Buried
Alive: Entry 1
Hello
Summoners, my name is Justin (aka HS Stix). I am currently sitting at 947 Elo.
Feel free to stop reading now if Elo matters to you that much. I decided to
start up a blog because, even though I am currently sitting in the lower
bracket as far as Elo is concerned, I feel that I have a lot to offer less
experienced players. I will use this blog to map my progress as a player, talk
about the game (including strategy and individual in game goals), and discuss
issues that I feel need discussing.
In
this first entry, I have decided to discuss, what I feel, makes leaving what
most call “Elo Hell” (let’s say sub 1.1k ELO) difficult if not nearly
impossible. Do I believe “ELO Hell” exists? Yes and no. That term has been a
crutch for players who cannot accept that a loss can sometimes be their fault.
People who use this as an excuse can’t understand that there is anything that
they could have to done better in order to improve their teams chances of
winning. This is bad. In order to become a better player, you must be the first
to point out your own mistakes. You have to be your biggest critic. If you
cannot look at your own game play and see flaws, then you just aren’t ready to
play ranked games. That being said, I will now move into what makes playing
games below the 1.1k Elo especially difficult.
01.
Trolls
Everyone
has gotten at least one of these in their ranked play experience. You can
usually smell them fairly early in the champion selection process. If they’re
first pick, they will ban ridiculous champions that are never, under any
circumstances ban worthy (such as Evelynn, Heimerdinger, and/or Karma). They
will usually first pick Evelynn (if they haven’t banned her) and take useless
summoner spells (usually Revive and Promote). Other times, they are less easily
spotted. These sneaky trolls will wait until all picks are made and roles
filled, before announcing that they are now jungling with AD Sion instead of
going to middle lane with AP Sion after you have already chosen Nocturne (this
happened to me less than an hour ago). The worst trolls of all, though, are the
ones that wait until you are in the game before they start playing poorly on
purpose (experienced players can spot this) or just flat out feeding the enemy
team. I’m going to stop harping on trolls before my blood pressure reaches an
unsafe level.
02.
The “I AM PLAYING THIS CHAMPION NO MATTER WHAT” Guy
I
hate this. I hate this almost as much as I hate trolls. When you enter the
champion selection process in solo queue, you should never know exactly which
champion you are going to play. What if they get banned? What if the enemy team
chooses them before you do? There are far too many variables for this thought
process to be reliable. For some reason these players are extremely attached to
Katarina. They always say “I mid Kat” and nothing else. I retort with, “you’re
playing Katarina no matter who we pick or who they pick?”.. I never get a
response. Because of that player, we have to build around Katarina, which is difficult
before Malphite, Amumu, and Alistar are extremely high priority picks at ~1000
Elo.
It
is even worse when your team’s jungler makes such a claim. You should never
enter a game and announce, “I jungle Diana” and expect your team to build
around you. It is my opinion that the jungler should almost always choose based
on the mid and top lane champions. There are special situations where you need
to pick a high priority jungler because they’re open (i.e. Shen and Maokai),
but in most cases, don’t jungle someone just because you feel like it.
Also,
just because you “main” a champion, doesn’t mean we have to build around
him/her. If you “main” a champion, then you don’t know how to play enough
champions.
03.
Lack of Champion Synergy
Team
synergy is a concept that many solo queue players at my level do not
understand. Yes Graves is open and you’re last pick, but does he go well with
our team composition? Would Graves be a better pick than Ashe when we are
sitting on a full global ult team with Karthus, Shen, Nocturne, and Soraka?
People just don’t think about this.
If
you don’t know which champions work well together, do some fucking research.
You will have a very hard time improving as a player if you aren’t willing to
work on it outside of the game. Go onto LoLPro.com and read some guides, watch
some professional teams play, or even just go onto LeagueofLegends.com and read
up on each champions’ abilities. The bottom line is that you basically need to
try to know everything about the game to get better. Do I know everything about
this game? No. Do I work on it everyday outside of the game? You bet I do.
04.
The “I CALLED IT” Guy
What
is the first thing you do when you get into a game? You type in what role you
want as fast as you possibly can before someone else “calls” it. If I’m first
pick, all I say is “I’m first pick, I’ll play what I want”. If someone “calls”
jungle, but I see Malphite is open when I’m first pick, I’m going to pick him.
I don’t care if you “called” jungle. We aren’t six years old anymore. Saying “I
called it” isn’t the ultimate argument anymore. If you don’t like it, go learn
how to play more roles. I won’t lie, there are roles that I am just bad at (top
lane). This is why I learned to play support. If you are last pick in my ELO,
then you are probably forced support. It’s a simple fact. So don’t be that guy
who refuses to play support even if it will hurt the team. Just because you
aren’t the one getting the kills doesn’t mean you aren’t able to impact the
game.
05.
The Blame Game
Just
picture it. Your team is losing. No one has a positive score. What does the
chat box look like? “OH I ONLY DIE BECAUSE JUNGLER WOULDN’T GANK!!” “I ONLY DIE
BECAUSE SUPPORT WON’T WARD!!” “WE ONLY LOSE BECAUSE OF EVERYONE EXCEPT ME!!”
Sound about right? I hate the blame game. If everyone would just look at their
own play and see their own flaws, everyone would get better. If you aren’t able
to be the first person on your team to point out your mistakes, you will never
get better.
What
bothers me is that many times, people are so busy blaming each other that they
don’t even bother to pay attention to the game anymore. This is what snowballs
a lot of low level games more than anything. They are so busy typing that they
don’t notice that they are walking into a five man gank. Then when they die,
they blame everyone else.
There
are many other things that make rising out of “Elo Hell” difficult, but I feel
that these are some of the biggest factors. I will try to post new entries on a
variety of League of Legends topics about every two weeks. If you have any
questions, comments, or cries of anguish, please feel free to reply.
-Stix
