Day 2 in Gold, I have managed to promote into Gold IV... my hope continues to dwindle...

If anything the problems I've encountered so far appear more pronounced than before. Whether this is due to the higher rank effecting the level of my standards or simply my optimistic expectations has yet to be determined.

Allies continue to show poor map awareness and let perfectly good interceptions pass them by, pings warning allies to fall back from unwarded territory while enemy assassins are missing continue to go unheeded.

I have noticed with great worry that Warding and Vision as a whole appear to be almost entirely forgotten by most players. The majority fail even to upgrade from the basic and seem to refuse to make use of their Trinket keys period.

Another worrisome trend I've witnessed is the complete lack of interest in the top-lane by most solo-queue junglers, pings on enemy Summoners and unwarded bushes are disregarded repeatedly and they seem to rather camp the bot-lane or farm jungle monsters instead. I have began banning whenever I claim that position in fear of the hound taking advantage of this neglect and split-pushing with ease due to his mere presence keeping me from purchasing my trusty

and players... they only appear to be getting worse! They ignore all requests to group with the team in order to take advantage of our CC and continue to run face first into fully prepared enemies before our team is able to reach them to assist. Spamming question pings upon death appears to be a common occurrence with these players.

I remain optimistic that the players in these divisions must become more competent at some point in this higher than average Rank, but that hope fades with each passing match.