[rant] boo hoo I didn't make gold :-/
A random toxic player appears. He is extremely effective! 21 LP minus!
About a month ago, I was on-track for hitting gold. I hit my promos for silver 1. LoLife was looking good, and I was excited at the prospect of earning the Morgana skin in my first season. Then I hit a stream of toxic players that, putting it mildly, disputes the 2% toxicity statistic previously stated by Riot. For almost two weeks, almost every single game was unwinnable due to afk/toxic/intentional feeding teammates.
To be clear, I do not think that I should be given the gold rewards -- people who earned it by the deadline deserve to hold the reward exclusively, and it should not be cheapened by handing them out to players who didn't make the cut. I just wanted to take this opportunity to state that, as a new LoL player who picked up the game during this season, the helplessness I feel when I get in a solo queue game with AFK/feeder/toxic players is by far the largest detriment to my enjoyment of the game.
It is one thing to work with strangers and have a fun and fulfilling team experience, win or loss. It is quite another to be at a random jerk's mercy for end-of-season rewards. In my case, I went from my silver 1 promo all the way down to silver 5 0 LP in just a few days with no recourse. What could I do during this time? It was not a matter of me blaming "no skill teams" or "ELO hell" situations. Almost every single game -- and I am not using hyperbole here as I actually filed reports -- was 4v5/feeder/troll game. The majority were lost without any chance of winning through teamwork and play through no fault of any of the remaining people on my team. I wasn't being docked because of my or my legitimate teammates' skill. Instead, I was being docked because of jerks wanting to ruin everyone else's day, and they were empowered by Riot to do so. Please remember, Riot, that a toxic player doesn't just ruin the one game they are in. They also destroy the last win their teammates had by taking away LP already earned. They actually penalize their teammates by wasting time for one game and removing the wins from another. The frustration for the teammates comes from the utter helplessness of that situation.
It sucks. I am not a diamond/platinum player, so grinding up is not a fast/easy process. I also work full-time and am married, so the number of games I can play is frequently limited. Having toxic players rob me of the ranking I had earned 3/4 through the season prevented me from being able to hit gold by the deadline because I'm not going to win 100% of my matches. I am absolutely confident that I will eventually hit gold in season 5, but I have been permanently denied the season 4 rewards, and that is frustrating to me.
In conclusion, I sincerely hope that during the upcoming season, Riot is able to put together a better system for dealing with the effect of toxic players on their teammates. I frankly do not care if you do bans or what -- I am not vengeful. Obviously I don't want them on my team, but I'm more interested in a system for Riot to neuter the ability of a toxic few from hurting the rank and standing of anyone they encounter. Please focus at least some time on making a system of guardrails to protect us innocent bystanders from the toxic jerks that are, frankly, inevitable.