Playing Up An Elo Bracket - What Changes?

Good morning summoners! Since it's a weekend, today's post is going to focus less on news and more on everyone's favorite rage-filled topic...ranked games!

Topic: What should you expect as you move up the Elo ladder?

What NOT To Expect:

• Everyone has the ability to play every role;
• Everyone can suddenly hit every CS;
• Everyone has the same game knowledge.

What TO Expect:

• Everyone can CS a little better than before;
• Everyone plays LESS roles than before (more on this further down);
• More unusual picks, "trolling" if you define it that way.

So let's run through the points real quick:

Ability to play every role: 

I think this one's big. I hear a lot of "you're xxxx  Elo and can't jungle/support/adc/top/mid?!" The fact of the matter is, to get good at a role, you're going to have to play the SAME role over and over before you really understand what it's about.

This means that your ability to play other roles will suffer. 

When someone says "I can't ADC" it doesn't mean that they literally can't lock in Ashe, run to lane, and right click, and misarrow until ending the game 0-10. We can all do that! The fact of the matter is, if you saw TheOddOne lock in Ashe in the world finals, everyone would facepalm. He might do okay, in fact at 1700 he'd probably carry his team to victory. But on a similar skill level, he's just not there. (AS FAR AS I KNOW)

Jungle Ashe or Support Ashe, no problem!

CSing:

Once again, this goes along the same lines. A xxxx Elo ADC main will naturally hit more CS than an xxxx - 100 ADC main, but if they're not playing their main role, don't expect them to hit every CS, even if it's uncontested. On the other hand, if they're getting outplayed by Dyrus smurfing, you might see some single digit cs at 10 minutes in. It happens.

Game Knowledge:

Even if you learned something at 1400 that helped you gain Elo all the way up to 1500 like "don't stay mid forever if the inhib is down", that doesn't mean everyone at 1500 got there in the same manner. They might have learned "never stop pushing with Teemo until their nexus is down" and that's how they got to 1500.

Never. Stop.

Unusual Picks:

I think this one is funny. A lot of times I hear people stuck in Elo Hell say:

"How can I possibly win with a 0-8 Karma mid?"

Well let me share with you this story: Once upon a time at 1700 Elo last season, I had a Master Yi + Soraka bot lane, and Yi had exhaust + TP. He went 0-12 in the lane to start, and we won. True Story.

Case in point, the higher Elo you go, the more people think they can "make things work". Sometimes they can, many times they can't...but it's fun for them, and fun for their teammates when it works. It's a game, enjoy it!

Conclusions:

When you move up a large amount of Elo, you're still playing with people, most of which are exactly the same age group and probably similar intelligence level as the people you were just playing with. Just think about your peers in high school or college, or whichever age your friends are. What Elo are they? Even if they moved from 1100 to 1300 are you going to see them in a whole new light?

Don't expect too much when you move up the ladder. As long as you stick to a semi-conservative strategy and coordinate plans with your teammates, you'll win more games than you lose and keep gaining dat E-l-o!

Background:
SSJSuntastic is currently at 1809 ELO and has a smurf at 1600 (Support Nidalee and Teemo only)

Wait until you see me AD carry at 1850!