Why We're in Low ELO

There's a ton of reasons why you and I can't climb out of bronze/silver/gold (oh yeah, you think bronze is bad? Try silver 5 ELO. They all had someone carry them into silver when they should be low bronze. And that's true for ALL OF THE 5TH TIERS!). To help you learn what you need to improve on, here's a few categories of players:

You don't know how to carry

This is definitely my category, so I can tell you exactly what's up. You know how to play on a team that is even or ahead, but you have no idea how to help your team come back from a deficit. If you're the mid laner and top is feeding Riven and jg is feeding Jinx and Leona, you're good enough to keep your opponent in check, but when they all come mid because your's is the only outer turret still standing, you're just gonna get caught up in that tidal wave and drown in your team's stupidity. Truth be told, this isn't your fault at all. You are not the reason top and jg fed and your adc afk'd. But it is your loss, and I can assure you Faker could carry them; there is something you could have done. You need to learn why that is.

You need to adjust your playstyle

I have a friend that I like to play with, and he and I Have totally different playstyles. He's way too aggressive and I'm way too passive. I excel at sitting back and waiting for opportunities, but when the other team doesn't make enough mistakes I'm toast. He is great at making his own plays, but when his team is retarded and doesn't know how to follow up he doesn't take that into account at all and gets punished for trying. And we've all seen those games where the enemy is up 3 dragons and have Baron, but Amumu still Bandage Tosses on in there despite the fact that you have not won a single teamfight the entire game. Learn to adjust the way you're playing to the way the game is going.

You should main a couple of champs for a couple of roles

DO NOT JUST PLAY ANYTHING. You should definitely main a couple of roles, but be ready to play something else. Knowing a role intimately gives you a huge advantage over other players, because you know what to do when to do it and how to do it. For instance, I'm a jungle main. I know when to farm, and I know when and who to gank. That Mundo who's given Fiora 4 kills and is still pushed under her turret? No ganks. The Talon who's sitting patiently under his turret while Xerath laughs and dances? He gets a gank. All the lanes are completely even? I'll solo drag, and if their jungler comes I know I can smite correctly. The funniest thing is when the Devourer Rengar with 9 stacks tries to stop me, a Sated Udyr who's two levels above him, from soloing dragon. I finished drag then turned and killed him too. He didn't know how to farm, didn't know how to gank, and didn't know he couldn't contest drag. Also main a couple of champions for each role. That guy in champ select asking "What kind of comp do you guys want to go with?" is completely overestimating his ELO. The team that tried to go for the pro comp is going to get stomped by the team that played champs that they all have mastery 5 on their champs. Sure there's basics like having tanks and AP, but beyond that go for what you know. If your Orianna doesn't know how to play Orianna it doesn't matter if she's the perfect mid champ for your comp, she's going to fail.

** You ban champs that will wreck you, not champs that will wreck your team**

Patch 5.18 is still getting itself on its feet, so I'll focus on 5.17. If you are an ADC, you might ban Blitz, Morg, and Cait then go Vayne for an easy lane. But when their Darius wrecks top, their Morde wrecks you, and their Shyvanna wrecks everyone (friendly reminder that Shyvanna hasn't been nerfed and hasn't gone down in popularity), that was your fault. Your team trusted you, and you let them down because you didn't want to lose lane. With the exception of Shyvanna, Fiora, and the juggernauts, the game was pretty balanced. There was a way to play around even your hardest counters, but instead you doomed your team. An easy game is better than an easy lane.

You surrender

You don't really realize just how much your attitude influences your outlook on the game. There are people who will start a vote when they're the only ones behind. Your bot is fed, your mid and jg are fed, but you want to surrender because you're getting camped? And let's say your entire team actually is losing. We've all had those games where suddenly for no apparent reason, you start to come back, or they get cocky and throw, or you win a crucial teamfight and push all the way from bot outer turret to inhib, or something. This ELO is the biggest throw factory. All you have to do is wait for the winning team to do something stupid. And if you really really don't think there's any way you could possibly win, then put the vote up and whatever happens happens. Don't say "Why would you say no? They're up 20 kills, 2 dragons, blah blah blah". All you're doing is lowering morale, making your team feel and play worse. This is called having a "Negative Attitude". If that sounds familiar that's because it's a reportable offense. You're being toxic when you just sit around talking about how you can't win. Don't try to surrender, and if you do don't talk about it. If the vote fails just keep fighting.

You're toxic

This should be obvious. This should be really, really, obvious. But I'll go through it anyway. Do not call names. Do not assign blame. Do not AFK. Do not assist the enemy team. Do not troll. Do not argue with teammates. Do not call others toxic (you're fanning the flames). Do not feed. If you really cannot find any way to say anything nice or at least useful, then don't. Just don't use chat at all. Responding to toxic players is still being toxic. If someone is being toxic toward you, mute them. If you want, tell them you muted them because they can still see what you say and it lets them know typing to you is pointless so they instead play the game. And do not say "I muted you, you toxic piece of &#*@", because once again that's still being toxic yourself.

You're not a positive player

I realized this during a post Riot made about player behavior and/or rewards when they said there's a difference between 'positive' and 'not toxic'. If your teammates are flaming each other and you say nothing so they afk, there was something you could do. Ever had a game where someone says "I want to lose, just so ____ doesn't win"? You should have stepped in. Tell jokes as often as possible (not at someone's expense). Make statements like these a part of your normal speech:

"Hey, we all make mistakes. Arguing isn't going to help anything though, so let's just play."

"We can still win this guys. Just don't give up and keep playing smart!"

"Hey, you two. Just mute each other. Hold tab and press the little speaker button next to their names." (yes, some people legitimately don't know how to mute people."

(Last resort, as it might cause an afk) "Guys just mute him. He's not saying anything helpful."

You have some very key misconceptions

Warding is not the supports job; if you do not upgrade your trinkets by the time you're level 12, you suck at warding. You getting camped is not your jungler's problem, it's yours; if you put down a couple of wards, you'll be safe and your jungler can snowball the other lanes while their's is wasting their time. It is not always a good idea to focus the carry, especially if you're a carry; if their adc is all the way in the back of the teamfight, for you to hit them means you are walking into the middle of their front line. You're not in the LCS; your opponents are just as bad as your teammates, so them having a lead means absolutely nothing.

You go for Baron

Originally this was gonna go into the previous category, but it deserves its own. Hear me out on this: in low ELO, Baron is a throw 90% of the time. The other team always shows up and either steals Baron or aces the team. Or both. If you're really ahead, you don't need Baron to finish the game; and your team has been tower diving for the last twenty minutes, just do it again and end the game. If you're not ahead, then you definitely shouldn't be doing Baron!The only time I ever do Baron is when at least three opponents (including their jungler) are dead or they're all in base dealing with the super minions coming down all three lanes. And like I said, by then there's no point in getting Baron because half their team is dead or there's 6 super minions in every wave!

You make bad decisions

League is based on decision making. No matter how good you are at every other aspect of the game, bad decisions will screw you over. If you decide to pick Shaco jungle as last pick when there's no tanks on your team you carry at least 1/3 of the responsibility for every lost teamfight. If you decide to keep trying to buy Luden's instead of getting Zhonya's after you fed Zed you kind of deserved the loss. If you decide to take krugs instead of stopping the enemy from taking Baron you kind of threw the game.

You don't know how to report/mute/block

First off, when someone needs to be reported, report them. But don't just report stupidity. If you don't think they'll actually get punished based on your teammate's response to their behavior, block them. My blocklist is HUGE. I don't know if the system automatically avoids putting you in games with people you blocked, but so far I've never played with anyone who I've blocked. And you can block people from champ select if they're toxic from the start. When someone instalocks or troll picks, don't just dodge; add them to the block list then dodge. And when someone starts being toxic in game, mute them and block them after the game. Use your bans sparingly; Riot weighs your votes for less when you report a lot of people.

Learn how to build

As hinted above, you need to learn how to build. First of all, you should have an idea of what your perfect build is. Then you should work around that build, shifting the order or replacing items as the game dictates. If you play someone like Brand and you're facing Zed, you are almost forced to rush Zhonya's. If you try for that Liandry's anyway and get wrecked in lane it's your fault. If you're playing Udyr you should know that Udyr doesn't need to build a lot of HP because of Turtle Stance, so he may fair better with Frozen Heart's CDR than Randuin's HP. If you play Jax and you're dominating your Ryze but your bot is feeding, you should know to build some armor instead of MR.

Story time, you can skip this- One time I was playing Vayne. I had my BotRK, a PD, and I was starting an Infinity Edge. We were losing slightly. Then one of my teammates says, "Vayne wtf is your build? where's the damage?" I had no idea what he was talking about, because last I checked Vayne and BotRK and Vayne go hand in hand and PD is a core item on most marksmen. Plus the IE I was in the middle of building is pure damage. So I said, "Vayne builds attack speed. I bought attack speed. Plus I'm building an IE." The guy starts talking about how I need more damage, and another teammate backed him up. I had to confirm with a friend and to look up some builds online just to make sure I wasn't going crazy. I'm not sure what those two guys had going on, but hopefully they never play Vayne because they'd probably cause a lout of losses because they don't know how to build her. Needless to say we lost lol.

You have the wrong attitude (You're on tilt!)

Treat every game not as a super important contest, but as a learning experience, something you can use to get better. Team feeding? Great, now you can learn to carry feeders. You're feeding? Learn to play safer. There's always a way to use the game as a positive experience. In ranked, no matter how long it takes, eventually you'll get to the ELO you deserve. If you put a plat player in Bronze 5, there's not enough feeders in the world to keep them there. If you put a Bronze in Diamond, they'll shoot down pretty fast. So no matter how your game went, no matte how your last fifty games went, if you are good enough, you will climb. Worst case scenario you spent 20-80 minutes playing one of your favorite games. And stop blaming others for your losses. Perhaps they made mistakes, but 4/5 games there was something you could have done to win the game that you didn't do. Can you honestly say that if you had turned to xPeke and said "Hey I can't do this, can you finish this game out for me?" that he couldn't have carried your team? "But JC, that's unreasonable. I shouldn't have to play on a professional Challenger level to carry my Silver 2 game!" You're right. It's ridiculous. But if there was something, anything, that you could have done and you didn't, then you need to learn how to do that thing. And think about it like this: if it wasn't your fault, then there was nothing you could do. If there was nothing you could do, there was nothing for you to learn. If there was nothing for you to learn, then there's no way for you to get better. And if there's no way for you to get better, then there's no way for you to climb the ladder. You're doomed to stay in your ELO unless RNGesus decides to give you a string of really awesome teammates. Is that how you see this? No? Then every loss was partly your fault, and there was a way for you to act to prevent that loss, and there's a way for you to get better and get out of low ELO.

You don't know basics

How do you farm? When do you push? How do you freeze? When do you defend? When do you roam? How do you come back from a deficit? When do you x, y, z? You need to know this. Notice how general this part is? It's because I'm in low ELO. I need to get better too. Go look up some videos and guides for yourself.

This is just your skill level

Some people are in low ELO because they deserve to be in low ELO. And that's ok. You can always get better. As long as you don't see yourself in a montage, don't fret. Just go look up some educational league community content, and you'll learn.