First of all: What is Elo Hell?
There is always a discussion whether Elo Hell exists or not. Every bronze player says it's definitely there, while ever pro player denies it's existance. I personally have to say: Elo hell exists, but it's not a place where all the feeders, afks and flamers live. In fact I find the flaming on platinum worse then on bronze. But back to the dephts of hell.
Most lower elo Players describe Elo hell as the place where you only get AFKs/Feeders/Trolls and all kind of players you wouldn't want to play with. I think Elo hell is the point where you can't progress anymore and thus you are sitting at a 50% or even less winrate. But this Elo hell is a personal limit. If you want you can ask your friend with 700 games in gold 3 and he will say gold 3 is the real Elo hell (if he thinks it exists).
Of course luck is also a part of the game, but it's really 10% or less. Every gold or platinum player will easily shoot out of bronze 5 to silver 3 within a week so it can't be just pure luck. Also if you are not a Troll/Feeder/AFK/Bad player, the chances of getting said is higher for your enemies than for your, since you already took the spot.
(There is also no Elo heaven by the way... Most people that say gold + is elo heaven forget that there is always a winning and a losing team)
I now explained what Elo hell is, and you may notice the only way to get out is getting better in League. So the real question would be:
How do I improve?
What psychological aspects are there?
There are several things you can do to improve yourself, but the most important thing is: Be motivated!
You have to play ranked games when you are motivated or happy. You will always play better when you have some kind of goal. You could say for example: I'm going to watch the stream of pro player X who often plays my favorite champion and I'm going to be just as good as him!
Same applies of course for being sad or angry. You will always play worse. Never play after a Bad day at work or when you're stressed. Also I wouldn't recommend playing after losing 2 or 3 games in a row. I Dropped from platinum 3 to platinum 5 last season just because I lost 4 games because of bad luck. After that I thought "I just have to win at least one time", but I got too angry and lost around 15 matches in one day. Also keep one thing in mind: The most OP spell in League of Legends is the mute button. You will meet flamers every second game, no matter what league you are in. Just don't let them ruin your day. you can easily mute them and continue playing. How many games you can play after losing depends on how good you can handle your frustration. Of course it's never good to lose but some people just can keep calm longer than others.
Another thing to note is that you should be honest with yourself. It won't help much if you try to lie to yourself (for example when you smashed your keyboard and you tell yourself that you're perfectly calm). This will either make you even more angry or it will confuse you.
Apathy
Of course usually when you hear this word it's more or less somethign negative. But in League it's really a thing to not care too much. A ranked game is just a normal game with a different champion select and a ranking that you can see. In normal games you have the same map, the same champions, the same toxic or non toxic teammates and even the same ranking (you just can't see it). As soon as you realize this you will see a huge boost in motivation. Because losing isn't that bad anymore but winning will always be fun (fun = motivation). And remember: after all League is just a game. You won't get hurt if you lose, you won't die if you lose and there will also be no World War III if you lose. Nothing bad will happen. You just lost the game and you have more experience to improve yourself for the next game.
Also a thing that really helps is giving compliments. Of course you don't have to say "Woooow Sivir you are sooo goood that was so isanely well played", but just a small Well played or good job can really motivate your other teammates. It's really just a small thing. Also if someone wants to go afk don't flame them. Even better: Don't flame at all. The dude that goes afk usually wants to win just as bad as you do. Unless he's one of those "ZOMG I TRLLU LOLOLOL" Kids he usually has a reason for going afk (Those bad trollers are pretty rare by the way. I have arond 6k games and i maybe met 20 of them). Of course It's not the right decision to just go afk, but let's say he's playing support, doesn't like to play this lane, has no experience as support and gets flamed by his adc. Well I would be angry aswell! In a situation like this, try to tell him he's doing fine (Even if he doesn't). I prevented a lot of afks like this and we later even won the game.
What Gameplay aspects are there?
A good attitude is a big part of getting to a higher elo, but playing right is also a pretty big one (This one is easier to learn tho).
In championselect
You won't get into a game without going through the championselect, and this can have a huge impact on the game.
If you are first pick Ban those champs you have a really bad experience with. Especially in low elo you should ban champions that wreck teams. You don't have to ban elise because you see it banned in the LCS, the chance of getting wrecked by a Blitzcrank in low elo is higher than the chance of getting wrecked by an Elise. In general the ban order is:
- God tier champs that are easy to play: (Kassadin/Kha'Zix)
- Champions that are a problem for most players in your current elo (Blitzcrank, Yi in bronze for example)
- Non god tier champions that are strong (Katarina, Gragas for example)
Don't ban champs that are god tier but have a too high skillcap for the average player in your elo (Bronze/Silver Elise/Thresh/Lee Sin).
Same goes for pick orders. Don't pick a champ you can't play just because he's open or someone tells you to pick him. There are so many players that lose with Lee Sin for example just because they saw him being played by pro player x and now they have to play it but they don't hit a single q. You should always pick the champion you are most comfortable with. Last season I went from Bronze to gold by only playing varus. So for picking the order is:
- Play what you can play best
- Play what your team needs
- Play what counters the enemy
The first point is like a thousand times more Important than the rest. You won't be a good addition to your team when you are playing amumu but you don't hit your q or ult.
Also I think the biggest mistake that's made in Low elo is adapting to a pro players playstyle. This is good in some cases of course, but remember: Pros are playing on a different level. Also their Item builds and champions are very situational. Unless it's about a sick madlife hook most lower elo players think: Oh that doesn't look too hard, I can do that too!. These guys might see what the pro is doing but not what he's thining. 90% of league of legends is about metal awareness. The pro is playing the way he does because he exactly knows the cooldowns of the enemy, if he has flash up. Also pros realise when junglers gank more often, since they just know the flow of the game. Just keep in mind that if you are in a lower elo You are not a pro and you shouldn't play like them Each elo has it's own playstyle and you should adapt to it and improver your playstyle within this playstyle if you are stuck there.
Now to another thing:
What should I do ingame?
Mechanics
Most low/mid elo players think that you need uber reaction skills to get to a high elo, but actually it's quite the opposite. Of course if you are playing enough you will be able to dodge a gragas ult with ease or even a tibbers if you have flash up, but these things are more or less good estimation skills combined with a little bit of timing. The only thing where I mechanically see a huge difference between high and low elo is: Farming. Farming is the best way to get gold and a reeeally important aspect of the game. If you can't hit 70-80 cs on average by 10 minutes you will have a hard time getting plat. But you can learn this like every other gameplay aspect. I personally learned it by watching streamers and their clicks. A friend of mine learned it by farming in a custom game. You can basically do whatever you want to learn it. Keep in mind, that 18 CS = 1 kill. That means if you have a 60 cs lead over the enemy adc but you're 0/3, you still have the gold advantage.
Item builds
Acutally there isn't much to say about this. Just one big thing I mentioned eralier: Don't build like pro player x every game
Although most of the items will be viable in most situations, pro builds mostly vary.
Objective Control
This is a Huge part of the difference between high and low elo. In general you could say The order is: Inhibitor > Baron > Turret > Dragon > Player > Buff > Huge minionwave > Small jungle camp > Minions.
If you use this order you can't be too wrong since it's applicable in most situations, however you should still know the exeptions. In low elo the people often tend to either miss out completely an opportunity to do dragon/nashor or a turret/inhibitor or they do it at the wrong time (which isn't that good either). Baron and Dragon are the place where most games are thrown, which brings me to my next point:
Throwing games
This is actually a thing that happens in every elo. No matter where you are games are always thrown. This is also the reason why you shouldn't play like victory is certain and you should also not give up too fast. Of course if You have 3 lanes pushed completely after 20 minutes and the team stats are 20/3 it's ok to take the game a bit more lightweight or surrender, but after your adc dies 2 times in lane it's definitely too early to surrender.
Back to throwing games: as I mentioned, baron and dragon are the places where most games are thrown. This is because both of these monsters deal huge amounts of damage (Dragon early only tho), and you are standing stacked. The impossibility to position yourself while doing nash/drag + the constant damage makes it easy for the enemy to engage on you. Plus if they kill you and get the dragon it can turn a game 180 degrees. Also you should remember how you actually win the game: By destroying the enemy nexus You can be 100 games behind: if you kill the nexus before they manage to do it, you win, you gain lp, you wil raise. You should end whenever you are able to. I don't want to know how often I lost a game because I overstayed and tried to kill some guys in the last seconds of a game.
Pushing and getting Pushed
I already did an answer about this, so I won't write everything down again.
*Punishment in lane**
A lot of people also don't punish for overextending in lane. If you are a caitlyn vs vayne, just land 2 or 3 autoattacks if she wants to cs. Or if you are jax vs tryndamere trade whenever he wants to cs. I wrote a small answer in the in the same answer I mentioned earlier.
Are there some things in general I should work on?
There are also a few things you should know in general:
- Use Runes and masteries (Here you can even look at the pros most of the time. I have like 3 runepages and it worked ;) )
- Take a main lane with a main champ and 2 alternative champs, take 2 alternative lanes with another main champ each and 2 alternative champs each. If you can play those 9 champs it's really easy to raise fast.
- Learn from your mistakes. Nobody is perfect and you will only improve if you can look into your mistakes. You don't neccesarily have to master them, you can work around like I do (I play support because I can't keep up with diamond farm), or well yeah you could work on them and start going to botgames untill you get those 120 cs in 10 minutes.
- Try to avoid duoqueuing, since your enemies will get a bit stronger when you do. And also if you really want to duo, make sure your partner has about the same MMR as you do.
- Don't look up your enemies. Currently there are a lot of tools to track the elo of your enemies in real time. Don't use them! You will either under or overestimate your enemies if you know what their elo is and you might play too passive or too aggressive. There will always be a guy with a higher or a lower division than you in a game.
And the most important thing in all the game:
KNOW EVERY CHAMPION WITH EVERY SKILL AND EVERY COOLDOWN
I know this is a big thing to expect, but if there was a secret of getting high elo it would be this. The meta will change, the viable picks will change, but you need to keep up and you need to be prepared. If you are towerdiving a poppy and you don't know about her passive you will lose. If you don't know that Zilean has a 1.8 Scaling on his q you will get bursted. You need to inform yourself about everything in the game. Use the lol wiki to look up scalings, use reddit or gaming.SE to ask questions and read the patch notes to be up to date and i promise you will see an increase of your divisions.
I hope this helped a bit. If you need further information about a certain topic just ask on the sites I mentioned, usually you get an answer fast or add me ingame (informations in my profile).
