The journey

So a month or so ago I posted a fairly sarcastic and heated post about elo hell and how I felt like the ranking system needed changes. NOW don't get me wrong, this isn't going to be a super heated complaint. This is just going to be what I found out about how to get up the ranking ladder that I learned recently. As i have recently gotten out of bronze.

First things first, slight studying is required in ranked. Not much but some can get you a really long way. Researching the best w/meta masteries and runes always helps out, and the champions that are/aren't in meta right now.

Second, I picked 4 champs that I would play only. I main adc so I went with and because MF was pretty broken in the preseason and was defiantly with meta, and jinx was a good substitute to counter pick other champs or if MF was banned. Next if I couldn't go top, i would use my main to go top because most people don't know how to lane against kennen in low elo so it usually worked out better for me. AND if I couldn't get ADC or TOP then I would go support (because its nice to be nearly un-killable when built right)

Next, I PRACTICED, I made a only-me custom match and practiced Cs'ing and followed a ritual of ranked. 1-2 rounds of warm up cs practice. (this means attempting to get 100 cs by the 10 min mark, with also practicing how to freeze the lane and how to push the lane out/let your lane get pushed to tower.) Then after about one or two of those, I did 1 normal warm up match, always with MF if I could. Then after about 50 min of warming myself up. I went into a ranked match.

Recently I had a long 3 week break from moving jobs, so I decided that i would use that time to get out of ranked. At the peak of my crusade, I reached an 80% win rate. Right now is different because I haven't played ranked since I reached silver a week or so ago due to having my new job and not having as much time to warm up and play ranked so I haven't gone back yet.

BUT WHAT I REALIZED, is even with winning 80% of my games, it still took me 3-4 hours a day to get from bronze 3-silver 5. It really really sucked cause I would win 3 matches and then my luck would run out and I'd lose like 1. Or I would win 4 or 5 in a row, but then I would get unlucky and lose my series.

So like my argument before and my argument now. Ranking isn't really reliant upon skill, rather than time. Time is what really is needed to rank in league. Because anytime you have to depend on 4 other random people each round to work together, to not troll, to not DC, to not Yolo-swag the match away, or to not be new to ranking (becuase bronze includes fresh level 30's DX) Than it really only matters how much time you put into it. Even if you're more skilled than all silver and half of gold, your rank won't show it unless you put in the 3-4+ hours a day.

Example, my Diamond level friend literally spent every single day on league for 3-4 hours and then spent THE ENTIRE DAY, probably 15+ hours to move up the ladder to get a new character from silver, to gold, to plat.

So i don't think elo hell exists and I don't think ranked is broken, its just the simple fact that a team oriented ranking ladders require you to learn the game, to practice, and then to put in a hell of a lot of time in the trenches.

I hope the next update to ranking with friends will help this issue, or better yet, designing a MMR system that focused on how well the individual does than how his team does. (there are many arguments for and against these points but this is already super long. If you would like to read more than go ahead, if not you can stop here)

So you decided to read more awesome. So one of my biggest arguments against the current ranked system is... how on earth does a player get over 700 games WON in a ladder. And still be bronze 3. How does someone put that much time into playing when others who are serious about ranking can move up in a few dozen wins. I honestly believe that there needs to be a mentoring system in league for htose like that.