Some humble advice to those who are fed up with toxics

[TL;DR included at bottom]

Hello friends, if you are reading this, I'm assuming that you are your wits dealing with the toxicity of the community. I would like to suggest a solution. Hopefully what I have to say is helpful to you.

I am someone who has spent the last 4-5 months struggling to climb out of Bronze and Silver, both divisions that are nests of toxic players, and there have been several points over my time playing this game that I have wanted to simply give up due to how terrible people behave. In fact, there was a week where I played 11 games and had 11 different players tell me or someone else to kill themselves. So like you, I have some experience dealing with the scum of League of Legends.

About a month ago, I had a discussion with my friends on my Ranked 5's team, all of whom are Gold-Diamond level players, about how they dealt with the experience of toxics, trolls, and the general negative attitude of lower elo players. The overwhelming response I received was MUTE PEOPLE.

At first, I was highly reluctant to do so. I felt like if I muted people when they began to be toxic, first of all I wouldn't be able to justify sending a tribunal report (and I take pride in attempting to rid the community of it's worst offenders). I also feared that muting teammates, especially early on in games or during crucial times in the game, would disrupt communication and lead to poor play by me and my team due to lack of communicating.

Despite my misgivings, eventually I decided to give it a shot. I began muting anyone who was affecting me or my team negatively, whether that was someone who said "MID OR FEED NOOBS" in champ select or someone who swore at the tiniest mistakes of a teammate. I began hitting "mute" for the slightest things. I muted trolls, people who argued over picks, people who spammed anything in chat, people with offensive names, ANYTHING that was even just annoying received a mute.

It worked wonders.

Since I've started this practice, my win rate in normals has gone up from a pathetic 38% to 61% and my win rate in ranked has gone up as well, not as drastically but still from a 42% win rate during preseason to 54% in Season 4.

I've also found that I still gather enough information to report the most toxic people I encounter, and I've received drastically more honor from my teammates.

Most importantly though, I've begun to enjoy League of Legends on a consistent basis again. I would say that I have a fun and positive experience in 9/10 games I play now as opposed to perhaps 3/10 when I still felt the need to listen to everyone in chat.

I still see more than my fair share of trolls, ragers, feeders, AFKs, and such. And I still lose many games that should be easily won. That's the nature of Bronze. But now that I've increased the amount that I use the Mute feature, I've found that I can enjoy almost any game, no matter the behavior of those around me.

In summary, I would highly suggest that if you are searching for a strategy to deal with toxic behavior, not just in Bronze but in any division, use the Mute button. It has worked extremely well for me. And hopefully will for you too.

Thank you for your time!

TL;DR: If you're sick of toxics, mute people as soon as they start being toxic, it will probably make you happier and play better