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A bit of advice to Bronze/Silver/Gold players

Mordistar·11/8/2019, 1:48:19 PM·2 votes·1,706 views

There is about a week and a half left in the season, so I'm here with the yearly post from another account to help you guys out with what has been successful in my smurf climbs to platinum this season. I did 7 accounts this season, 4 ended in high plat, 2 in low plat, depending on how the account feels I generally stop at low Plat, but a few accounts actually felt really good this season. This is the final account to go there, dunno if I have enough time, but it is in the MMR range to just skyrocket.

To start: Yes I have an advantage being a fresh 30, I haven't had to play a promos, and all of my games have been low to high gold depending on whether I'm duoing with a couple buds to push them to platinum or not. But my first few games were in bronze mmr games, so I do know what that looks like this season.

Lets talk about champions: What works in high elo just doesn't work in low elo, so lets get that out of the way right now, aside from one role: Kaisa wins games, just flat out wins games. And if you have a problem with the strongest champion in the role: learn her. She is an incredible carry that can win games on her own even with a slight lead, even in low elo. Mid, top and support, play whatever you want, just make sure its catered to scaling through the mid and late game, because the game is 100% going to 30 minutes+ because people don't end games. As for jungle, my most experienced role. Earlier this season I made a push for challenger that came up about 150lp short with Sejuani and Vi, then the Sejuani nerf hit (sad days). Considering I'm not playing high elo right now aside from the occasional Vi game (thanks win trading season, and thank you riot for doing anything about them), I'm gonna go with what has been successful in low elo.

My most successful pick has been Malphite full AP jungle. Nobody respects jungle in low elo, and by default nobody respects the 1 shot potential of a malphite with Runic Echoes. Play this champion, it wins games, and can pull games from the brink of death. My second pick is AP Shyvana. This champion is just stupid OP if you learn to path with her well enough to hit 6 at a decent time and understand to play her as an Artillery Mage instead of her Season 4 bruiser playstyle. Third is Kha'Zix. My favorite champion in the game, I have to be crossing the 2000 game mark on him at some point here between all the accounts. He is hard to master, but if he is in your champion pool atm, he is incredibly good in low elo Evolving QER, but you have to be hyper aggressive, or he falls behind in a game that is losing. Where Malphite and Shyvana can pull games back from the dead, Kha cannot, and is the same with the next champion I'm going to throw out here. Xin Zhao. I loved him when his rework hit and he was incredibly good, and when the gutting happened I forgot about him. One of my friends told me to try him out, I did, and loved him. He just works for low elo with his mobility boots ganks and fast clear speed. Again, aggressive champion or risk falling behind and just losing.

Next lets talk about priorities as a Jungler (its the only role I can talk about in full):

  1. Mute all. This isn't a joke. The community itself is a toxic bag of crap right now, just mute them, it makes everyone's day easier.
  2. Dragons are worthless in low elo, take them if you can get them for free without contention, but do not risk anything around them.
  3. Rift herald is ok, but again, do not risk a fight around it.
  4. Take as many resources as humanly possible (I will cover why in another paragraph).
  5. Do not gank a losing lane. This just doesn't work, at the very best case scenario you are pushing the lane a bit more towards even, but you need people ahead.
  6. 3 losing lanes (will get into this).
  7. Bot lane should be the priority to get fed in every single game regardless of who they picked as a champion.

Lets cover the reality of 3 losing lanes first: This is a really hard scenario to get past, and it generally means as a jungler that you left things too long. This is most of the time 100% the jungler's fault, there should be 2 losing lanes tops, but that still means you are getting outjungled in low elo meta. See in low elo, jungle isn't about farm. Its about running around and getting kills. Because kills win games in low elo. Trust me I tried the whole "lets control the game with a pick like Sejuani", it doesn't work. You play to kill the enemies and snowball that into natural control of the map. If you fail to do so and end up with 3 losing lanes, it is really hard to come back from unless you are Malphite or Shyvana who can just AOE burst down an entire team with their broken scalings. It is not impossible to win from these scenarios, but it is definitely really hard, and if you end up in this scenario, please understand that it is your fault as the jungler, and your job to not let this happen.

Taking resources: I don't care how much people spam ping you back because you are taking a wave or two of theirs while they aren't there, you take those resources. The reason being is if you are truly in a situation where you are hardstuck due to teammates (as incredibly unlikely as that is) you need all the resources you can get. So you take plating gold, minions, camps, ALL BUFFS, and you take as much as you can, cause getting ahead in gold is the most important aspect of the game. I denied a Cassiopia from blue buff for the entire game because I knew I was the better player, despite being on Shyvana who doesn't need the buff. The gold was more important than the mana regen and CDR on her. This is the mentality as a jungler that you need to get into.

Overall I think it is really important to learn from mistakes this season, and push as hard as you can every game to be the best player you can be. It is not easy to climb, sure it might be for me, but I understand exactly what I need to do in every scenario to give myself the best chance to win the game. I do not expect that from low elo, and therefore this post is just revolving around basic understanding of how to approach the game in lower elos. I hope this helps, I truly do.

10 Comments

Kai Guy11/8/2019, 2:30:09 PM2 votes

Off topic but I am still waiting for some screen caps of your LP Gains and losses + the match average associated.

Honeydew Zekling11/8/2019, 2:27:05 PM1 votes

{quoted}

I denied a Cassiopia from blue buff for the entire game because I knew I was the better player, despite being on Shyvana who doesn't need the buff. The gold was more important than the mana regen and CDR on her. This is the mentality as a jungler that you need to get into.

I'm maining Cass this season (and doing well) and this struck me as odd. People still think about giving mid blue buff??? I know it was a big thing in previous seasons where 2nd/3rd blue buff would be offered to the midlane but I haven't seen that at all this season. I've been low (silver/gold) elo since forever but it feels like buffs are only for the jungler this season.

Not that I'm complaining. If both mid laners don't have blue buff, it kinda evens out.

Do higher elo's still prioritize giving midlane blue? Maybe it's just a low elo mindset that's changed, but I miss getting blue buff on Cass.

FioraWillCarry11/8/2019, 3:32:27 PM1 votes

I don't care how much people spam ping you back because you are taking a wave or two of theirs while they aren't there, you take those resources.

I don't thinking anybody enjoys playing 4v5.

Illabethe11/8/2019, 5:30:18 PM1 votes

  1. You didn't start in Bronze games. Every new account after placements is between a Silver II and Gold III MMR when they place, EVEN IF YOUR ACTUAL RANK IS BRONZE.

  2. Kai Sa is legit. However (maybe this is due to my experience with my own Plat I Duo Kai Sa on champions I support with), I find that Kai Sa can post good KDAs every game, but doesn't actually always WIN. Her lane phase takes patience, and is OFTEN disrupted by both innovative low level backdooring/level 2 jungle ganks around Gold Elo. And almost every meta adc now counters her (Jhin, Ashe, Xayah, Jinx..... ALL give her hell).

I pulled 80% this October with a Plat Kai Sa...... until we hit Gold III MMR. Then, every game was Ashe Ashe Ashe. We'd win some, lose some, depending on how much their jungler did, and whether or not they ran Nautilus (I generally Morg/Nami, so maybe this is a matchup issue)

  1. Infernal drakes DO MATTER...... when your opponent has scaling..... If Jhin/Veigar/Rengar/Kha Zix are in play and you just give up infernals, you're generally going to lose in low elo.

Sub points:

  1. Yes
  2. Situational
  3. Ditto.
  4. Yes. Late game you will struggle to maintain farm because of mid clown fiestas. Get resources while you can when you can.
  5. Wrong on so many levels. Sometimes a ganking lane means saving a boxed in 5th player in low elo. If you do NOT gank them, they begin trolling, aren't worth gold, and force a 4v6. You need to evaluate if they have enough skill that if you help them, you will recover a 5th player for your team.
ImGoingScotty11/8/2019, 8:24:02 PM1 votes

That's a lot of reading and it doesn't seem too informative. Basically you're saying kaisa op play her. Also objectives aren't important? So letting the enemy get rift herald and taken 2 mid turrets is your strategy? Also on the 3 losing lanes. I had this happen one time and it was impossible to fix. If they're all dying before I've even cleared second camp and not even trading just dead how can you recover from that. Also I find snowballing mid to be a better tactic than getting an adc fed that's probably going to have bad positioning and die in team fights anyway.

ZephyrDrake11/9/2019, 2:03:12 AM1 votes

I mean that's great and all but you also have the advantage that you are better than people in low elo. Telling people what champions "work/don't work" is kinda pointless since if i don't know those champions then it would take me longer just trying to learn a random champion I might not even have any interest in. Also saying that we should just ignore objectives is horrible advice. You can just stomp people but for those who actually have to get better than those around us it literally means that losing those objectives can tilt the game in the enemy favor.

Farming like crazy also means nothing if you aren't that much better than the enemy. If both teams are relatively close to each other then guess what? All that farm isn't going to achieve much when you might not even know what the hell you are doing with it. Knowing when to farm, when to push for objectives, when to fight and when to disengage, who to gank and when to gank, how to setup ganks are very important things that you literally just shoved to the side and did an immensely brief thing that it is not even worth mentioning at that point. There is a reason why people are stuck in whatever elo they are in and coming and saying things like these isn't helping anyone in those elos since most things you are saying aren't making anyone better at the game or making them understand the game any better.