I really do feel bad for people in Bronze 5.

I've got a buddy of mine who just came back to league, and he's a decent player. Not good, not great, but definitely not bad. He doesn't feed, he knows how to apply pressure to the map, he knows how to play around objectives, he understands champs and what they do. He's got all the basics down, and probably all the intermediate stuff too. Some advanced stuff here and there.

I'm gold 5 and I feel totally comfortable playing with him. I'm never like "ugh.... god.... this bronze kid..."

Sure I gotta tell him what to do sometimes, and sure, he makes some dumb mistakes sometimes - but his play is consistently average... even good more than its consistently bad.

He did his placements last week, and last time he played he was silver 4. But he hasn't played in like 3 seasons or some shit, so now he's bronze 5.

Omg... I've spectated some of his games... Some of the mind-numbing, head shaking, facepalm shit that happens in those games is just... wow.

And the disconnects... I swear he has a disconnected player on one team or the other in every 3rd or 4th game. And the trolls, MY GOD the trolls... People just running into towers all game. People following the jungler around stealing all the jungler's farm. Its insane.

I was bronze 5 for a LONG time. Like the first 2 years I played. (Started S1, started ranked S2) And I don't remember it being THAT bad. As a matter of fact, I KNOW it wasn't that bad.

I dunno man. I feel for bronze 5 kids. I bet a lot of them don't actually deserve to be there, but there well and truly is such a thing as Elo Hell, and bronze 5 is definitely Elo Hell. Good goddamn luck getting out of that shit hole.

Sincerely, good luck. Keep at it. Learn from your mistakes, practice practice practice. Watch pros, watch videos, read articles, hone your skills. You can do it.

I have a pretty high degree of faith that my buddy won't be there very long, he tends to carry a lot of his games, but jesus.... it is painful to watch.