The Elo Gulag

Since Elo hell is already taken by lower bronze, I think its only necessary to give the other matchmaking hell its own name, the Elo Gulag (Low Plat).

The Elo gulag is where you go once the matchmaking system declares you an enemy of the state and sends you into low plat with to work for the glory of the platinum state. I guess the Platinum promos can be considered the show trials in this metaphor.

I don't feel as if low plat gets enough recognition for what it really is. Some might say its the intermediate zone between sort of good, and really good players, to those who have spent a 1000 games here over all the seasons (like me), its a lot more like no mans land in Verdun. You are constantly being shelled by toxic mustard gas while the new recruits are getting mowed down by enemy machine gunfire. But when that enemy mortar is about to wipe out your team, the difference between the experienced and the inexperienced is that one is hiding in a crater while the other is standing there flaming in all-chat.

Personal Story time!! (the meme post ends here)

One way or another I managed to go from a 50%+ winrate to a 46% in only 2 days. Now my MMR is screwed to the point where I'm playing with gold 5's. Its actually really funny and depressing when I think about it. Well anyway, I'm at plat 3 0 lp and I'm on the verge of demotion. It seems that Diamond will be much harder to acquire this season.

What I think has happened is that I started to feel like I don't need to improve to get back to the rank I was already at. I'm probably not taking all these changes as serious as I should. The worst part is that it doesn't feel like I'm learning a lot because either the enemy adc is killing people in 3 crits or the enemy jg/top is soloing 2+ of my team at the same time.

Either way, now that I'm not playing on a toaster anymore (and I've gone from 2 to 3 hamsters), I am now able to livestream on twitch. What I want to know is if anyone on the boards is curious about what the 4th circle of hell looks like, and would care to join me on an adventure back into D5 purgatory.