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Rank does not mean better knowledge

Beldair·12/3/2016, 5:48:18 PM·4 votes·800 views

I have to say this once again because of a Rankist Support Main (I'm sure some have seen his posts about supports that aren't "good quality").

Just because you are Plat or Diamond does not mean you know a role or champion better than lower ranked or unranked players. Yes, I know some of you Plats and Diamonds actually do know them better (like Malicious Metal with Mordekaiser) but not all.

I will use myself as an example. I am unranked but do still consider myself a support main because I mainly play support and have been since I started playing League. I don't play ranked because I help watch my aunt's 19 month old son and there are times where he wakes up in the middle of the night. So instead of ruining someone's LP, I take the Leaver Buster from Norms. Yes I know many of you would say, don't play League then or play bots if you know you can't play. I prefer playing against live opponents and many times, I'm able to do about 3-4 norms with not interruption.

So back to the topic... I can't stress how annoyed I get (and I'm sure there are others too) when people throw out the rank card. Enough with the , oh well I was Plat 1 and you are unranked so I know the role better and you could learn some things from what I am saying.

40 Comments

Risk of Fate12/3/2016, 7:32:25 PM3 votes

I would say Rank is a decent way of saying how well you're able to apply the knowledge. A diamond can lose to a bronze if they've never played a role they're assigned and a diamond can easily stomp bronzies who are running it down mid while they split push and take other objectives.

Only reason I say this is I got my behind absolutely rekked by diamonds (we were in norms, I'm Silver elo, he's mid-diamond.) and I saw first-hand "oh look, they're all deleting me, the squishy support" which cost us every fight. Because I wasn't used to that sort of play, I lacked the knowledge on how to play in that position.

Mecha MaIphite12/3/2016, 6:39:54 PM3 votes

Except that it does, generally.

You can play a champion for a thousand games without ever really knowing how it's supposed to be played. It's only when you start playing it effectively, and therefore climbing, that you can claim to understand your champion.

Cocho12/3/2016, 6:09:24 PM1 votes

If you knew support at the level of a diamond player, you would be destroying your normals every single game against the bronze players you're put up against.

Jyoeru12/3/2016, 6:18:33 PM1 votes

It's certainly more difficult to carry as a support champ presuming you're sticking to a true support champ role. It's certainly possible to be a plat+ or whatever and have little knowledge or understanding of the champ you are currently playing. But traditionally speaking, if you're plat+, you probably avoid bad trades, excessive and over-exposed pushing, many baits, do generally well with last hits, play a bit safer focusing mostly on farm over kills (unless the kills are just that easy to grab), and the likes.

I thought this was going to be a post that addressed some of the struggles a support faces trying to carry out of poor games or other-than-bot lane advantages that opponents get that allow them to overpower you no matter how well you held your lane together. Even then, you should always be at or slightly above 50% win rates to move up. If you're not at or above 50% winrates, then you are definitely doing something wrong even as a support main, even if in unranked games.

Losing 3/5 games when you have higher KDA, better bot control than the other lanes, and the like would be more of an indication that you ran into some bad matchups or bad team comps/players on your side and that those games were incidental. Doing this same ratio over 20 games indicates the problem exists, in part, due to your playing efforts or lack thereof.

The rank card is silly but irrelevant if you're playing even .01% better than your opponents 50% of the time. At least, that's how I see it, in general.

dunder kill12/3/2016, 5:55:03 PM1 votes

You can't pull the "I dont play ranked" card anymore.

https://na.whatismymmr.com/Beldair

Your normals MMR is low bronze lol

grug12/3/2016, 6:43:57 PM1 votes

if it doesnt then

please explain to me why there are several players amassing thousands of games still in low ELO B5-s5

as well as the countless support mains who placed 0.1 wards per minute

Sasogwa12/3/2016, 6:59:21 PM1 votes

What are you even trying to say here? Yea sure, low elo people might for some of them be better than their current rank (so what) And sure some might not have that much time to play. But I hardly doubt that if they don't have a lot of time to play, they have the level of game understanding/mechanics of a high elo player. And I don't mean they don't have the potential to get it. I mean that they don't currently have it.

I'm in fact really bothered by people in low elo that claim to have great game knowledge and all. I mean, why would you try to brag about this? How would you even know? When you're not really great at something, there are tons of things you don't even see, and account in your judgement, making your understanding of the game flawed, because you can't comprehend what you can't see. I have somewhat experienced that as I climbed the ladder, because the more I understood things and gained in skill, the more I realised how unskilled and very far from the best I actually was. So I find them quite presomptuous for low elo people to say they're good, may it be in game knowledge or mechanics when I know that as a mid-diam player, I actually suck compared to lots of player in master/chall. And that when I'm smurfing in 'low elo', I just roflstomp the game 90% of the time and 1v9. Now, the "I'm high elo so I'm right" argument is frustrating and I don't like this a lot. But when you're high elo, it does mean something. Either that you have good mechanics, or good game knowledge, or both. Or that you got boosted, but that's something else. Or carried, but statistically, that's INSANELY unlikely. The ranking system is actually way better than people think. (btw, high elo is relative and doesn't mean much. I guess for silvers or sthg, diam is high elo, when for me, diam is kinda.. bad, and I am.. kinda bad. Everything is relative, I guess).

So when as a high elo player, you talk about balance, and then some low elo guy comes in and just says "no you're talking shit, you don't understand anything" without providing actual argumentation to the table, it's very frustrating. And leads to the elo argument, in general. Just that to say that, it's better when you're talking with someone that's higher elo, so statistically speaking, more likely to have a greater game knowledge, to have an argumentated discussion. Back up your sentences, provide content to prove that you're really telling something relevant. Doesn't mean that high elo players should not also provide a good argumentation when talking about sthg. But it's easier to give them the benefit of the doubt, to some extent. Harder for low elo people, because in general, they don't see the whole picture.

PS : I, too, avoid ranked because it's toxic. I have only 68 ranked this season, for hundreds and hundreds of normals. Yet I'm still D3 ; and my mmr in normals is quite high. If you don't rank, the mmr in normals is actually relevant to figure out how good you are. I usually got back to rank when I saw that the people I was facing in normals were actually harder to beat than the ones I faced in ranked.

n64bomb12/3/2016, 7:05:11 PM1 votes

You have a lot to learn. Rank doesn't necessarily mean your opinion isn't valuable if your rank is low, but definitely once you reach diamond at a role, you have a strong view on that role. Being diamond V isn't actually even good, diamond 3+ is where a lot of top players say you are "no longer bad". I review my own replays and went from silver 4 to gold V with gold III mmr. Did that in 2 weeks at the end of last season. And I played a bunch of champs that were new to me and I had 30-35% winrates. Play the few champions you are good with and use them to climb. Unfortunately, if you are bronze, you are atrociously bad at the game and your attitude is probably a major factor. Silver is just a shinier bronze. Even where I am at in gold people won't group, don't ward, have mediocre cs, and so on. I have bronze mechanics, but my warding/rotations/macro carried me to gold. I can't dodge a leona e ever, or a thresh hook, and I main soraka/janna/sona. So yeah, if you are bronze/silver, you should really try to focus on improving, because you aren't good enough at anything in the game to be criticizing others' play.

There is a big difference between thinking you are good at something and actually being good at something. If you are bronze/silver, you are very far away from being good at the game. Most people agree that gold-platinum is respectable to achieve because 85% of players are below gold. That is respectable; don't confuse respectable for good. So yeah, even gold/platinum players aren't good, but they are at least in that mmr is where the game shifts from casuals to actually being a game where people somewhat understand what they are doing. Post a few replays you lost in ranked on different roles, and ask someone diamond/platinum at that role to help review the replays. You will be surprised at what you find. So many league players think they are way better than what they are, that they deserve platinum when they are bronze. You have to carry yourself at low elo and not rely on your team at all. The first step to improving is recognizing your mistakes, and if you look at your replays, you will begin to see just how many mistakes you are making at bronze/silver that you didn't acknowledge before. People tend to focus on explaining what they are good at, while ignoring what they are bad at. Don't do that.

MonkeyKing Every mistake is a lesson. 99.9% of your deaths are from a fatal error you made. Learn to die less. Position better. CS better. Look at the minimap. Place wards in locations you need/where the next big objective will be contested.

Lane vs a diamond player at your role, and you will see why they are diamond and you are not.

Beldair12/3/2016, 6:07:39 PM1 votes

I figured i'd get down votes.. This community only cares about a persons rank...not how long they've played or if they even play ranked.

My brother has a friend who has played league since Beta..that friend is unranked. So i'd say he probably has an extensive knowledge of this game and champs he plays, yet he has no rank..