Actually, I have played at that level before. Remember when FlexQ came out ? Before they ironed out all the kinks, I got placed rather high. I managed to play a few "high elo" games before they fixed the placement problems and reseeded everybody to an elo more in line with their SoloQ elo.
Anyways, I saw the same exact trash I see in Bronze. I remember one game where I was top lane as Nasus against a Diamond 5 Heimerdinger. I checked out everyone before the game started so I knew the ranks of the players in the game before hand. Players ranged from mid Gold to Diamond. I expected as you said, to feed my ass off. I handily won the lane instead. I remember thinking that it was no different to playing in my own elo. I expected to get stomped hard in lane but I was able to win it instead despite being at a severe disadvantage in terms of match up. The rest of the game went as I have commonly seen in my elo, a fuckin feed fest, though I had the better team that game so it was the enemy team feeding their ass off.
What made me remember this particular game was what I found when I examined the players' ranks more closely after we stomped their shit. Our team had like 2 Gold players and 2 Platinum players and me as a SIlver player(I was Silver most of last season). Their team had a Diamond and the rest were high Platinum players. It opened my eyes. They were by far the better team. They should have stomped us hard.
This whole thing is bullshit and rank means very little. It's is a coin toss. This whole game is designed to be a coin toss. Anyone can win at any time and no one player can control this outcome. If you're meant to lose a game, you will lose it despite what you do. You will even win games despite what you do. I remember one time a guy banned my pick because he didn't like it. I locked in a troll pick and proceeded to do everything I can to throw the game. We still won despite my every effort to throw the game and make that asshole lose LP.
So then why do people who make smurfs consistently get back to the top even though they have to play through silvers at the start.
I actually have my own theories on that. But I won't get into that here because that will be long. A subject for it's own thread. Basically, I think the whole thing is rigged as part something bigger and deeply psychological. I have watched a number of Unranked to Diamond series in past couple years to try and figure out what high elo players were doing. And while yes, I did learn quite a few tricks, they were nothing spectacular. Hell some of the shit, I already figured out on my own. What struck my was that these guys didn't do awesome in lane every game, getting fed and stomping. These guys were going like 3-5 and shit just like me but they were climbing. They were making a lot of the same mistakes I would make. There was nothing spectacular about the way they were playing. I couldn't figure it out. Until after a while I realized that they got good teams most of their games. These guys were getting carried most of their games. This is what made me suspect that there is something up. Like I said, I have a bold theory on that as well. "Why would Riot design it this way?", was the question I began asking. But like I said, I won't get into details about that here.
Well this leaves one question.....why do I still play after realizing this ? Well, shit....the game is still fun. I don't concern myself anymore with climbing. If the matchmaker wants me to climb it will let me, if not, that's fine too. I'm still having fun. League for all it's flaws is still a fun game.
