IF YOU PUSH WITHOUT VISION ACCEPT THE RISK WITHOUT SALT

Getting better at the game doesn't mean you can kill more people; it means that you've gotten better at making moves based off what you can see on the map. Every game is different. Sometimes you take advantage of being right there next to tower to take it, others you push wave up so you can go save allies.

For new players, DONT JUST PICK A CHAMPION YOU LIKE AND LEARN ON THAT ONE. Worse advice ever from higher level players to new in my opinion. If you're not going to follow this rule, then dont take your new to rank cuz you wont 10 games total with him in normals lol You're asking for a tilting experience. Play ARAM. (Edit: i'm not saying don't learn hard champs, I'm saying your first rank champ probably shouldn't be a mechanically difficult one)

4.) PINGS and SCREENS. Put your pings on the player you want to warn, not next to them on the mini map where they might not see it. Learn to play with your screen UNLOCKED. If you just hold camera centered on your champ the whole time(especially during team fights) you're going to miss important things all the time, and it will be your fault.

5.) AVOID TUNNELING: My last tip thats helped me climb lately is to every few seconds, check the map, check the cs, check the items. You'll start noticing patterns in allies and enemies. Also, IF YOU CHASE WITHOUT FULL VISION ACCEPT THE RISK WITHOUT SALT. 0 0 1 as a score in lane playing safe and like a bitch until your champ can rek face is still better than 2 2 0 as a score from you being aggressive.

A.) This also means second- guessing that "sweet 5 man ult dive", or the "sweet 3 of them are really low vs 1" or "Tower + anything" and just not doing it XD

Its nit picky, but that's the true game. I love it. It's live chess at all times. Take responsibility my fellow players, YOU CLICK YOUR BUTTONS. YOU MOVE YOUR EYES. Its not all on Riot, we let trolls get to us.

If you follow this system above, Trolls will have less power in your games. People you find distasteful will bother you less. Your report button won't fix this community, our attitudes will.

Questions? Comments?