Season one of League of Legends has ended, finally. I finished at 1524, high enough to get Gold status and earn the Victorious Jarvan skin. Too bad I don’t play Jarvan, but hey, free skin. Oh and my summoner icon has a gold border. Shiny.
Pre-season for season two is up and running, and basically everyone has had their ELO reset to 1200ish. This has created a very interesting version of ELO hell. You have people who were (are) 900 ELO players in the same game as people who were (are) 1900 ELO players. Half the people are playing chess, the other half are playing checkers. In a month or so this will work itself out, and the good players will move up and the bad ones will move down, but right now they are all mixed and colliding head-on.
I’m sticking to my ‘one ranked a day’ strategy, and so far so good. I’m curious to see how high I can climb, since at the end of season one I stopped playing ranked just to play it safe and ensure Gold status.
Hardcore Casual 
First s2 game – singed feeds 0/6 and leaves at ~ 11 min mark. we surrender at 20.
2nd game – amumu and me(cho) carry the team being tanks. … and they say elo hell does not exist
ELO Hell is just misunderstood. Do games get worse the lower you get, yes. Do they become ‘hell’ at a certain level? I think so.
But does ‘ELO Hell’ keep you from moving up and getting to your ‘real’ ELO? No. If you have 200 games played and you are at 900/1100/1300/whatever ELO, that’s your ELO until YOU get better at the game.
There is a plenty of discussions about ELO hell and there is basically 2 camps -those who thinks solo queue reflects your skill and those who thinks it does not
I personally think ELO for solo queue is flawed for several reasons:
1) new players and trolls start at 1200 ELO. There are more good players at elo 800 than there is at 1200
2) ELO is made for duels, there it works reasonably well. When you are grouped with 4 others strangers your impact on the game is a lot more limited than what ELO was originally made to reflect
3) While its true that you will eventually move out if you better than your ELO amount of games for this to happen is staggering. (largely because of +4 random players factors)
For pre-mades elo works reasonable well. for random solo queue -not so much. And especially counter productive when the worst players start at relatively high ELO.
What’s a staggering amount? 50? 100?
I just think the whole “all solo queue games are random” is loser talk. Are you the make-or-break factor in every single game? No. Did you determine a few games out of 50? Yup. If you are good, those few in 50 are wins. If you are not, they are losses. The rest even out, you will get games where you get the feeder, and you will have games where the other team feeds, etc. If over 100 games your ELO is the same or lower, then sorry, it’s you and not some ‘ELO Hell’.
I get why people create ELO Hell though, it’s easier to blame the system (because while not perfect, it does work) than to admit personal skill level.
It’s why PvE is so popular.
So true… Elo hell preachers reveal three things about themselves: lack of statistical basic knowledge lack of skill at lol lack of humility. I am at ease to say this. I do have lack of skill and I am in 11xx / 12xx elo
“It’s why PvE is so popular.”
At one point I would’ve disagreed with you vehemently (and still do, to some extent, because most MMO PvP is terribad.) But after playing an actual skill-based MMO that’s basically just PvP, you’re probably right.
I’m still trying to work my way up to 30.