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Why are gold players called "bad"?

GarthBrooksXD··58 votes·13,688 views

Gold is the top 20% of ranked players. Definitely there are much more skilled players, like if you watch challenger players stream you can tell their game play is ridiculously better, but really why do people say gold is bad? Like if you can get gold, plat, diamond 5 etc... you're not bad per se, just compared to the top of the ladder you could easily get rekt by those players. Doesn't mean you're bad at basketball just cuz ur not in the NBA aka challenger.

To compare, there are 8 million high school athletes, about 480,000 will play college sports. So that is, about 6% of high school athletes compete in college athletics. About 6% of the player base is plat or higher. So if you can make it to plat, that should be considered pretty decent :)

Of course, of that 6%, only a few will go on to play professional sports aka master/challenger/lcs team play. And even in pro sports people can even compare and say that Alecs Burks is bad compared to Lebron James. That's like the equivalent of the difference between a low challenger player na compared to Faker.

I'm not saying gold players are amazing or anything, definitely tons of room to improve, but if you can make it to gold then that's good enough to give urself a pat on the back. If you can make it to plat then you have the equivalent talent as a collegiate athlete.

TL;DR: People, particularly streamers, should stop saying gold, plat, diamond 5 etc are shit. It takes a lot of practice to make it far up the ladder. No pro athlete demeans the people he/she played with when they were younger like that, and neither should league players say stuff like "stay bronze" "stay silver" "stay gold" etc... lol the tier just about another always has so much pride and hate on people they've risen above in tier ranking... would like to see more good sportsmanship in this community and less elo shaming. Many people just play this game for fun and realize they'll never get to such and such rank, ya know?

123 Comments

Arya Riven30 votes

Because people think about their rank way too much to begin with.

WoonStruck4 votes

I hit plat so easily that I'm damn confident I can hit diamond.

I still think I'm bad at the game. I don't even buy wards usually.

Basically, unless you hit diamond 2 or higher (the 'wall' according to many diamond players; second wall if you count Diamond 5), you have nothing to brag about.

You can be proud of yourself for wherever you get, but getting above gold does not take a lot if you're not being held back by something you have no control over; and no, that doesn't mean your team lol.

Venomar6 votes

If you make a solid living and provide for your family you have nothing to brag about because you not a billionaire.

Logic checks out.

WoonStruck5 votes

You're comparing well-being to a video game.

Logic checks out.

Martensitic3 votes

Logic does check out, because success in a game is nothing to brag about, unless you actually manage to do it professionally, and then only if you succeed beyond expectations.

Meanwhile you are just a guy in front of a computer screen, pressing buttons. The people in our ITsec department (basically white hat hackers) do the same, but I assure you, their results are ALOT more impressive than yours.

3TWarrior3 votes

league is also being compared to sports, chess, cousine and many other things

all forms of logic seem to check out...

heck, yesterday I wrote 3 pages of math explaining how a zyra bottom with only spell-thief can do 920/1100 hp to an unprepared, not specifically dedicated player and if that zyra has bought items for 40 additional ap, that total becomes 1029 or close to it, there was a discrepency but it only accounted for about 6 damage

with this value, an ADC would only have to hit the opponent once to kill them, let alone engage the enemy

also using this math, brand and others have much better values to work with

idontgiveabother11 votes

Yea I guess once I finally hit gold after all the trying to struggle with myself, inters, afkers, the people who are generally bad, im not entitled to have some sense of accomplishment.

WoonStruck3 votes

I said you can be proud of yourself for wherever you get. Re-read my post.

You're not entitled to belittle silvers because you got higher than them, though.

Martensitic4 votes

And you are not entitled to belittle golds because you got higher than them though.

In fact, you wouldn't be entitled to belittle them if you got to Masters, because spending more time and effort in a video game doesn't make you more powerful, it doesn't make you more important, it doesn't mean you are right, and it certainly doesn't make you more impressive.

Elikain1 votes

Well, that's because your rank actually matters and tells other players how skilled you are. If you don't care about your rank, why are you even playing ranked games? And if you do care about your rank, it's logical that you want to know what that rank means.

Ahristocats15 votes

"why am i playing with low master?"-challenger corki from my last game

people will always look down at the others

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

If you play with challengers now, have you played with a streamer yet?

Ahristocats1 votes

there aren't many streamers on EU are there? i think there is trick2g but he isn't in master/challenger

i played with roccat phaxi reccently https://i.gyazo.com/539cc796b0e90e5ef9d06be92e8f5b8a.png managed to win despite having autofilled tahm kench with bond of stone and ignite was the closest game i ever had in this month

NichtHurz1 votes

On EUW you'll mostly run into pro's or challenger series players. At least that's what a friend of mine says. You won't see many people that high up who're mainly streamers or at least well known streamers.

KoKoboto1 votes

the difference between low master and challenger is pretty big though as far as the challenger/former LCS streamers I watch say

SrbLud6 votes

The thing is most players that are in gold themselves say they are bad. They know they are among the 20%, but they also quickly realize that in order to go further, they have to improve a lot.

Road from Bronze 5 to Gold 1 can't be compared to the road from Diamond 5 to Challenger. ( let's have plat in a kind of purgatory )

From Bronze to Gold your mechanics are getting better exponentionally fast. Your game knowledge is expanding fast. Your Champ pool is small and you abuse that by getting good at them.

In High ELO there are a lot of nuances that take a lot of time to get down right. Your champ pool needs to be huge because most people are Meta slaves ( cause it works ), and you need to know them to the T. You gotta know all of your matchups, how much damage they can take and give at any point in the game, their CD etc... You gotta improve on both your micro and macro game. Those skills don't grow as fast as when starting out.

So most Gold players realize this sooner or later. That is why in Gold players are not afraid to say they are bad. They know what they have to do to improve and they know it's a long road.

People you see in low ELO games that call you trash, ask for reports, int feed, troll your lane and think they are gods... Well they just don't know how to get better...

GarthBrooksXD3 votes

Yeah like I realize I am bad(have MANY areas to improve), but like some plat smurf or something raging at me all game just cuz of one mistake and saying they're so good and i can never be as good as them, its just dumb lol. I am really trying to get to plat this year and i respect the higher elos. But it's not as if im stupid and don't see my own mistakes and have no idea to get better either, so i don't feel the hate people dish out in chat.

SrbLud3 votes

{quoted}

Yeah like I realize I am bad(have MANY areas to improve), but like some plat smurf or something raging at me all game just cuz of one mistake and saying they're so good and i can never be as good as them, its just dumb lol. I am really trying to get to plat this year and i respect the higher elos. But it's not as if im stupid and don't see my own mistakes and have no idea to get better either, so i don't feel the hate people dish out in chat.

That's why i left plat in the purgatory category. Plat is toxic the same, if not even more, than silver. It's full of boosted animals and players that made it after ages of trying and sudenly get the dunning-kruger. Only a small portion of plat players are actually nice and wanna get out of there.

grug5 votes

I think its necessary to the human condition and i believe elo shaming is the impetus that drives improvement.

how often do people improve when others say they are great?

GarthBrooksXD3 votes

yeah i see your point and i embrace it -- the need to be humble and see all your mistakes as you climb the ladder. But I think the way the community looks at these tiers is toxic/demeaning.

Sp33d Zer05 votes

Why are there LCS players that all called bad?

Because if you are not the single best player in a specific role in the world, people will call you bad.

Glory ln Death4 votes

"If you aren't first you're last."

Wise words.

Kudrov5 votes

the reality is the one expressed by a master player who just wrote something about this on the board, he said and realized that being in gold, plat or even diamond does not say much about a skill of a player because the system is totaly random and its pretty much all about luck for exemple :

1 day you might do 5 games and the result might be 5 wins because you got matched with brillant peoples

the very next day you do 5 games (you played the whole 10 games at pretty much the same level of skills) and the result might be 5 looses because you got matched with total crap players.

i would bet my whole household that alot of peoples can relate to that.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2 votes

the reality is the one expressed by a master player who just wrote something about this on the board, he said and realized that being in gold, plat or even diamond does not say much about a skill of a player because the system is totaly random and its pretty much all about luck for exemple :

hell no, yeah there's some chance... but if u are good you will climb. Generaly a diamond is better than a plat... and then... don't take 5 division in account (GV, DV, PV...). Exit silver and bronze there realy some difference beetween rank.

After it depend on game number a gold with 10 games isnt same like a gold with 600 game

AfterTheFall4 votes

The league community is notorious for calling anything other than Challenger "low elo". I've been a Gold player for about 3 seasons and I'm damn proud of that. I'm in the top 18% of players. And for someone who has a full time job, I consider that to be pretty impressive. But this community has somehow gotten it into its head that unless you are challenger, you're absolute garbage at this game. I for one just pretend that Challenger and Masters teir doesn't exist....since that level of play is unattainable to 99.9% of all players in the world. Another thing people in this game don't seem to understand is that....in order to make it to diamond + elo, you pretty much have to play league 8+hrs a day. Idc who you are, you can't be a casual Diamond+ player. It takes a lot of playing and climbing to reach that high on the ladder. Some people simply do not have the time to play that much league

Thrëat3 votes

From my perspective, bronze and silvers are just casuals that either don't take the game seriously, are new to MOBAs or don't really dedicate any time into learning the game or improving. This puts gold just slightly above what is considered a casual level and why it is considered bad. The vast majority (pretty much everyone) considers Bronze to be bad, right? Well if you look at a replay of a high Bronze game and a replay of a Gold game it is really hard to tell which is which. If you compare a Silver game to a Plat game you will start to see a decently big difference which is why I considser Plat to be the first tier that actually means a player is dedicated to the game.

AfterTheFall3 votes

{quoted}

From my perspective, bronze and silvers are just casuals that either don't take the game seriously, are new to MOBAs or don't really dedicate any time into learning the game or improving. This puts gold just slightly above what is considered a casual level and why it is considered bad. The vast majority (pretty much everyone) considers Bronze to be bad, right? Well if you look at a replay of a high Bronze game and a replay of a Gold game it is really hard to tell which is which. If you compare a Silver game to a Plat game you will start to see a decently big difference which is why I considser Plat to be the first tier that actually means a player is dedicated to the game.

this only rings true if you have the time to play league all day. i for one have been dedicated to league for almost 5 years now. im ranked in gold every season. i have a full time job, i cant play league all day everyday. but all the free time i have is spent playing league. and ive reached gold elo to show for it. im very dedicated to getting better and learning, but i also dont have 1 thing that is absolutely necessary to climbing higher.....time. if i could spend 8+hrs a day playing league, i guarantee i could reach platinum. but i simply dont have the time necessary to do it. achieving higher ranks in league doesnt exactly equate to dedication.....a lot of it has to do with how much time you have available to spend playing league. look at diamond, masters, challenger......none of them are casual players. 99.9% of those ppl spend all day, every day, playing league.....because you have to in order to get/stay that high on the ladder. dont judge people's dedication to the game before you think about all aspects first

Raven Redeemed5 votes

Thanks kind of my thinking. If you belong one tier above where you started it could easily take 100 games to climb. Personally, I probably have the time to climb at the moment, but I probably spend half my time on ARAM and a fourth on Normals because I'd rather have some fun then try hard all the time for a bragging right.

KoggyStyle1 votes

i dedicate alot of time to practicing farm/map awareness.

Thrëat1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Snaggle Tooth,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5Eui2h7g,comment-id=00030002,timestamp=2017-02-07T03:03:06.178+0000)

i dedicate alot of time to practicing farm/map awareness.

That may be true, but there are a bunch of other aspects of league that require dedication to improvement. Farm and map awareness in my opinion are absolute basics that should come automatic and not require practice. Stuff like improving GPM, EPM, Builds, build paths, strats, etc are stuff that help people climb. If people are practicing what should already be known then it is a waste of time.

Spaceman5pff2 votes

You have to practice it to be good at it though lmaoooooooooo

Thrëat1 votes

{quoted}

You have to practice it to be good at it though lmaoooooooooo

But these are things that come natural at high elo. If you are still at the stage where you are focusing on practicing basics then you can't expect to climb. By the time I was low plat I had CSing and map awareness pretty much down and low plat is easy stuff, I can get there with ADC morgana.

Spaceman5pff1 votes

Nothing came naturally to someone when they picked up the game.

Maybe they came in with high apm, but nobody was born with an innate understanding of wave management. That is just total BS

Thrëat1 votes

{quoted}

Nothing came naturally to someone when they picked up the game.

Maybe they came in with high apm, but nobody was born with an innate understanding of wave management. That is just total BS

I feel like my comments are way over some people's heads. What I am trying to say is that the reason people think Golds are bad are because they still have a very low understanding of the game. They are still working on what are considered the basics for high elo players. In comparison, a Gold player saying to a high elo player that they work on things like map awareness and last hitting is like a fresh 30 saying to a Gold player that they are working on things such as remembering to buy items before going to lane at level 1 or that they are practicing not getting hit by the tower all the time. Yes, these things take practice, but these things aren't things that make a player better in my opinion, they are just things that need to be learned in order to play the game properly.

Every season I level a smurf and run it up the ranks and silver and gold feel no different from each other to me. The same mistakes that I get fed off of in silver I get fed off of in gold. The amount of improvement is so small that it is hard to take gold as a serious rank improvement over silver. When you hit around P3/P2 you start to get matched with people that are starting to get pretty good at the game but usually have problems with end game strats,, inefficient build paths or a lack of team fighting skills.

Spaceman5pff1 votes

Alright so now we have established that what you ACTUALLY said is not what you WANTED to say.

CSing and map awareness did not come naturally to anybody, rather high elo players are so used to doing it by this time that they don't really need to think about it as much.

You can be any rank you want but if you can't communicate your ideas clearly, nobody is going to take you seriously. I am not kidding when I say that I have never needed to apply my learnings from high school english class anywhere as much as these boards.

Thrëat1 votes

{quoted}

Alright so now we have established that what you ACTUALLY said is not what you WANTED to say.

CSing and map awareness did not come naturally to anybody, rather high elo players are so used to doing it by this time that they don't really need to think about it as much.

You can be any rank you want but if you can't communicate your ideas clearly, nobody is going to take you seriously. I am not kidding when I say that I have never needed to apply my learnings from high school english class anywhere as much as these boards.

It was actually a comprehension issue, but ok.

Spaceman5pff1 votes

Comprehension is about undertsanding the objective meaning of the words on the page.

Telepathy is knowing what you MEANT when you said something totally different.

King LeBong1 votes

{quoted}

Nothing came naturally to someone when they picked up the game.

Maybe they came in with high apm, but nobody was born with an innate understanding of wave management. That is just total BS

Maybe nobody is "born with it" but I was around 2000 elo my first season playing (S2) and D1 in S3, you certainly can come into this game and quickly grasp certain concepts. Not everyone starts off at a bronze skill level.

Spaceman5pff1 votes

False. Everyone is Bronze level at some point, they might just pass it before they get into ranked. The only exceptions to this are people who are joining from other MOBA's

King LeBong1 votes

{quoted}

False. Everyone is Bronze level at some point, they might just pass it before they get into ranked. The only exceptions to this are people who are joining from other MOBA's

Not true at all, you can't gauge every single person based off of common experience, I did well when I first started, and that was coming from no moba experience at all.

KoggyStyle3 votes

There are good and bad players in every rank. every one makes mistakes, the higher up the less consistantly they fk up.

Troll for Trump1 votes

That's true, but there's more than that. You also have to take into account the skill level of other players.

In gold, you make a "medium" mistake, but the enemy won't capitalize on it.

In plat, instead of "medium" you make "small" mistakes, and the enemy gets baron from it.

Venomar4 votes

Honestly. I still laugh when I think about QT trying to get blue when he was out of position and faker chomped on him and his jungler and just completely shit on his entire game...

An entire game thrown becuase he tried to get a blue buff with minions out of position and enabled faker to roam and follow, literally all it was.

GemCrash2 votes

from my personal experience, any rank below diamond is heavily decided by pure luck. and a shit ton of diamonds are boosted. That's from a player who played league for 6 years and experienced all of silver, gold, and plat for two seasons.

Myrmiron1 votes

IMO it's all below Diamond 3, because low Diamond is full of boosted animals.

Who is Taliyah1 votes

dang I'm 4 wins away from dia 3. I need to escape the animal island

Myrmiron1 votes

Good luck, I never managed to do that. ;)

Who is Taliyah2 votes

You can do it! Don't give yourself up and believe in your skills [slayer-jinx-wink]

Laser PP Razor2 votes

Because golds end up getting matched up with silver's half the time, and then proceed to still feed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

vampirekid132 votes

the issue with gold players is they give themselves too many pats on the back.

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