Bronze V to Gold: Getting out of Elohell

Hey - Elohaven here.

In Season 7, when I first started League, I made a well-received post/guide about getting out of elohell in Bronze to Silver. I also was a newbie to the game as I just joined in season 7. Seeing the previous post, I wanted to make another but this time with something special:

Silver to Gold in Season 8.

People said elohell exists, so I named myself Elohaven - a name to motivate my teammates in rough times. It has definitely helped a lot but there's a secret to my grand climb:

• Elohell doesn't exist.

Reason I'm doing this post is because I know many friends of mine who dislike the fact high elo players call it easy due to such a high skill gap - so having someone relatively close to you to give their experience would help. I'll post a TL;DR at the bottom.

I'll also add a "Special" section to give some important things about my climb. I hope the post helps.

#Background

When I first started League, I was placed in Bronze I. Unfortunately, I thought Bronze V was the highest so I was thinking my demotions for a couple 50-70 games were really good and just a mistake on Riot's part. I wasn't really much of a gamer then. The best part was a Rioter saw I had an inappropiate name and changed it. They also explained the ladder system which I was confused on.

Typical Bronzie.

I liked toplane at the time but I loved the difficulty of ADC more. I swapped between all lanes and found botlane to be the most exciting. It always had a lot of interaction and I loved the insane lategame I got. At this point, I was averaging winrates between 20%-40%. I didn't really blame my teammates because I was actually more confused on why champions did what they did and lacked game knowledge.

I found one champion I really liked and decided to focus on mastering them.

#Bronze to Silver

I was called a smurf a lot in Bronze when I started playing League a lot more. When I shifted to ADC, I started studying champions because I heard ADC requires a lot of game knowledge. My primary mistake was just looking at ADCs - so I looked at all champions.

I found that the only thing you need to do in Bronze is master one mechanic, be mechanically competent, or be efficient at CS. My Vayne at this point was mechanically competent but I still made really bad decisions. I could easily 1v4 with my mechanics but the reason I could never 1v5 was because I didn't know actives and how to position against CC.

In Bronze, the moment you learn to use item actives and CS, you win the game. It's really easy in my opinion to escape Bronze.

TL;DR - Master one thing in League, most likely CS(farming minions)

#Silver to Gold

Note: I do want to say high Silver has got some really good people mechanically and is way better than what most people make it out to be. It's less about a specific knowledge to gain in high Silver and more about finding your opponent's weakest skill. For me, I found most Silvers lacked wave management.

In preseason, I started climbing to boost my MMR and fortunately got placed in Silver V. There's a very important aspect of Silver to note:

• Low silver and high silver are vastly different

Low Silver is worse than Bronze I in my opinion because Bronze I has people who are climbing rapidly or being consistent why low silver is filled with people in placements or toxicity. There's still toxicity in all elos but high Silver(Silver II and I) is much more consistent - which is the prerequisite to Gold.

I joined a discord at one point and got kicked due to my na.op.gg. I was called a smurf due to the huge difference in my winrates from Season 7 to Season 8. Others thought I was account sharing. What actually happened was I learned how to manage waves.

• Wave management will instantly make you hit a 70%+ winrate in Silver

Before I hit high Silver, I was at a 75% winrate purely due to wave management and my Vayne. Few in Gold or in low elo knows how to do it properly. However, in high Silver I realized my winrate as ADC was dropping. My Vayne went from an 85% to a 75%. The answer to it was:

Wave management isn't about the waves but the opportunity the waves managed give to you. I wasn't exploiting these opportunities.

I began noticing that the reason deaths were so snowbally for me as an ADC wasn't because the enemy gained a huge amount of Gold but more because I was losing out on a lot and my team wasn't gaining any global gain.

Most people managing waves think it's just a freeze or hardpushing to deny CS while poking. In reality, I only freeze to setup for my jungler when ahead or for safety when behind. I also hard push to roam as an ADC with my support or back.

From all the guides I've seen, nobody talks about this. As an ADC, you WANT to roam if ahead or if you can gain an objective.

For example:

• As Twitch I can use my camouflage to cheese the enemy. My wave is pushed in and the enemy is freezing. I also don't want to back because I could easily help my ally laners get stronger. My jungler follows me and tries to engage. The enemy midlaner thinks it's only two people because that's the norm in Silver but really it's four people mid now with my support and now they're dead. Due to 4 people pressuring mid and only the enemy jungler able to defend, we get first tower.
• My botlane tower is lower than the enemy's but my team got a global gold boost and we can easily pressure botlane.
• This concept applies to all lanes

Then this concept extends everywhere in Platinum(my MMR was pretty high at some point where I played with Gold IIs who were Plat V last season) when it comes to objectives, vision, etc.

You can delay their win with waves, managing waves can save you if you get aced, waves give vision, waves forces enemies to other lanes to make fights a 5v3 or 5v2, etc. Waves allow you to take Baron.

#Mechanics

I found game knowledge to have easily carried me out of Silver and Bronze - but I will admit I had to be mechanically competent to carry. Vayne is the champion I'm best at. At 3 items, I believe my winrate spikes to an 80% unless the enemy has Swain this season.

Here's something nobody tells you:

• Game knowledge allows for consistency in League
• Mechanics allow for you to hard carry

In Silver or Bronze, I am confident I can hard carry a 0/15 midlaner if I can delay the enemy's win which is pretty easy in those elos due to Wave Management.

Due to game knowledge, in Silver, there's a few times where I need to rely on mechanics solely to win a fight. It helps a lot but I can usually just right click as an ADC due to positioning and how much influence I've given on the game.

#Attitude

If you're losing a lot, the common denominator in all your games is you. If you notice, my Xayah is at a low winrate due to me not understanding her kit when I first played her. I do really well on most ADCs but I noticed I can't influence my teammates much. When I started helping their lanes instead of just focusing on bot tower and then rotating, my winrate picked up. I never blamed them though internally. (I may throw some shade to motivate them)

#Trolls and Feeders

A lot of my Vayne games had them. So did a lot of my Tristana games. Silver is filled with people who have lives and need to go AFK - they don't play much. It's also filled with a lot of negativity. A mute all is good:

• And never spam ping a death. They will most likely feed or troll you.

#Lux Support is not a Support

Exactly what is stated above.

#Special

• Always try have 3 or less deaths as an ADC
• Always take farm in low elo as an ADC. In midlane, where all teams are grouped, take raptors if you can't CS. An ADC is useless without Gold
• Toplane is fucked right now and needs a lot of improvement
• Low elo doesn't have peel
• Immobile ADCs are dangerous due to how much mobility creep there is
• Just because you're Silver doesn't mean what you say is wrong. There's a reason many Rioters are Silver but make sure you have evidence to back things up

#TL;DR

• Wave management carries you
• Dying isn't about what you gain but more of what you lose
• Watch streamers play to get a general idea but don't copy them
• EG Gosu takes domination second on Vayne but he's really good at Vayne. Sorcery is generally much better though.
• Use actives and adjust rune pages to enemy team
• Influence other lanes
• Don't blame your teammates (For the love of God)
• Never say GG EZ at the end of a game
• Toplane is fucked

Elohell doesn't exist in low elo as there are too many factors for you to exploit. You need to take advantage of all of them.