League of Legends: Getting out of Bronze

This article will mark the debut of a series of articles on League of Legends and how to get better at this incredible game. I have been playing the game for three and a half years now, since late 2010 and I feel like I am finally getting good mechanically as well as knowledgeably. The reason it took me so much time was because I didn't take the game seriously, I barely played ranked and I didn't focus on improving, but all of that changed in the summer of 2012 as I began to work on my mistakes and try to finally climb the ladder.

A breakdown of the different ranked leagues

Anxiously and after much hesitation on whether to press that "Play" button or not, I did my ranked placement games and landed in Bronze I, losing 6 games and winning 4 [1]. I rated myself much higher than Bronze players so this hit my ego pretty hard.

Here's the thing though, even if you landed in Bronze it will only make you stronger when you climb out. Getting out of Bronze was one of my proudest achievements in League of Legends and I've been climbing ever since. Anyone can get out of Bronze if they truly wish and are dedicated on improving. These three steps are all you need to master to climb out of Bronze, I guarantee it.

Let's start!

STEP 1 : Accept your fate and love yourself

Let me start with a quote:

I clearly don't belong in Bronze! My teammates are always keeping me down and then I get trolls and AFKers every game. It's impossible for me to climb, you'd have to be incredibly lucky to get out of Elo Hell.

I'm paraphrasing a player in Bronze III that asked me for help once. You probably wrote those same words or even thought exactly the same at some point in your League of Legends life. To be completely blunt, this is the worst kind of mindset to have as a player. It will prevent you from getting better.

You played your placement matches and you ended up in Bronze. That is where you belong, end of story. Accept it! You don't deserve to be a Gold player, your skill isn't "at least as good as Silver player's".

But.. but my teammates...

No. If you TRULY were a Gold player you would have landed in Gold League or in high Silver (if you were really unlucky) no matter what teammates you had, don't you think? A Gold player is capable of carrying and winning against Bronze and Silver players consistently. Are you capable of carrying Silver players as a Bronze League player? You probably aren't since you can't even carry Bronze players. You ended up in Bronze League. So don't call yourself worthy of Gold or Silver players because you simply are not. Look at your profile, it says you're in Bronze, so you are a Bronze player. Accept it! Say to yourself:

I am a Bronze player.

Again:

I am a Bronze player.

Say it how many times you need until you realize you are a Bronze player. Embrace it. There is no shame in accepting that a person is in Bronze, the real shame is not wanting to improve by being delusional about one's current status. If you always think you're better than everyone else in your League then you will never get better as a player. You're underestimating the players that are playing in the same League as you, this prevents you from learning because you automatically consider everyone lower in skill than you, which is simply false as otherwise you would have already climbed out of Bronze.

You are equal to everyone on your League, you're not better than them until you climb to a higher League.


Step 1 is definitely the most important and one that holds truth for every League player that wants to climb, whether they are in Diamond or in Bronze League. It's not because the system dislikes you or that your teammates are keeping you down. If you ended up somewhere, you can only blame yourself because you're the only one controlling your game. The other players? You can't control them. You can only control your champion and how your champion affects the game. It's all on you. You are 100% of the game.

STEP 2 : Get your game down to a T

The quote:

Practice makes perfect

The most striking thing about Bronze and some Silver players is that they hop from role to role a lot. Take these two example images of two players, one in Bronze III, the other in Challenger:

Bronze III and Challenger - Click to enlarge

If you want to learn, you want to learn from the best. Notice how the Bronze player will play support one game then another game he will go mid or jungle. In theory, there isn't anything wrong with playing a bunch of different roles as this means you will get to know a lot of champions and different lane matchups and have a better overall understanding of how the game flows. In practice however, you are nothing but a jack of all trades but master of none.

The Bronze player has no in-depth knowledge of every possible matchup with his champions, of every possible trick, of every possible outplay. He probably doesn't know how to play both Rengar and Gragas to their fullest extent. Two champions that go in different lanes. Yet he still plays them. The Bronze player doesn't have the experience of the 1000s of games of ADC that the Challenger player has. The Bronze player might even know more about top lane than the Challenger player does but in bot lane? In bot lane the Challenger player is unbeatable because he knows every lane matchup, how they function and what their weaknesses and strengths are.

This is what you will do: pick a role and play that role exclusively. You need to master the champions in that role, you need to know every possible lane matchup (what champions you will face and how those champions interact with your own champion), you need to know what the purpose of your role is. If you like to jungle, play 50 games of Elise, 50 games of Lee Sin, 50 games of Amumu, 50 games of Udyr etc. Play more than that. Play until you know your role in and out, preferably in normal games so you won't have to worry about your rating or losing LP.

If you are not consistently winning in your role, you will NEVER leave Bronze. You need to win 3 games out of 5 in your Silver V promotion series. Three games in a row, otherwise you won't pass. If you don't pass, you don't deserve to be in Silver V.

STEP 3 : Just don't type

Probably the biggest problem I've encountered when I was in Bronze but also when I spectate Bronze players or read the long, angry stories they type in the chat is that they ALWAYS blame their teammates for their loss. If they won the game it's because they carried. If they lost it's because of their teammates. It just doesn't work that way.

Once you start typing the game is over for you

I've seen players raging and typing incredibly long-winded rants in the in-game chat. They will spend more time typing in the chat and blaming their own teammates for whatever irrelevant mistake they did 10 minutes ago rather than focusing entirely on the game.

Here's the thing: arguing with your teammates isn't going to help you win. As soon as you start typing in the chat to blame one of your teammates your chances of winning the game decrease by 50%. The person that did the mistake probably knows better than you that they messed up, no need to shove it even further in their face. It will only make things worse. Remember? They are your teammates, they are your friends, not your enemies. You have to work together, not against each other.

Just remind yourself whenever you want to blame one of your teammates: just don't type. Just don't type. Just don't type. It's in the past, focus on what you can do now.

Have you ever considered that maybe your teammate isn't as bad as you think? That maybe his opponent was simply better than he was and he got outplayed? That it wasn't his deaths or mistakes that made you lose the game but rather your inaction, your refusal to give him a hand when he was behind or you aggressively blaming him in chat making him actually play worse? Don't make your life harder than it already is.

TL;DR

1. Accept that you're not the best around and need to improve
2. Focus on your game and mastering a role
3. Don't type in the chat if it's to bring someone down

I believe a player's mentality plays a much bigger part in their success than most people give it credit and it's often a neglected aspect when people ask "how do I get out of elo hell?" or "what champion can I carry with in bronze?", they don't see that it isn't necessarily the champion they play but more so how they behave and interact with their teammates. League of Legends is a team game after all.

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^{1. Did you know that your very first placement game is the most important one? If you win your first game, it's almost guaranteed you won't end up in Bronze League (unless you finished in Bronze III or lower in previous seasons, of course). This is because of the higher MMR gains and losses from your first games. The system is trying to place you on the ladder, so if you win the first game you will get (this is a guess) something like +50 Elo but if you lose you will lose around -45 Elo, which will set you back quite a bit, as even if you win your next games you'll only get +40 Elo to +30 Elo.}