Ranked Tier Naming and the Trivia behind it

If you prefer text format here you go: With Season 9 coming, we now have two more ranked tiers in League of Legends with the full list being Iron, Bronze, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster and Challenger. Starting with the lowest ranked tier, Iron. The name for this tier was decided to fit multiple languages - according to Riot Games, a tier name should not be offensive no matter which language you translate it into, and also shouldn’t be too much of a meme by itself. This is why Riot Games did not name this tier Wood or even Plastic. Iron was never really a meme, and it is a much common material in real world conditions than bronze. Bronze, which is the next tier, is actually a sort of valuable metal in real life. It also brings us to another symbol - bronze is associated with third place in the competitive sports, so it makes sense for bronze not to be the lowest tier, and I fully support Riot’s decision to add a new tier below it. While it is kind of valuable however, bronze is still not that shiny or prestige. Bronze consists mainly of copper, and an interesting fact is that historically the bronze age is before the iron age. What’s important to note is that bronze was never replaced by iron, and throughout the iron age it was still used for items that were superior when made out of bronze. The next tier is Silver. I’m not sure how Season 9 placements will go, but Silver in league is statistically associated with average, as the largest amount of the playerbase has been in this tier. This is the first tier so far that wears the name of a truly shiny material, in fact the silver chemical symbol A g, comes from the latin argentum, which literally means shiny. It is of course also associated with a second place in races. Silver also belongs to the group of precious metals, unlike any of the aforementioned tiers. Now, we have gold. The symbol of a victory in the race, as well as universally accepted as a valuable material. This also applies to League of Legends of course, as reaching Gold tier is the requirement for receiving a Victorious skin. Gold is obviously also a precious metal, and much more valuable than silver, being dozens of times more expensive to acquire. What’s interesting is that Gold, while a symbol of victory and a first place, is actually not that high in the ladder of the ranks. In terms of player average rank, sure it is above average, but we still have many other tiers to cover. The first one of them is Platinum. Here, stuff gets a little bit confusing. Platinum is actually a little cheaper than gold, and it is not normally associated with a ranking in traditional competitive sports. It is still incredibly expensive in comparison with silver. Platinum belongs in the group of noble metals, together with the aforementioned Gold and Silver, and it does sound sort of more futuristic than the traditional bronze-silver-gold scheme, hence why it has been placed higher than all of these three in the League of Legends rank ladder. Going into the top few percents of the playerbase, we have Diamond. So far the only tier that is not itself a chemical element is bronze. Diamond, while consisting of only one chemical element, is a name of the particular form of arrangement of the atoms of that element inside the molecule. As you probably know, Diamond is actually carbon, just like the tip of a pencil. However, similarities end pretty much here. Diamonds have an incredible hardness with their hexoctahedral crystal class. Depending on qualities, diamonds can get incredibly expensive, millions of dollars for a piece, making gold, silver, bronze and iron all seem equally inexpensive. Diamond is therefore a truly good name to reward such a high tier with. Now is the point where tears break from the metal naming altogether. Master. Having absolutely nothing in common with any metal or physical material. Master, however, does still suit the League, because even though it does not fit the scheme of lower ranks, it doesn’t really have to - master and above is where the very best League of Legends players reside. Master is the one who teaches - the master players are considered good enough to be able to teach other players. Grandmaster is also pretty much self explanatory. Just like masters are above apprentices, grandmasters are above masters. Basically, what those names imply is that from iron to diamond, it is all ranks of apprentices, and then follow the three tiers of masters, the second of which is grandmaster. The idea is that these players are even better than masters but just a bit short of cutting that top 200 in the entire region. This brings us to these highest ranked players who are the only ones to bear the rank Challenger. Let’s look up the exact definition of the word challenger. It has two meanings: First, a person who engages in a contest and second, a person who disputes the truth of or places themselves in opposition to something. If we translate this from normal English into League English if there is even such a thing what the challenger rank means is that a person is among the top people in the region who contest the top 10 or even top 3 positions and also people who have sacrificed something to get there. Because, let’s be honest. It is very unlikely that you can reach challenger without sacrificing at the very least, a lot of time. So here we are, what do you think, does the League of Legends rank naming system makes sense. I think it certainly does. Make sure to also leave a like on the video if you enjoyed this!