Elo Hell what is it, how to deal with it.

TPBlanket·12/16/2014, 5:51:46 AM·7 votes·2,359 views

So recently, I finally normalized my elo and got myself out of elo hell and back into plat. took 3 weeks but i toughed it out.

So let me explain what elo hell is. No it's not bronze or silver as people like to believe, it is having a elo lower than your current division. So elo hell exists in all divisions and is equally frustrating to deal with.

How elo hell works: Because your elo is lower than your division average you'll be faced against opponents that are a lower division than you most likely. This by itself will not harm you or the matches you play however, because you're division is still considered a factor your team will have a more polar spread of skill level than that of your opponents. You most likely will be considered the best and will have a team that will balance out your mmr while you opponent will have a more equal spread of ranks. Example: (Your team) Gold 5, 4, 5, 2 plat 5 vs (Enemy team) Gold 4,3,2,3,1.

Why does having a more polar team matter?: Well chances are the gold 5 will lose more against a gold 3 than a gold 3 losing to a gold 5. Now, I'm not saying its impossible for the gold 5 to beat the gold 3 but I'm talking about likely hood. Per division difference I would give at least 5% more chance that the higher division will win. gold 5 vs gold 1, 30% chance to win vs 70% chance to win. Now looking at the whole aspect, it's more likely that your team will lose every lane except you and with just 1 person shining, the jungler will most likely camp you to prevent snowballing.

Well how do I stop this?: You can't unless you are actually a God and eons better than your lane opponent. or its really hard

Why is it so hard to get out?: Well because of three things that turn into a vicious cycle. First is you will lose more often because of the polar teams problem i talked about. Second because you're losing more, your elo will decay further down turning this into a vicious cycle. You lose because of bad teams, you get bad teams because you lose. (not saying the players are bad but the teams are bad). Third, you will go mad, and tilt with just your attitude.

THIS SOUNDS TERRIBLE! HOW DO I GET OUT?!?!?!?: Well fortunately for you, you're already doing what needs to be done. Losing. You will lose, you will get demoted, you will lose LP.( I'm not saying go out there and try to lose because more you lose the further you fall.) Strange how I said this is the vicious cycle and it sounds like you'll just end up in bronze. Well, no. You see, ranks, division, elo, is all a load of bs. Your skill doesn't decay. Eventually, you will reach a point where you're ability to play the game will cancel out the effects of polarized teams. Think of it this way. You have the skill level of plat 3, got into elo hell and ended up at gold 2. You will face around Gold 4ish and while your team has only like a 40% chance to win their lane, You have up to a 90% chance of winning your lane. Once you start snowballing, most likely you can snowball harder than anyone on their team and use everyone as just cannon fodder. Once you are carrying, you team is more likely to follow your lead and everyone will be in a better mood. Also, your division starts to decay faster and faster until your elo and division is caught up again.

Just remember don't be a pretentious dick about it because your team is still important and cooperation is key still. Once you stabilize, you will notice your team will be more normalized. Normalized except the system doesn't realized that you a fking challanger GOD TEIR AMONG THESE PLAYERS OMG TIME TO HAVE A SLAUGHTER. MUAAHHAHAA. I mean, cough cough, you will start to realize your winning more than you're losing. Once you start winning you will realized that the LP gain is better and loss punishments are less severe and quickly climb back to the place you were. How much you fall and how long depends on the player and circumstance but this is the bases.

Remember guys, be polite, be nice, cooperate and you'll have a better time. This is a game after and even though you're anonymous being that c*** that ruins everyone's day is a stupid thing. And boy it does affect your personality irl once you do it enough. And last thing, people still play ranked in preseason to try really hard and do well. Perseason still affects regular season so guys stop be complete tools during this time of the year. Right after the season ended, i've noticed a INSANE increase of toxic players. toxic players are making normal players INTO TOXIC PLAYERS. STOP.

Edit: I see a lot of players saying my theory is incorrect. Which i already knew. Its about the mmr. But, MMR is just a blanket cover for everything that goes behind the scenes. MMR isn't just a simple system that give you numbers and points and just assigns any combination that works because then the system can easily give 4 bronze and 1 diamond to match with a low gold team easily. I'm not saying my theory is ACTUALLY whats happening but it just show a correct process of how elo hell exists.

Maybe instead of divisions i should say MMR still separate from elo. Also if you want to see if you're in elo hell OPGG is actually pretty spot on. just search your name and click MMR.

from my experience the system does not match people based on their League, it matches them based on their MMR. so while you may see someone who is silver 1 in a game full of gold 3 players, that silver 1 likely has the MMR of a gold 3 player and is most likely of equal skill to those players.

Example:

when I was silver 5 I was in matchmaking with people who were gold 1 and gold 2. my team would often complain about the matchmaking when they saw my rank, but more often than not I was winning lane and snowballing. i skipped silver 4 and silver 2 on my climb to gold 5, at which point i promptly quit ranked soloqueue again because i think it's lame ;P

the point of that above paragraph is that the league you are isnt a necessary indicator of your MMR. it's clear that my MMR is closer to gold 1, but I was in silver because I literally never play ranked. Everyone in my games was between gold 3 and gold 1 aside from me. Enemy teams were often higher ranked than everyone on my team, yet I still won more than 60% of my games.

Now if what you were saying was true this isn't what would have happened to me. According to this ELO hell theory, my teammates would be silver and my opponents would be gold because of my high MMR skewing the statistic and making my teammates worse. But in practice this is not what happened.

Elo Hell what is it, how to deal with it.

15 Comments

assuming all players are properly ranked: if you're better than your rank then your team has the advantage since you will win lane if you're worse than your rank then the enemy team has the advantage since you will lose lane

from my experience the system does not match people based on their League, it matches them based on their MMR. so while you may see someone who is silver 1 in a game full of gold 3 players, that silver 1 likely has the MMR of a gold 3 player and is most likely of equal skill to those players.