Is it impossible to climb? Absolutely f*cking not! (Idea for Title drawn from Wolf of Wall Street)
So a lot of people (in Bronze especially) find that climbing in the ranks is difficult as all hell and some even subscribe to the concept of "ELO hell", a realm where the worst of the worst reside and where it is impossible to escape from once you descend into it. Are they right?
Absolutely not.
To put this into perspective, I've been playing League for over 2 years now, and I only started doing ranked after my first year. I used to do some of the same things others did. I blamed my team, I flamed them hard when they failed, and I lost about 60% of my games and ended Seasons 4 and 5 in Bronze V after starting in Silver V. Now like a lot of Bronze ELO players out there, I refused to think I was bad. I couldn't be, I mean, I've been playing this game a long time and I knew everything. That was probably my biggest problem.
Between Ego and Anger, I got stuck in Bronze V for quite some time and starting into Season 6 I decided to really change a few things. 1) I need to be more mindful of the macro game. Every time I made a dumb mistake or just straight up died, I took tally of what the team was doing. From there I gauged whether or not what I did was ok or whether it was dumb and changed accordingly. 2) I reviewed all my actions and learned from them. This was probably the hardest for me to do because of my big-ass ego. After I got off the high horse (and learned how to play with people and have a good time, b/c let's be honest, if you aren't having fun playing League, you probably should find something that makes you truly happy), I started growing as a person and my attitude towards the game changed. It was a bit forced at first but after a while it became my actual demeanor. Through this I have not only grown as a member of the community but as a person as well, part in parcel to the Tribunal's method of punishment. I'm glad they called me out on all of my toxicity (and sometimes it was a result of computer error but that's LeaverBuster and it makes me sad when my computer crashes or freezes on me, but I try to not let it frustrate me too much). 3) Play to the compositions your team picks. You may feel like you wanna play that Ahri or Syndra, but if Lux is the right champ and you can play her, do it. But if you can't stick to the champs in your pool that fit two criterion - Do their playstyles mesh with the team composition, even remotely, and if possible, can they survive the lane and make it to the mid and late game where it will really matter. If they can, go for it and if not, maybe don't do it.
As of right now, I did get into promos to get to Bronze IV, and I know it doesn't seem so flashy but none of this would be possible without changing what I did. The first match is right there in the link and if you see it, you can clearly see that what we have there is a stomp. It's not that the Xerath was bad, although some of his decision making was questionable. I had a few shining moments where I did outplay him and a few times where good team coordination landed some sweet picks. I'd encourage you to watch the replay through replay.gg, I think y'all'd be pretty entertained. (I will warn any who want to watch it, I'm an Ahri main, so some of the picks might seem questionable but I'm more confident in my ability on Ahri than a lot of other champs but I'm not a OTP.) The one death on record was a sad moment when Alistar headbutted me into fountain.
RIP Ahri 2k16 [zombie-brand-facepalm]
