Hey guys, not related to the episode, just wanted to say how grateful I am to you guys for creating this community that's completely based around improving in league and enjoying the journey as much as possible. I feel like just having these podcasts to listen to and evidence that there's so many people that just want to get better within my favorite game improved my life by leaps and bounds.
33:00 I actually think mid game starts at a combination of both. For me, it doesn't necessarily start when towers fall, nor when items are completed, but rather when standard lanes are no longer in place. It can happen with no towers falling, if bot decides to go mid because they wanna be present in a 2nd grub or herald fight, or if 2 dragons are already done and mid prio + vision placement gets more valuable. I especially remembered that story Nathan told once, where he told a client to tell his bot lane to go mid after they killed bot tower because the game could not progress until they do it, and until that happens. So laning phase was still going, despite them taking bot tower already
Regarding champion mastery and number of games, I actually kind of think you guys underestimate the number of games for mastery sometimes. The recent patch rundown phreak did had some really interesting stats around champion mastery. It seems like according to their internal metrics, 300 games seems like it is about the definition of a main. I’ve completely decoupled my goal from rank this split and made my goal just to clock 300 high quality games on my champ. It’s been super liberating, and my win rate has shot up dramatically, even though it’s not really a part of my goal for the split.
@@bigsmoke4592 Oh for sure, just pointing out that in the context of the programs, most players are low ELO, so it probably takes more than 70 games on balance for many champions to even start seeing returns on mastery.
So context on this: I'm Bronze right now as I've played only 2 games this split (I'm busy irl) but I'm usually hovering around Gold 4 depending on the champ I play. If I play Cassio I'm mid Gold, if I play Ahri I'm high Silver to low Gold, if I play Azir I'm mid Silver. I think I agree but I'm also kinda strange. I play the champs I love no matter what skill level I might need to be at to play them. My 3 most played champs are Thresh who I OTP'ed for 3 years, mained Cassio for 5 years and onetricking her for the last 5 months or so and Azir also for 5 years. Cassio and Azir have been my core since I started playing midlane. It took me 500+ games on Thresh to feel like I was decent with him and knew what I was doing in every lane. For Cassio it took somewhere between 350 and 400 games and for Azir I haven't reached than point yet despite having 500+ games on him. I think if I picked an easier to execute champion I'd be able to get to that point faster but I still doubt I'd be able to pick up any champ in less than 100 games knowing myself.
Goals were talked about in the last episode and I've been thinking about it more. I think having a ranked goal is GOOD. I think having a time frame for the goal is BAD. Journeys can take different amounts of time and you shouldn't box yourself in.
Have you guys been paying attention to Broxah's "Fill to Challenger" challenge? Super interesting, currently floating around high GM. He has two weeks to get chall and is currently 9 days into it.
Your discussion about Lux v Tristana and how they can handle sidelining and rotating is effectively just illustrating the difference between champs that are allowed to do things on their own, and champs who aren’t allowed to do things on their own. Now imagine if there was an entire role 90% comprised of champs who can’t do anything on their own… that role must be so frustrating to play! Also, I was the person a few weeks ago who was mentioning (on Skool) how my games felt drastically more difficult after I made an account to try and learn new champions on. Emerald on my OTP but when playing in silver I was mentioning how much harder the games felt even relative to the fact that I wasn’t on my OTP. This season’s ranked definitely feels way more difficult and I have no idea why, I obviously expected to drop but I wasn’t first timing champions on the new account, I was playing champions I have hundreds or even thousands of games on-silver genuinely feels like platinum from last split and everyone was telling me I just had an inflated idea of where I’d be off of my mains, but I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who has been wildly surprised by the elo drop and the skill level I’m running into farther down on the ladder.
Hello the account I'm playing on was Emerald 4 at the end of the season. As a jungle main I dropped some ranks currently down to Plat 4 after 110 games. I believe that the fall was because of new items, specifically how overpowered the new items are on adc. It's gotten better with some nerfs after the first patch, but there where some games that I would outright lose because the adc was on twitch and got so fed. I felt early in the season that Jungler was a struggle despite the jungle buffs because of this reason. Now it seems to be more stable sense last patch and I'm climbing back to my previous rank.
Same for me as a top laner, ended emerald 4 last season and am plat 4 after 50 games. I took a week off as well because I found it so frustrating, it felt really weird to drop so much.
I agree with the funky match making. I have an old account and get nothing but troll games. Have a young account and get just bangers where I have a 80% WR. I always focus my play. I play support and it's auto loss because my top and mid get stomped which in turn gets my jungler stomped. Away we go just keep the focus.
Another thing to consider on the "When does midgame start?" question is that after 14 min, there's no longer any plates, leaving lane is a lot less consequential even if you do lose tower (for sidelanes at least).
My biggest regret was throughly misunderstanding csing. I tryed to play katarina trading too much health to farm and without dropping waves to roam. Needless to say I lost my mind, and didn't understand what I was doing wrong until I started to play mages. I was watching those "just focus on cs to win in low elo" videos and misinterpreted them.
Thank you so much for the feedback I definitely will pick one champ and one role now. I understand now how important it is to just play the game. I definitely will start to focus more on my game and only play champs I know. LB and Yas are favorites but I seem to be bad at them so I will trash them for now. Tristana mid is very fun. I definitely am enjoying the game more now than I was before. Because I am my rank for a reason and I truly need to have more respect for the game.
Talking about the Lethal Tempo changes, I feel like the removal is more significant to melee champions than you guys are giving credit to. It's not about champion strength, it's timing of auto attacks, it doesn't FEEL as fun. Because LT was always there, it effectively changed the "base" attack speed of the champion. It's almost like being Nasus withered all early game and it would really mess with auto cancelling and early game trading. High attack speed on an auto attacking champions FEELS fun. The guy might have fell in love with that high attack speed feeling.
It was an unfair and broken rune, I'm glad it got removed. However, I know it sucks when Riot removes something from the game that you enjoyed, I've been there.
34:51 I've been so annoyed this split because I ended D4 20lp~ which was about the same as where I ended last season. Last split I went 3-2 in placements and started E2 44lp. This split I went 4-1 in placements and stayed E3 28lp~ It's supposed to be a softer reset than between whole seasons!! Not even 20 games deep this split yet, but making my way back up steadily. At least I'm not stuck, but it is annoying.
34:35 Check in with these people by the end of the split. In all likelihood it's mostttly because of the soft reset. Everyone's stuck re-climbing so the matchmaking gets out of whack and creates a lot of games with "smurfs" in them. The smurf either being someone on your team, or on the enemy team, or yourself. Since 9 times out of 10 the "smurf" isn't you, and the odds of the "smurf" are technically higher to be on the enemy team, games tend to feel more difficult and flippy leading to people "struggling" to reach their old rank. For me, I'm used to getting stuck in high Emerald or low Dia or whatever it is for a month or two. But usually by the end of the season/split I end up around high Diamond/low Masters again once the season's shaken out and everyone's been properly placed and climbed back to where they "really are". And THIS is exactly why I'm so upset at having 3 splits instead of 2. I can understand Riot wants more Ranked resets because it drives player engagement, but for someone who doesn't just "grind out my rank at the last second at the end of a season" any more, but plays for improvement, it creates 1~2 months of matchmaking instability that makes it much harder to grind and learn the game every time the split resets. So having that 3 times in a year makes potentially almost half of the year "unplayable". I say potentially only because I noticed it's "resolving" faster this split because they did say they had some back end algo stuff they did to improve this and raised the max placement rank to like D2 or something iirc? Also afaik people below Honor 2 (aka toxic/afk/etc. enough to be penalized by the system significantly) shouldn't get reset back to Honor 2 (normal start for a split), but I feel I run into noticeably more leavers and soft inters at the start of the season and split. Maybe it's caused by the aforementioned "smurf" situation destroying people's mentals and/or people coming back to the game because it's a "new split/season, new me!" type of vibe. Both are honestly understandable but all of it does kind of feed into itself to create an extra "solo Q" type experience if you know what I mean. Maybe I'm just coping because my friend's already back in Masters this split and I'm floundering in Diamond, but I do think some amount of it is my MMR just isn't as good since I don't like playing on the account I grinded to Masters on at the start of a split for all of the aforementioned reasons. Butttt, there's definitely some amount of rust because I just don't play as many high intensity games at the start of a split either. Both of these because of the aforementioned reasons creating a particularly nasty whirlwind of a solo Q experience relative to the middle of a solo Q season.
I can't wait for them to start playing ornn. I wend from being a mid player that maines galio, lissandra, and vex to an top ornn otp and I feel he really gives with the way a mid laners plays
Welgome Bee Bee Seers to Episode Two Hunderd and One, this one with Goatch Catnipz and Nathaniel Motte, here to deliver unto you the lore and the secrets as which we have of played today. Welcome to the show, our hosts will guide you through the swamp of SoloQ to the promised land of High Elo, also known as bronze 2 and above. Today featuring Jone Roschack from the infamous internet forum Skool, which we have developed. I highly enjoyed todays episode and can't wait for the next one
I regret overvaluing kills. I took a multi year break because of poor mental from a combination of assassin meta as an adc main and going for kills so hard I went from dominating almost every lane to inting or winning lane and then going for kills that I should have stopped chasing for and throwing my lead. I consistently had massive xp and cs leads over my lane opponent from repeatedly forcing them out of lane but instead of being happy that I was straight up winning I got TILTED because I didn't kill them when I was 60+ cs on them and a couple levels and playing perma aggro until the assassin kid laners roamed and camped me then the tilt devolved more into me getting more tilted that the enemy laners survived that if I failed to kill them after multiple times forcing them out of lane I started diving and aggressively chasing them resulting in me completely throwing my lead. Almost every lane was win lane lose game, into dominating lane then losing it, into just straight inting due to poor mental. Mostly because if I wasnt killing them I wasnt "winning" and then other issues around it made worse.
on the rank reset topic: I noticed that when i got reset to silver after ending gold 3 there was last split emerald players who were also in silver with me i do think they hit the reset harder than normal because of inflation
They did that at the beginning of the year. You gotta look at their account, they might have hit emerald, but finished the season lower. Usually boosted accounts or bought accounts are like that.
I (emerald player) only played 10 Games on a Smurf in Bronze this Season. I don’t know if I’m just unlucky, but usually I have up to 85% Wr in Bronze.. this time I’m sitting at 40%.. had 5 afks already, 2 trolls (one of which in the enemy team) and in general about 10 people that were last season platinum and now in bronze lol.
Yeah, most people I know are about 400 LP below where they were last split even with games in. I'm similar, but I was learning a champion so I was just losing more. My games don't feel the same as they had at the end of last split, not sure what's up with it.
I have noticed people being way lower than they were previously when I look them up after games. I still hover around mid-high plat(old gold) like I always have. But a friend of mine has actually been climbing fairly easily now to emerald and hit diamond recently. Both on a fresh account and their "doomed" old account. I think the truth is a lot of people were inflated and they are having to face reality and get back to playing the fundamentals of the game. When I watch my friend play they are not doing anything special. Just focused on wave states during lane phase to get their items then macroing mid late game.
Really enjoyed Curtis's breakdown of what makes a champion good for midlane. Based on this analysis I still think Tryndamere is one of the best midlaners, he gets great prio, he has fantastic wave clear, and he is one of the scariest sidelane champions in the game.
I have been diamond 4 + the past 3 splits. This season I am currently emerald 4 (fluctuating 4-2 emerald) and honestly the game play is just so low. For example, a Diana on enemy team WITHOUT TP was pushing the next incoming wave onto our tier 2 tower. We were 5 grouped around baron and the enemy was 4 also grouped at baron. We had a nocturn for some engage potential and our ADC and mid walked all the way to bot lane, as if the adc could actually fight the diana 1v1 in the first place (they took different routes..), instead of just forcing the fight at baron 5v4. We lost baron, tier 2, AND mid died right after defending against Diana for Tier 3 tower. Also, consistently in most games the team does not play around the fed and/or correct lanes. I got a quadra kill level one as jinx (my off role), and our xin spent 2 minutes getting double killed twice top leaving his bot side jungle unfarmed.....Idk... I have a negative winrate in emerald now. Of course, I can be playing better and honestly my gameplay is getting worse by overcompensating for team mistakes that I am no longer used to. It is very tilting, but did want to weigh in that I believe that the players in my games since starting this season are not diamond level players.
Finished E4 last split. Have been learning a new champ for my pool on my alt account and I’m hard struggling in silver even when I play one of my mains. I know I suck and have a lot to learn. But I feel like I afked my way to emerald last split.
The problem is people who think they are better than their current rank, I’ve seen so many accounts after I’ve played some disastrous games, looked up their previous ranks ,stats and they finished in bronze or silver every season for 4-6 years!!! These are exact people who flame in game and say they “carry” in champ select. Instead of working on their mistakes, they blame others and never improve. My advice to new players is focus on improving your gameplay, cs, game mechanics and keep practicing
Hey, genuine question and the answer will change depending on a lot of factors, but how do I generaly close out games earlier with a gold lead? Like for example 1.700g lead. T2 towers from my experience is a good start + (drakes and grubs/herald). I often find myslef with a gold lead and then falling back on stalling the game out so my teammates can catch up and join bigger pushes. However this feels inconsistent/flippy and risk of me throwing/dying tend to happen if Im not really carefull. I would appreciate any replies thanks!~ I main toplane and play support as secondary
Just my 2 cents as a tryn player. Curtis is 100% right and Tryn is the strongest he has been years however he feels terrible and I wish I could have Tryn from before the patch back. For a while Tryn has had 2 playstyles: The full dps carry with lethal tempo where you push advantages and snowball the game through early game all-ins and the uninteractive perma farm and perma sidelane grasp build that reduced the game to a 4v4. Current Tryndamere with the item changes has been put in a weird position where he has lost the lethal tempo playstyle but wheras before grasp meant Tryn would never be able to scale enough dps to kill anything late game, new items mean you can scale your damage really well into 3+ items. Because of this tryn has been really strong, but the early game all in champ has kind of disappeared and he is now more uninteractive early on in the game. This has resulted where post lethal tempo I have been sad to see the champ that felt so skill expresive be reduced to a fleet/grasp bot. This especially hurts because we just came off of the lower winrate kraken -> guinsoo's w/ lethal tempo that was the most fun tryn build since I started playing this game in season 10. That being said mid tryn is mostly fine as hydra rush was strongest anyway, the lethal tempo change mainly affects the feel of top and has made some of his matchups super cringe. Don't really have a point here but think that Curtis and Nathan didn't quite have the context to understand what Dest was talking about when he mentioned the feel of the game being lost.
I peaked plat 1 last season and started silver 2 this season, after 90 games played I've hit emerald for the first time so it's surprising to hear people are struggling after being placed lower. I could be speculating but it seems either I have massively improved in general or people just aren't putting enough time in yet. Maybe both? Also I role swapped from mid to jungle but stayed consistent with my main pick being taliyah even after the nerfs. Edit: Last split I was gold and didn't play many games at all.
27:00 Have we ever thought that just maybe these champions shouldn't have such overloaded kits/stats that are this apex/pro play tier skewed? Is it okay for a Mid lane champ to be able to get early prio, have top in class wave clear, AND be able to duel in the side lane?
Started placements at P2, climbed to E3 with 70% wr at start of split 2. Thought this would be the split to push my main to diamond. Then out of nowhere started having really difficult games and unable to win with around 20% wr over next 50 games. Fell all the way down to g3. Now in p4 on an upward trajectory. For context I have been e3/e4 for past 2 seasons over 500 games on my main, but my alt account sits around d3/d4.
@@2failepic Fresh mmr account I guess made the climb easier? Whereas my main account started gold 4 in season11 then climbed to plat, then emerald, and I havent been able to get over them hump of emerald 2/1 to d4 which is where my alt finished last season with only like 16 games played. Had an 81% wr. This season with whatever changes I am even struggling in plat on my main lol.
@@JayZ769Im master. but when I was diamond 4 or 3 I had no problem ever getting back there. The skill gap is huge and unless you’re 0lp (which isn’t really diamond) then you should be able to get back in less than 100 games unless you got super lucky or were inflated.
My thoughts on the comment about rank being harder, I've only played a few games but I've found my plat 4 games to be harder than they felt last season when I was in emerald 4. Just my experience from the less than 20 ranked games I've played
Regarding the rank deflation: I played this season and last season in 3 accounts(1 mine, 2 friends who quit) for some reason the games in my account are just way harder. I know I have a lot of problems but it is still weird that I can just dick around with taliyah or random champs and get emerald 3 emerald 4 but I when I try hard in my main role(ADC) I am 80+ games deep gold. I am not putting full blame on the system but I still find it weird. my account: "Violet Paragon#EUW"|(last split I placed emerald 3 cause I was 1 game off diamond and loss streaked to plat 3) friend account(he quit league):"bag33ra#euw" friend account(He never plays ranked): "void99#void" I barely played this season due to my job but this was happening from the previous split.
stage 4 > all other stages combined imo. toxic lobbies always have a feeling that someone has unchecked emotional or mental health issues and they are using league CHAT as a pseudo therapy session.
I can listen to some content during the day, but I really only have about two hours at night to actually play. Is it possible for me to be halfway decent in the jungle when I only have two hours a day that I can possibly play? I started as support and I love playing support and I love playing Nami, but I’d really like to venture into the jungle but I’m afraid that might be a hopeless dream.
It’s not hopeless, you can do it. But make sure to keep your expectations in check, especially coming from such a different role! Gl and have fun learning :)
I feel like silver and below has gotten worse as far as quality of games for ranked. Its not really loser's queue but I'll legitimately get crash outs in my game multiple times in a row. People who just die on cool down I've had people with 14 deaths on average consistently. I have chat disabled so i dont type at all I know there's stuff i can do to get better but whats the regiment for dragging their dead bodies across the finish line? How can i carry a 2/26 bot lane?
Depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking for a 100% winrate across like 50 games? Are you looking to just climb at a steady pace? Maybe you're just asking how to win this one particular game where your teammates do poorly. To win 95-100% of your gamesyou'd obviously need a combination of playing a fitting champion and having enough individual skill and understanding of the game to impact every game early on. For you, ofc that's impossible. If you just wanna climb, losses like that don't really matter, because you get 12.5% more wins on average as a result of your enemies trolling just as hard. So just focus on improving your own play and you'll climb. If you wanna know how to win that ONE particular game, look into details. How did it all snowball, what SMALL things early on in the game could you have done to prevent it? What's the perspective of your teammates? Get into the details and try your best to see if there's something you've missed. Maybe you did, maybe not. I've myself won quite a few legitimately 4v5 games in emerald 4-3 elo when either one guy crashed and disconnected or a guy averaged close to 1 death per minute and just refused to play. So surely if its doable in emerald it's doable in silver. But you should feel pressured to win games like that, just learn from your mistakes, which we all make plenty of and you'll climb.
My biggest regret in my League journey? Starting this journey in 2011. I fell in love with the game and I regret that, 13 years wasted on a game that I don't want to play anymore but I'm still playing for a reason I don't even know. I hate almost everything about this game and everything about Riot. Genuenly, if I only knew how this will end I would never start playing this game.
the last toxic guy complaining about teammates stuck in iron without showing any real effort put into learning the game was quite infuriating to watch.
my biggest mistake was being a kid and searching on youtube, free online games for low specs pc, i wish i never played this game, wasted so much time for nothing
