Help Bronze players find a proper home

*warning - long and detailed post incoming

What is the REAL problem with toxicity and league? Who are the offenders that most need correcting and who are the root cause of most problems? Answers follow.

Have you ever seen a highlight video or watched a streamer or pro gamer make a really sick 1v3 outplay... and kill two or three enemies before they go down? Have you ever wanted to make a play that good yourself? Have you ever seen someone get hard counter-picked, camped by the enemy jungler, regularly roamed on by the enemy midlaner... and somehow the enemy support finds time to roam to their lane too? Usually that means that person is being targeted to have a very bad game. Only... what would you say if they are up in cs and about even or even winning in kda vs their lane opponent DESPITE being targeted by so much pressure. You'd call that some amazing play. You'd think... wow that guy is really good. And you'd expect (aside from "bronze 5" meme's) that his/her teammates would be snowballing the rest of the map really hard. You'd expect them to start counter-ganking for the player who's 40ish cs up and has positive kda while being camped THAT hard.

What would you not expect? Telling that player they're terrible. Saying they're dumb. Flaming them because they don't tp the second they see bot gets ganked 1 time omg. People telling that player that their build is trash and it's costing their team the game. Teammates expecting them to babysit the team because it's too hard for a midlane mage who can nearly 1-shot the minion wave with q to sit 4v4 and hold a tower without dying (*not actually too hard; team just acts like it is).

How would you feel? How would you feel when you're team flames and harasses you all game because for the SIXTH GAME IN A ROW... you're 2v1 camped and you took tp while your laner got to counterpick you and took ignite even though they'd normally run tp. How would YOU respond when they spend the entire game calling you trash, horrible, stay bronze 5 dumb (insert your role here)? What would you say when they run in 3v5 and die trying to contest dragon vs fed enemies that you never died to and blamed you for their deaths. When they told you you're trash and selfish for wanting to save a tower in side lane from a 35+ minion wave before you go dragon, but they can't wait 6 seconds? When the enemy team can play safe as 4... staying outside of engage range of your team while he splits for a full 1.5 minutes to build a giant wave to shove to tower, then groups for teamfight; while your team won't play safe while you clear 2 minion waves in 20 sec to set up minion wave pressure in side lane before looking to group?

If you were watching a streamer and this was the person's teammates... you'd call them bronze 5 trash. You'd say they're the "r" word or suffering from the "I" "D" "10" "T" error. You'd say the game is unwinnable; but unlike that person's teammates... you'd know better than to think it were the streamer's fault. Some of you would say some even more extreme stuff. And if the streamer called his teammates dumbasses or something after seeing them do the same dumb stuff for 25 min straight... constantly blaming him for stuff that's obviously their fault, refusing to lift a finger to help him or to punish the camp of him by 4 man WINNING (not feeding 4v3 or whatever) elsewhere on the map... you'd say he was 100% correct and justified in saying they're dumbasses. If asked if he was being toxic, you might say no... or you might say yes, but his teammates more than deserve it for how toxic and dumb they are being.

So... who is the biggest problem in league? Is it someone calling a teammate a dumbass? An idiot? Someone who snaps at their teammate(s) after being constantly harassed when they are playing as-good-as or better-than the rest of their team while being put in the most unwinnable of situations and still managing to come out ahead or even? Or is it the people who feed and throw while given all the help in the world, fail to play up to the standard of their elo, and pick one teammate that's playing far better than them to harass and flame all game with no logic to their claims?

Like we all know the doublelift and rekkles flash memes. We all know players make mistakes and we can forgive one or two here and there. But say they did that flash play... 7x in one game. We'd start wondering if they were accepting money to throw the game or trying to avoid being beaten by a nasty loan shark because they didn't have the money to pay them so they agreed to throw the match. At some point we'd stop excusing them their bad play as simply a mistake. They might even get benched. Now suppose that 6 of those 7x... it's the adc flashing under the tower to 2v2 tower dive a full hp enemy adc and a leona support even though they aren't fed. And suppose their jungler is halfways across the map farming a jg camp or starting herald with their toplaner. And every time doublelift or reckkles dies in this scenario (you're not going to 2v2 a leona and an adc under their tower if you aren't fed) they tell their jg they are trash or they're being selfish. Would we blame the jungler? Is there any logic to the adc's argument and any justification for their action there? Would we expect the coach to bench the jungler for telling their adc to stop being an idiot? No. We'd be surprised if the adc wasn't benched for performing far below the standards of pro play in such a scenario if anything.

Now... solo queue may be different from pro play; however, there are still minimal skills and expectations at each elo. Obviously if I'm challenger, I can't play like I'm in plat and expect to win challenger games. I can't expect to play like plat, flame my teammates for my poor play and expect to get away with my toxicity and "inting". If I'm plat and I play like I'm silver... same principles apply. If I'm gold and my teammates play like they're bronze and flame me for their mistakes while they "tower dive 7x as adc in 2v2 without being fed and I'm halfway across the map doing something actually important" so to speak... they have no justification for their action... they're being dumbasses... and they should be "benched" for their poor play and toxicity. But instead, these poor bronze players (I've seen better players in bronze - and this is gold) are excused of all their actions and toxic chat. They're excused as "bad game" or "unlucky" when they're tower diving the enemy duo 2v2 for the 7th time without being ahead and without the enemy bot lane being low only to die and feed over 2 kills for 1 or 2 for 0... for the SEVENTH time so to speak. And they're blaming me for it. They know where I am. They know I can't help. They know what I'm doing because I've communicated it nicely via chat and pings. They're capable of playing around that info... because I am and the whole enemy team is as evidenced by the whole master yi thing discussed above. Or... if they aren't capable of playing around that... it just goes to show... they fail to meet bare minimum standards for this elo and need help finding their proper home... in bronze. No offense to bronze players. As I stated earlier... some of you guys are better than some of these people I run into in gold. Do I want you to have to put up with such poor teammates and deal with their harass and flame all game while they let their laner and the enemy jg 3 man camp you while they sit on their butt doing nothing? No. But maybe when put in their proper elo they won't be as bad of players... and at least they'd stand a chance vs their opponents. If they continue to be toxic... maybe Riot report system would finally listen to SOMEONE (they never listen to me) and ban them for toxicity and intentionally throwing the game so you wouldn't have to deal with them either. But regardless... these bronze players need help finding a home. They don't need to be coddled and told "I'm sorry". "I'm sorry you had to put up with a teammate 1v3 out-performing you and refusing to be your tp-bitch like you wanted him to be... that he told you you're being an idiot because you intentionally fed and flamed him as though it was his fault for 25+ min straight while he outplayed and clawed himself advantages in a 1v3 where he should be getting wrecked... and then he looked for team plays only to have you ruin any potential of that happening by continuing to throw and blame him for everything". Don't shelter such toxic bronze players and excuse their poor play and flame. Do the right thing and find them a proper home.