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Why rank means relatively nothing, and why there is such a thing as elo hell:

Lothàrs Edge·2/17/2017, 10:44:39 PM·16 votes·3,621 views

Alright. For the past 14 games (I counted on op.gg), I've been stuck at 70-85 LP or 96-99LP in one division, silver 2. For some reason, I have the shittiest luck in this division, I remember last season it took me 7 promos to actually get two consecutive wins. It was too much to ask for two consecutively even games, 1 or 2 out of 3 would be completely lopsided in the opposition's favor. I don't have the stats to show that I wasn't garbage those games, but I do have the stats right now.

I was at silver 1, 0 lp.

I play a game, 91% KP, 3/5/7 Morg. Zed's at 18% KP with 1/5/1, and Mordekaiser is at 45% with 1/9/4. Essentially a definite loss no matter what I do as a consistent silver/gold player.

Second game, Corki get's FBd at level 4 and afks permanently. Meanwhile we have an Eve mid who's obviously not doing well @ 1/4/0. Meanwhile I'm crying top with 1/0/0 as I know the game is over when it's 2 or 3v5.

Third game is actually even. My team throws, their team throws. It goes back and forth and is the fairest thing to happen in low elo. But as luck would have it, I get demoted because I'm silver 2 trash. Which leads me to where I am now, with 14 games, hitting 96 lp then dropping to around 75, then going back up to 97 and dropping back down. Back and forth. 14 games. Of these 14, my average KDA as a support is over 3-4, and my kill participation (KP) is over 50-60% usually, if not 70%+. I deep ward when safe, I counter ward as much as possible, I swap out trinkets and upgrade them, I've learned to ward over walls, I hit most of my skill-shots, I don't generally get caught out unless I'm trying to save teammates. Nope, still silver 2 trash.

League has decided that I am in the same skill bracket as the last pleb I played with, Olaf- who was 1/11/7 and kept dying in the same way, over and over and even though Jhin on the opposing team had less than 5k damage dealt (average being 15k) we still lost because that fed freaking tryndomurr kept 1v2ing and out pressured us. Sure, it might've been a bad game. Nope. I look at his history. Has the same WR as me, less kill participation, terrible KDA (lots of feeding) 5.5/6.6/5.7 = 1.72 (little to no assists) with Darius of all champions. While my stats average at: 3.7/4.9/13.1 = 3.40. Yet we're considered to be of the same skill level.

This is why ranks mean relatively nothing and it's all about context. Do you main a champion? Can you play more than one champion? Can you play more than one role? Does your mmr reflect a boosted account? Does your mmr reflect you maining a specific champion/role? ETC. Combine this with people who clearly don't give a fuck, and people who like to try new things in rank (not blaming people for wanting to do it) it's clear to see that Elo Hell exists for players that aren't 4-5 leagues above their division.

38 Comments

Mizuki Zahra2/17/2017, 10:46:04 PM7 votes

you either climb early or you stay long enough to troll

Niyumi2/17/2017, 10:53:32 PM4 votes

I spent ~4,000 games last season trying to get out of silver. So, I know how that feels.

It Hertz When IP2/17/2017, 11:28:47 PM3 votes

InB4 Gold V'ers "git gud worthless bronzie lol scrub"

But yeah. Diamond I and higher, MAYBE I'll pay more attention to what they say, anything lower is frequently the result of luck.

nawillzonny2/18/2017, 12:09:51 AM2 votes

In previous seasons, I was not the kind of person to believe in Elo Hell. But the effects of DQ, Autofill, and the amount of radical balance changes have caused the ranked ladder to become a joke.

Dealth2/18/2017, 8:14:26 AM2 votes

The fact is that there is some luck but if you are good enough you will climb. It's not all about KDA

MaeDoSan2/17/2017, 11:10:36 PM2 votes

Just duo with a reliable player it'll change your win-rate drastically

Sasogwa2/18/2017, 3:39:29 AM2 votes

There's no "elo hell". Elo hell would be that you can't get out no matter what; which is simply false. However, I'd say there's some form of an elo range where you belong to. In other words, you can be worth silver and navigate between high bronze and low gold depending on teammates and luck, but you won't get higher or lower. Because once you get to a too low MMR; you just shitstomp your lane consistently and eventually win more games than you lose and climb back; and once you're in a too high MMR for you level, you just consistently lose your lane and eventually lose more games than you win and climb down. (well there's not only laning phase, but generally consider i'm talking about your impact on the game being positive or negative)

Of course you can factor progression, maybe once you reach gold you've progressed and are no longer worth silver, and then your elo range grows to be like around your skill level, but still quite wide. But overall you can't get stuck in a much lower MMR than you actually belong to.

And if you're stuck in an elo, that also means you don't belong in a much higher elo than you play at (like, don't start saying you deserve challenjour if you're stuck in gold 5 or something, please) You put a platinum/diam in silver and he's gonna have at least 70% winrate and climb automatically, etc. (most of them)

It slightly depends on the kind of champ played (it's typically easier to brute force lower elos by using stat check champions and just powerfarm, harder to climb with team-reliant champions) but even then ; skill WILL make you climb. The overall randomness and impossible to calculate factors (people do some bad games, smurfs, guy suddenly wants to troll) can simply not make the system perfectly precise, but it's a decent approximation.

Just focus on how to improve and forget your teammates. Focusing on your teammates mistakes will not make you better. Focus on improving yourself to climb, consider it a 1v9.

WoonStruck2/18/2017, 6:58:45 AM1 votes

If you're having that hard of a time winning games, ever thought its because you aren't currently able to climb higher?

UkeNeverSeme2/18/2017, 9:19:30 AM1 votes

Rito has clearly stated that end elo should reflect the level of game you are capable of "carrying". You have difficulties carrying s2 games but do well, so youre prbably s1 or g5 by the end of the season. Last year i had trouble carrying d5 games, but eventually made it to d4 meaning im not supposed to climb any further than that UNLESS. i get better. Sure i get that its hard to accept, but i promise you if i put a d3+ into ANY game in your elo bracket you mentioned, even the ones with afk's, they would hard carry it. Challengers can literally 1v5 players around your elo bracket on the right champions. Getting out of low elo is about mentality. Its about daring yourself to go 10/0 cause noone else is, and its about targeting objectives. Last season i started out in silver 2. I made it to diamond. You can too.

DontGetMad3/12/2017, 2:14:57 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Alright. For the past 14 games (I counted on op.gg), I've been stuck at 70-85 LP or 96-99LP in one division, silver 2. For some reason, I have the shittiest luck in this division, I remember last season it took me 7 promos to actually get two consecutive wins. It was too much to ask for two consecutively even games, 1 or 2 out of 3 would be completely lopsided in the opposition's favor. I don't have the stats to show that I wasn't garbage those games, but I do have the stats right now.

I was at silver 1, 0 lp.

I play a game, 91% KP, 3/5/7 Morg. Zed's at 18% KP with 1/5/1, and Mordekaiser is at 45% with 1/9/4. Essentially a definite loss no matter what I do as a consistent silver/gold player.

Second game, Corki get's FBd at level 4 and afks permanently. Meanwhile we have an Eve mid who's obviously not doing well @ 1/4/0. Meanwhile I'm crying top with 1/0/0 as I know the game is over when it's 2 or 3v5.

Third game is actually even. My team throws, their team throws. It goes back and forth and is the fairest thing to happen in low elo. But as luck would have it, I get demoted because I'm silver 2 trash. Which leads me to where I am now, with 14 games, hitting 96 lp then dropping to around 75, then going back up to 97 and dropping back down. Back and forth. 14 games. Of these 14, my average KDA as a support is over 3-4, and my kill participation (KP) is over 50-60% usually, if not 70%+. I deep ward when safe, I counter ward as much as possible, I swap out trinkets and upgrade them, I've learned to ward over walls, I hit most of my skill-shots, I don't generally get caught out unless I'm trying to save teammates. Nope, still silver 2 trash.

League has decided that I am in the same skill bracket as the last pleb I played with, Olaf- who was 1/11/7 and kept dying in the same way, over and over and even though Jhin on the opposing team had less than 5k damage dealt (average being 15k) we still lost because that fed freaking tryndomurr kept 1v2ing and out pressured us. Sure, it might've been a bad game. Nope. I look at his history. Has the same WR as me, less kill participation, terrible KDA (lots of feeding) 5.5/6.6/5.7 = 1.72 (little to no assists) with Darius of all champions. While my stats average at: 3.7/4.9/13.1 = 3.40. Yet we're considered to be of the same skill level.

This is why ranks mean relatively nothing and it's all about context. Do you main a champion? Can you play more than one champion? Can you play more than one role? Does your mmr reflect a boosted account? Does your mmr reflect you maining a specific champion/role? ETC. Combine this with people who clearly don't give a fuck, and people who like to try new things in rank (not blaming people for wanting to do it) it's clear to see that Elo Hell exists for players that aren't 4-5 leagues above their division.

After reading this comment I looked up to champ select after picking and selecting masteries, and low and behold, a support ziggs. I'm literally our only tank (POPPY RIP)

agbudar3/12/2017, 3:07:54 AM1 votes

i remember elo hell posts getting downvoted to hell and back.

then i made a post about 100 games that i had somewhere in season 2 or 3 (with the data to back it up)

40 games 1 afk's on my side (from which i won 10) 10 games with 2 afk's (none were won) 30 games a clear obvious feeder KDA of less then 1 and more then 10 death's (we won about half) 20 games were people actually all played the game (hey look at that we won 15 of these) all in all a winrate of around 40-50 ish percent

people became real quiet

elo hell has existed for as long as people are toxic.

tbh the least amount of elo hell experience for me was during season 6 of all things. imagine that... season 6

Randomonium2/18/2017, 12:03:59 AM1 votes

Eh, that hasn't been my experience. My experience has been that when I can't climb it's usually because of something that I'm missing. Typically I find that reviewing my replays or getting a coaching session fixes this problem and I'm able to climb a little bit higher.

I'll agree with you that there's a ton of randomness to the system because it is a 5v5 but it's not impossible to climb. Even if you can only affect the outcome of 10 or 20% of your games you should be able to climb over time. What I find is that people can't climb because they rage after losing a close game where the deck is stacked against them and then play poorly in the next few games where they could have won.

Tangy Citrus2/18/2017, 2:16:45 AM1 votes

Im making another acc right now and so in normal draft pre-level 30 (lots of people still not level 18 yet for keystone). And quite a few people here are gold 'smurfs' some will even come on my team with a gold border. As a bronze riven main I dont understand at all how the hell they got to gold or how my lane opponent is a high elo at all. Its embarrasing to think that I couldnt climb out while these guys worse than me are sitting at 2 tiers above me. KDA doesnt mean much, higher elo is this: Cooldown counting, summoner spell tracking, positioning, when to make a play-when to split-when to take objective, and then lastly champion mechanics and experience. Only people I've seen do this are high plat-diamond and.....BRONZE. Not silver, not gold, just bronze-high plat and +. Elo hell exists, its the abyss where nothing matters and the games go like this, you get the team with brand new to lol players, or you get the '5 man diamond smurf 101' team.

Myrmiron2/18/2017, 2:37:40 AM1 votes

That's not my experience. I'm playing multiple accounts, and so far I've always climbed up to my skill level with ease.

idontgiveabother2/18/2017, 3:27:14 AM1 votes

I got home yesterday and I was really giddy because I needed a single win to get in my gold promos and I would be done for the day. Hours later into the night, im 30 lp down from where I was originally. Today I was lucky enough to win 3 games in a row to get to promos, some fucking miracle in this game. I hardly ever feed in my games, infact a shit ton of the games I've lost I have actually been doing well. Its not even my ability to coordinate with the team, its just the fact you can't over come a 20 death bot lane or whatever the case may be. I might as well be playing the lottery between bronze and silver.

Shahamut2/18/2017, 3:35:39 AM1 votes

I had like a 90% winrate until I hit silver 2...

Now if you look up my match history, its pretty much all red.

Just played a ranked game where bot lane died 9 times total in like 10 min.

I died one time in lane as Orianna vs Ziggs, and ziggs didnt even get the assist. Graves 100-0 me through my shield, cuz he was so fed off bot lane. Then they get my tower in less than 15 seconds. Ziggs then proceeds to boast about winning lane when he was 30+ cs behind. Same game I have Lee Sin top dying to Renekton over and over again.

Its like you said, if you are not 4 divisions above your current placement, victory is a friggin grab bag. You just kind of reach in and hope you get something good for teammates.

grug2/18/2017, 3:59:37 AM1 votes

how well do you play when you are filled? i found that I was able to go on more consistent win streaks if i was able to play well in the filled roles being support and adc despite being primarily a top/mid/jungle player as I think those ARE the games where the game's matchmaking expected me to fail spectacularly. Since I was able to play those positions on the elementary level, i was able to go on a number of win streaks.

There are also the games where it just spirals out of control from gross skill mismatches ie unranked vs platinum 2 which has happened to me quite a few times on OCE.