ELO Hell

     There is a certain period of playing in League of Legends in which every person who is somewhat decent at the game must endure: ELO Hell. ELO in case you did not know, is the basic equivalent of skill in LoL. the higher your ELO, the better player you are, in theory. As you level up you raise your ELO, hopefully, because you are becoming a better player.

     The matchmaking system currently tries to match you up players of a similar ELO. The game takes the average ELO of you and your team and finds an enemy team to match or come close to that average. The problem with that is, you could have a team of two medium level ELO players and one low, and face a team with one high level ELO and two low level players. This can cause an unbalance, as you may get stuck with team mates who are incompetent, or faced against opponents who are stacked skill wise. Or both.

     This is commonly reffered to in League forums as ELO Hell. The range of levels where you are pitting often times with bad team mates, or against a stacked team with high level players. Through my own experience I have found that these levels are between twelve and twenty-two. It is only before and after do you have a peace of mind know that the majority of the time, your team mates will either (in the case of being over level twenty-two) know what they are doing or at the very least (in the case of being under level 12) no one will know what they are doing, thus creating fair grounds to play for everyone. But between these levels, is pure, and utter, hell.

Epic comeback with Amumu

     So it is with this in mind that my story takes place. Today I was playing my usual matches of League of Legends, rocking Amumu in both 5v5 and 3v3 with some friends. I am level 25, mind you, so the people I was paired with and against are fairly competent at the game. In recent weeks a friend of mine has taken to the game, becoming interested in learning how to play. And I helped him out, giving him tips here and there, even playing with him in some premade 3v3 lobbys. All was fine, up until he hit around level 12. That is when the bad things began to happen.

Quite possibly one of my favorite characters that I am good with, next to Fiddlesticks and Lux. But is being good enough to save you from terrible team mates?

     First, it started with a bad player here and there, something I could normally make up for, being a tank (amumu). But as I grew bored of playing the role of tank over and over again, I began to play ashe. Mind you, I had a little bit of experience with ashe, and a pretty good build to back it up. It went alright, until one fateful match in which I nearly lost all hope in randoms on League of Legends.

     And the reason for that is? One and twenty four. One is the amount of kills our team mate Ryze had, and twenty-four was his deaths. The enemy player who was lucky enough to feast upon such a soul was a Sion. I have never in my experience seen a player feed so badly, nor have I seen an enemy get fed so hard, so fast. Within minutes we were pushed back to our inhibitors, and they were toying with us (this was a 3v3, mind you) by not pushing and killing us if we strayed. That was by far the worst match I have played. Somehow I still managed to go 7/10 as Ashe and my friend went 0/7 or something. But that Ryze....my god. I nearly lost faith in the game entirely if it weren't for the reminder that I was just stuck in ELO hell due to playing with my low level friend. I had worked my way out of ELO, now it is my friends turn to do the same.

      So let this be a lesson to all who want to teach a new friend, tell him you can help him all he wants until level 12, but after that, until level 22, he is on his own. Lest you suffer the same fate as I, and play with a 1/24 ryze, who I swear still was a bot, or high. Or perhaps even both, if that is possible. And judging by his performance, I'd say both.

 The bane of my own, and my teams existence, can be summed up in three numbers: 1/24

     ELO Hell. Never again. I really wish I would have taken a screenshot of the end of the match. But, there is my rant. Feel free to share your own tales of terrible team compositions, bad matchups, or your own little slice of ELO hell. I am interested to hear what you guys have to say about this. Because I know I am not the only one.

I can just hope it is the last time. Though deep down inside, I know it won't be.