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I just want to share some impressions about rankeds in Silver vs rankeds in Bronze

Jack Garrus·3/15/2018, 11:32:01 AM·25 votes·5,276 views

I was a bronzie since I started to play, 2 years ago, butsome days ago I finally reached Silver 3 in soloq in my beloved role: support.

I will not tell you how proud I am of this result but as mentioned in the title I would like to tell you about the differences I have experienced in the rankeds in silver vs those ones in bronze.

For someone like me who is in a month to almost a league ahead after 2 years of hopeless bronziness, the gameplay differences are ... moving T_T.

That's exactly what I wanted from ranked games. The players here are more focused, patient, roammy and fucking quiet. There is more awereness of the game and nobody panic or tilt when the first turret allied falls. Of course there are sometimes some exceptions to these things, but holy hell, compared to bronze this is just the nice, cool fresh air you was wondering after being closed up in a cell with smelly people.

OMG PEOPLE WATCH MAP! OMG people make good shotcalling (most of the time)! OMG people know that when the entire enemy team is in one lane throwing is time that one of them should splitpushing! OMG people know how to be patient!

I know that this is just some dirt under a nail of a higher rank player but I am so fucking excited that finally I am starting to experience some good plays after 2 years of quantuum-driven decisions in bronze!

Aaaand.... that's it. Thank you for reading![slayer-jinx-catface]

60 Comments

Riotplaytestpenguin3/16/2018, 12:10:04 AM11 votes

There's a reason playing the ranked ladder is called a climb. Congrats bud.

ModCaliCoastReplay3/15/2018, 2:04:03 PM10 votes

I very much agree.

Silver is a hit-or-miss division. This is because it receives a regular influx of new players, because the default MMR for new accounts is Silver. If you place for the first time and don't do atrociously, you often land in Silver - which means there is still a lot of "newness" to the whole division. People aren't polished. You can't expect everyone to know the ins and outs of every champion kit perfectly. You still see a lot more yolo and tower dives handled badly than you ever should.

That being said, what it does not have is the willful, tutorial-skipping, failure-to-understand-the-game hardcases on their resolute, angry, often-toxic way to Bronze IV or V.

I've said it before and will say it again - Silver may be full of people who don't understand the game well yet, but Bronze is full of people who are making a vigorous, willful, obstinate, stubborn-as-a-donkey effort to not understand the game on a long-term basis. That's what you avoid if you manage to rank into Silver at least. What you see in Bronze - but not often in Silver - is tutorial skipping behavior. These are the people who:

  • Don't push behind the wave...
  • Don't bother hitting more than 50% of their CS if that...
  • Repeatedly duel champions and ignore the wave completely, because they think it's a fighting game...
  • Don't understand at all that the game is really about objectives, not champion fights...
  • And generally just yolo out in front of the wave, without vision, as free CS dies behind them, because they want to go hit people with abilities like a child playing with an action figure.

Seriously, I really would be curious to find out how many career Bronzes skipped the tutorial. The really hard cases are utterly resistant to hearing any of its lessons mentioned by other players. The average Bronze IV-V I get matched with from time to time in a normals will literally snarl at me if I say something as simple in chat as "push behind your wave", even odds that they literally stop playing the game just to troll dance-emote around me or even int-feed for daring to criticize. I almost wish Riot hadn't made the tutorial skippable. This is fundamentally a game about sieging castles and managing and scavenging from armies -it is only hidden underneath a layer of champions hitting each other with sticks and swords and spells.

But if you skip the tutorial, you think the entire game is about your little person, and who you can go and knock down with him/her. That objective is so fun and exciting that some people skipping the tutorial probably go entire years without realizing that isn't the point, and that waves and objectives matter infinitely more than champions. Even pros use winions - no pro is too proud to push behind a nice fat layer of super minions if they can get it! But lots of Bronzes are - and the tutorial would have told them how silly that is in under 15 minutes if they'd let it.

Dr Dog3/15/2018, 4:08:39 PM6 votes

tbh silver has been much more toxic than bronze, just with less hardcore feeders

ModCaliCoastReplay3/15/2018, 3:10:29 PM5 votes

By the way, to the OP - bless you son, you not only made it out of Bronze, but you did it as a support.

I could not do it. I played a lot of support main a few seasons ago, but the days of support-carries are long dead and holy shit, everything about ELO hell applies ten times as heavily to support position. I cannot deal with supporting ruinously bad ADCs, and nothing spells Bronze like your average suicide-charge marksman down there.

You must have the patience of Job.

Good luck on your further climbs!

Malix Farwin3/15/2018, 6:32:39 PM2 votes

Whole fully disagree, Silver you still see the same stuff you would see in bronze like 7m towers(literally just happened).

256Bit3/15/2018, 8:58:37 PM2 votes

Congrats man on getting out. I did the same myself a few weeks ago and can agree there are some improvements in my teams

MegaSpaceJX3/15/2018, 4:18:16 PM2 votes

I was hardstuck bronze for 2 years and once i got to sliver it took me 3 months to get to gold.

big boi edri3/15/2018, 2:41:34 PM2 votes

Huh, I don’t see these things all the time. I’m in pretty much the same level too.

Compared to Bronze I’d say, there’s a little bit better objective control. You get some people that are mechanically stronger, and some people with still Poor mechanics but better gameplay sense.

Overall, everyone’s a little bit better at some parts of the game, but not rounded out in others (myself included). Same for every league I imagine, you’re just a little bit better at different areas than the previous league. I don’t think there is probably any massive difference unless you compare like Silver-Plat or Gold-Diamond/Diamond-Challenger.

HowAboutWeNaut3/16/2018, 12:44:32 AM2 votes

Dude congrats! I did the same this season from Silver 5 to G3 now with almost solely support! Dude the climb is always difficult, but finding those support champs that make it fun is always an amazing feeling as well as being able to carry with them when push comes to shove. Keep it up dude!

Terozu3/16/2018, 11:03:07 PM1 votes

I've found that people can defend till late game, (i play late game focused champs like Twitch, Nunu) which is a god send.

Kai Guy3/15/2018, 9:41:10 PM1 votes

Don't settle, You can make it to gold. GET YOUR SKIN BRUH YOU CAN DO IT! (I was a Bronze player Season 1. Silver Season 2. Gold or plat every other year.)

AwesomeSauce13/15/2018, 11:51:17 PM1 votes

I can just smell the sarcasm

muted team chat3/16/2018, 12:26:29 AM1 votes

gold is the most fun div I have played in

-low diamond / high plat player

MorgManBasher3/16/2018, 4:38:03 AM1 votes

Meanwhile when I smurf in silver/gold I facepalm at 90% of things I see.

Junglers doing the full krug clear, even the small ones when a gank is right next to them. Junglers that waste mana/smite on camps when their character already has a good clear like Jax. People that can't even manage 100 CS at almost 20 minutes when they are solo laning, dear jesus. People running really bad keystones for their character like grasp of the undying on a support. People's build paths that make me cringe, like supports that go all tank items with 0 support items or supports getting a freaking item 3027

I don't say anything because I understand they are low ELO, but it can be pretty cringe. I only smurf to play with my friend mostly or to screw around as like full AD garen or something.

Either way, congrats on the rank and keep it up...eventually you'll get to the dumpster fire that is high plat where everyone thinks they deserve Diamond and makes it Hell for people that actually belong there.

StupidFeedery3/16/2018, 11:58:49 AM1 votes

I actually made it to silver recently, and I gotta say. It is a lot different for me.

Mcsquzzy3/16/2018, 4:17:36 PM1 votes

In my experience Bronze 1 and silver 1 are the most evil ranks I have ever reached, I have not got gold yet but I may try again this season.