Things I've learned from watching low elo players play.
I've had a lot of opportunity to watch and play low elo games and I've picked up on a lot of things that are common in skill levels from low Silver to Plat 5. Here are the things, gameplay-wise and mentally/psychologically, I see in a lot of players.
Gameplay; -Gameplay is probably the highest variance variable you will see in low elo. I played in a 1v1 tourney and got slapped around by Gold players, and I've played with Plats who are absolute trainwrecks. Back in my day (S3), Bronze in and of itself was a pit, and I climbed to Diamond getting 4.5-5.5 cs a minute. Now, the "pit" of Bronze is only Bronze 5/low Bronze 4 and I'll regularly see Bronze players get 7-8 cs a minute.
-Riding off that last point, you used to be able to climb out of Bronze just by csing well. Now, so many people are good enough csers you have a surplus and it's not possible to climb out simply by csing well.
-Movements and awareness are a mixed bag, but usually need refinement. If you want to win lane in low elo, it's best to master movements and movement pressuring (zoning, wave control, etc.) so that the enemy has to continually eat harass or lose cs while you roam. Awareness is getting better. You'll see wards from people emulating pros/streams (which isn't a bad thing at all), but oftentimes they will be too zoned in on laning phase whenever there's some high spike in activity. This means if you climbed by roaming, you can't really get off free roams anymore, you have to make sure someone is distracting them first. This is the best climbing skill because it allows you to get yourself ahead, and if your opponent plays passively you'll minimally set them very far behind.
-Macro probably has the least variance and is the lowest skill by many players. Macro is essentially looking to see how to play the map so that you can pick up free objectives or how to trade objectives to minimize unstoppable losses (you see the jungler ganking top side, so you counter his blue or solo the dragon to make up for the death + possible tower loss). Combining this with csing well will not net the best results for climbing early on because it requires you to constantly communicate with teams that might not understand what you're doing. However, if you get to high elo this allows the smoothest transition to higher elos.
-Champion picks and pools; this is one I have to talk about because of the huge stigma with meta picks. You will see more niche champion pools and strange one tricks because people think that by picking meta you're going for an easy way out. They will also often see players as less skilled if they play said meta champions, even if the person beats them. It's a pretty bad mindset imo because if you come into ranked playing bad champions, you're hurting your team by forcing them to accommodate you. If you insist on it anyway, don't get upset when someone who is more of a team player beats you, no matter how they do it. Unless they pick Azir. Then by all means flame away. That being said, there's consolation in the fact OP picks mean less and less the lower elo you go down.
-Champion counters; low elos tend to have more champions they absolutely cannot play against in any circumstance, simply because they can't stand that champion's mechanics. These are more meta than their personal picks but some off-meta picks can be just as frustrating because of how quickly they kill or how little they feel they can do against them.
-Balance is also based off what a champion can do at a theoretical level, rather than consistency level. Champions that are extremely mobile, have very high burst, or extremely oppressive CC chains are generally seen as stronger than others, whether or not they actually function in the meta.
Mentality; -Very few players blame themselves, fewer tend to do it at low elo. High elo tends to blame specific factors in the game such as players or certain mechanics (hitboxes, pressure, taxing) while low elo blames it on the state of the game (damage creep, bad meta, etc).
-The higher elo you go, the more exaggerated sense of self-worth. This dips a bit in the mid-divisions but is still higher than before. I had a friend just get out of Bronze and as soon as he was Silver 5 started flaming his Bronze 2 friend.
-The lower you go, the more casual play gets thrown around as an excuse. Because a lot of players relate more to this mindset, players are more forgiving and flaming is a lot less than it is in higher elos. When it does happen, it's both because one player massively fucks up, and said flame is usually a lot less legible. Even Riven players get better about it, but by high diamond I've yet to find one that flames in complete sentences, which is sad because even the English-secondary Chinese players can type out "i fk ur mom".
-Lastly, low elos spend more time in casual game modes. As low elos are more inclined to be casual players, they're looking for more novelty experiences than learning every tiny detail of a single game and a single map.
