Advice for getting out of Bronze (And playing in general)

After a pretty vicious loss today I spent some time on postgame chat with our top laner consoling him, and it did a few things for me. First, it made him/her feel better, which is rare. Second, it made me think about what a lot of players in bronze (and trying to get out) need to hear. I'll break my thoughts down into a few small sections and leave it at that.

1. Observations on Bronze Tier

Bronze is a crazy, crazy place. I've seen some amazing plays that beat any highlight reel I've seen on youtube and I've seen some of the most boneheaded mistakes ever made, sometimes in the same game. It's got smurfs, noobs, tryhards, trolls, and everything inbetween; it's like the weird shelf on the bottom of the fridge that just kinda catches anything that doesn't have anywhere else to go. Is it ELO hell? No, it's not. It's chaotic, but it's not impossible to climb out of. What makes bronze so crazy? This is what I think:

• There are a lot of players in Bronze. Bronze is the most heavily populated tier, it simply has the most players in it. Because it's so huge it is also the most widely varied and unpredictable tier of ranked play. I've seen players with 300-400 games played in a game with someone still in their first 10 provisional matches. Why? Because they're ranked at the same ELO.

• It's where new players start. Once you hit level 30 and you own a couple of champions, there's nothing stopping you from playing ranked. A player who freshly hit 30 with relatively little skill, a champ pool that's tiny, no decent runes, a hodgepodge mastery page, and no idea what they're walking into can just queue up and match up across the lane with someone who has 300 games played in bronze tier THIS SEASON ALONE. The disparity is massive.

• It's where the toxic players drop to. Riot isn't lying, toxic players lose more games. The drag of a single toxic player can throw an entire game into a tailspin. No matter how good a player may be at the game, if they're toxic, they're going to lose more. League is a team game, and when someone starts tilting and flaming their team, the teamwork breaks down. I've watched a team spiral down into a flaming wreck that would make the hindenberg downright jealous all because one player started taking a verbal shit on his/her teammates. I've been called every insulting name under the sun, told to uninstall, kill myself, quit league, and more by teammates in bronze. Funny thing is, it's usually a player who's playing badly who wants to blame someone else for their mistakes. More on that later.

• Riot does a bad job of teaching players how to play. Riot is like your drunk uncle teaching you how to drive; they toss you the keys and go "here's the steering wheel, that one's the gas, that one's the brake, stick the keys in there and crank it up, happy hour ends at 7." We've got a couple of tutorials that teach you the basic mechanics of a champ. We've got some co-op vs. ai, in which the AI doesn't even run a jungler, that gives players a completely false impression of how games actually go. We've got some basic champ descriptions which explain the basic functions of each champion's skills. That's about it. The rest of the learning is all trial and error. Ranked in bronze is like amateur rally racing, you've got some tryhard in a home-modded subaru next to a 17 year old in their mom's camry, and it can only end in tears. I'm sorry that this is the way things are. I really hope Riot does a better job in the future of teaching new players the meta as well as expanding education on the fundamentals of playing league, but until then I hope this post can at least point you in the right direction.

"But Merzoth!" you say, "I'm soooo good! I don't deserve to play with these scrubs!"

Shut up and listen. You're still in bronze because you're not good at League of Legends. And let me give you the first secret of league.

2. League Secret #1. League is about Mechanics AND Knowledge

Listen now and hear me later my darling little noobosaur.

• Mechanics are when you push the buttons. Mechanics are how you make the most out of what you have. Mechanics are how you use your skills, your summoners, your item actives, your rune and mastery setups, and how you play Riven at all. To go back to another car analogy, because why not, imagine this: If you took a Formula 1 car and put it on a real race track and took it around a few times, you'd be lucky if you didn't crash, but you'd suck all the same. Then you get out of the car and we put Valentino-frickin-Rossi in the car and let him take it for a whirl, he'd make you look like you were trying to count the stripes on the goddamn walls as you went by. Why? Because mechanically he'd be better at driving on a racetrack than you. Mechanics are knowing how to attack-move kite, how to animation cancel, and how to get the most out of your champion. Right now everyone and their mom is raging about how Yasuo is broken and OP because he can get one extra autoattack in during his ult, that is a mechanical trick that nets you extra damage, and it's the difference between winning a duel and losing it, that's mechanics. It's important, it's extremely important, but it's the flashy shiny shit that everyone wants to focus on because it leads to sweet deeps and a pimpin KDA on op.gg and in bronze it will help you very little. Honestly. Slicing that razor's edge will only matter if you know how to use that advantage in context of actually winning the goddamn game.

• Knowledge is what you do with those Mechanics. Knowledge is decision making. Knowledge is knowing what OBVECTIVES are and why they're important. Knowledge is knowing when it's a good time to take dragon, when to group up for a teamfight, when to push aggressively and when to play passively, where to place wards (or to even place wards at all. I'm looking at you right now.) Knowledge is how you use those mechanics you know to actually win you the game. Knowledge is about knowing where you should be and when in order to give your team (and thus yourself) progress towards winning the game. Knowledge is knowing if you can take that guy 1v1 right now if you all-in, it's knowing if the enemy team is AD or AP oriented, it's knowing whether to try and go for baron or push for a mid tower, and Knowledge is not taught by Riot at all. You NEED to learn these things in order to win more games than a newbie who just hit 30, and the majority of bronze players ignore knowledge and try to murder their way to the top. This leads to my next point:

• League Secret #2. There is no Team Deathmatch mode in League of Legends. A lot of the people stuck in bronze are there because they're still under the impression that as long as you're killing the enemy you're gonna win. Those people are wrong, and you're wrong if you believe them. You don't win when you reach a certain number of kills, you only win by one of two ways: The enemy team surrenders or you destroy the enemy nexus. Getting fed and running around the map fatter and sassier than my ex-girlfriend after we broke up is fun and all, and sometimes it wins you the game, but it's only a small part of winning. What these players are doing wrong is focusing on mechanics and ignoring knowledge. Sure, getting fed is going to win you some games, but not enough to get you out of bronze. If you can't take objectives you're just a fed loser and eventually the other team is going to show up and 1v5 your out-of-position ass into oblivion and you're going to rage back into Bronze 5.

Now, do your best spongebob squarepants impression and soak that in like a fancy ass marinade. Read it twice. Print it out. Sleep with it under your pillow. Absorb it as the gospel truth for playing this game. If you learn nothing else from reading this post, take that last point to heart.

Now, let's talk about what you can do to survive the garbage gumbo that is bronze tier.

3. Advice on how to climb out of Bronze

• Get your technical act together You know what's common in bronze that you don't see in diamond? Disconnects. Are you playing on a toaster? Does your phone have a faster processor than your desktop? Is your neighbor's wifi going out on you? Then don't play ranked until it's fixed. Losing the team a game because your computer or internet connection is janky is going to cost you in LP, a leaver penalty, and four people who would love to meet you in a dark alley.

• Every game is a new game. Refer to my above point: There are a ton of players in Bronze. There are so many and they are there for many different reasons, so you have no idea what kind of team you're going to get matched with. The champ you're across from in lane could be godlike or they could be horrible, and you can't assume either one until you get in there and put some blood on the floor. I recently played two back-to-back games as ADC with a Lux support: In the first game our Lux fed the enemy team, screamed to have me reported for not following her into endless suicide charges, and ended the game with 8 deaths and literally zero assists. Needless to say we lost that one hard. The second game our Lux played fantastic, we had great synergy and teamwork, I pulled a nice double kill at about the 5 minute mark, she went 9/2/20, and we had the easiest snowball victory I'd had in months. Had I walked into the second game and said "oh goddammit, another Lux, I know how this is gonna go..." I might not have given the second Lux a chance, and I might have lost us that game. The lesson: Don't take your experience in one game to mean that the next game will look anything like it at all. If you won, cool. If you lost, examine WHY you lost, what YOU could have done differently to change the outcome, and then let it all fall out of your mind like all of those math classes you took in high school. Every game is a clean slate in Bronze, and you have to approach each one as such.

• Play Mechanically Easy Champions No, really. Do it. Don't play Riven. Don't play Vayne. Don't play Azir. Your attention should be on the minimap, farming, and being in position. Your game knowledge is weak, learn to use it and apply it, and you don't need to be focused on playing a mechanically complex champion that is going to distract you from what's going on around you. Stick to mechanically simple champions that allow you to focus on being a part of the team and working with your team to win the game. Also, don't play a champ that you're under mastery level 2 in ranked. Few things kill a game faster than watching someone try to figure out how Ekko's ult works mid-game. If you want to run a champ in ranked, go play em in some normal games before you starting playing for keeps.

• Bronze is a Different Meta This goes with my previous point. Because a champ has a 67% win rate on op.gg does not mean you'll do well in bronze with it. Stats like that are taken from platinum and above where teammates know your champ, the interactions with their champ, and how to best work as a team to leverage your strengths. Some of the strongest champs in the current meta are both mechanically difficult and very teamwork dependent to win games. You lack the mechanical skill and support from your teammates to use that champ to it's full potential. For Example: Support Karma can devastate bronze but she's almost nonexistent in platinum and above. Pantheon mid currently has the highest win-rate in platinum and above but god bless your eternal soul if you try that out in a bronze game.

• Don't Feed If you're not good, at least don't be bad. Don't give the enemy team free gold and exp by dying. You're doing more good for your team by staying out of danger than you are by dying over and over. Aim to give away no more than 1 kill during the laning phase so at least the enemy player across from you doesn't go wreak unholy fed hell on your unsuspecting teammates. Learn to play like a little sissy. Run away. Farm under turret. Refuse to trade pokes. Cry for help like a kid looking for a safe space. If that's the best you can do, do it.

• WARDS SAVE LIVES Throw some wards down. You've got the trinket, use it. If you play a 30 minute game and have less than 14 wards used, you're not warding enough. I don't care where you place them at first, you'll learn. Any ward is better than no ward at all. Even if you don't get any use out of it your teammates will appreciate having a little more vision on the field. Even a tiny glimpse of an enemy champion in the jungle can mean the difference between winning and losing.

• Ignore Flaming but also Own Your Mistakes When you're getting flamed, mute that as fast as possible, you don't need that, just report the guy at the end of the game and call it a day. Now, examine what was said: did you legitimately make a mistake? If so, own it, be happy you learned something not to do, and move forward. I've received legitimately valid feedback in the form of death threats and racial slurs. Sift out the actual criticism, see if you have anything to learn from it, and then toss the rest out along with a click of the little red exclamation point at the end of the game.

• Quit if You Tilt If you start tilting, raging, or just getting worn out, don't play any more ranked for the day. If you're upset, you're not going to play well, and you need to play well if you're playing ranked. Don't drag the team down by playing drunk, high, or upset. It sucks when you're playing a solid game and xXMagicMike420Xx is feeding the mid lane zed kills like he's trying to choke him to death with gold. Don't be that guy.

I've seen this point passed around a lot, and I'll repeat it here: There are 5 players on each team. If everyone in bronze sucks then there's 5 bad players vs 5 bad players. If you're good, then it's 5 bad players vs 4 bad players and 1 good one, and you will eventually rise out of bronze. Take that to heart.

Good luck out there guys, -Merzoth

Edited for formatting