The time is early in Season 1 competitive. I'd placed 43 on the first day, in a 6 stack of friends who played extremely casually, and we got destroyed. Two of our 3 wins were on KOTH maps, which were later confirmed to be bugged and not awarding the proper amount of rank XP.
After continuing to play in a group of four with friends who were more serious about competitive, I rose to rank 47. Then life happened. One left on a trip, another was slammed by work and left too tired to play most nights. Timezone issues resulted in my having to solo or duo queue most days.
I dropped to rank 42.
And boy, was I angry. I truly believed I deserved to be above rank 50, and the toxic mouth breathing team mates who chose bad characters, lacked awareness and refused to group up or fight on the objective were to blame for my predicament.
Then someone on the forums took a look at my stats and called them horrendous, describing me as an "ult feeder". In angry denial, I argued with him. Then, feeling that I had something to prove, I went straight back to solo queue, confident that my average skills would take me to rank 50, where I truly belonged.
I dropped to rank 39.
I could deny it no longer. Every game, if equally matched, held an equal chance of my getting better team mates. The only constant was me. And if I was losing this many games in a row, then the problem would, logically, also be me.
So I took a hard look at my profile statistics, compared it to other players, and I realised:
He was right.
I had terrible stats. Less than 1 elimination per minute, K/Ds of barely over 1. Every stat aside from healing was under the 50th percentile when checked on MasterOverwatch. I wasn't even average. Combined with my blatant denial, feeling that I was a good player despite what my winrate and numbers were telling me, I had become the kind of player who helped to coin the term "Elo Hell".
Elo Hell, Myth Or Reality?
"Elo Hell" is a concept originating from League of Legends, describing the lowest ranks in team-based games where the players are so bad that even skilled players find it impossible to climb out of them.
It's existence in Overwatch is an ongoing argument between players at all ranks. If you've played competitive for any amount of time, you'd have experienced teams where players seem to think all maps are deathmatch mode, think 5 DPS is an acceptable team composition and play like bots on easy difficulty.
Players on bad loss streaks swear by Elo Hell's existence. However, while some cases do look like pure bad luck, most believers tend to have less than stellar competitive stats. They also seem to universally be in denial even if they are ostensibly asking for help.
A few players have shared their experiences of "carrying" themselves from rank 40 to 60 playing characters like Soldier, Roadhog and Zarya. These accounts have been few and far in between however, and not nearly enough to convince most players that they are where they deserve to be.
It Exists In Your Mind
A strange thing happened when my MMR tanked in Quick Play while learning offense characters. In matches where players were either significantly below my level or appeared unaware of basic gameplay concepts, I could dominate matches with gold eliminations as DPS. I did not repeat this performance when I played with friends who had high QP win rates.
If you study the complaints of people about getting stuck in Elo Hell, you'll realise there's a consistent pattern. Former rank 60s will call rank 50 Elo Hell. Former rank 50s believe all is lost once they've dropped to the 40s. Elo Hell may really a reflection of your inability to carry your team at your current rank because your true skill level is not that much higher.
After looking at my game stats, I stopped playing competitive and focused on my mechanics. I looked up guides for my characters, videos of high level play and started recording my own match videos to analyse my gameplay issues.
I started to understand why I was dying in matches. I realised why I'd been bored playing Lucio was because I had been playing him as a healbot, effectively ignoring half his kit. Playing a range of characters in Quick Play also helped me understand what tanks and DPS needed from me as their support.
After three weeks, I started playing competitive again, In two weeks, I rose ten ranks, playing less than five games a day. To be sure, there were bad team mates and loss streaks, but my rank was going up at a steady rate. The only thing that stopped me from reaching rank 50 was time, as the season ended just as I hit 49.
There may very well be a rank at which Elo Hell is real. Chances are, however, that you're far above that. Elo hell likely exists at the very bottom of competitive Overwatch, where trolls like Bacontotem of "I Hanjo" fame hang out. For 99 per cent of players, however, Elo Hell may be an indication that it's time to take a hard look at your performance.
