I have not played any rank games since I started with lol about 2 years ago mainly played ARAM 90% of the time but a week or so ago I gave rank solo a go and after playing I got paced in Bronze 1 and after playing 26 games ranked I got promoted to silver 5. I'm not even a good player, surely this ranked system is screwed?
What about this situation would make you assume that the ranked system is screwed?
I'll generally give an explanation of how the ranked system works nowadays in League of Legends.
You get placed into a certain league depending on your performance in your provisional matches. For you, it was bronze 1. After this, when you win games, you gain LP, and when you lose them, you lose LP. Getting to 100 LP enters you into a promotional series, and if you win 2/3 or 3/5, you move up to the next division (or possibly skip a few divisions, more on that next). So your visual progress is seen by your division in bronze, silver, gold, etc.
Behind the scenes, there is a statistic that each player has (one for ranked and one for normals, but there is probably a different one for every game mode) called MMR (match making rating). This invisible number adjusts much more slowly than your LP, but is the driving force behind how much LP you win/ lose in your games. Winning large numbers of games raises your MMR by implying that your skill level is far beyond the people you are currently playing with. As a result, you may find yourself in bronze 1 getting matched against gold players and, if you win, earning very large amounts of LP as the game attempts to have you rise through the ranks to your proper position. If your MMR is high enough at the end of a promotional series, it is possible to skip a division (go from silver 5 right to silver 3) as the game again tries to properly place you.
Silver 5 is average, not sure why you would think the system is screwed.
Na it is probably accurate. The 5 division of any rank is essentially the same as the rank below bc a lot of people play enough to get past promos and then can't drop from 5 to 1. Mid bronze (I started there this season bc I was so out of practice) still has people who play and will have runes that don't make ANY sense for the champ, and most people only know the common match ups at all so no one in mid bronze/super low silver knows how to judge damage and not get killed pretty easy by stuff that isn't flavor of the week.
Mid silver is the break even 50% point, so if you aren't good but aren't terrible then high bronze/low silver is probably accurate. That rank means you are a little worse than average but understand the game and don't rage or troll enough to drop your rank lower.
