Introduction
League of legends is a legendary game that has been popular for more than a decade now. It has maintained this popularity thanks to its addictive and complex ranked ladder that sees player compete with each other to reach the top. One question remains: Why is Bronze League so Hard?
While League of Legends is immensely popular not everyone can reach the highest ranks, some players can feel embarrassed or frustrated at being placed at and being stuck in a certain league, one of the most common things I see is players in bronze league thinking that they “deserve” to be in higher leagues just because they have been playing the game long.
In this article we’re going to cover why is this league so hard, what we can do about it and a few extra things to help anyone stuck at this level.
Skill Level of Players
Before the introduction of Iron League, Bronze was the lowest tier in League’s ranking system, but bronze remains the weakest league in the game by a long shot. With some players even paying for Iron accounts but bronze accounts are basically useless why is that?
There are many reasons why bronze is the weakest league but one of the top reasons in my opinion is the wide variety of skill level of players in this league. Let me explain myself better, the immense variability hurts everyone at this tier, you can’t expect anything at this level.
Your mid-laner with a winning matchup might still lose lane for no reason at all, your ADC might not know where to position himself in team fights and die every time. Or your jungler might just ignore dragon and not gank in favor of just “power-farming” the jungle.
You get the idea, the players here are not that great, and even if they are decent at something they completely lack on something else, this makes games complicated sometimes because certain things are crucial for certain roles and when players can’t or won’t do them the game becomes extremely hard.
Lack of Communication
While skillful players are always welcome, another common problem with bronze players is a lack of communication.
This is bad because you want a certain level of communication between your team mates in the match, it can be simple but very damaging to a team’s cohesion when players don’t.
A bronze jungler might not ping, chat or do anything to indicate that he is pathing towards mid lane, the gank will fail because the mid lane is pushed and he wasted an entire minute in the bush. By comparison a gold jungler will probably indicate which lane he wants to gank first letting his teammates to think a way to set up the gank by letting the wave push into them.
These small things add up and make up the difference in the end, communication is key in League.
Poor Decision-Making
You could argue that poor decision-making is the number one problem with bronze players, but I didn’t put it first because it affects every league, not just bronze.
Poor decision-making appears at every stage of the game, but it is much more obvious in the late stages of a match, when you see an ADC “facechecking” a bush with no enemy team player showing, you know his decision making is bad.
But it can also take many more forms, it could be bad champion selection, bad item builds, playing champions in unintuitive ways that don’t suit their kit and so on.
At this level, players not only lack an understanding on how to play the game optimally, they also have the mistaken belief that they’re doing it well, this means that players are deluded into thinking they’re performing better than they are.
Toxicity
Ah, toxicity, while League of Legends has certainly come a long way since the old days online toxicity is still present and will probably always exist in some way.
While Riot has made great advances in stopping chat harassment, toxicity is still there. You will see it in bronze that much more often when compared to some other leagues.
Players at this level are either angry, frustrated or just plain mean. They will go out of their way to grief their own team and make life difficult for them instead of cooperating and trying to win at all costs.
Toxic players might actually be the best players on the team sometimes, they clearly care a lot about the game and probably put in a bit too much effort, but this all becomes meaningless if they start berating and insulting their team mates the moment things go wrong.
Always maintain your composure and never have more than 5 enemies in any game.
Lack of Resources
This is another interesting point. At this level a lot of players straight up lack stuff, it can be champions, it can be knowledge of how to get better, friends to show them how its done and so on.
Not having the latest broken champion to spam, or just to try out in practice matches can hinder these player’s progress on the rift.
But it can also go deeper, their computer might be old and or lacks maintenance so they always lag in the critical times of matches. Or their internet could just be unstable or saturated. It’s not really their fault but these things can hinder anyone.
You can probably match lower FPS and higher ping in a graph and they will go up with rank, that’s how it is sadly.
Number of Players
Another big reasons for why this league is difficult is the fact that there are so many players “stuck” here. With millions of players playing Ranked games, roughly a third of them are in bronze league!
This means that there is an amazing amount of people that you have to beat in order to climb from these ranks, not only that League is in my opinion one of the slowest ranking games at the moment, it can take 100 or 400 matches to climb out of these leagues for newer players.
How to Climb Out of Bronze League
Now we get to the good stuff, how to get out of bronze league. While every player has a different playstyle there are certain steps you can take to improve your play and increase your chances of climbing, let’s take a look:
Focus on the fundamentals first
Before doing anything else here, you need to be through and review your fundamentals. This means taking a honest look at how you play. Make sure you know how to hit skillshots, how to dodge them too, review strong players and how they move in the lane to improve this.
Besides the skillshots, make sure to be able to cs well enough under tower, this can be a critical thing in difficult matches. Eliminate friction and try out quick casting for some spells too.
Don’t forget to look at the mini-map often, this can be the difference some times when playing roaming champions and support.
Play fewer champions that you are good at
Instead of constantly changing your champion, stick to as few as you can tolerate. This can be as little as two or three champions for a single lane.
There is a reason for why this tip works, after playing the same champion a lot you won’t really need to think too much about the champion itself just the game that you are in at the moment. This means that in game you will react faster, have a clear gameplan and will play much more relaxed through the entire match.
This is a big tip, don’t be naïve and think you can be like faker and play 30 champions at pro level just because you’re special. Most of the best players in the world started their climbs as one tricks once upon a time.
Eliminate toxicity, stop talking if needed
No matter if justified or not, fighting with your team is a complete waste of time. Everything you say is useless after the match is over. You can’t reason with someone playing on emotions so don’t even try.
If someone is flaming, griefing and so on, hit them wit the kindness technique: ask them to help you out, say sorry do whatever it takes to get them back in the team. Otherwise just mute them and hope for the best, don’t engage with these players in their own game, you will only damage your own mentality.
Focus on objectives
Instead of focusing on kills, assists and how cool you look. Focus on the actually important things: can we do dragon? Can we do herald? Can we do baron? Can we push a tower?
These things are what wins games, not much else. While a 10/2 Yasuo is strong, he can’t do everything himself so make sure your team sticks together and tries to do objectives while the game is still within reach.
Review your replays
Reviewing your matches after a while, can be the difference. It can let you spot mistakes from your own play that you didn’t see at the time.
Just make it a habit and you will see quick improvement, review a single game every day for a week and you will see mistakes that you repeat often, try and fix those.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Bronze League is one of the most challenging leagues to play in League of Legends. The players in this league often lack the skills, communication, and decision-making abilities needed to climb up the ranks. However, by focusing on improving their skills, communicating effectively, avoiding toxicity, staying updated, and being patient, players can increase their chances of climbing up the ranks and enjoying the game.