Elo Hell... How reading posts improved my game

Everyone has heard the term "Elo Hell" and how it means different things to different people, so I thought I'd share "my" opinion on Elo Hell, and my rise out of it

First of all, Elo Hell seems to be widely seen as one of two things

1. a state of mind! Usually that players think they are much better than their Elo, and a cycle of bad games and negative attitude keeps them stuck there.

2. An particular league (mostly agreed silver) where it is just harder to climb out of, either because of high numbers of trolls and rage quitters that make winning consistently (1 win 1 loss is not how you climb) very hard.

I'd like to say at this point, Elo Hell to me seems very real, and I define it as the lower ranks of Silver, where a combination of people fresh out of Bronze Elo, with a larger number of DC's and AFKs that makes consistently winning hard. There is also a larger number of trolls, but this, in itself is because of the state of mind of Elo Hell. People are so angry or frustrated with how the Elo is (or feels) that more people are becoming ragers and flamers, and trolls. And the more people who do it, the more other people get dragged in.

So my first tip about getting out of Elo hell, is actually to STOP thinking about it. Stop considering it a thing. If you keep feeding the negativity, it'll only grow in strength. I read similar threads on posts over the last week or so and I finally decided to just give it a go. Now in every champ select, if someone picks Pantheon ADC i'm just like, cool, I'll just go Urgot mid so we have some range and play on. My adc can't farm for shit, I just ask them kindly to take their time while I poke out the enemy and deny them farm too. Even when you have one member of them team constantly face diving the enemy, I just keep playing, telling the guys who will listen not to follow them and just take objectives. If 5 guys are chasing Riven through the jungle, we can take Drake or a turret, rather than follow and give them another Ace. Flaming NEVER helps, I can't stress that enough. No matter how bad the situation, flaming does not help. So just keep going. When you have a bad game, brush it off, rage in the after game chat if you have to, or even in the forums, but raging in game only wastes time. One guy on my team died because he was typing a response to someone else's rage while LB came out of the jungle for a free kill.

The other thing that I'd like to say has helped a lot is roles. When I was Gold, I would always pick support or jungle if I was first pick, since you don't need to worry about counter picks as much, and I was good. But when the new season started, the same tactic did not work. This might not be what some people want to hear, but support mains who are stuck in "Elo Hell" should hear this. Support will not get you out of your Elo. This is just my opinion, but I find that Support has the "least" influential position, even if it is one of if not the most important role to get right. If you team does bad, you will not save them, whereas if your team does well, you can ruin them. The best example of how playing support every game will lower your rank is this: If you are the best player on your team (assuming you belong in a higher Elo) 3/5 games, and play support 4/5 games, then if the best player on the other team is NOT support, it means that if you have to go against their best player, you will lose 9/10. If you are Leona and are doing exceptionally well, but that Riven got fed and is 7 kills ahead and 3 levels up on your top lane champ, you as Leona will not be able to stop Riven. With Riven so far ahead, the enemy jungle is free to punish mid and bot, so your lead could be neutralised.

A similar scenario, is again, you're the best player, but you're support. You get a nice lead on bot in farm and kills. Now the jungle will come and sit your lane. If that happens, you can't do much, you can "not" die, but keeping the lead is very hard. Yes your jungler can go other lanes now, but I find that a good top and mid can maintain balance even 2 v 1. If I am top and the enemy jungler keeps hitting me, I can hold them top and deny kills. I'll lose in farm but I only need to finish my tank build to have an impact in the mid game. Mid lane might have a harder time, but if they are not an assassin, they can just play safe and farm from a distance. But if bot lane gets camped, the tend to fall behind hard, so you being the support, can only "avoid" giving away kills, but you can't impact the other lanes or take back a lead, and your team will be out scaled.

If you are mid or top however, if you are the best player, you can either snowball to carry, or play safe to deny the enemy the chance to do that. You can roam and impact other lanes quite heavily, or again pressure your opponent to stop them from roaming. Knowing how to control the minion waves just right so that you don't over extend, but "Can" push at any given time should your opponent try to roam a bit.

I guess my point is, while I am a main support, i've stopped volunteering for the role. If I can mid without getting countered or if I can composition pick (make up for what the team is lacking) I will do that before I go support. When I am first pick, I first pick mid now, because at my Elo, people don't know how to handle my main man Galio and pick Zed or Talon which Galio actually thrashes, but people think AD = Win vs Galio. If I am not confident in Galio as a pick, I like Anirva, worst case I can go support, even if I am pressured in lane, it's really easy to farm from under turret as Anirva, and her range makes roaming and ganking from the safety of the jungle easy. She is very dangerous if engaged in the jungle because of her AOE and W. And that's when you're behind, when you're ahead, you can push towers effortlessly, and poke the enemy with R while they hug turret, while keeping an eye out for the jungle and escaping with a good W or Q. There's a number of other champs that make safe first picks, especially at low Elo, and you can ban your hard counters rather than the typical zed, katarina, sej bans that have been popping up a lot.

Jungle has a similar role as support, if they are ahead they can push ahead any lane, but not EVERY lane. If everyone on your team loses their lane, you can't save the game, good ganks will only take you so far. A good jungler can make or break a game, but again, in low elo, if your enemy lanes are better you will struggle. I've been in lane so many times, get ganked by jungle and struggled hard against them, but as soon as they leave I just go back to wrecking my lane. Sometimes (a favourite) is knowing the jungler is there, waiting for them to engage. Stunning them, killing the opponent that came to get a kill with their jungler, then flash away before the jungler can kill me. good warding oppresses a junglers options, and bad team mates make your plays only ever "so" good. Top and Mid lane are the two most influential roles in Silver I think.

If top is ahead, they carry, if they are behind, they turtle until late game in which they can still be a force to be reckoned with. Mid is an obvious example, knowing how to lane (not how to get kills, but actually own a lane) can give you roaming options, deny your opponent roaming options, or just deny them the kills to snowball and carry.

In short, these two things put to the test, I climbed 3 times in two days, and would have climbed further but I got DC during my promo game.

1. Stay positive, Or even neutral. Don't retaliate, don't flame "ever" not even a little, just keep calm and get kills!
2. Don't main support (or jungle). Sorry to say it, but I refuse to go either of these lanes unless I have no choice, OR if my team shows communication and a good attitude in champ select. Whenever I am forced into these roles I am fine, they are my mains in reality, so I still excel, but I avoid doing them EVERY game because I was unable to climb more than once, or would be demoted soon after climbing, and it was like this for well over a month. S4 - S3. But one day of not doing so and I climbed to S2, and I would go further but I had to go bed :P

I know this was a long post, sorry guys, but if you've reached this point you've been patient with me and read through my points. I hope it helps some people, and we'll see if my strategy holds, because by the time I come online again, I'll either by S1 or higher, or I would have been demoted again. Even if I don't climb, the fact that if I don't get demoted is already an improvement.

I just want to add one point for clarity. Don't REFUSE to support or jungle, and don't "mid or feed" because you will still lose more games with that kind of attitude, I'm just saying, if you have a choice, pick top or Mid, and IF you can do so smartly. Don't pick without looking at team composition or the enemy. Don't instalock, (at least say you're going mid, even if you're not asking). Don't pick champs that are easily countered, there's a difference between a "tough" opponent and a "hard counter" I have people picking Annie or Kata into Galio, and I have like 19:1:23 score because they can't do S*&t, whereas a swain or ahri might have a disadvantage, but at least it's a skill match up. Champs like Xerath and Kata are easy to counter pick, while champs like Ahri and Cho are much harder (especially since Cho can go so many lanes, and Ahri is so versatile that she ALWAys has options) CHamps that can double in multiple lanes like Lux and Morgana, Kennen and Vlad are safe first pick mids or top, so please don't take my advice as "Mid or Feed" mentality

Thank you for reading :)