I remember last season and the season before that. Most of my preliminary losses were to total trolls (mostly involving Teemos; I have since learned that you can dodge in que without garnering a loss in ranked, sneaky Riot changed that on me). You get mega trolls; everyone does, and you have to learn to deal with them. That game is a loss, oh well.

If you are stalemating in most of your games, then you are not tipping the scale. If you truly are a higher ELO player you should be dominating your lane most of the time, taking an early turret and snowballing your team from there (with dragons, other turrets, lots of ganks, and lots of wards on your part). No offense to 1200 ELO players, but they are 1200 ELO for a reason. For the most part you should stomp your lane so hard that you demoralize the enemy and make them think about early surrenders. If you're not doing that, then you belong at your ELO.

Your username fits you so well.

Or maybe I just have a better memory than you?

It's not that I am stalemating.

I do have the occasional bad game, as anybody does, but just to give you a few examples:

Cho'gath stats:

Cho'Gath 16 10 61.5% 4.1/game 2.5/game 9/game 57.6/game

That's 4.1 kills per 2.5 deaths per 9 assists, with 57 creep a game.. Keep in mind, I mainly jungle w/ Cho'gath so neutral mobs are not counted.

Vayne 4 1 80% 11.4/game 7.6/game 8/game 199.8/game

My KDR isn't that great on Vayne, but I am clearly getting a lot of kills and I'd say my CS is pretty good.

My highest kill count on Cho was 16, highest death 9.. Obviously a game where my team was losing and I died a lot because enemies were fed.

The point I'm getting at is, how hard can ONE person possibly carry a game? It's all fine and well if I am dominating my lane.. but if I am an AD carry and I come into mid-game after dominating my lane, and it just so happens that Irelia fed the enemy Jax, all Jax has to do is land on me 1 time in a team fight and I'm dead.. Or if Karthus fed Katarina, same result.

Likewise, if I am a jungler and I am doing well in the jungle, I may get my AP carry fed as hell, but both myself and my AP carry are going to fall off.. Meanwhile, even though I've helped Bot Lane, the enemy Vayne has managed to pick up 2-3 double kills on bot lane and now she's 2-3 shotting the rest of my team.

How can you possibly carry your team out of situations like this being just ONE person? It doesn't matter how well ONE person does on a team, if 2 other people feed, then you're more or less boned in most situations.

Same thing for team fights... If my team has an early advantage but then acts like total ******* coming into mid/late game, then if the enemy team has any skill/intelligence what-so-ever, they will easily close that gap between their early game weakness and come back for a strong late game. That's the nature of the game.

I think you're over-simplifying it by saying "Just dominate your lane so hard you can roam around helping others."..

As a jungler, that's my job and I do it quite well.. but some people are beyond help and those people tend to be at lower Elo's. When I was in the 1400 bracket last season and I went into the enemy jungle to steal enemy blue, I could ping enemy blue 1-2 times and my Top lane and Mid lane would immediately come and help.. At 1200 Elo your team simply doesn't know wtf they're doing, ignores your pings, and gives up a potential advantage for your team.

I'm not saying it's not possible to claw my way back up to where I was.. I know I will in time. I'm just saying I don't fully agree with the "You belong at your Elo" if you lose games at the Elo you're at. I've lost games at 1100 Elo, and won games at 1300-1500. So, where am I to believe I belong?

My point was that if you win your lane you can get things done. As bot or top you might get your tower early, group, take dragon and then force mid turret down. Go back bye and then keep the pressure up; tell your jerk off team mates to stop afk farming and steal buffs (no blue buff is especially terrible), ward everything, take control of the map. Your job is not to stall it out so that they might come back from a few kill streaks ended and even farming. Your job is to stop all the bleeding in your other lanes, help them recover with a few ended kill streaks, and take those objectives. If you can manage anything steal that blue (write down the time on that)! It's so good...

A Jax would have to be mega fed in order to kill a fed AD within the first 20 minutes (there is simply too much CC unless he's caught you with your pants down, alone). It's also a matter of picking the right AD carry, Ezreal/Corki/Caitlyn don't have nearly as big a problem with nasty things jumping on them (hence their immense popularity).

Junglers are a little different at lower ELOs. You're going to want to carry on jungle. Snowballing with Amumu/Hecarim/Nocturne/Lee Sin, stuff that scales and ganks well, will take you far (Hec doesn't scale terribly well, but he gets tanky quick and his teamfights/ganks take a lot of people by surprise). Utility junglers aren't so successful at lower ELOs. Maokai, Cho'Gath, Nunu and to some extent Skarner, just aren't going to perform nearly as well if your team isn't half-way decent (if you're really good with Nunu, this might not be true, as he can do tons of work counter jungling).

Your AP mid should not fall off, unless it's Leblanc or an underfed assassin. Orianna/Karthus/Gragas will consistently 1/2-2/3rds health non-tanks (if not outright kill squishies if you're ahead enough) for most of the game with a single combo. Even a GA won't save an AD carry from massive damage.

That's the nature of your games. Its not really easy to turtle unless your comp is built for it. If you starve them, they will lose unless you royally screw up.

ELO is not a set number, it's a range. If you peaked at 1400ish and are sitting at 1100ish with a 50/50, it's not hard to believe that you probably belong in the 1200-1300 range, and on a good day into the 1400s.

I'm not sitting at 1100ish. I'm floating between 1250-1350ish. But it's also very early in the season.

Spend less timing complaining or wondering about it and just look at what you can do to improve your own game.

Another hint? Pick a strong Gp10 jungler to carry with. Someone like amumu or skarner destroy people at lower elos with there natural durability and cc.

I agree with IdleAltruism (Only this quote cuz the other stuff was just being mean). ELO is a range not a set number. You rely on your team. You work as a team. League of Legends is a team game. Feel free to play 1v1 if your up to it bro! I duo'd with my brother (who is about 1300' ish) and I won. The only problem was I was 1100'ish ELO range. I had a great score ... 9/0. These people were all in the 1300 range. So If you want to play as a team you better work as one! If your team loses that means people are going to think you are a baddy while you think the same about them.

A lot of times you find games where you are the reason your team won correct? Nearly everytime I ask my friends who are a higher elo than me (high platinum and a couple diamonds) what I could do in a game (I show them a replay basically.) Most of the time their response is, you did not carry hard enough. Now this is easier to do with some champs than others, hence you have won quite a bit with vayne. Carrying isnt just kill everyone in a teamfight or things like that. Here's an example: let us say that your team gets an amumu and you are mid. But amumu is not a great player, he does know however how to ult and who to bandage etc, he just played badly basically. You see the amumu pick and you use knowledge that you've learned and play zyra or karthus, both of whom can carry a late game teamfight given the proper team comp. If he gets one good ult and you have been csing well, even if your team feeds you can carry the teamfight just from the one ult on amumu. Carrying games is more of keeping an advantage than trying to gain one. Hence throwing happens all the time. If you believe yourself to be at a better elo, you need to work with the team more, carry with words, and figure out how you can be better. Win your lane, try to snowball your teammates (karthus does well at this) and KEEP your advantage. Some people will not listen, it is solo queue and it happens.

In a solo queue game, your team has a 4/5 chance for trolls/bads (assuming, as you probably do, that you are somehow better than everyone else in your ELO.

The enemy team has a 5/5 chance for trolls by the same logic. Therefore, if you really are better than the other players at your ELO, you will win more games than you lose, and rise in ELO. The odds get even better when you duo queue (3/5 vs 5/5).

Get your allies to trust you, which may be the hardest thing to do. Prove to them you know what you're doing. Ping an enemy jungler coming. Type in chat. Save their asses. Be a man.