Before we start

After quitting League for about six months, I saw several videos of how to improve, and the most important one for me was one about tilting and blaming the team from Gbay99. After watching that, I started winning almost every single normal game, because I stopped tilting and started fixing my mistakes. I felt like I could go on playing ranked. I went to ranked, and got placed into Silver I. I was so happy, that I kept playing ranked. I actually went down to Silver III, and only managed to climb to Gold V quite a bit later, but that was the inspiration that I needed. I did (start to) fix my mistakes.

Story time

The real thing stopping you from climbing the ladder is you. Blaming your team instead of yourself is one thing, and the other is tilting by thinking that you are superior and that you have bad luck. I hope I give you the inspiration that it you need to start understanding that it starts with you.

What is Elo Hell

Elo Hell, usually said by lower ranked players, isn’t real. Those players say that they are superior to the elo that they are in, but can’t carry because their team is too bad. Foxdrop actually had a different definition of the normal. He says that Elo Hell is when a player is better than the elo that he is in, but not good enough to carry. Guess what. I don’t believe that either of them exists, because math.

Why there ins’t such thing as Elo Hell

Here’s the deal: when going ranked, you get a team of your elo (let’s ignore mmr), and you’ll go against a team of the same elo. If the universe was perfect, you’d get a perfect elo team like the enemy team. If all players are in their main positions, on their main champions, and are at 1500elo, they would almost draw. Mistakes made from both sides would be equally punished, so no one could have a real advantage. Here is where you go in. You are a 1501elo player. You are superior. You will make less mistakes and punish more the enemies mistakes. You will win your lane (or the jugnle), push the advantage to other lanes and eventually win the game. If you were 1499elo, it would be the opposite, you would lose, and carry your team to defeat.

The system isn’t perfect, because statistics aren’t perfect (or the other way around, doesn’t really matter). But, if you are better than most of the players in your elo you will climb. No chance you’ll be stuck. You can even have a one hundred losing streak. Eventually you’ll be set on the elo you deserve.

Why you should stop tilting

This is why I don’t tilt anymore. If I’m better, I will eventually climb. It may take more time, it may take less, but it’s as simple as that. The more games you do, the better are your chances of climbing if you are better, or falling if you are worse.

Knowing this, you should stop tilting, because it is not worth it. Those games won’t matter after a couple of days either way. The only thing you’ll win from tilting is a losing spree and you may keep raging at other persons. So, increase your winning probability by keeping your emotions in check.

Losing streaks, afks

After reaching Platinum V, I went to a hard losing streak, and, in two days, I got four afks in my team. They wouldn’t connect or they would just keep getting disconnected. Was I flaming them? No. I was trying to cheer them up, because we could win. But we would need to be much better, and with an afk and a losing lane, it’s very hard if at least one lane doesn't stomp.

How do I know this? Because in one ranked, I went top, and lost the lane. When I finally decided to look at the map (map awareness wasn't my thing at the time), I saw my adc destroying 2v1 with my support afk. We won the game. In a different game where my client crashed, my team won when I reconnected at 45minutes. Yes, free win for me.

I actually found out that the leave rate in Bronze is the same in every other tier. Keep that in mind.

What you will win by not tilting

If you stop tilting and blaming your team mates, and instead try to cheer them up, you’ll win more games. That’s a fact. Even with afks, you can win. Just like Vladimir, be positive.

Why you should blame yourself

Now comes the real thing that will make you improve. I actually feel like I’m always saying the same thing, because this is what matters. I said it before, but now let’s focus it. What if, the one to blame is you? What if, that gank that the enemy jungler made at mid and got you killed, is not fault of your jungler because he’s afk in the jungle, but because you pushed the lane or you went aggressive without wards and not knowing where the enemy jungler was? It’s probably the last option. And now you know. Ward. You don’t see the enemy jungler? Play safe, don’t go too deep. Now you won’t die 1v2 because the jungler won’t have the chance. If you know the match up at this point, even if you don’t win, you won’t be set far behind. Find your mistakes and correct them

Getting flamed on

Sometimes your team is trying to help you. Just had the experience that I was trying to help my enemy lanner by saying what he was doing wrong, but I said that more aggressive than I thought it would be, but he understood and didn't flame. Try to differentiate this two things. If they are trying to help, accept the advice; if they are just making destructive criticism just mute them. Even today I get mad when my team keeps trying to surrender or just when they don’t stop flaming my team or even the other team. It may impact my performance in that game, but it won’t make a big difference in the next game. Mute players that flame, and if you still have trouble with that, disable all chat.

Conclusion

So that’s it. Understand that you are not stuck, because you aren’t.

The most important thing to understand is that you are the one with power to change. How? By understanding what you are doing wrong and fixing it.

If you can’t get out of bronze, probably is because you are bronze, but think like this: bronze is better than nothing and nothing is better than challenger, therefore bronze is better than challenger. Ok, bad joke. But it doesn’t matter if you’re bronze. It’s no shame. Ignore trolls, fix your mistakes, and you’ll be out of there in no time. The first step is yours to make.

Good luck on the fields of justice!