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I'm about to try Ranked for the first time...

Samdei·11/29/2017, 2:41:57 AM·2 votes·1,197 views

What I hear from all my friends is:

"If you're fighting plat or above in Normals, you'll need to carry silvers to get at least Gold" "If you're used to easy games, get ready for your teammates making it hard as fuck because they all want to be the next Faker." "Tanks actually exist in Ranked. Don't think you're going to go 40-5 with LeBlanc." "It's the worst experience of your life, but you need to play Ranked if you want any credibility in League. It doesn't matter if you're winning lanes or games vs diamond players in normals. Normals is a joke." "Play one champion in Ranked is a handicap to your team. Knowing how to play a multitude of champions exponentially increases your winning chances." "Expect to have the worst teammates you've ever had during your promo series. The system is designed to have put the shittiest players with the best PLAYER in order to balance MMR in these situations. It's not an actual fair fight through the ranks, duo with someone.

All except the last two (2) quotes I kind of agree with and thus am scared to play ranked. What can I expect? The same as above or is it actually this ridiculously matched?

Edit: For the trolls; I'm not posting on my main account. (I was told to put this).

5 Comments

Deep Terror Nami11/29/2017, 2:51:17 AM2 votes

It's not bad at all, people will get upset and blame any number of reasons why they failed other than themselves, so just focus on improving yourself after each match instead of naysayers saying how much everything sucks.

About "playing one champion handicaps your team", that does have some truth but is also nonsense, depending on how you interpret it. One-tricking a champion (called being a 'one trick pony' or 'OTP') is actually the best way to succeed most of the time, because mastering one champion allows you to be way better than people that aren't experienced with theirs and you learn how to defend your weaknesses. However, it can get picked or banned (some much more than others), so you really do need to know some backups well; this includes different roles too, so you should have some experience in every lane (Support is the main autofilled position, so know it). Having a little experience everywhere allows you to play against the enemy using it and assist your teammates more, so even if you're amazing at Teemo if you don't know what your ally and the enemy is capable of you're actually not that good at Teemo.

There's no reason to be scared of it, more people take Ranked seriously than they do Normals, so you can expect more frequently that people do their best (even if it sucks, but don't harp on them for it please) and that they stick to the Meta. This actually helps make Ranked less stressful, as long as you don't get bent out of shape if you lose or your team doesn't perform. Like I said before, just focus on improving yourself and you'll climb, and don't ever think "My team sucks, I did everything I could", because you can always improve and have done better.

FOR JUSTICE11/29/2017, 2:56:12 AM2 votes

being a 1 trick in low elo is perfectly fine, so you don't worry about that unless your aiming for plat. you could be a dick and 1 trick friggin annie, and can make it to at least gold 2 people only notice how often their teammates are bad when they are in promos, but not when they actually are during the initial climb. also because theyre in promos, they will much more often then not complain about someone elses mistake

Cybernetic Ghost11/29/2017, 3:01:00 AM2 votes

Something that might help also is to browse sites like champion.gg or lolcounter to figure out which champions counter others. The data on both sites is quite different. I find champion.gg to be better, but that's a personal opinion.

Try not to take Ranked seriously. I've only ever tried it once back in season three and gave it up after about a week. I don't need the vitriol that everyone likes to toss around. Play to have fun, and get as much practice as you can with at least one champion in each role. That way if you don't get to play your lane of choice, you can still do well with another champion elsewhere.

Good luck.

rcrc052611/29/2017, 3:45:27 AM1 votes

It's not that bad, just don't play a feast or famine champ unless your at bronze mmr. (because your gonna be placed in bronze anyway)

Samdei11/29/2017, 4:04:54 AM1 votes

I play normals because I am playing vs Plat+ players every game. The game seem decent, like there isn't a clear winner until the 20 minute mark and that makes them fun. Theres the odd game that I pop off or the enemy does (my teammates usually don't it seems lol) which all seems to boil down to what team is a better macro player than the other, no matter their mechanics. Then I hear about the horrors of ranked and getting 'soft reset' every year only to be struggling with/against enemies that are not the same caliber of player that I am. I feel like a ranked system that hard reset the MMR to make everyone on a level playing field each year would be the ultimate test of sportsmanship available. I don't want to get stuck against or with players that are SUPER low caliber unless I'm expecting to and the current system I expect to be placed with player that are of the same level I am facing in Normals. Why are there two game modes in the first place? I'm so confused and disappointed that my hard work in Normals won't translate to Ranked. It feels like Riot wants me to struggle and take it seriously because if I don't, it's no better than ARAM.

I need guidance. I also need to know it's not a waste of my time. I honestly believe, given a few matches, I can beat the Sneakys, Pobelters and IWillDominates (even that QTpie dude) if I were to face them, but I'll never face them unless I play my ass off like a fucking hooker working the busiest corner in NY.

Can I not just log into ranked during the start of the season and prove my worth?