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How to get out of Silver?

jade harley BARK·11/11/2014, 4:04:51 AM·3 votes·2,260 views

I've been in silver since I started during the summer, going from silver 3 to silver 4, back to silver 3, repeat. I really do not know how to climb now. There's either afk's/trolls, errors or just plain unskilled players. I do not by any means believe I am better than the majority of silver players, and I know I have a lot to learn, but I really do not know how to advance with some of my teams. Countless times have there been issues with communication, such as no one warding even when asked, backing away from a fight, etc. I can only do so much with a team that refuses to listen or learn from past mistakes. I try my best to avoid making the same mistake twice, but I cannot speak for others. Each game I do attempt to try a little more than last game, such as ganking more often or helping a lane get fed. I also attempt to learn from games I lose, such as how an enemy team wards or synergizes with another member. Right now, its a pattern of bad-good-bad-good, or a few goods then a bad, a few bads then a good. I'm slowly getting closer to silver 5, and I really wish I could just get higher instead of lower. So, any advice? Thank you!

(Sorry if this is already posted, got an error and it cleared everything when I tried to go back :/ )

16 Comments

Cute Kenny11/11/2014, 6:36:48 AM2 votes

when next season starts, wait a week or two, and then do your promos, you'll have the best bet for a better record on the first 10 wins, the first week everyone will be trying to win there placement matches so there will be alot of people raging/ trolling

hh the thinker11/11/2014, 7:17:47 AM2 votes

don't expect anything from your team. you can help them and hope that they will do something with it, but it's not 100% (ganking/helping your team is still good, but the more you depend on them, the less control you have in a game).

TehomCD11/11/2014, 9:41:16 AM2 votes

One quick bit of advice - I glanced at your most recent Jinx games, and you took Zap at level 1 in both games, which suggests to me that you might not understand the importance of how you play the level 1 in bot lane. At level 1, both sides normally push as hard as they can to try to hit level two first. If they can hit level two before the enemy, they'll have a huge advantage that they can use to do an all-in or make a really favorable trade. Zap is very strong for a level 1 teamfight in an invade situation, but otherwise you should normally have your Q in order to push.

I'd encourage you to always glance at things like probuilds.net or current guides to see how high ranked players build champions - their build orders, their runes and masteries, summoner spells, etc. Even if you disagree with something they do, it's pretty important you try to understand their reasoning for why they make choices, and make certain things you're doing make sense.

You also really want to get in the habit of getting wards when you jungle; I noticed in your jungle games you normally didn't buy any, and just ran off your trinket, which was never turned into a sweeper. Pink wards are a really big deal for both trying to come back in a losing game and for trying to close out a winning game by letting you either get picks as people wander through areas blind or make it extremely difficult to contest dragons/baron without a fight over vision first.

ChefBoiRC11/11/2014, 11:38:43 AM2 votes

I started in mid season and climbed up from Bronze 5 into Silver (I even won 7 out of my 10 placements and still got placed into Bronze 5). Ask yourself, have I effectively made these changes in my game? Yes, communication is important, but Map Awareness is much more imo. If the others do not listen, then you do something about it yourself and just cover for the team if you can. Ping when you see something that others do not, ping even if they do. That is the hardest thing for me to grasp at is how low Silver (and some higher ones ) players have no sense of Map Awareness at all (I think this is the next big step to master if you wanna climb out and get higher, of course there are mechanics and such as well). As well there is a difference between low Silver and high Silver (as said for other tiers as well), so between S5 and S3 you will see more of the beginner/Bronze players in this area. From there, always try and pick a carry lane and depend mainly on yourself to know where you think the jungler may be (ie 3 min gank at top or bottom, etc.) and you can react by warding. And always buy wards, even if your teammates do not (even if you are ADC, it does not mean that the support has to ward for you). Please do not spend time trying to type back and forth in game, I have always found pings to be most effective (you can even just mute everyone, I did that for most of my Bronze climb). If you have time, I recommend watching streamers on Twitch, many of them give great advice and commentate on how you should move, build, and overall improve your game. IMLS is a very good streamer, Scarra is great, he literally talks about every move he is about to make and why, just to name a few, even the famous ones from players on CLG and TSM, while they may not commentate (they do a bit here and there) you can learn a lot just from watching. As well, do not play champs to counter or help a team comp, from my experience (and even I still have a hard time believing at times), but plays champs you are most comfortable with. You do not need a large champ pool to be successful. If you were to look at my pool for this season it is like 15 champions or so, with 90% of my games being centered around 5 of them.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-VE5Nc8DAg this was one of my biggest wake-up calls in forcing myself to improve in this game.

EwokSoldier11/11/2014, 8:21:46 PM2 votes

If you are still looking for some help checkout my thread

If you've already found help best of luck =)

summoner 4 summoner 14 ftw lol

Diljic11/11/2014, 8:49:06 PM2 votes

One thing that I took from your post:

I do not by any means believe I am better than the majority of silver players, and I know I have a lot to learn, but I really do not know how to advance with some of my teams.

If you don't think you are better than the people you are playing with you aren't going to advance. Figure out what you are doing wrong either by asking some higher rated friends or having someone look over a few games and then work on what is a weakness. Once you improve your skill to be better than the people you are playing with you will advance until you reach your next plateau. Repeat until you are happy with where you are.

MrSc0tty11/12/2014, 1:51:16 PM2 votes

First step: realize that no matter how good tou are, things will go wrong just about half the time, and you will lose some games no matter how you play.

Step two, and this was the key for me, is to figure out what you are exceptionally good at. This was the big key for me. I played 50-70 games, just picking randomly, what I felt like playing, or as a "counterpick" against my opponent. Then, I went onto the sure called "OP.gg" and looked myself up. They list your played champions and your winrate with them-and I learned that I had a 60%+ winrate with my three most comfortable picks, Leona, Thresh and Rammus...but when playing unfamiliar picks as a "counter" I actually had a 35% winrate overall!

For you, just a cursory glance tells me that you should never under any circumstances play Zyra. Did you know that out of all the champions you only picked five times or less, you have an overall winrate of only 30%?

My solution to you would be this: call ADC every game you play in Ranked. Pick Jinx or Quinn, they will not be both banned or picked away. When ADC is called, play jungle. When jungle is called, play Nami support. These are your steadfast, consistent picks. The next thing you need to do is find a champ for your "off roles." These are the two roles you do not prefer, and you should only have to play then once in 10-20 games. In these games, you concentrate on one goal only: DO NOT FEED. play for a tie, a farm game, and group up ASAP with your team when you hit midgame. No extended lane phase, no fancy maneuvers. In unranked, try out a variety of really safe, forgiving champs for top and mid. My off roles are Heimerdinger Mid, and Maokai/Nasus top. I sit, I farm, I hope to be carried. If your winrate with these champs is a perfect 50%, you've met your goal.

Keep in mind: this is a guide for getting out of Silver. It is not a guide for maximizing fun in ranked. I did this, played only Thresh, Leona and Rammus for the most part and easily popped up to Gold V, then quit ranked altogether and instead played normals where I can pick what I want and not care.

jade harley BARK11/11/2014, 2:50:52 PM1 votes

Thanks for the advice! I'll try to focus more on myself than my team. I play a lot of normals with friends, so I'm extremely used to having each others backs and listening and I forget this does not transfer to soloq.

OwlMechanic11/11/2014, 4:32:41 PM1 votes

1.) it's soloqueue, you can't rely on your team, if you want something warded it's better to just take the hit and do it yourself, this means tank and wriggle jugglers have an advantage, just throw a ward down in the enemies gank path if a lane is failing to ward.

2.) Push, if the time is right (enemy forces to back, enemy junglers location known) make sure you do some damage to their tower or get a dragon from it. If you're the jungler this means it's up to you if your laner just backs after a successful gank.

3.) Make sure you're csing well, even after laning ends, a lot of people just suddenly halt their gold flow after lane ends, this is why bronze/silver often end with 80-140 cs. This doesn't mean ignore your team it just means to watch out for wastes of time (chasing, poke fights at mid (esp if there isn't even a tower near the poke fight still up)

4.) again... Get that gold, make dragons happen, ward objectives if you want them. 10cs= ~about 1 kill

5.) don't die, I know it sounds dumb but Kill counts are much lower in high elo not because they are worse at killing but because they know maybe getting a kill isnt worth dying and losing time that could be spent getting cs and experience.

Maybe get a kill - definitely survive The choice should be easy.

6.) Do not rage your teAmmates, a bad or bitchy teammate is better than an afk or feeding teammate. If they're bothering you mute them and play as if they were a bot. If they are leading a witch hunt for you just /mute all.

fdissht11/11/2014, 9:42:54 PM1 votes

I generally trust my teammates, unless they are obviously being toxic in the beginning (you chose xx champion? gg we lost), help them out and they'll be more inclined to help you out. I want to put this out first because it's a bad mindset instantly assume that teammates are all bots.

First you got the right attitude, always learn, improve each game, help other, etc keep doing what you're doing and you'll definitely get out of silver guaranteed. I've reached plat before by just doing good on a few champions on one role without issuing commands, being really helpful, or making super good plays.

One tip I can give (other than ones already posted) is to dominate your lane, gank and push another lane (preferably bot) so that you force the other team to group. With you being dominant and with the lane you helped being decently fed (2 towers, the kill/s you gave them) you should win. For instance: You're mid or jungle Gank bot (around lvl 6) get one or two kills and take tower -Dragon if applicable -Enemy team groups -Say, hey the enemy team is grouping we should too (or if you're jungle 4man group on mid, take tower) -Roam as group of 4/5 and win fights (with gold advantage you SHOULD win) If they don't group after gank and tower is gone repeat gank until they do group.