I want to touch on a controversial topic.

Ranked games, and how your personal performance affects your win rates and consequently your climb.

A little backstory on me, I started in mid season 5, placing in Silver 2, when I still was clueless about the game. I started watching guides and pro players gameplay and after trying to apply them gradually in my normal games, I realized that my ranked games were really easy. After 3 years of playing, sometimes a lot, sometimes taking long breaks, I managed to reach Plat 3 last season, and am currently Gold 2.

What I want to talk about is how your own performance affects your climb. Sure, everyone gets access to information on how to play out laning phase, wave manipulation and control, jungle pathing, itemization etc. Everyone can get better. I've tried, and achieved in a big percentage, to apply all these mechanics into my game. If I play mid or top lane, I always try to apply these, and I do see that I win lane most of the times. I get to outcs my enemy, and be in a position to apply pressure or help my jungler by having priority. This is just one instance of how I manage to "beat" my direct opponent. But, is this enough? There are two answers for this. One answer is yes, and the other is no. Weird, you might say. How can it be both?

Well, players are divided into two categories. Those who play a lot of games daily on average (at least 5) and those who barely get to play 1-2 games daily, maybe reach 5 games on weekends, for whatever reasons. Having good performances means that your overall chances of winning the game are bigger than losing. That's a fact. Therefore, if you perform well, you should climb, right?

Wrong, and that's where the double answer comes into play. You get to climb by winning more than losing, generally, but a positive win rate (50%+) only works and helps you climb if you get to play a lot of games. If you only get to play 10 games a week, maybe you get a net gain of 50 LP? How long will it take for you to eventually reach your actual skill's division ranking? You probably won't ever reach that.

Where I am going with this is that the ranking system is very unrewarding and in all these I could add the bad matchmaking. I've been rewarded by it and I've been screwed by it as well, but as it's always the case, you get screwed much more often. How am I rewarded for playing out my lane well and winning it, but having a 0/9 jungler at 15 minutes? And it's not like I can win by much harder so assist my jungler, because my enemy is not a monkey to allow that to happen, no matter how far ahead I am. The "extremely bad" player in my team is giving a big lead to the enemies, much bigger than what I can create for myself and try to help my team win. So, how exactly am I rewarded for doing well in lane?

I know the answer you will give me. "It's a team game." Yes, it is a team game, where there are also elements of solo play. When you start out the laning phase, it's mostly a 1v1 scenario, where how good or bad you do impacts how good or bad you and your enemy laner does for the rest of the game. Sure, you can say that it's a 2v2 with the junglers being a part, but no matter how well you can set up a lane for a gank, or if the enemy doesn't have Flash, it's not a guarantee the your jungler will help, therefore you can only really rely on the 1v1 situation to get yourself a lead and transition that into the mid game, where the team aspect of the game actually comes into play.

But this means that I can't really control anything else on the map. Not really. If my enemy solo laner is at least competent, they are not gonna let me get a big lead to outdo the badness of that one "extremely bad" teammate. So, in a game where I "beat" my lane opponent based on performance, gold gain and priority / pressure, I end up losing LP and they end up gaining LP. I lose LP in a game where I BEAT my enemy laner, who GAINS LP. And that's what I don't understand. The system is just not fair.

You are going to say that "well, if you do know in your mind that you actually are better, then keep it to yourself and feel good about it and do not care about some division ranking". Sure, I could do that, but more importantly for me, I want to climb so that I can get to play with and against better players. I want to see the limits of myself and how high I can get. How can I match up against better, much better players, and I can't really do that by hovering around 50% win rate, and having every game be a freaking coinflip. "Oh, I got the first time Fiddlesticks jungle, who by the way has a 47% winrate, guess I'm losing LP now". Fiddle ends up being 0/9 at 15 minutes, while the enemy jungler is like 6/0. Well, I was having a 20 cs lead at 10 minutes in mid lane, but guess that's nothing to stand up to that enemy Kindred now, is it? Mark another loss. "Oh, a Draven player who has played 20 games this season and has a 17% win rate. Ah, fuck, my Draven already died 3 times in 7 minutes because he magnetically attracts all of Thresh's Qs, guess I'm useless now as well and I'm losing LP again."

I know most of us have been here and I know what you are gonna say. Eventually the trolls will balance out between you and the enemy team and if you perform well, you will achieve at least 50% win rate, meaning you will climb. Yeah, I know. Eventually, I will climb. EVENTUALLY. I don't have time to play 1000 ranked games though, therefore I will never climb to at least half way of where I feel I should be. AND THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO TARGET WITH MY POST. Why should someone play sooo many games to reach close to what they deserve? And don't give me the "if you've played so many games and can't climb, you probably belong there". No, fuck you, I don't belong there. I don't belong there, because how am I supposed to win a game where my top laner is 0/15? How am I supposed to win when I win my lane IN ALL ASPECTS 90% of the time and still manage to lose the game because of reasons?

The ranking system needs to change so that people who perform well actually get rewarded. Winning and losing obviously matter, but performing well matters more. And people need to be rewarded much more directly. Don't make me play 1000 games just to reach half way through what I CAN reach. Fix your freaking matchmaking, so that people who should actually "win" 90% of their games based on their personal performance can actually win at least 60% of them, so that it doesn't take 1000 games to climb, but it only takes 100.