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Biggest mistakes that Iron/Bronze/Silver/Gold players do in "Elo Hell" (2019)

SHerv··2 votes·2,419 views

Hello.

As the new season has gotten underway, many of us have ambitions to achieve our peak ranks. As a former Diamond ranked player, I started the new season with incredibly low ELO for my own standards (Gold IV) and worked my way up within the few days of game play. In my run through GOLD, I’ve come across an interesting discovery of how lower-ELO players approach the game that I believe might be holding them back. This brief article will list my observations that might help YOU get out of what many dub “Elo-Hell”:

Firstly - I noticed almost instantly that everyone is stuck in the mindset that they MUST carry the game in order to get out. With this shared philosophy, about everyone in the game is playing, in a lack of a better term, selfish. I can half-reason with why everyone feels this way, they consistently play with others who believe in the same idea or other players they deem “boosted”. On the other hand, players need to realize that this isn't Starcraft or Warcraft, where skill is determined through one vs one player abilities. This is a team game and in team games skill is much rather determined through how well players can sacrifice for the sake of the team's victory. Compatibility is key in team games, and this isn't any different for League of Legends.

Secondly - The Second major observation is that low-ELO players do not have both a tight and dynamic champion pool. By tight, I am referring to a very limited number of champions that you know better than the back of your hand. By dynamic, I am referring to different champion sets; tanks, bruisers, carries, supports, CC-specialists, Solo-specialists, etc. I recently matched with a top lane player randomly, three times in a row. Each time he played a new champion, and each time he fed and failed to contribute at all to the team. He continuously played new champions in ranked rather than successfully opting to create a pool of champions to pick from.

Thirdly – I realized that lower-ELO players tend to play champions that they are not good at, but have seen other pro players dominate using. It’s great to emulate your favorite player(s), however, I do not think Ranked is the place to do that in, especially in the beginning of the season. I think lower-ELO players get trapped in this mindset that only the champions that pros play must be the ones that they should as well. I think this is a poor understanding of the game.

Thanks for reading and please comment away on what you think are the best tips to grind out of “Elo-Hell”. Again this article is based on my own opinions and observations, if you believe that I am wrong, please share your views!

Best Regards,

Sherv A.

P.S. New League of Legends Discord! Welcome to join and expand the community (NA/EU) I'm an up-and-coming streamer and I decided to build a new gaming discord. It's new and I would like to welcome everyone and anyone to join and help expand the discord! Come check it out!!!

https://discord.gg/qrk4jhy

Twitch.tv/imsosicka

6 Comments

woodvsmurph1 votes

So I agree with 90% of what you said; however, I disagree on the solo carry mentality.

It is true most people play like they need to solo carry yes. But it's also sadly true that they often need to. I've played countless games where I sacrifice anything and everything personally to enable my team. Some teams have decent players and cooperative players where this makes a huge difference - I've won a game with 1/19/1 combined kda teammate laners at 20 min. But I've also had plenty of matches where I tp bot, save them, repeat gank for them and give them a massive lead which they then throw away stupidly chasing 2v5 plays and suicidal tower dives or... sit on their butt not pressuring objectives and 2v1 trade farm with the enemy adc while his team 4v3 wins rest of map with their lead elsewhere.

So what I'd say is this: If you're playing a carry top... you probably gotta largely self carry if possible. If the other guy is better or equal to you, just try to play to enable your team to help you get advantages. Also, most other roles either have no clue what splitpush means even though they should. And those that do tend to be narrow-minded and selfish... not playing properly around you when you split, but expecting you to enable them to split and knowing what you need to do to enable that even if they don't have tp or global to join teamfight if necessary and therefore it's a bad call for them to split compared to you splitting. If you're playing mid it's much the same only... you have a the most potential besides jg to shove and roam to help put your teammates ahead. If you're playing jg... think about opportunity vs cost rather than just optimized jg cs pathing. Like if you can get a kill, help out your teammate, AND get your camp or steal away your opponent's OR you can do one more camp now, miss an easy gank opportunity and potentially put your teammate behind in order to give yourself an immediate lead it's generally better to do the first option and they'll return the favor later either directly or indirectly. If you're playing adc... unless you get massively outscaled there is literally no reason to try to force a snowball of your lane. Just survive, cs, and because you're adc you will get items and have relevance. This is especially true if you are losing - forcing bad plays only ruins your team's chance to help you recover and screws them all over. So take a not from toplane tanks in pro play and learn to lose lane gracefully... that way your team can teamfight and catch you back up so you can carry.

SHerv2 votes

I wouldn't ever say that you will win 100% of your Solo/Duo Ranked matches, mainly due to the reasons that you have listed. Sometimes the game goes a certain way where you will have to carry, either because you accumulated a large lead in gold compared to everyone else on the team/game, or because you dominated your lane opposition and need to showcase dominance on the enemy in every other lane. However, to embellish into that mindset for EVERY game is simply ludicrous. So I do agree that there are times that you will carry, but holding that mindset while going into a game is not one that I would promote.

nfzeta1 votes

Again, you're proving his point. Sometimes you just have to play based on the game and not only on your vision of how you're going to carry the game.

Seenan1 votes

"Firstly - I noticed almost instantly that everyone is stuck in the mindset that they MUST carry the game in order to get out. "

Yeah, this is wrong. Lemme drop a mini-story of what happened a few days ago when I was mid in ranked.

I was mid/Ahri, and we just won a teamfight. I was low so I had to back. So the rest of the team tried to push for tower/inhib (at least), and all of them died 4v2...And we lost the game solely based on that because I can't 3v1..esp if I miss a charm. It didn't matter what I did unless I landed a clutch charm that killed their relatively fed/farmed Teemo, for the game at <200 health (which I was at after the teamfight since they tried focusing me). If I got (Flash)Q'd by Teemo, I would've just died and we would've lost even faster/easier, probably.

Based on that - you really do gotta carry bad/stupid teams like that or the W isn't gonna happen. Our J4 top was building AD assassin, and we also had another champ that was of tanky stature that didn't wanna build like one, so that helped with how fast they died in a 4v2.

nfzeta1 votes

You just proved what he said though, in this case it may have just been the others who think they have the carry or do well to win.

imortalone1 votes

Rank is just broken it means nothing

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-plus/k5asEc58-a-suggestion-on-how-ranked-should-work-since-there-is-a-much-needed-update-best-discussion-post

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