[guide] How to get out of Bronze/Silver Tier .?. (Season 6 version)

Hello,

these guides have been around for a while, but now that the season is nearing its end, someone told me that I should translate them in English and potentially help more people climb the ladder, even at the last moment, so here we are. We start with the first and original guide of the 3, how to get out of Bronze (and as it turned out AND Silver) by playing Support.

Let us think a bit on the matter ... usually in similar topics most players propose a "carry to win" solution in combination with a "take an OP champion and play only that" ... the result of those suggestions is something that we have all dealt with, unfortunately :

• A constant hunt for kills in-game and a systematic neglect towards taking objectives
• Very few people want to pick Jungle/Support
• The illusion that the game is "single player" is enhanced and as a result the in game flamming rises even for minor solo mistakes
• The game is based on TEAMWORK and it is a very rare occasion when you will be able to actually solo carry. Regardless of how fed you might end up being, the opponents must be really disorganized to not be able to eventually shut you down even 1vs3, and win the next teamfight were you will be dead (potentially losing the whole game in late game)

Other people propose going to play with a lot of premades, but that is not a valid solution since chances are you will have premades in the opposing team and they might be more prepared and practiced than your impromptu "team" of fellow players. So, unless you invest time and trouble to create a small team of players to play with Duo or Dynamic queue, you cannot REALLY apply that solution.

So, around here we see that the "popular" ideas might work sometimes, but are definitely NOT optimal. **So, let us try to find a better one, by answering some questions : **

• Which is the most important GOAL in the game .?.
• Which is the most important role in the game .?.
• Which things I should NOT trust my teammates with .?.
• Which are the most usual problems in a random team .?.
• Which is the best tactic to have a POSITIVE impact on a team of 4 strangers which the matchmaker just landed on my doorstep .?.

Let us answer those one by one :

Which is the most important GOAL in the game .?. The Objectives ! ! Most people in Bronze think it is their scores or the kills, which is disastrous. If you watch a pro game, the kills are way fewer than the average Bronze game killfest, but the pros know very well what they are doing (duh :p) ... they know that farming safely is most of the time more important and beneficial than attacking all the time in order to get a kill.

Whoever has been in a bronze game were the laner can be 12-2 but still lose his tower FIRST, understands exactly how frustrating that can be. So when the game starts you should at least remember this : Objectives are the most important thing and that you should NOT over-extend to get a kill ... if you managed to damage someone, all is well and if they got away it is FINE ... take the turret, recall, shop, heal, repeat !

Which is the most important role in the game .?. None. It used to be the ADC and later on mid and top, but in Seasons 6 no role is clearly more important than any other.

Which things I should NOT trust my teammates with .?. Many things, unfortunately, in Bronze. In general do NOT expect your teammates :

• To save you (they might be farming in blissful ignorance, half a screen away, while a huge teamfight happens)
• To gank your lane in time, or gank at ALL. They are generally focused in their lanes and almost never move from them even in mid/late game !
• Wards
• Map awareness (some people are really facepalm material in that regard. You could even place wards in their lane and they will still not look at the map or even demand an "ss" when the enemy jungler ganks them)
• Teamwork/objective hunting (sometimes even the jungler won't even take his own jungle buffs, let alone a dragon or herald)

Which are the most usual problems in a random team .?. Supposing that there is no AFK/trolls (which is usually the worst problem in general, but they have nothing to do with gameplay issues which is the whole topic) the weakest link in Bronze is the SUPPORT ... the reasons are simple : • They do not like the role or they do not know how to play it • They pick the support THEY like, not the support the team NEEDS. (e.g. your team has yasuo, your team needs a tank and they do not pick Alistar or Malphite support, but go ahead and pick Sona) • They do not have the runes to play support • They do not help the team to engage or disengage, but they hunt kills as well • They do not buy warding or gp10 items and they do a "solo top/mid" build • They do not help in the shotcalling even though in reality the support is the player that has the most time and freedom to be checking the whole map most of the time. RESULT .?. Around the 25th minute they do not have good items, nor HP, nor damage, nor wards, or even gp10 income and so they have no teamfight presence ... in general the game has turned to a 4 vs 5 and soon enough it is lost beyond any hope.

**Which is the best tactic to have a POSITIVE impact on a team of 4 strangers which the matchmaker just landed on my doorstep .?. ** • Not flamming and cursing at other people's mistakes • Buying wards and using my trinkets • Looking at the map and pinging back at my teammates when I am spotting a trap • trying to make my teammates to focus on objectives with pings and positive messages

Well, ok you might say, all these sound "ok", but how do they address the original problem .?. It is simple ... there is only ONE way to solve ALL those problems for your team and that is for YOU to play support ... yes YOU, and in particular TANKY SUPPORT If you expect in the bronze tier for others to help in teamwork, place wards or chek out the map, then you are waiting in vayne ... out of 10 games, only in 1-2 will this happen, so YOU DO IT !

The tactic is simple ...

• learn some supports that are fitting with your playstyle (there are many guides for that), take the right runes and start helping your TEAM instead of trying to "carry".
• Start placing wards in your lane and in the river ... try placing a pink near mid as well.
• Help your adc ... Try to get him to freeze the lane when convinient. If he doesn't know how, EXPLAIN it to him in the chat without flamming.
• Harass/zone out your opponents ... if you cannot do that because they have too much poke or healing, DEFEND and wait for your combo's powerspike and possibly the jungler as well.
• Look at the map ... even if you are playing bot lane, you can write "ss top" or "care mid".
• Ping about anything that you spot or worries you
• Buy aura items (e.g. Aegis of the legion) or items that help your team take objectives (e.g banner of command, zz'rot portal) when the laning ends, WARD EVERYWHERE around the places and the objectives you mean to target (in bronze that mean, mid lane ;/ ) Focus the opposing support and make the game 4 vs 5 ... that has a huge negative effect on the opponents and they might surrender.

Well aren't those quite enough .?. If you add some teamwork in a teamgame you will see quite the difference ... do NOT try to "carry" the team, you are not REALLY a platinum player that "happened" to be stuck at bronze/silver, so that you can actually solo carry ... so, do something more reasonable, help the OTHER players to survive and eventually do more damage and sooner or later, the objectives will be taken, and hopefully the victory, as well. And in order to not think that I am talking without knowing, I tried my idea first and THEN wrote it down, so I present you with the proof that you can get out of bronze by solo games :

http://oi65.tinypic.com/14ainoh.jpg http://oi68.tinypic.com/xok1le.jpg

(I needed 26 games to get out of Bronze, and if I had dodged less games I might have needed even less than those)

**So, to close the topic some very important GENERAL GAMEPLAY advices : ** 1) Not giving kills is more important than taking some kills. FARM >> kills 2) Grab a kill/objective - recall - shop -heal - gg wp ... do not push a lane without a particular reason and NEVER attack unless you have enough mana to execute the whole sequence correctly. Did you get a kill .?. Did you get a tower .?. RECALL, shop, heal and you will return even stronger than before to take even more out of the opponents. 3) Learn the basic ward positions ... even if YOU do not have a ward there, the opponents might ( my second guide is on that subject, you can at least see the images here ... when I translate it I will update the correct link ) 4) When you do not see all the opponents in the mini-map remember where you saw them last and ping BACK your teammates from those areas. 5) Always play something tanky if you want to help your bronze team. Glasscannon supports apart from Soraka, are not worth playing in Bronze because they cannot stand the burst of the new items and even totally unfed opponents can destroy you late game. 6) supposing you are tanky do not follow the usual idea "ooo, it is my job to save everyone". NO, IT IS NOT! If your team is not following you or they go solo or dive 1 vs 3+ then do NOT FOLLOW THEM. They cannot be saved, it is that simple. It is far better to just give away one death instead of two ... the difference of someone staying alive is huge, since that way you might save important objectives (towers, dragon, baron etc) 7) Never towerdive. NEVER ! At least until you learn well the limits of your champion and you understand when you should dive in order for ALL of your teammates to come out alive or at least gain the objective - and you will make that happen by going in first and tanking the turret for your teammates. This why you control the dive and your teammates survive (we assume that they will be yolo bronze players) 8) Poke before engage. ALWAYS ! Expecting to drop someone from 100% to 0% is unreasonable ... alwaysdo something so they have lost a percentage of their hp before you "all in" for the kills. 9) Never start a teamfight were the numbers are not in your favor ... NEVER, even if you think that you might win it, and the reason is simple. If the teamfight lasts more than expected, the balance might change and the rest of the opponents might show up and turn the tables on you. 10) It is easier and more profitable to push a SIDELANE than mid lane. Not only it needs less wards to be safe, but also if you get a side inhibitor the super minions might even get a nexus tower, plus the map is more open for you since the side inhibitor is a more pressing problem for the opponents than mid. "All mid" is the ultimate bronze tactic and it should stay there ... 11) In Bronze, Baron as an objective is free to take at least 4-5 per game for each team ... TOTALLY FREE and noone goes to take it ... ward around it, let your allies hit baron and you guard the corridors leading to the baron pit. But when is Baron free .?. Simple : Did you just win a teamfight and 2 opponents are dead and you only lost one teammate .?. If one of the dead opponents is their jungler, then free baron. Three opponents are defending their bot lane .?. Free baron. You have taken an inhibitor .?. Push another lane and recall or rotate for a free baron. 12) Dragons are an objective that is rarely worth dying for anymore ... unless you totally need it and your team has the needed vision and position, do NOT contest for it ... it is better to safely take a tower while they try for the dragon 13) Do not let the game end up entering the late game ... if you have the advantage press for the objectives and do not let your teammates hunt for kills because at late game an unlucky fight or ace might spell the end for the game, even if you had been winning clearly. 14) Last but not least, NEVER flame your teammates ... noone ever played better, when being told that he "sucks". Either be constructive or say nothing.

Tl;Dr

• The easiest way to get out of bronze is by playing support
• Play SAFE, do not dive, do not die, help your TEAM
• Never play support without the right runes and gp10 items and wards because you are destroying your own team

I hope that you found this useful. I will be happy for any feedback, especially if it helps me correct some stuff till I translate my other two guides. Good luck with your games and I wish you success in climbing before the season ends ... warding guide and the ADC equivalent of this one are coming in some days ...