Attitude and Conquering Your Personal ELO Hell

Negative attitude is something that can quickly ruin a game for anyone and everyone. It can start a chain reaction that leaves everyone on a team feeling demoralized or worse, like the game isn’t fun. It changes the game from something we enjoy into something we have to suffer through. Negative attitude comes in many forms from many things. Such as an enemy telling you to surrender, a teammate telling you that you’re the worst league player they’ve ever seen, or a person saying in champ select it doesn’t matter where anyone goes because we’re going to lose anyways.

I stated it first, so I’ll discuss it first. Being taunted by the enemy is a truly grueling experience. Every time I come across it, I think back to the days in gym class where I would lose at whatever sport our gym teacher decided we should play that week. Luckily, Riot allows you to mute the enemy player; I wish my school would have installed that feature in dodge ball. Just mute them keep your head up and remember how great it feels to beat someone who's been talking smack.

 

Teammates you can't win with them, you can't win without them
While you can also mute your teammates this is a little riskier considering they may eventually say something useful like, “Hey top is mia” or “Dragon is respawning soon”. I recommend apologizing for whatever happened, even if it wasn’t your fault. People may forgive you and then move on with their day and get back into the game. This will allow you to keep them unmuted so you can know if they ever think it’s a good idea to Baron. If they keep harassing you mute them, ain’t nobody got time for that.

Outdated Youtube videos aside, the worst type of negative attitude comes from within. It can be something as simple as having a bad day at work or school and then trying to play a team based game. If you’re having a bad day and want to unwind play some bot games, read a book, or watch some streams. Trying to play ranked games to make yourself feel better would be like drinking your sorrows away, it’s not a good time for anybody. You’re going to say something mean to someone. You’ll probably make everyone around you uncomfortable and you’ll wake up in the morning regretting your decision.

Your own negative attitude can also stem from your failure to accept responsibility for your actions. This goes in hand with what a lot of people refer to as Elo Hell. Which, I believe in. Although I feel Elo Hell is not Bronze or Silver, I do believe it is the divisions where you can no longer with ease carry a game. This causes you to get frustrated and causes you to play worse which results in more losses and less advancing. It makes you feel like you’re trapped in a sort of hell.

The best advice I can give is to take a break, relax, and maybe play another game for a bit. I was on a big losing streak and took a break, played some other video games. Just some different games with different mindsets to get me mentally stable to face the horrors of solo queue again. There is no sense in playing a bunch of games in a row, when you feel like everyone else is the reason you’re losing. You won't critique yourself and grow as a player. You’ll just have a bad time and lose more LP and go down in divisions.

You need to get back into the mindset that you can win games and find out what you have been doing wrong. I start by playing normal games and pointing out my own mistakes. I started to notice when I get ahead sometimes I don’t ward as heavily and start rushing items. I also get caught a lot trying to ward areas that I shouldn’t be warding, such as warding their blue when we are just ahead and I’m not sure where their jungler is.

 

Friends don't let friends play like noobs

Another benefit of duo queuing is you can have a friend there to tell you what you are doing wrong. Sometimes its better to hear from someone who plays with you a lot. I know when a random tells me I should ward somewhere sometimes I shrug it off. However, if one of my friends says, "Seriously, you need to ward Baron earlier". I'm more likely to listen. 

Just remember to take ranked games serious enough to try your best, but not serious enough to where you are going on tilt all the time.