Transcript
1. You suffer from the 'Dunning-Kruger' effect.
Taken from the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia:
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.
In laymans terms - you're bad at LoL but you think you're the best. I would estimate about 90% of LoL players suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is why I've (and I'm sure you have) had friends who refuse to play LoL simply because of the amount of 'big headedness' in the game.
If you're reading this, that's a good sign. Learn to accept that you're not the perfect League of Legends player. Even a lot of high level players are held back from improving because of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
2. You don't mesh with your team.
You might not think meshing with your team is important, but the fact of the matter is that you need your team to be fighting to win the game, not fighting each other. Sun Tzu in his book The Art of War said,
A united nation is strong, a divided nation is weak. A united army is strong, a divided army is weak.
One of the ways you can mesh with your team is by establishing some quick rapport. This generally takes less than 20 seconds to do and can set you up for an enjoyable ranked game.
Some of the ways you can establish quick rapport include talking about recent LoL changes, joke about someone's user name (laugh with them), complementing someone on a champion pick and so on.
By the way, what you just read was an excerpt from Summoner School. This is what really sets Summoner School apart from anything else I've ever seen about LoL and what gets me so excited to be a part of it. It teaches you more than just mechanics, it teaches you life skills and how to interact with people in League of Legends so that you can win more ranked games and have fun doing it.
3. You're not a flexible player.
Think about this for a sec, what sort of teammate would you rather get queued up with? Someone who must have a specific role and is threatening to feed if they don't or someone who is willing to compromise and work with the team. Despite common 'Silver League theory', League of Legends is a team game. It takes teamwork to win.
Don't expect your team to be flexy for you, be the flexible person and work with your team.
Learn to play more than 1 role. You don't have to play all roles and you can still have your 'preferred' role. Just have a couple roles that you are comfortable with and you'll have a much better time in Yolo Queue.
4. You don't ward enough.
If you're stuck in silver league, chances are you don't ward enough. There's really not a lot to it - wards are your best friend in LoL. Buy more of them. If you're jungling, you could even consder buying a sightstone to help your team out.
If you want some good examples for WHERE to ward, check out Gbay's video on 'Everything You Need To Know About Warding'.
5. You don't understand how to push your advantage.
League of Legends is snowbally game. However, since the season 3 changes to the way killing spree and experience bonuses work from killing a champion, there is now more of an opportunity to come back in any game of LoL than there ever used to be. This is even truer in the lower leagues where players have a habit of throwing their advantages away.
If you understand how to push the advantages that you gain and not throw them away 'willy nilly' like most Silver players do, you can drive home any game that you get ahead in and punish your opponents for making silly mistakes.
This is something that a lot of top level players do WAY better than the average low ranked player, they push their advantages. A massive part of this is knowing when to take your advantage and group to end the laning phase and when to stay split.
Unfortunately I don't have enough time to cover that whole topic right here, if you'd like to find out more hints and tips to help you raise your league right now, check out Summoner School at thelolguide.com.
So that's all for 'Why You're Stuck In Silver League'. I'm UberGiantsBro, you can follow me on Twitter @UberGiantsBro. Have a great day!
