Climbing out of Bronze - It really isn't that hellish. (Part 1)

Getting out of Bronze was NOT easy.

But the stories you hear of being trapped forever in Bronze with almost every game consisting of leavers, afk'ers or trolls is not entirely true.
After my placement matches for the season, I was dismayed to find out that I had been placed in Bronze I despite having held a place in Silver the previous season. I didn't think it would be too hard to get out of Bronze considering this was supposed to be the lowest of the low.

I wasn't experienced with very many champions. I called myself an ADC main but at the time I only really played Lucian. I tried to play him in as many games as possible this time 'round just because I felt out of place playing most other ADC champs due to lack of practice with them. I managed to get some decent games with Lucian but for the most part it wasn't going anywhere as during a lot of games you are forced to play a specific role. The games that I couldn't get an ADC role almost always went wrong.
I quickly started losing MMR. At first I was Bronze 1. Withing a few days I was Bronze 3. And then 1 more losing streak later, I hit my all-time low of Bronze 4.

Obviously the idea of quitting the game crossed my mind, the moment the game ended and the words popped up on my screen: "You have been demoted to...".

It never changes, that sour taste in your mouth after a tense defeat and the feeling of anger welling up in your throat. Immediately you try to look at the scoreboard and think about the game, trying to find something to blame the loss on. And then you start to think about all the mistakes you made yourself. You think maybe if you did something better then perhaps the outcome would have been different.

In an effort to broaden my champion pool, I started looking into other strong laners and junglers to invest in. I was fed up trying to win games as an ADC. I thought to myself that perhaps all I needed to do was be that Riven or that Katarina that single-handedly wins games. I was trying too hard to play champions that were proclaimed to be strong.

For example, I bought Talon and started playing a lot of ranked games with him just because people said he was 'OP' and easy to play. Even though I preferred the ADC role, I would still pick Talon if I was first pick. I ended up losing with him a lot more than win. I even had the Katarina phase but that champion just didn't suit my play-style.
The point I'm trying to get across is that I was forcing myself to play champs that were considered 'strong' and 'op' and 'freelo' without taking into account the way I like to play. This brief period of spamming ranked games with a multitude of new champions contributed greatly to my sudden loss of LP.

Pro tip: play what you know in soloQ. 

Falling as low as Bronze 4 definitely is a slap in the face. It was frustrating for me mostly because of all the time I put into LoL. I tend to become obsessive when I'm into a game a lot. I'm talking over 2000 hours of WoW kinds of obsessive.
I played and played and played only to keep losing division by division by division. I was almost ready to just accept that I suck at league and shouldn't expect any sort of future ahead for me within the competitive side of this game.

For a few days after hitting Bronze 4, I stopped playing entirely. I couldn't muster the strength to face that climb. I found that I was the one making my own hell.

Some background story...

I only started playing LoL in the early summer of 2014. Season 4 had been my first season ever, the first time I stepped foot into the soloQ world, and I had landed myself a comfortable spot in Silver 1. It wasn't long before I ended up falling down to Silver 3/4. I had very little knowledge of the game at the time and my champion pool was small and untrained.

This was around Oct/Nov 2014. The reason I stopped playing was largely due to my increasing frustration with myself and the game. I was so obsessed with the idea of climbing the ranks that I'd be spamming ranked queues almost all day every day. But since I was unskilled and hasty this did more harm than good. I would spend an all-nighter with the single goal in mind that I would, say, make it from Silver 3 to Silver 2. After a long night of grinding I would end up exactly where I started after winning and losing games. It felt like I was just wasting my time and my life on it. I was going nowhere fast yet I sunk incredible amounts of time into it. No work seemed to be getting done. Instead of trying to figure out how to improve I decided I should just stop.

It's now Season 5 and I have decided to once again try my luck in summoner's rift on soloQ. Instead of getting back up to scratch before my promo games, I decided to just yolo my promos after having not played for a considerable amount of time. I got myself placed in Bronze 1 and after more and more games I fell as far as Bronze 4. I am now Silver 4 and showing steady development. My short-term goal for this summer is Gold 1. My long term goal for this season is, of course, Diamond 1.

This blog is just a way of keeping track of my personal growth out of 'elo hell'. I feel like it would be nice to get it down in a blog so it's more than just a memory.