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Preparation for ranked (or rather, the lack thereof)

A Cynical Asian·2/9/2018, 2:28:54 AM·1 votes·254 views

There's currently this dual paradox in ranked for first-timers to ranked. Because of the fresh-start nature of the system, you're put against people who are of "average" skill level. I'm not at that point, so I end up getting my ass whooped to Texas and back. Sure, that's expected. I'm not skilled, so I lose. Simple.

But the problem is, the community simply can't wrap their minds around this simple concept. I was recently told by a player, "Sivir, why are you playing ranked?" And I told them, "To practice." Because you need challenging experiences to improve. Then, another player told me "Improve in norms".

This problem is compounded by the fact that, at least for me, casual mode hasn't helped me prepare for ranked at all. It's definitely not my mindset. If anything, I've taken the incessant toxicity thrown at me fairly well, since it's understandable, despite being in poor taste.

Case in point: I'm fairly positive I snowball almost 85% of my games if I jungle in unranked. My experience jungling in ranked? I think D+ is my highest grade given so far. ADC? I tend to go wild in a majority of my games in unranked. ADC in ranked? Oof.

Now, of course, some of you will tell me, the hidden MMR system in casual should in theory be pitting me against higher skilled opponents. But more often than not, I feel as though I have strong individual performance (and have occasionally hard carried the team). Am I missing something here? I'm more than open to the thought that I'm just not doing enough to be placed against sufficiently challenging opponents in casuals. But I'm 95% positive my individual performance has been very strong (a good 2/3s of the games in which I do bad are simply my being unable to go against an entire fed team due to every single other teammate feeding; this is just casual observation, so I truly tried my best to underestimate the number of times this happens). Am I overestimating the influence of the "hidden" MMR system? Am I actually really bad? Am I the only one trying my best in unranked (unlikely given the common occurance of salty teammates in team chat)?

tl;dr Ranked placements suck and the system is broken; in my personal experience, practicing for ranked in norms feels fruitless. Wat do?

2 Comments

likerio2/9/2018, 3:17:03 AM2 votes

People are trying harder in ranked. And playing their main champion. If you can't consistently get like a 10-15:1 KDA in norms vs people using first time champions or trying troll things, you won't be doing very good in ranked. You need to improve on your champion.

This is my advice I climbed to diamond 2 last season: you are playing WAAAAY too many champions. I look at your match history for ranked and you play some mid, some adc, some top, no jungle but you mentioned it. You aren't going to climb very fast to where you want to go doing this. It's just not possible, there are so many little things you need to be doing with those champs that you need to study from online content and perfect. Choose one champion, one role, and dodge everything else. Dodge if you don't like your team comp. Dodge if their bot lane beats your bot lane. Dodge if your jungle is playing off meta. Dodge every game and don't play if you have to.

In your elo, you need to be able to stomp people, every single time. From one role, and solo carry your team as if they were all trying to lose. Literally, 1v9. Thats my advice. First thing I would do is just start playing one champ only and do it for a couple months until you know you have improved enough to have a better performance in your ranked games.

A Cynical Asian2/10/2018, 11:17:24 AM1 votes

I think part of it is just having your ranked MMR stabilize near the end of placements; I did much better during the last few games. Of course, that could be due to playing at off-hours (1AM-3AM).

Granted, League of Legends is WAY, WAY different from, say, OW, but role distinctions are similar. I guess I'm bringing over my flex playstyle into League, partly because when I started placements, ranked was so unfun I really had no clue where I even wanted to start (I was pretty outmatched every time) or just suffered from a lack of focus and/or gamesense. I presume regardless of how dissimilar the games are, both OW and LoL players disapprove of "one-tricks". Maybe I'm thinking way too far ahead into the future, but that seemed like a terrible idea. Assuming the ranked system works as intended (and I do believe that, for the most part; I have little sympathy for those who complain about "ELO hell" or the like), people I'll be facing theoretically should be at least at similar levels of play as me. In that case, wouldn't learning multiple champions be worthwhile? If skill is similar, the extra edge in having counterpicks seems invaluable to me (again, bad analogy, but i.e. knowing how to play both a hitscan like McCree/Soldier 76 or projectile character like Pharah based on the situation really helps).

Of course, my skill levels are much, much different in LoL and OW, not to mention the myriad of different dynamics going on in LoL vs OW. I'm not trying to discount your advice; in fact, I really appreciate that you took the extra step to go through my own match history. It's just that I'm thinking long-term, and I want to make sure I not only improve right now in the short term, but make sure I'm viable as a player in the future.