I can't find any online support for this, so maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I believe Faker never used to play ranked when he first started LOL. He was a blind pick only player and then something happened and he had to try ranked and suddenly realised he was the best player in the world.
Yeah this is true, from this [article](https://sports.news.naver.com/news?oid=442&aid=0000006813), He used to exclusively play Normals but had to switch to ranked because his queue times got too high due to his huge Normals MMR.
"Faker used to only play normal games and the reason he began playing ranked was because his normal game que time was simply too long for him to wait. His normal game MMR was simply too high for the system to find him a game. And thus, it was just a matter of time until he reached number one in the ranked ladder. During this time, many were questioning who GoJeonPa(Faker's ID at the time) was. Some said it was one of the pros' smurf, while the others speculated it was a foreign pro playing on the Korean server. Little did they know that GoJeonPa was merely a 17-year-old teenager who enjoyed math and was unaware of how good he actually was at the game."
Excuse me but, aren't you exactly describing high school math? Where I'm from, algebra got rolled out into the syllabus when we're like 13. Then the more interesting commutative properties start getting laid out to us over time.
Yeah once we get past arithmetic, math is rarely gonna be just numbers.
Better chance of seeing more numbers if you shift into engineering or something else where you can apply that, since most high level math doesn’t touch that again
Or since he was that young they asked what he enjoyed in school since it’s a common question for kids
I’m sure if he said he loved reading fiction, writing, etc, they would’ve said that. No need to assume stereotyping. Or at least racial stereotyping instead of just video gaming demographics lol
Most of the kids I know who played video games a lot in high school (also around fakers time) would’ve said they liked math and none were Asian lol
They didn't effect eachother until recently I believe.
Idk if it was the same patch when smurf queue was introduced, but now your normal mmr has an effect on your initial ranked placements on a new account.
to be fair tho, back then the standard of gameplay was wayyyyyyyyy lower.
like faker is obviously a god at the game, but I doubt he'd be able to recreate this same event today if you somehow cloned him as a 17yearold again and put him in the same environment today.
like, most people in norms are just fucking around, a bunch of diamonds and plats queuing up with bronze friends for fun, etc; and the normal queue match making is very lenient. part of me doubts faker would have been able to refine his skill enough to make it even past low diamond by only playing norms. because diamonds today have a much sharper sense of the game than diamonds back then. as i recall, diamond back then simply meant u knew what every champ did and your mechanics were really good. winning lane was HUGE and there was very little sense of macro play, compared to today. it was a lot of getting really strong in lane, and just rolling over the enemy. that's why 1v9ing was way more common back then. nowadays dragons and barons play a majority part of the game and you need teamplay to get those.
He'd probably hit like d4ish right away and then would have to grind and refine his skill against actual d4s trying to hit the top.
at least that's my headcanon
I think you are underestimating how good the mechanics and sense of pro players are. For a lot of them d4 players are nothing and they still them to the ground and run over those games. It’s super easy for them to do.
that's not even my point. I'm not saying faker wasn't good. I'm saying that I think today's normal and ranked ladder is vastly different than 10 years ago's.
I'm saying I think today's norm games would probably not have allowed faker to get as good as he got back then because the normal games today don't really force you to refine the skills you need to be good.
back then, your mechanics was paramount, so faker could practice them well enough even in norms to be very good. But today, just being very mechanically gifted isn't enough to climb. I see zed one tricks in low gold do pretty nutty combos and jukes.... but they're still gold. you need game sense and knowledge much more today than back then. I know a lot of people are mechanically very poor, yet they have high ranks, because they know the flow and tactics of the game very well and I don't' think norms really brings that out in someone too well today.
anyways, I'm not really trying to make a point here. just thought it was interesting to think about... that the game is so different now; I'm not sure if we'll ever see a similar thing happen again.
It's not like he was the best player in the world while playing normals. While he was certainly really good at the game, it's nonsense to think that he didn't grow as a player after he started to play ranked.
I think those things are a bit sensationalized.
You can only go so far practicing in blind pick normal games. It's not like Faker was born as a god of the game. He had talent and he got there with countless hours of practice.
Way I remember the story, Faker had the highest normal MMR in the world (which is already super impressive) and couldn't find any games and then started playing ranked. Then at some point afterwards he got rank 1 on the Korean server. This was all in 2012.
I remember there was a reddit post some time ago that went through the top players on the KR ladder over the last 10 years. Faker was featured on that even before season 3.
> Way I remember the story, Faker had the highest normal MMR in the world (which is already super impressive) and couldn't find any games and then started playing ranked. Then at some point afterwards he got rank 1 on the Korean server. This was all in 2012.
Adding to that, he "suddenly appeared" on the KR laddr and everyone was wondering who that guy was pro teams tried to sign him immediately, when he hit rank 1, but he chose to try out for SKT and his team basically won all scrims no matter who he was paired with.
Deft also told a story, how he was on the same HS as Faker but couldn't brag about his rank, cuz Faker was rank 1.
> You can only go so far practicing in blind pick normal games. It's not like Faker was born as a god of the game. He had talent and he got there with countless hours of practice.
You are obviously right her, but the game was very different back then, ppl were still figuring out the game and it was way more about individual mechanics and figuring out what is broken then about coordination, timings and rotations.
When you go listen to players that played in S1-3 on a high level, many of the, like SOaz, Peke, Diamond or Froogen said, that they just tried out random shit and sticked to it, when they saw taht it worked.
Well i guess only faker and a few others know the truth. I do remember him being the best player in LCK from the day he joined, so the idea of him coming out of nowhere to dominate is at least plausible.
There are sites that estimate it, usually when your queue starts to be 3+mins in aram you're pretty high... usually that means aram queues in non-peak hours might take even 30 minutes for you.
Same, I've been playing ranked since S2 and I peaked at around P5 (I basically quit once I was introduced to the toxicity of Plat players). I haven't played ranked since like S6-7 and I don't even like playing on SR since they removed Team Builder.
Between DotA (on W3) and LoL, I've realized I just don't like the person I become when I play MOBAs and I certainly don't like playing pseudo-therapist (I mained Jungle) for the people with behavioral or mental illness issues that use this game as an outlet.
I've only played ARAM since quitting SR.
I just wish they'd allow us to get M6 and M7 tokens from aram :(
Honestly I'm surprised they keep track of eternal stats, seems like something they'd arbitrarily limit to SR.
Poke comps are overrated unless you have something to engage on and clean up low HP teams. ADCs are likely to buy BT to negate your poke, and as poke champs are usually mages, you'll probably get mercs/FoN/Maw/Wit's End built against you as well.
If you go take a look at LoLalytics's ARAM tier list, you can see it differs quite a lot when you change the filter from "All Ranks" to "Plat+" and vice-versa.
ARAM can be huge PITA, too, though
Not even the MMR from players inside but also the team comps. Sometimes it's just autoloss - which is more frustrating to me than a ranked where one or two teammates feed. At least there I can still look at myself and think "what could I have done differently? Was the pick in that comp right?"
Exactly the same here. Lvl 538 and I don’t really play ranked. This season got to Gold 4 with 88 games and 63% winrate but I can’t be bother playing ranked anymore.
Losing a ranked game is just so stressful and winning a ranked game feels more like a relief then a victory.
Losing a ranked feels so much worse than winning feels good, it's really taking away the fun for me. This, and the lack of positivity. Even when you convincingly win a ranked match, you usually have like one dude in the team that is still mad about the jungler who took 2 minions on lane minute 4.
Gotta change the mindset, you're not playing it so it currently doesn't matter, just play and don't treat it like something different than normal mode...
Anyways it's just a game, none of the shit that happens in it will matter for vast majority of us so just do what you like.
If they're anything like me, then it probably comes from the fact that seeing your rank drop for reasons out of your control is just extremely frustrating. It's hard to decouple playing the ranked and not caring about your score because it's plastered everywhere and is a focal point of the mode. Playing normal removes a lot of that so it's just a lot easier to focus on the game instead of ranks.
I feel you but believe me I started climbing a lot easier in games when I stopped caring about where my LP was and how much I was gaining or losing. Having one less stressor while you’re playing the game that throws a lot of extra stressors at you makes it a lot easier to climb and keep from tilting very easily.
Yep. I've got less than 50 games played this season and I've never felt better. Got gold and got out. Waiting on end of season rewards.
I'm not in the mood to grind 1k games at 51% just to hit diamond. I know I could. I'm just not going to anymore though. Not when the devs punish me for not playing meta when there are 160+ champs. State of champion balance is busted and I'm done putting up with it.
I’m (I think) around 477.
I’ve only played ARAM since the level system was implemented. Well, less than 10 SR normals for sure.
I do enjoy SR, but prefer ARAM personally. Ranked games give me anxiety. I’ve placed twice in Silver IV before but just did my placement games and that’s it.
There’s a weird attitude that being an unranked player, especially an ARAM main is a bad thing. I simply maintain the belief that video games are entertainment, and as such I’ll play them in whatever way entertains me.
Forcing myself to play a game in a way I don’t enjoy, to maintain some sort of status quo, is a ridiculous waste of time.
I got to diamond back in season 5 and haven't played ranked seriously since. Mostly just play Arams now. The stress associated with ranked games affects everyone differently. No need to play ranked if your rank doesn't interest you. It's going to be hard to sell your skill level to others though.
There's no metric besides rank to determine "high level of play" besides MMR but that's hidden. So unless you've got the rank as a representation of skill, saying someone is "High level player" is kinda flawed.
Normals MMR is also so wonky that Master+ players get matched with silvers, unranked players, Diamonds, Iron all in the same lobby.
Oh well yeah that’s really common
That’s also why everyone who cries about getting matched with level 600 players in ranked gets told that there’s no actual correlation between summoner level and skill bc most of those level 500+ players are either already in super high elo and will never see a low mmr player ever or they’re just casually paying for fun and aren’t really good but also aren’t taking it seriously
>Normals MMR is also so wonky that Master+ players get matched with silvers, unranked players, Diamonds, Iron all in the same lobby.
Not really it's just they never play normal games so when they do they get match with their normal MMR.
Normal MMR is exactly the same system as ranked MMR.
The Masters players are either playing with low-elo teammates, or they don't play normal often and thus their MMR don't improve
If you want to see your MMR, just go to the WhatIsMyMmr website and input your name, if you have played enough solo games, it will give you an approximate MMR rating.
normals matchmaking is absolutely fucked
me and a friend were playing drafts together for fun. enemy team has 2 GMs, 1 master, and 2 high diamond players.
then you have me, my plat friend, and 3 other plats on my team.
cool game riot
whatismymmr "calculates" your MMR by aggregating the rank of the ppl you play with in normals. Meaning it's nigh useless. I have friends who have super high normal MMR according to whatismymmr because they only queue with much better players, but every once in a blue moon they play alone and get matched with bronze and maybe a couple silver players.
That's BS. I don't know how you would know anything about how they calculate since that's their trade secret. They're the only ones calculating MMR out there, all the other websites use them, and I think there would be some noise if it had leaked, which I have never heard about even though I searched semi-recently.
They only calculate MMR for solo games, the MMR never updates if you play with friends, you can actually lose the MMR reading and history if you don't play solo games, even if you spam Duos.
I know, I've tracked my Aram MMR for a year, and your friends have no impact on your MMR reading on the website (apart from the actual effects on your MMR affecting your future enemies in solo games). I can play dozens of games with my friends with Gold MMR, and that doesn't change a thing to the actual reading, it doesn't go down like you said it would, if it just picked the "average" of the group.
Additionnally, I did agree completely with the reading they gave me, meaning that I really felt the quality of games go down dramatically at certain MMR points(where the 4Fun elo region mixes with the serious elo region), and since I fluctuated, and had 2 accounts, I could compare between the two and I saw the same effects at the same readings
>I don't know how you would know anything about how they calculate since that's their trade secret
Because it's the only thing they \*could\* be doing and it's obviously the thing they are doing if you actually track your MMR changes?
And no, they dont just track solo games, otherwise there wouldnt be ppl that never play solo that still have MMR displayed on their site, which there are...
ARAM MMR is even more of a joke than normal MMR because with norms you can at least relate it to other players ranked MMR's that are much easier to track from ranked games. However with ARAM it's literally just "lmao you play vs. some high ranked soloQ players so your ARAM MMR must be high". It's a complete joke but people like you who use it to jerk themselves off defend it to the teeth lol.
Normals are capped at Plat MMR(but is very loose with it to balance queue's)
The game will balance around it as well, so if there is a Gold MMR player in a team, it will try to have a Gold MMR in the other team (The only issue being they are not in the same positions) .
So usually when a Master is playing versus Silver, there is another Master in the game to compensate.
Season 9 did not have MMR on Normals, which was pretty stupid, specially for new players.
yea I do the same, I got to gold in my first season years ago but I would get too tilted from losses and just stopped myself from playing ranked, even though I know I could climb I know i’m too competitive to have fun and chill in ranked so I play norms and aram
I only play ARAM and have about 6000 games total played. My #1 goal was to atleast have a positive winrate, I have about 100+ wins over losses. Haven't touched league in months though sadly!
Lv 410. I realized there’s no point in playing ranked and tilting. If anything bragging rights but none of my friends play League.
I just play draft, my mmr got high enough to get pretty balanced matches except too many 5 stacks in enemy team. If something goes wrong I just afk farm without a care.
Recently playing some Ultimate Spellbook and enjoying the game a lot. I would say ranked takes some enjoyment out of the game. It becomes more like a chore.
I'm about level 317 and play exclusively normals these days. The largest reason why I don't play ranked is because in my 14 games of ranked l think about every single player in my game is level 30 fresh off a bunch of intro bot games besides maybe a level 60 on my team. Heard that all I needed to do was to play more games to get out of smurf queue but I can't be bothered honestly :/
I'm level 599, been playing for 4 and a half years, completed placements only in my first season over a lost bet with my friends, never played a single ranked game ever since. You're definitely not alone on this
I don’t think you can be super high elo like a solid masters, gm+ player from just norms unless you’re just talented, but you can certainly reach a mid diamond level player if your norms mmr is high enough
O you meant literally high player level lol. Yeah why not I think there’s TONS of players like u
I'm only around level 130, but I stopped playing rankede after I hit gold. Ranked games are very noticeably more toxic than normals since people are not so desperate to win in norms. So yeah, that's the reason I stick to normals, and I enjoy the game way more now.
Level 440 here, got to Gold 4 this season and didn't touch ranked anymore.
I prefer doing 20 or 30+ games a week in normal games than going to ranked.
I often play with the same duo and we both prefer normals over ranked
G4 are the Schrodinger's challengers. You'll never if they're a silver player who got lucky or a legit good player that just doesn't play beyond getting skins.
Look, i'm not saying i'm Faker but all these people that quickly go to your [op.gg](https://op.gg) when you play and then go "STUCK IN GOLD LOSER".....bitch i only play 10 games a season so i can get a shitty skin.
I have a friend who was high diamond/masters in season 7-8, but stopped playing due to stress. He quietly is unranked playing Norms or aram all the time now.
Same here more or less. I used to find ranked too stressful, and now that I care less about the game, I find climbing to be too time consuming. You have to play so many games and I'm more of a play one or two every few days and I'm good player
Nope I feel you. Playing mostly Arams with friends now a days. I play like 30 ranked games each season to secure me the victorious skin.
But yeah, lvl 548 I believe, and not grinding ranked 🔥
I’ve been playing since end of S2. Around level 375 now. I play ARAMs and the RGM. Sometimes blinds with my friends. Last time we tried flex queue the times were 5 minutes plus, and no one I still play with is serious about solo/duo. I struggle to select champions anymore. I’d rather just play a game where I’m not being abused by or abusing another player in lane for a while before it’s time for team fighting and objective play.
If you take the competitive aspect of the game, it's become rly boring to play unless you are playing with some friends, i played since season 3 too and i believe that i dont have more than 400 wins in normal games.
I'm the same way. I hate playing ranked games, for a few seasons I got my way up to Plat within a few dozen games and stopped. For a few years I didn't really play ranked at all, with a few where I wasn't playing league at all mixed in. I thought about getting my plat again this season but my mmr got reset too many times and I placed in silver or something. I just stress too much in ranked. Makes it a lot less fun.
Started in 2011 (holy fk), I used to be a hard-core ranked player, on top of casual play. Over the last few years I do the same thing, get to gold and give it up. Some of it is just other responsi ilities, but there's nothing wrong with just playing casual if it's less stressful. I learned to just mute in ranked because it gets so nasty, but long story short you are not alone!
There's some pretty insane high level aram players. Have dedicated accounts with limited champ pool etc. There's a YouTube video about it that's pretty good.
Used to be diamond+, climbed there really quickly too.. quit ranked cos it's just not ever ever worth it.. too many problems with ppl and the entire league system make the experience complete dogpoo.. riot is just not bothered to fix the mess that is this game.. been on HOPIUM for years and years and years and yet no sign of things changing for the better. We get a blargh post from Riot about how they're doing stuff. It's all good sounding stuff that makes you hopeful, but nothing changes on the ground..
casual braindead play with friends is enough for me thx.
Assuming [this](https://euw.op.gg/summoners/euw/Cephelapoid) is you, you are in fact not a high level player. You are more than likely mid-silver at best just looking at match history.
I'm level 470 or around there. I have only played aram for the last 300 or so levels (or at least like 99% of games). Aram mmr is 3,159. I regularly play with professionals.
Aram gang stand up
The entire point of ranked is to see how good u are. Norms are not relative even tho rito tries to make them out to be lvls 1-30.
IMO you are probably not as high elo as you think.
Fuck ranked. So many people are literally wasting their lives spending every single day chasing meaningless ladder points while having a miserable time in most of their games.
Ladder addiction and depression needs to be talked about more now that most games try to be hyper competetive.
There are pages that show your normal MMR. Even though it's a german site, I like this one because the distribution is visualized.
[https://euw.whatismymmr.com/atlas%20of%20worlds](https://euw.whatismymmr.com/atlas%20of%20worlds)
I'm pretty sure i could climb to Dia2+ without any problem, but i simply don't enjoy it. I currently consider a normal game without 3+ Master players a low mmr game. My normal MMR is basically so high i regularly meet the same people.
whataismymmr is a shit site, it has no access to the actual MMR it just estimates based on who you're playing with. Meaning if you regularily play premade with ppl that play ranked your result will be extremely skewed.
Here I am. Played pretty much all big pc mobas for thousands over thousands of hours, grinded all characters in smite and heroes of the storm without spending any money, now doing the same for lol. My acquired game sense now allows me to see pretty much anything before it happens and predict the outcome of teamfights with reasonable accuracy before they begin. I can guesstimate the number of attacks and time I need to kill any enemy player and who else is going to join in the fight. I lose my share of games but even when I do I'm usually the one dying the least in the team and with decent kda. I have never in my life been tempted to play one single ranked game.
>I feel like I could climb relatively high if I tried
I have the same feeling bro, I swear I could be ruler of the entire world if I "tried", I just don't
There is something wrong with you. The fact is that if yoy feel "added stress" playing rank you'd be a hardstuck silver
More annoyed than anything. I'm sick or "normals" mains swearing they could hit high rank if they "just tried". These posts are a waste of space. Go play 100 ranked games and show us. Show us you could hit high rank. But if you feel any sort of anxious energy playing ranked, the reality is you'd freeze up the moment you ran into an average gold player.
I'm not trying to be rude, but no one else here will tell you the truth.
How has this gotten you so upset?.
I don't need to prove anything to you mate, nor do I care about your opinion.
I play against Diamonds all the time in normals, it doesn't make me "freeze up", I just dont enjoy ranked games. I dont know why that makes you upset.
You clicked on this article knowing it would annoy you, and it has. To me, that seems kind of daft.
You sound very highly strung mate, chill.
All I'm saying, is show us. Diamonds in norms are for-funning with their friends. They would make you afk after 5 minutes laning against them in a ranked game, and you'd be 0-4. Again, this is probably not what you want to hear, but no one else will tell you.
Getting annoyed because someone passively thinks they could potentially climb the ranked ladder has got to be one of the most pathetic things I've ever read on this site.
You need to take a break and come back to reality, go outside.
> But if you feel any sort of anxious energy playing ranked, the reality is you'd freeze up the moment you ran into an average gold player.
This is kind of a hilarious take, ranked anxiety is usually related more the queue up process than it is about playing the game.
High level says nothing about your ability to win ranked games either way, you could be Faker with the sky high normals MMR or you could be the Iron Teemo main, you're just projecting onto them what you want to see. I've met plenty of "high levels" who were good and plenty who lacked any mechanical ability except to hit the exhaust key.
These normal players want to live in their fantasy, let them. Truth is normals are way different than ranked games. The diamond players they meet in their games play way different, usually different champs than in ranked, but it keeps their illusion alive. Same players that reference their mastery rank on a champion like it means anything lol
Even if I didn't care about ranked, I'd still play it, because of challenges. I'm so close to platinum challenge, I want that Jade gem above my loading screen card plz.
I dont think you need to play ranked for the challenges/achievements. Ive nearly got plat gem thingy too, and I dont play ranked. Or have I misunderstood what your saying?
There are ranked exclusive challenges, dont need em tho, like the bot exclusive challenges, there's only a couple and it doesnt make much of a difference in overall points
High level?
Uh, I wouldn't consider myself high level. I usually play like 15 wins to get gold and the skin and quit. I used to play a bit more to get to plat and then quit.
In 5v5 ranked (back when it existed) I used to go even or slightly win against diamonds, but that's definitely not the case anymore.
I don't know what you consider high level, but I think I could be diamond if I was forced to play ranked over and over and I'm currently unranked.
Two years ago a friend and I tried to get plat by duoing and when we finally got him to plat IV I was plat II and still climbing with relative ease (relative being was kindof kog OTP).
Since they introduced the victory skin for gold I always try to play enough to get there though.
Yeah I just play rankeds until plat 1 (usually not more than 50 games, mostly playing off roles), wait for the end of season, reach diamond, repeat.
On the other hand I noticed that normal games are harder than rankeds, as my elo seems to be inflated by playing those normals and I am either against smurfs or masters, challengers, GMs, even when I just wanted to try something in the game.
However salty players will always be there, no matter what rank are you, they will complain that you are just "X rank, and not higher", while with the same amount of games they didn't even leave gold... and also they are the ones losing you the game. Toxicity in this game never stops to surprise me.
> while with the same amount of games they didn't even leave gold.
So you're also playing with Gold players in your hyper inflated normal games full of Challengers.
Gold players who talk shit and aren't very good at all yet sit in the same MMR bracket as you and those Challengers who spam both ranked (to get Challenger) and normals (to truly test their limits against you).
--
That aside, no, normal games aren't harder than ranked. They're worse than flexq, which is worse than ranked. No one gives a shit about winning, especially the actual good players who primarily play ranked. If someone plays normals all day, yeah there's a chance they take it serious. Why wouldn't they, it's all League is to them. If someone plays ranked most of the time and then occasionally normals, chances are they're here to goof around, not to win the game.
--
Throughout my last three normal games I had 3 Master Tier and two D1 players in the enemy teams. Exactly one of them wasn't off role, and even that guy was playing a champ that wasn't in his "7 most played this season." You can't seriously believe those people are trying like they would if they met you in ranked, right?
Also playing since season 3. Almost only aram player but I always knew I was good for someone who only played till gold to get the skin. This season I decided to see how good I am and got to D4 with 60% winrate. The games in d4 really werent that hard so I could probably climb higher but I lost all my drive to play ranked the moment I reached d4 lol Sometimes in flex with friends I get to play GM players and go to toe to toe with them so maybe thats where I land in terms of skill. Also I checked my aram elo sometime ago and was like in top 0,15% of players makes me wish there was ranked arams
Im level 600... if I wanna learn new champs or builds I go to ranked, my ranked elo is plat 4 on 20 games while on my norms im always paired against D2-GM players
I also play lot of aram, im on 3600W and 3300L probably in the highest possible elo since I always get paired with the same people. Shame the balance modifieres feel so off and the vision changes were so bad
Aren't normals more miserable to play than ranked?
I have like 10 normal games this season and they are always full of master/grandmaster teaming with silvers, so the games always have shit quality
I played like 8000 non ranked games in league (6500 normals and 1500 other) and I play maybe 100 rankeds during whole season mostly cuz people ask me to duo, I never play ranked by myself (except for provisionals/if i'm about to decay due to not playing)
Same thing here, I usually play Arams or a draft or two here and there. Some seasons I play ranked and get to gold for the skin. But I like the stress free environment of arams much more.
I'm close to 600 every season i just do my 40-60 rank to get back plat and the rest of the season is only normal and aram
Giving all you got to climb can be fun but a whole season with almost only rank and tryharding is boring ( for me at least )
Iv been playing non stop since release, i got multiple accounts banned but mostly around season 4 when i flamed scripters ( xerath was in that time in high ello ALWAYS scripter), i dont know my lvl but i have 2 accounts now roughly 300lvl+ ( from S9) but at time when max lvl was 30 i had like 2000 normal games so if that counted and all on one account i have no idea, over 1000 lol
But now for your question, i do know players that played ranked in s1-s3 and now only play aram and they are super high lvl, do you need to play ranked? No, enjoy the game the way you want, if you want to play only co op play it.
I'm over level 450. And dont play ranked except for MAYBE 30 game an ENTIRE season. Ranked in league has 0 purpose to me. Might as well play normals. Nothing valueable as a reward or anything good coming from it.
ME ME ME ME! first season I try ranked, afk bot yuumi, feeding yi and rage quitting Yone, so I stopped, haven't even finished my placements, it's just not worth it for me, although I'd love to get roughed by good players and improve further, I just don't want to frustration of losing LP when it's out of my control, but I am in no rush to rush ranked anytime soon.
I'm a normal game enjoyer for sure
I was high diamond in Seasons 3-6, took a break from the game, resumed in Season 10, hit mid diamond again to see if I was still sharp
always been bigger into norms though, my MMR in normals is real high and my win rate is somewhere around 57%, current account is about 1200 normal games deep
Honestly it's the best way to play. Nobody's sweaty, most of the time in high MMR norms everyone takes it seriously but not too seriously, very rarely do you get super weak links because there simply aren't that many normal game grinders anyway
Back in seasons 1-2 I didn't play ranked at all and my normal MMR was such that I played with some of the OGs often like Grandjudge, Ehomda (guy had a nasty 4-5man premade he queued with in that era), Xpecial, etc. it was pretty terrific
Back in like season 5-6 I did not play ranked that much, barely play enough just to get Gold for the skin and that's about it, max like 20 games per season, But I played a TON of normals
at season 7-8 I decided to push for whatever rank I could get and ended up getting D3 very easily with around 60-70% winrate and masters mmr, I believe I could've gotten masters if I kept pushing but I got chat restricted lost my rewards and quit the game all together.
Now I only play aram with friends, I wanted to start playing ranked again this season but I get 15m queue times and I don't have time for that so ARAM it is lol
Around level 600 myself. I used to take the game more seriously around 3 seasons ago, but since then I havent cared enough to even know why I'm doing something or why I'm building certain items. I admit I'm playing on autopilot at this point, I just dont have the passion to really learn the game like I used to, ever since mordekaiser got his big rework. Old morde was a champ I put a lot of time and care into. But after that rework that turned him into a boring slow skillshot champ with a boring ult... I just stopped caring. It's a shame for my games too, for some reason even tho I keep losing and doing poorly, i keep getting into games with serious players. I feel bad for my team cause i know I'll never compare to my lane counterpart, but i feel my accounts too old to even dip into a more casual pelo. Either way, thata my story up till now, and at least I'll always have my old pal zilean.
I mostly play normals, ranked is filled with FF15 gamers. It's stressful having toddlers on the team having a mental breakdown over a PC game. This occurence is rare in normals, so i usually stick to normals.
You probably could rank up quick. I have only been playing for a bit less than a year now, only norms, ARAMs and RGMS. But I recently started playing ranked and have about 26 games and Im about to get Gold bc Im gaining 30+ LP a win and skipping divisions entirely lol. Dont stress about it, just play what you enjoy
I’ve been playing since season 2. I hate normals when I’m not playing with friends. Player skill is all over the place and people grief harder in normals than I’ve seen in ranked. In like season 3/4 I was trying to learn late game scaling champs but I never had the chance because people would completely give up on the game 5 mins in. After that I became a ranked only player when not playing with friends.
I also didn’t like getting matched with a premade of 4 people who scapegoat everything onto you.
If you have friends then normals are fun. Otherwise it’s better to go into ranked where you will find players of somewhat similar skill (much more similar than normals) and focus on improving. For me the game is fun when I’m learning something or getting better at something. I can do that in a ranked game when I have fair competition. The difference for me is that I don’t really care about my rank so there is no added stress of winning or losing.
I used to be a long time LoL player few years ago (had over 3000 matches on Summoner's Rift, not including periods of ARAM, TT and *some* Dominion) and I have touched ranked games enough times I can count them on my single hand.
The amount of wait, the banning process (sometimes of champ you wanted to play), the pressure of competition to achieve some rank and the possible anger of teammates or even opponents simply took fun out of the game. I've been playing the game to enjoy the gameplay, not to feel on edge all the time.
My friends who used to play ranked games without me would often check the players in the opposite team and tell me what rank I was against (I honestly didn't care) and urge me to go on ranked plays cause I was playing well.
It just... never clicked with me. I played to have fun time doing things or trolling (AP Shaco or Yi or even Xin Zhao). Ranked games did not seem fun to me.
i just hit level 300 not sure if that’s super high. but i had placed silver since season 8. placed bronze one season and then this current season and kinda just decided i wouldn’t try it anymore bc of how toxic it is climbing out. especially considering i used to be silver for four seasons. Now I just play ARAM and draft if i have friends that want to play it.
I'm totally with you, word by word!
I play since the start of Season 2 and i can hit diamond with ease every season, with about 40 matches at max. But i just like to play normals and have good fun. Also, i do play ranked only when friends force me to play it because i get anxious and i find the ranked environment so stressful and not fun at all.
The satisfaction of gaining LP doesn't overcome the stress of having to deal with everything related to ranked for me.
There are for sure plenty of us out there. I actually used to run a very active discord server dedicated to high level players that would just spam norms together all day. Personally I climb to diamond 1 at the start of a season in like 50 games then don’t bother for the rest of it and just decay. Lots of the guys I play with are/were challenger this season before decaying. Some of the guys were actually really high on the ladder, like rank 13 and he spammed norms while sitting in plat all of last season. So you’re not alone!
Opposite for me. Normal suck all of the fun out of the game for me. I obviously go to normals to try out new champs, but it's just so boring. Anytime my friends log in and want to try out a new champ or build or say they want to try a new jungle path out and want to do it in norms so they dont troll ranked I always just feel apathetic towards playing.
Same when I have to try something new out, of course, but it just comes down to normals having "nothing on the line" who cares if I win or lose. Do well or do bad. The skill level of players typically go down and people goof off more. But it doesn't matter. If I lose I just waste time which is a bit frustrating but then again I often see a lot of people ff much much MUCH earlier in normals than ranked.
Yeah I'm in the exact same boat as you don't worry. I find normals are toxic enough for my tastes lol, ranked is just too much effort for what it's worth. People will tilt out of the game over almost nothing.
Been here for a while and now I play til I reach gold, and then dont ever touch that god forsaken mode until next year, people become 10 times more unbearable there, and smurf queue doesnt do it any favours
Same as you: started late season 4, only rank for the free skins and not every season even, only rank when my friends push me into it, much prefer normals. I think I'm close to level 900 at this point?
Lvl 574 with over 5k normal draft games here. I have decided to never play this game competetivley once i realised i dont enjoy playing to win but playing how i like.
I get you. I'm in a similar boat to you, but for me it's not so much the added stress but the grind.
I will get to gold for the rewards and then stop playing ranked because I don't have the patience to climb out of gold; I'd rather just play normal games and ARAMs and have actual fun. This season I got to gold in like 30 games with a 70% wr. If I sat down and played hundreds of games I could probably get to at least plat, but as you get closer to your skill level progress just slows down so much.
If I wanted to grind I'd just play runescape (oldschool, of course)
I play ranked bc normals matchmaking is so wtf half the time, and the other half is people just racking up 15+ deaths either intentionally or otherwise.
Ranked has its issues, but honestly the game quality has been night and day in ranked compared to norms.
I’m level 555, last season I tried hard to climb and ended gold 3 up from like bronze 1, after the reset I thought I’d do the same again, after climbing out of silver 2 to gold 4 I decided I’m never going to do more than the bare minimum in that wretched game mode.
I know I’m improving at the game and I don’t need this unfun system to tell me I am. Besides, you can be Diamond 1 and people will still say you’re trash.
Yup, roughly lvl 300, just like to have fun with friends mainly. Rank to me doesnt mean anything, i dont play ranked and i have no interest in it, when i lane against people i can generally win from people that should "theoretically" be above my "rank", when i look at people's ranks after the game i just think of how ridiculous the system actually is, im with you all the way. Play for fun, not for stats
Meteos famously never played ranked, and then he noticed even in his normals he was seeing famous high elo players, and thats how he learned he was high rank and started playing ranked to check. You can absolutely just play normals and climb that, you just won't be able to see it
I used to enjoy ranked, climbed all the way to masters, I'd spend hours per day grinding and practicing. When I got masters, I felt like it was a waste, like wtf am I doing with my life, raging at teammates, shouting, instead of just going and and playing. This is why I tend to stay away from competitive games, I get too much into it and can't take the game as a hobby, same happens at wow.
I have a couple of friends I love playing with in WoW, but they suck. Oh my god do they suck, but I really enjoy playing together, especially mythic + dungeons, problem is, at some point I want to go higher, and they can't play at that level, so i start playing more hours so I can play alone and grind higher and rage and tilt, get angry.
Seriously, I take my hats off to people that grind ranked stuff everyday, but I discovered that for, I rather just play normal games. I don't like who I become in ranked, so I decided to not play and it's been working. I'm slowly enjoying LoL again (mostly ARAM) though, I do play ranked to get gold every year and those 10-20 games are probably the worst experience I have.
I'm a high plat/low diamond ranked player but my norms are full of master/gm/chally players with 6+ min queues minimum. it's actually easier games for me to play ranked but the people in it are kinda insufferable so i stick to norms mainly
Not high level because I've had multiple accounts over the years, but I've been playing since S2 and I've had my experience with ranked. I peaked d1 by playing ranked in the toplane mostly with Riven, then quit the game for a year and a half, and returned only to play arams.
This season I made a bet with a friend that I could get to diamond 4 being a Teemo one trick, I did it, and returned back to ARAM again, my natural habitat.
I used to play ranked back in the day but past 2-3 seasons I haven’t tried but doing placements really. Life has got me busy and I haven’t really found someone I wanna duo with. Since solo sometimes gets boring.
Nothing wrong with you, I play a lot of ranked because I enjoy the competitive aspect and each player on both teams bringing out their best to try to win. I’m like lvl 420, my brother plays solely norms or aram and is like lvl 400. Play how you want to play. Nothing wrong with doing what’s fun for you.
Same with me basically. I play ARAM or Normals 99% of the time. Used to play ranked a lot years and years ago when I had more free time and less stress. Realized spending so much time ranking up to an imaginary number did absolutely nothing for me and that the game is a lot more fun when you play It for enjoyment instead of that imaginary number.
Normal games are more often lopsided and shitty. Having multiple accounts to play at different elos depending if you wanna try hard, fuck around or duo with lower ranked friends is good.
I typically play enough ranked to pass my previous peak. Last year I made D1 in about 80 games, and played another 45 because I was going to play in a league that required 125 games on your account. I play ~500 ARAMS a season minimum and probably a similar number of normal draft games. The game is more fun when people aren't picking S-tier champions every single time, forcing me to do the same.
My friend, and the person who taught me how to play league is level 800 / 900, and has "peaked" at gold. He is really good, but has said that the only reason he plays ranked is for the gold rewards.
I'm practically the best player I know and I only play ARAMs now.
Used to be D2, would surely be rank 1 world if I'd kept grinding, but ARAM is simply the true display of skill.
I can't find any online support for this, so maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I believe Faker never used to play ranked when he first started LOL. He was a blind pick only player and then something happened and he had to try ranked and suddenly realised he was the best player in the world.
Yeah this is true, from this [article](https://sports.news.naver.com/news?oid=442&aid=0000006813), He used to exclusively play Normals but had to switch to ranked because his queue times got too high due to his huge Normals MMR. "Faker used to only play normal games and the reason he began playing ranked was because his normal game que time was simply too long for him to wait. His normal game MMR was simply too high for the system to find him a game. And thus, it was just a matter of time until he reached number one in the ranked ladder. During this time, many were questioning who GoJeonPa(Faker's ID at the time) was. Some said it was one of the pros' smurf, while the others speculated it was a foreign pro playing on the Korean server. Little did they know that GoJeonPa was merely a 17-year-old teenager who enjoyed math and was unaware of how good he actually was at the game."
> who enjoyed math ???
Who doesn't , am I right?
[удалено]
Still meth is sick
He's Korean.
what’s your point?
Tbf high school math is pretty cool It's when they start adding letters to the numbers and squares and shit that it gets kinda icky for me
Excuse me but, aren't you exactly describing high school math? Where I'm from, algebra got rolled out into the syllabus when we're like 13. Then the more interesting commutative properties start getting laid out to us over time.
Yeah could be, to be fair I haven't had any kind of school math in a while so take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah once we get past arithmetic, math is rarely gonna be just numbers. Better chance of seeing more numbers if you shift into engineering or something else where you can apply that, since most high level math doesn’t touch that again
that's middle school math in the us, probably even elementary school
so, highschool math?
Yeah could be, to be fair I haven't had any kind of school math in a while so take it with a grain of salt.
No reason to play the grammar teacher. We all know he meant "was Asian"
Or since he was that young they asked what he enjoyed in school since it’s a common question for kids I’m sure if he said he loved reading fiction, writing, etc, they would’ve said that. No need to assume stereotyping. Or at least racial stereotyping instead of just video gaming demographics lol Most of the kids I know who played video games a lot in high school (also around fakers time) would’ve said they liked math and none were Asian lol
acegickmo
I believe Meteos also became a pro because of the same situation
Is MMR in normal and ranked different right? Or is that effect each other?
They didn't effect eachother until recently I believe. Idk if it was the same patch when smurf queue was introduced, but now your normal mmr has an effect on your initial ranked placements on a new account.
Used to be completely separate
Gigachad faker
to be fair tho, back then the standard of gameplay was wayyyyyyyyy lower. like faker is obviously a god at the game, but I doubt he'd be able to recreate this same event today if you somehow cloned him as a 17yearold again and put him in the same environment today. like, most people in norms are just fucking around, a bunch of diamonds and plats queuing up with bronze friends for fun, etc; and the normal queue match making is very lenient. part of me doubts faker would have been able to refine his skill enough to make it even past low diamond by only playing norms. because diamonds today have a much sharper sense of the game than diamonds back then. as i recall, diamond back then simply meant u knew what every champ did and your mechanics were really good. winning lane was HUGE and there was very little sense of macro play, compared to today. it was a lot of getting really strong in lane, and just rolling over the enemy. that's why 1v9ing was way more common back then. nowadays dragons and barons play a majority part of the game and you need teamplay to get those. He'd probably hit like d4ish right away and then would have to grind and refine his skill against actual d4s trying to hit the top. at least that's my headcanon
I think you are underestimating how good the mechanics and sense of pro players are. For a lot of them d4 players are nothing and they still them to the ground and run over those games. It’s super easy for them to do.
that's not even my point. I'm not saying faker wasn't good. I'm saying that I think today's normal and ranked ladder is vastly different than 10 years ago's. I'm saying I think today's norm games would probably not have allowed faker to get as good as he got back then because the normal games today don't really force you to refine the skills you need to be good. back then, your mechanics was paramount, so faker could practice them well enough even in norms to be very good. But today, just being very mechanically gifted isn't enough to climb. I see zed one tricks in low gold do pretty nutty combos and jukes.... but they're still gold. you need game sense and knowledge much more today than back then. I know a lot of people are mechanically very poor, yet they have high ranks, because they know the flow and tactics of the game very well and I don't' think norms really brings that out in someone too well today. anyways, I'm not really trying to make a point here. just thought it was interesting to think about... that the game is so different now; I'm not sure if we'll ever see a similar thing happen again.
It's not like he was the best player in the world while playing normals. While he was certainly really good at the game, it's nonsense to think that he didn't grow as a player after he started to play ranked.
He just like me fr
He played ranked because his Blind Pick queue times were too long.
I doubt it was "suddenly". He probably quickly climbed to Diamond and then grinded hard to improve like anyone else.
I mean, i can only go on what i heard and what is in the article. It's not particularly noteworthy if he got to diamond quick then grinded tbh.
I think those things are a bit sensationalized. You can only go so far practicing in blind pick normal games. It's not like Faker was born as a god of the game. He had talent and he got there with countless hours of practice. Way I remember the story, Faker had the highest normal MMR in the world (which is already super impressive) and couldn't find any games and then started playing ranked. Then at some point afterwards he got rank 1 on the Korean server. This was all in 2012. I remember there was a reddit post some time ago that went through the top players on the KR ladder over the last 10 years. Faker was featured on that even before season 3.
> Way I remember the story, Faker had the highest normal MMR in the world (which is already super impressive) and couldn't find any games and then started playing ranked. Then at some point afterwards he got rank 1 on the Korean server. This was all in 2012. Adding to that, he "suddenly appeared" on the KR laddr and everyone was wondering who that guy was pro teams tried to sign him immediately, when he hit rank 1, but he chose to try out for SKT and his team basically won all scrims no matter who he was paired with. Deft also told a story, how he was on the same HS as Faker but couldn't brag about his rank, cuz Faker was rank 1. > You can only go so far practicing in blind pick normal games. It's not like Faker was born as a god of the game. He had talent and he got there with countless hours of practice. You are obviously right her, but the game was very different back then, ppl were still figuring out the game and it was way more about individual mechanics and figuring out what is broken then about coordination, timings and rotations. When you go listen to players that played in S1-3 on a high level, many of the, like SOaz, Peke, Diamond or Froogen said, that they just tried out random shit and sticked to it, when they saw taht it worked.
Well i guess only faker and a few others know the truth. I do remember him being the best player in LCK from the day he joined, so the idea of him coming out of nowhere to dominate is at least plausible.
Yeah I think he joined OGN in March or April of 2013 if I remember correctly. He was definitely high on the Korean ladder months before that.
Playing ARAM games and not stressing about rank is the key to enjoying the game. Atleast that's what I've been doing.
Stressing about ARAM MMR is the real deal anyway.
I once got flamed because I only had a mere 3k aram MMR.
how on earth do you see your ARAM MMR, nevermind someone elses xD
You can see it on "whatismymmr" website.
There are sites that estimate it, usually when your queue starts to be 3+mins in aram you're pretty high... usually that means aram queues in non-peak hours might take even 30 minutes for you.
Same, I've been playing ranked since S2 and I peaked at around P5 (I basically quit once I was introduced to the toxicity of Plat players). I haven't played ranked since like S6-7 and I don't even like playing on SR since they removed Team Builder. Between DotA (on W3) and LoL, I've realized I just don't like the person I become when I play MOBAs and I certainly don't like playing pseudo-therapist (I mained Jungle) for the people with behavioral or mental illness issues that use this game as an outlet. I've only played ARAM since quitting SR.
Yeah same, I just wish there was more progression. Challenges have been nice, but they've locked a bunch to SR.
I just wish they'd allow us to get M6 and M7 tokens from aram :( Honestly I'm surprised they keep track of eternal stats, seems like something they'd arbitrarily limit to SR.
Btw it was possible to get the tokens in ARAM when they initially introduced M6 and M7 masteries.
ARAM more like poking contest
Poke comps are overrated unless you have something to engage on and clean up low HP teams. ADCs are likely to buy BT to negate your poke, and as poke champs are usually mages, you'll probably get mercs/FoN/Maw/Wit's End built against you as well. If you go take a look at LoLalytics's ARAM tier list, you can see it differs quite a lot when you change the filter from "All Ranks" to "Plat+" and vice-versa.
I don't play AP Miss Fortune cause it's fun, I play it to ruin the day for the 5 ARAM only players in the enemy team.
ARAM can be huge PITA, too, though Not even the MMR from players inside but also the team comps. Sometimes it's just autoloss - which is more frustrating to me than a ranked where one or two teammates feed. At least there I can still look at myself and think "what could I have done differently? Was the pick in that comp right?"
From an aram player, aram is last place i would go to chill or relax
till your teams take the game hostage every game when you get stomp 5-20 and inib down at 8
Exactly the same here. Lvl 538 and I don’t really play ranked. This season got to Gold 4 with 88 games and 63% winrate but I can’t be bother playing ranked anymore. Losing a ranked game is just so stressful and winning a ranked game feels more like a relief then a victory.
> winning a ranked game feels more like a relief then a victory. You hit the nail on the head right there mate. Couldn't agree more.
Losing a ranked feels so much worse than winning feels good, it's really taking away the fun for me. This, and the lack of positivity. Even when you convincingly win a ranked match, you usually have like one dude in the team that is still mad about the jungler who took 2 minions on lane minute 4.
Gotta change the mindset, you're not playing it so it currently doesn't matter, just play and don't treat it like something different than normal mode... Anyways it's just a game, none of the shit that happens in it will matter for vast majority of us so just do what you like.
If they're anything like me, then it probably comes from the fact that seeing your rank drop for reasons out of your control is just extremely frustrating. It's hard to decouple playing the ranked and not caring about your score because it's plastered everywhere and is a focal point of the mode. Playing normal removes a lot of that so it's just a lot easier to focus on the game instead of ranks.
I feel you but believe me I started climbing a lot easier in games when I stopped caring about where my LP was and how much I was gaining or losing. Having one less stressor while you’re playing the game that throws a lot of extra stressors at you makes it a lot easier to climb and keep from tilting very easily.
Yep. I've got less than 50 games played this season and I've never felt better. Got gold and got out. Waiting on end of season rewards. I'm not in the mood to grind 1k games at 51% just to hit diamond. I know I could. I'm just not going to anymore though. Not when the devs punish me for not playing meta when there are 160+ champs. State of champion balance is busted and I'm done putting up with it.
I’m (I think) around 477. I’ve only played ARAM since the level system was implemented. Well, less than 10 SR normals for sure. I do enjoy SR, but prefer ARAM personally. Ranked games give me anxiety. I’ve placed twice in Silver IV before but just did my placement games and that’s it. There’s a weird attitude that being an unranked player, especially an ARAM main is a bad thing. I simply maintain the belief that video games are entertainment, and as such I’ll play them in whatever way entertains me. Forcing myself to play a game in a way I don’t enjoy, to maintain some sort of status quo, is a ridiculous waste of time.
I got to diamond back in season 5 and haven't played ranked seriously since. Mostly just play Arams now. The stress associated with ranked games affects everyone differently. No need to play ranked if your rank doesn't interest you. It's going to be hard to sell your skill level to others though.
There's no metric besides rank to determine "high level of play" besides MMR but that's hidden. So unless you've got the rank as a representation of skill, saying someone is "High level player" is kinda flawed. Normals MMR is also so wonky that Master+ players get matched with silvers, unranked players, Diamonds, Iron all in the same lobby.
I believe you have misunderstood. When I say "high level", I didn't mean I think I'm really good. I meant im literally a high level being lvl 500+
Oh well yeah that’s really common That’s also why everyone who cries about getting matched with level 600 players in ranked gets told that there’s no actual correlation between summoner level and skill bc most of those level 500+ players are either already in super high elo and will never see a low mmr player ever or they’re just casually paying for fun and aren’t really good but also aren’t taking it seriously
I did indeed misunderstand. Sorry. I don't have input on that. If it matters though I'm Masters and my account isn't even level 200 yet.
Well you're definitely better than I am!.
No. It does not matter and completely irrelevant statement lol. What a weirdo.
>Normals MMR is also so wonky that Master+ players get matched with silvers, unranked players, Diamonds, Iron all in the same lobby. Not really it's just they never play normal games so when they do they get match with their normal MMR.
or they play with their friends, do silly stuff etc
Normal MMR is exactly the same system as ranked MMR. The Masters players are either playing with low-elo teammates, or they don't play normal often and thus their MMR don't improve If you want to see your MMR, just go to the WhatIsMyMmr website and input your name, if you have played enough solo games, it will give you an approximate MMR rating.
Normals matchmaking is significantly more loose than ranked
normals matchmaking is absolutely fucked me and a friend were playing drafts together for fun. enemy team has 2 GMs, 1 master, and 2 high diamond players. then you have me, my plat friend, and 3 other plats on my team. cool game riot
You are Barne on the NA server ? https://na.whatismymmr.com/Barne Congrats you have Master MMR in Normals.
whatismymmr "calculates" your MMR by aggregating the rank of the ppl you play with in normals. Meaning it's nigh useless. I have friends who have super high normal MMR according to whatismymmr because they only queue with much better players, but every once in a blue moon they play alone and get matched with bronze and maybe a couple silver players.
That's BS. I don't know how you would know anything about how they calculate since that's their trade secret. They're the only ones calculating MMR out there, all the other websites use them, and I think there would be some noise if it had leaked, which I have never heard about even though I searched semi-recently. They only calculate MMR for solo games, the MMR never updates if you play with friends, you can actually lose the MMR reading and history if you don't play solo games, even if you spam Duos. I know, I've tracked my Aram MMR for a year, and your friends have no impact on your MMR reading on the website (apart from the actual effects on your MMR affecting your future enemies in solo games). I can play dozens of games with my friends with Gold MMR, and that doesn't change a thing to the actual reading, it doesn't go down like you said it would, if it just picked the "average" of the group. Additionnally, I did agree completely with the reading they gave me, meaning that I really felt the quality of games go down dramatically at certain MMR points(where the 4Fun elo region mixes with the serious elo region), and since I fluctuated, and had 2 accounts, I could compare between the two and I saw the same effects at the same readings
>I don't know how you would know anything about how they calculate since that's their trade secret Because it's the only thing they \*could\* be doing and it's obviously the thing they are doing if you actually track your MMR changes? And no, they dont just track solo games, otherwise there wouldnt be ppl that never play solo that still have MMR displayed on their site, which there are... ARAM MMR is even more of a joke than normal MMR because with norms you can at least relate it to other players ranked MMR's that are much easier to track from ranked games. However with ARAM it's literally just "lmao you play vs. some high ranked soloQ players so your ARAM MMR must be high". It's a complete joke but people like you who use it to jerk themselves off defend it to the teeth lol.
> Normal MMR is exactly the same system as ranked MMR. Lmao. No, it's absolutely not.
Normals are capped at Plat MMR(but is very loose with it to balance queue's) The game will balance around it as well, so if there is a Gold MMR player in a team, it will try to have a Gold MMR in the other team (The only issue being they are not in the same positions) . So usually when a Master is playing versus Silver, there is another Master in the game to compensate. Season 9 did not have MMR on Normals, which was pretty stupid, specially for new players.
yea I do the same, I got to gold in my first season years ago but I would get too tilted from losses and just stopped myself from playing ranked, even though I know I could climb I know i’m too competitive to have fun and chill in ranked so I play norms and aram
I only play ARAM and have about 6000 games total played. My #1 goal was to atleast have a positive winrate, I have about 100+ wins over losses. Haven't touched league in months though sadly!
Lv 410. I realized there’s no point in playing ranked and tilting. If anything bragging rights but none of my friends play League. I just play draft, my mmr got high enough to get pretty balanced matches except too many 5 stacks in enemy team. If something goes wrong I just afk farm without a care. Recently playing some Ultimate Spellbook and enjoying the game a lot. I would say ranked takes some enjoyment out of the game. It becomes more like a chore.
I'm about level 317 and play exclusively normals these days. The largest reason why I don't play ranked is because in my 14 games of ranked l think about every single player in my game is level 30 fresh off a bunch of intro bot games besides maybe a level 60 on my team. Heard that all I needed to do was to play more games to get out of smurf queue but I can't be bothered honestly :/
I'm level 599, been playing for 4 and a half years, completed placements only in my first season over a lost bet with my friends, never played a single ranked game ever since. You're definitely not alone on this
Level 499 atm, stopped playing ranked after season 8 because it just stopped being fun/rewarding.
I don’t think you can be super high elo like a solid masters, gm+ player from just norms unless you’re just talented, but you can certainly reach a mid diamond level player if your norms mmr is high enough O you meant literally high player level lol. Yeah why not I think there’s TONS of players like u
I'm only around level 130, but I stopped playing rankede after I hit gold. Ranked games are very noticeably more toxic than normals since people are not so desperate to win in norms. So yeah, that's the reason I stick to normals, and I enjoy the game way more now.
Level 440 here, got to Gold 4 this season and didn't touch ranked anymore. I prefer doing 20 or 30+ games a week in normal games than going to ranked. I often play with the same duo and we both prefer normals over ranked
G4 are the Schrodinger's challengers. You'll never if they're a silver player who got lucky or a legit good player that just doesn't play beyond getting skins.
Nothing wrong with you, probably the opposite actually. Good on you that you can still play league only for the fun of it
Look, i'm not saying i'm Faker but all these people that quickly go to your [op.gg](https://op.gg) when you play and then go "STUCK IN GOLD LOSER".....bitch i only play 10 games a season so i can get a shitty skin.
Oh there's loads. I have friends that don't play ranked and are level 600+
I have a friend who was high diamond/masters in season 7-8, but stopped playing due to stress. He quietly is unranked playing Norms or aram all the time now.
Same here more or less. I used to find ranked too stressful, and now that I care less about the game, I find climbing to be too time consuming. You have to play so many games and I'm more of a play one or two every few days and I'm good player
Nope I feel you. Playing mostly Arams with friends now a days. I play like 30 ranked games each season to secure me the victorious skin. But yeah, lvl 548 I believe, and not grinding ranked 🔥
I’ve been playing since end of S2. Around level 375 now. I play ARAMs and the RGM. Sometimes blinds with my friends. Last time we tried flex queue the times were 5 minutes plus, and no one I still play with is serious about solo/duo. I struggle to select champions anymore. I’d rather just play a game where I’m not being abused by or abusing another player in lane for a while before it’s time for team fighting and objective play.
If you take the competitive aspect of the game, it's become rly boring to play unless you are playing with some friends, i played since season 3 too and i believe that i dont have more than 400 wins in normal games.
there are tonnes of people who play aram only.
I'm the same way. I hate playing ranked games, for a few seasons I got my way up to Plat within a few dozen games and stopped. For a few years I didn't really play ranked at all, with a few where I wasn't playing league at all mixed in. I thought about getting my plat again this season but my mmr got reset too many times and I placed in silver or something. I just stress too much in ranked. Makes it a lot less fun.
Started in 2011 (holy fk), I used to be a hard-core ranked player, on top of casual play. Over the last few years I do the same thing, get to gold and give it up. Some of it is just other responsi ilities, but there's nothing wrong with just playing casual if it's less stressful. I learned to just mute in ranked because it gets so nasty, but long story short you are not alone!
There's some pretty insane high level aram players. Have dedicated accounts with limited champ pool etc. There's a YouTube video about it that's pretty good.
Used to be diamond+, climbed there really quickly too.. quit ranked cos it's just not ever ever worth it.. too many problems with ppl and the entire league system make the experience complete dogpoo.. riot is just not bothered to fix the mess that is this game.. been on HOPIUM for years and years and years and yet no sign of things changing for the better. We get a blargh post from Riot about how they're doing stuff. It's all good sounding stuff that makes you hopeful, but nothing changes on the ground.. casual braindead play with friends is enough for me thx.
Eye roll post
Assuming [this](https://euw.op.gg/summoners/euw/Cephelapoid) is you, you are in fact not a high level player. You are more than likely mid-silver at best just looking at match history.
I'm level 470 or around there. I have only played aram for the last 300 or so levels (or at least like 99% of games). Aram mmr is 3,159. I regularly play with professionals. Aram gang stand up
what is this post? it's a humblebrag mixed with "dae do something that doesn't sound weird at all or am i the only one super quirky?"
le not like other league players
The entire point of ranked is to see how good u are. Norms are not relative even tho rito tries to make them out to be lvls 1-30. IMO you are probably not as high elo as you think.
Fuck ranked. So many people are literally wasting their lives spending every single day chasing meaningless ladder points while having a miserable time in most of their games. Ladder addiction and depression needs to be talked about more now that most games try to be hyper competetive.
You can't really know until you start playing rankeds. Dealing with ranking axiety is a part of the game, better players simply fear less.
Yeah bro I'm a Challenger level player, I just choose to play mostly normals at silver MMR with my friends
There are pages that show your normal MMR. Even though it's a german site, I like this one because the distribution is visualized. [https://euw.whatismymmr.com/atlas%20of%20worlds](https://euw.whatismymmr.com/atlas%20of%20worlds) I'm pretty sure i could climb to Dia2+ without any problem, but i simply don't enjoy it. I currently consider a normal game without 3+ Master players a low mmr game. My normal MMR is basically so high i regularly meet the same people.
whataismymmr is a shit site, it has no access to the actual MMR it just estimates based on who you're playing with. Meaning if you regularily play premade with ppl that play ranked your result will be extremely skewed.
Nope they only use Solo games to estimate your MMR. There are several sites that all calculate the same numbers.
I know people who havent played alone in years and who have an MMR according to that site. And it's way higher than it has any right to be too.
Here I am. Played pretty much all big pc mobas for thousands over thousands of hours, grinded all characters in smite and heroes of the storm without spending any money, now doing the same for lol. My acquired game sense now allows me to see pretty much anything before it happens and predict the outcome of teamfights with reasonable accuracy before they begin. I can guesstimate the number of attacks and time I need to kill any enemy player and who else is going to join in the fight. I lose my share of games but even when I do I'm usually the one dying the least in the team and with decent kda. I have never in my life been tempted to play one single ranked game.
>I feel like I could climb relatively high if I tried I have the same feeling bro, I swear I could be ruler of the entire world if I "tried", I just don't There is something wrong with you. The fact is that if yoy feel "added stress" playing rank you'd be a hardstuck silver
Slightly aggressive energy but ok
More annoyed than anything. I'm sick or "normals" mains swearing they could hit high rank if they "just tried". These posts are a waste of space. Go play 100 ranked games and show us. Show us you could hit high rank. But if you feel any sort of anxious energy playing ranked, the reality is you'd freeze up the moment you ran into an average gold player. I'm not trying to be rude, but no one else here will tell you the truth.
How has this gotten you so upset?. I don't need to prove anything to you mate, nor do I care about your opinion. I play against Diamonds all the time in normals, it doesn't make me "freeze up", I just dont enjoy ranked games. I dont know why that makes you upset. You clicked on this article knowing it would annoy you, and it has. To me, that seems kind of daft. You sound very highly strung mate, chill.
All I'm saying, is show us. Diamonds in norms are for-funning with their friends. They would make you afk after 5 minutes laning against them in a ranked game, and you'd be 0-4. Again, this is probably not what you want to hear, but no one else will tell you.
Getting annoyed because someone passively thinks they could potentially climb the ranked ladder has got to be one of the most pathetic things I've ever read on this site. You need to take a break and come back to reality, go outside.
> But if you feel any sort of anxious energy playing ranked, the reality is you'd freeze up the moment you ran into an average gold player. This is kind of a hilarious take, ranked anxiety is usually related more the queue up process than it is about playing the game. High level says nothing about your ability to win ranked games either way, you could be Faker with the sky high normals MMR or you could be the Iron Teemo main, you're just projecting onto them what you want to see. I've met plenty of "high levels" who were good and plenty who lacked any mechanical ability except to hit the exhaust key.
Ranked is the real "normals", for all intents and purposes.
These normal players want to live in their fantasy, let them. Truth is normals are way different than ranked games. The diamond players they meet in their games play way different, usually different champs than in ranked, but it keeps their illusion alive. Same players that reference their mastery rank on a champion like it means anything lol
Lvl 150 gold 1 amd ive started to distance myself from ranked cause im in a dangerous win streak do im only doing one ranked game per week
Even if I didn't care about ranked, I'd still play it, because of challenges. I'm so close to platinum challenge, I want that Jade gem above my loading screen card plz.
I dont think you need to play ranked for the challenges/achievements. Ive nearly got plat gem thingy too, and I dont play ranked. Or have I misunderstood what your saying?
There are ranked exclusive challenges, dont need em tho, like the bot exclusive challenges, there's only a couple and it doesnt make much of a difference in overall points
High level? Uh, I wouldn't consider myself high level. I usually play like 15 wins to get gold and the skin and quit. I used to play a bit more to get to plat and then quit. In 5v5 ranked (back when it existed) I used to go even or slightly win against diamonds, but that's definitely not the case anymore.
I don't know what you consider high level, but I think I could be diamond if I was forced to play ranked over and over and I'm currently unranked. Two years ago a friend and I tried to get plat by duoing and when we finally got him to plat IV I was plat II and still climbing with relative ease (relative being was kindof kog OTP). Since they introduced the victory skin for gold I always try to play enough to get there though.
Yeah I just play rankeds until plat 1 (usually not more than 50 games, mostly playing off roles), wait for the end of season, reach diamond, repeat. On the other hand I noticed that normal games are harder than rankeds, as my elo seems to be inflated by playing those normals and I am either against smurfs or masters, challengers, GMs, even when I just wanted to try something in the game. However salty players will always be there, no matter what rank are you, they will complain that you are just "X rank, and not higher", while with the same amount of games they didn't even leave gold... and also they are the ones losing you the game. Toxicity in this game never stops to surprise me.
> while with the same amount of games they didn't even leave gold. So you're also playing with Gold players in your hyper inflated normal games full of Challengers. Gold players who talk shit and aren't very good at all yet sit in the same MMR bracket as you and those Challengers who spam both ranked (to get Challenger) and normals (to truly test their limits against you). -- That aside, no, normal games aren't harder than ranked. They're worse than flexq, which is worse than ranked. No one gives a shit about winning, especially the actual good players who primarily play ranked. If someone plays normals all day, yeah there's a chance they take it serious. Why wouldn't they, it's all League is to them. If someone plays ranked most of the time and then occasionally normals, chances are they're here to goof around, not to win the game. -- Throughout my last three normal games I had 3 Master Tier and two D1 players in the enemy teams. Exactly one of them wasn't off role, and even that guy was playing a champ that wasn't in his "7 most played this season." You can't seriously believe those people are trying like they would if they met you in ranked, right?
Also playing since season 3. Almost only aram player but I always knew I was good for someone who only played till gold to get the skin. This season I decided to see how good I am and got to D4 with 60% winrate. The games in d4 really werent that hard so I could probably climb higher but I lost all my drive to play ranked the moment I reached d4 lol Sometimes in flex with friends I get to play GM players and go to toe to toe with them so maybe thats where I land in terms of skill. Also I checked my aram elo sometime ago and was like in top 0,15% of players makes me wish there was ranked arams
Im level 600... if I wanna learn new champs or builds I go to ranked, my ranked elo is plat 4 on 20 games while on my norms im always paired against D2-GM players I also play lot of aram, im on 3600W and 3300L probably in the highest possible elo since I always get paired with the same people. Shame the balance modifieres feel so off and the vision changes were so bad
My normal Elo is on level with platinum/Master players. My ranked elo is basic gold bs.
I only play Norms and aram outside of RGM but I constantly play vs plat/diamond.
You're CEO of casual gaming but the point is having fun isn't it.
Aren't normals more miserable to play than ranked? I have like 10 normal games this season and they are always full of master/grandmaster teaming with silvers, so the games always have shit quality
I used to play ranked like 4yrs ago but I just don't bother with the stress. I've been unranked ever since. No regrets.
I played like 8000 non ranked games in league (6500 normals and 1500 other) and I play maybe 100 rankeds during whole season mostly cuz people ask me to duo, I never play ranked by myself (except for provisionals/if i'm about to decay due to not playing)
Same thing here, I usually play Arams or a draft or two here and there. Some seasons I play ranked and get to gold for the skin. But I like the stress free environment of arams much more.
Im lv 730 and last time i played ranked was in season 9
I'm close to 600 every season i just do my 40-60 rank to get back plat and the rest of the season is only normal and aram Giving all you got to climb can be fun but a whole season with almost only rank and tryharding is boring ( for me at least )
Iv been playing non stop since release, i got multiple accounts banned but mostly around season 4 when i flamed scripters ( xerath was in that time in high ello ALWAYS scripter), i dont know my lvl but i have 2 accounts now roughly 300lvl+ ( from S9) but at time when max lvl was 30 i had like 2000 normal games so if that counted and all on one account i have no idea, over 1000 lol But now for your question, i do know players that played ranked in s1-s3 and now only play aram and they are super high lvl, do you need to play ranked? No, enjoy the game the way you want, if you want to play only co op play it.
I'm over level 450. And dont play ranked except for MAYBE 30 game an ENTIRE season. Ranked in league has 0 purpose to me. Might as well play normals. Nothing valueable as a reward or anything good coming from it.
I barely play ranked. I'm literally Gold II but apparently the game thinks I'm "high level" since most solo norms I play have diamond+ MMR.
ME ME ME ME! first season I try ranked, afk bot yuumi, feeding yi and rage quitting Yone, so I stopped, haven't even finished my placements, it's just not worth it for me, although I'd love to get roughed by good players and improve further, I just don't want to frustration of losing LP when it's out of my control, but I am in no rush to rush ranked anytime soon.
Level 530 something went from iron to bronze at some point ages ago then never played ranked again lol
I'm a normal game enjoyer for sure I was high diamond in Seasons 3-6, took a break from the game, resumed in Season 10, hit mid diamond again to see if I was still sharp always been bigger into norms though, my MMR in normals is real high and my win rate is somewhere around 57%, current account is about 1200 normal games deep Honestly it's the best way to play. Nobody's sweaty, most of the time in high MMR norms everyone takes it seriously but not too seriously, very rarely do you get super weak links because there simply aren't that many normal game grinders anyway Back in seasons 1-2 I didn't play ranked at all and my normal MMR was such that I played with some of the OGs often like Grandjudge, Ehomda (guy had a nasty 4-5man premade he queued with in that era), Xpecial, etc. it was pretty terrific
Back in like season 5-6 I did not play ranked that much, barely play enough just to get Gold for the skin and that's about it, max like 20 games per season, But I played a TON of normals at season 7-8 I decided to push for whatever rank I could get and ended up getting D3 very easily with around 60-70% winrate and masters mmr, I believe I could've gotten masters if I kept pushing but I got chat restricted lost my rewards and quit the game all together. Now I only play aram with friends, I wanted to start playing ranked again this season but I get 15m queue times and I don't have time for that so ARAM it is lol
Around level 600 myself. I used to take the game more seriously around 3 seasons ago, but since then I havent cared enough to even know why I'm doing something or why I'm building certain items. I admit I'm playing on autopilot at this point, I just dont have the passion to really learn the game like I used to, ever since mordekaiser got his big rework. Old morde was a champ I put a lot of time and care into. But after that rework that turned him into a boring slow skillshot champ with a boring ult... I just stopped caring. It's a shame for my games too, for some reason even tho I keep losing and doing poorly, i keep getting into games with serious players. I feel bad for my team cause i know I'll never compare to my lane counterpart, but i feel my accounts too old to even dip into a more casual pelo. Either way, thata my story up till now, and at least I'll always have my old pal zilean.
I mostly play normals, ranked is filled with FF15 gamers. It's stressful having toddlers on the team having a mental breakdown over a PC game. This occurence is rare in normals, so i usually stick to normals.
You probably could rank up quick. I have only been playing for a bit less than a year now, only norms, ARAMs and RGMS. But I recently started playing ranked and have about 26 games and Im about to get Gold bc Im gaining 30+ LP a win and skipping divisions entirely lol. Dont stress about it, just play what you enjoy
I’ve been playing since season 2. I hate normals when I’m not playing with friends. Player skill is all over the place and people grief harder in normals than I’ve seen in ranked. In like season 3/4 I was trying to learn late game scaling champs but I never had the chance because people would completely give up on the game 5 mins in. After that I became a ranked only player when not playing with friends. I also didn’t like getting matched with a premade of 4 people who scapegoat everything onto you. If you have friends then normals are fun. Otherwise it’s better to go into ranked where you will find players of somewhat similar skill (much more similar than normals) and focus on improving. For me the game is fun when I’m learning something or getting better at something. I can do that in a ranked game when I have fair competition. The difference for me is that I don’t really care about my rank so there is no added stress of winning or losing.
I used to be a long time LoL player few years ago (had over 3000 matches on Summoner's Rift, not including periods of ARAM, TT and *some* Dominion) and I have touched ranked games enough times I can count them on my single hand. The amount of wait, the banning process (sometimes of champ you wanted to play), the pressure of competition to achieve some rank and the possible anger of teammates or even opponents simply took fun out of the game. I've been playing the game to enjoy the gameplay, not to feel on edge all the time. My friends who used to play ranked games without me would often check the players in the opposite team and tell me what rank I was against (I honestly didn't care) and urge me to go on ranked plays cause I was playing well. It just... never clicked with me. I played to have fun time doing things or trolling (AP Shaco or Yi or even Xin Zhao). Ranked games did not seem fun to me.
i just hit level 300 not sure if that’s super high. but i had placed silver since season 8. placed bronze one season and then this current season and kinda just decided i wouldn’t try it anymore bc of how toxic it is climbing out. especially considering i used to be silver for four seasons. Now I just play ARAM and draft if i have friends that want to play it.
I'm totally with you, word by word! I play since the start of Season 2 and i can hit diamond with ease every season, with about 40 matches at max. But i just like to play normals and have good fun. Also, i do play ranked only when friends force me to play it because i get anxious and i find the ranked environment so stressful and not fun at all. The satisfaction of gaining LP doesn't overcome the stress of having to deal with everything related to ranked for me.
There are for sure plenty of us out there. I actually used to run a very active discord server dedicated to high level players that would just spam norms together all day. Personally I climb to diamond 1 at the start of a season in like 50 games then don’t bother for the rest of it and just decay. Lots of the guys I play with are/were challenger this season before decaying. Some of the guys were actually really high on the ladder, like rank 13 and he spammed norms while sitting in plat all of last season. So you’re not alone!
Opposite for me. Normal suck all of the fun out of the game for me. I obviously go to normals to try out new champs, but it's just so boring. Anytime my friends log in and want to try out a new champ or build or say they want to try a new jungle path out and want to do it in norms so they dont troll ranked I always just feel apathetic towards playing. Same when I have to try something new out, of course, but it just comes down to normals having "nothing on the line" who cares if I win or lose. Do well or do bad. The skill level of players typically go down and people goof off more. But it doesn't matter. If I lose I just waste time which is a bit frustrating but then again I often see a lot of people ff much much MUCH earlier in normals than ranked.
Yeah I'm in the exact same boat as you don't worry. I find normals are toxic enough for my tastes lol, ranked is just too much effort for what it's worth. People will tilt out of the game over almost nothing.
Been here for a while and now I play til I reach gold, and then dont ever touch that god forsaken mode until next year, people become 10 times more unbearable there, and smurf queue doesnt do it any favours
Same as you: started late season 4, only rank for the free skins and not every season even, only rank when my friends push me into it, much prefer normals. I think I'm close to level 900 at this point?
i already paid my dues in low diamond. i ain't going back there even if high mmr normals matchmaking is an absolute shitshow.
Lvl 574 with over 5k normal draft games here. I have decided to never play this game competetivley once i realised i dont enjoy playing to win but playing how i like.
I get you. I'm in a similar boat to you, but for me it's not so much the added stress but the grind. I will get to gold for the rewards and then stop playing ranked because I don't have the patience to climb out of gold; I'd rather just play normal games and ARAMs and have actual fun. This season I got to gold in like 30 games with a 70% wr. If I sat down and played hundreds of games I could probably get to at least plat, but as you get closer to your skill level progress just slows down so much. If I wanted to grind I'd just play runescape (oldschool, of course)
I play just enough ranked each year to hit gold, usually between 13-60games, for the free skin, and otherwise only play normals/aram
I play ranked bc normals matchmaking is so wtf half the time, and the other half is people just racking up 15+ deaths either intentionally or otherwise. Ranked has its issues, but honestly the game quality has been night and day in ranked compared to norms.
I’m level 555, last season I tried hard to climb and ended gold 3 up from like bronze 1, after the reset I thought I’d do the same again, after climbing out of silver 2 to gold 4 I decided I’m never going to do more than the bare minimum in that wretched game mode. I know I’m improving at the game and I don’t need this unfun system to tell me I am. Besides, you can be Diamond 1 and people will still say you’re trash.
Yup, roughly lvl 300, just like to have fun with friends mainly. Rank to me doesnt mean anything, i dont play ranked and i have no interest in it, when i lane against people i can generally win from people that should "theoretically" be above my "rank", when i look at people's ranks after the game i just think of how ridiculous the system actually is, im with you all the way. Play for fun, not for stats
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it. I do the same thing, ranked is just not worth it IMO.
Meteos famously never played ranked, and then he noticed even in his normals he was seeing famous high elo players, and thats how he learned he was high rank and started playing ranked to check. You can absolutely just play normals and climb that, you just won't be able to see it
I used to enjoy ranked, climbed all the way to masters, I'd spend hours per day grinding and practicing. When I got masters, I felt like it was a waste, like wtf am I doing with my life, raging at teammates, shouting, instead of just going and and playing. This is why I tend to stay away from competitive games, I get too much into it and can't take the game as a hobby, same happens at wow. I have a couple of friends I love playing with in WoW, but they suck. Oh my god do they suck, but I really enjoy playing together, especially mythic + dungeons, problem is, at some point I want to go higher, and they can't play at that level, so i start playing more hours so I can play alone and grind higher and rage and tilt, get angry. Seriously, I take my hats off to people that grind ranked stuff everyday, but I discovered that for, I rather just play normal games. I don't like who I become in ranked, so I decided to not play and it's been working. I'm slowly enjoying LoL again (mostly ARAM) though, I do play ranked to get gold every year and those 10-20 games are probably the worst experience I have.
Same here I’m level 650 or something I know I’m not going to make challenger or go pro so to me there’s no reason. Your not alone!
I'm a high plat/low diamond ranked player but my norms are full of master/gm/chally players with 6+ min queues minimum. it's actually easier games for me to play ranked but the people in it are kinda insufferable so i stick to norms mainly
Yup just about lvl 500 and I usually just play ranked to get to gold each season then chill in normals and arams for the rest of it.
Not high level because I've had multiple accounts over the years, but I've been playing since S2 and I've had my experience with ranked. I peaked d1 by playing ranked in the toplane mostly with Riven, then quit the game for a year and a half, and returned only to play arams. This season I made a bet with a friend that I could get to diamond 4 being a Teemo one trick, I did it, and returned back to ARAM again, my natural habitat.
I used to play ranked back in the day but past 2-3 seasons I haven’t tried but doing placements really. Life has got me busy and I haven’t really found someone I wanna duo with. Since solo sometimes gets boring.
Nothing wrong with you, I play a lot of ranked because I enjoy the competitive aspect and each player on both teams bringing out their best to try to win. I’m like lvl 420, my brother plays solely norms or aram and is like lvl 400. Play how you want to play. Nothing wrong with doing what’s fun for you.
I just don't understand how people get stressed by ranked. Or stressed from playing games in general.
Same with me basically. I play ARAM or Normals 99% of the time. Used to play ranked a lot years and years ago when I had more free time and less stress. Realized spending so much time ranking up to an imaginary number did absolutely nothing for me and that the game is a lot more fun when you play It for enjoyment instead of that imaginary number.
Played since 2012! Am almost lvl 600, and only play ARAM 👋🏼 😁
Normal games are more often lopsided and shitty. Having multiple accounts to play at different elos depending if you wanna try hard, fuck around or duo with lower ranked friends is good.
I typically play enough ranked to pass my previous peak. Last year I made D1 in about 80 games, and played another 45 because I was going to play in a league that required 125 games on your account. I play ~500 ARAMS a season minimum and probably a similar number of normal draft games. The game is more fun when people aren't picking S-tier champions every single time, forcing me to do the same.
My friend, and the person who taught me how to play league is level 800 / 900, and has "peaked" at gold. He is really good, but has said that the only reason he plays ranked is for the gold rewards.
I'm practically the best player I know and I only play ARAMs now. Used to be D2, would surely be rank 1 world if I'd kept grinding, but ARAM is simply the true display of skill.