Divison Hell to Division Heaven: A Look Into The Lower Divisions

The new “division” system is great for many reasons – especially if you were accidentally placed in a lower division than what you should have been. In my case, I started in Bronze Division 5. The Elo equivalent of this is roughly 850 Elo or lower. Unfortunately, I was not placed by mistake, it was my own doing. If you don't know, you usually start around 1,200 Elo during your placement matches.

I originally made the mistake of playing ranked when I first hit 30 – which was around the second or third month of Season Two. The start was rough, and after hitting the rock bottom of 900 Elo, it was literally impossible to carry myself out of it. This series is to point out the faults, misguided, and actually good players of the lower Divisions, and my attempt at rising from the depths of what can now be called “Division Hell”.

You're probably wondering, “Wait, how can you not carry yourself out? N00b”. Well, I know that in the past, people such as Cruz “Cruzerthebruzer” Ogden have done series about climbing up from about 200 Elo, to 2000, who, back when a dodge penalty of losing a certain Elo amount was in place, dodged his way down to such Elo. However, I, myself, am not a pro player. I'm actually not that great. I have poor mechanics, and usually play roles that can't fully carry a game such as support. I reached 560 Elo in Season Two, which was an interesting experience.

For the first week, I've really only played one ranked game, just to get things going.

As you can see, we're already off to an... interesting start. The bans are pretty normal for this kind of division. Picks wise, everything is solid. However, the enemy team has two AP mids; Annie and Cassiopeia. Our team composition is fairly well balanced, and we didn't actually get a troll. Unfortunately, the enemy team did, which sucks for them, but good for us.

Why do people troll though? The Annie later explained in game that, and I loosely quote, “Cass was first pick so she insta-locked Cassiopeia, even though I called mid -.-”. This, right here, is one of the largest reasons people lose games at this Division. It's the argument that rivals the test of time; does calling your role supersede your pick order? I personally cannot answer, because I usually fill in whatever is needed, except for Jungle. What I can tell you, though, is that people really enjoy getting mad about you stealing their “cherished” role.

As you can see, it was pretty much a stomp – which is pretty disappointing, as I love seeing comebacks from troll picks. What you will notice though, is the trash talk in the end of game stream. This is a perfect example of somebody that gets denied a win chance, solely because somebody decided to “troll” or in this case just choose what they wanted, while disregarding what somebody's called. It also appears that the Annie disconnected, although I think she disconnected at the end of the game.

I earned 40 League Points (or LP) from that game, which is a lot. This will bring me closer to Bronze 4, slowly but surely. What I want to achieve from this is to get to a good, stable division. At the same time, document my misadventures in the lower ones, and give insight into what exactly goes on down here.

I hope you enjoyed, and that you'll learn something from this series. Week One is dull, but I plan to play more ranked. I'll includes wins and losses in this series, to be as unbiased as possible. Reading about the losses, and being able to analyse the losses is much more interesting.