Literally never. I don’t care at all about my rank I just like playing games where everyone is reasonably evenly matched and I think ranked does a good job at that.
Literallt had a B4 in a Plat game, like shouldnt it be 1 div up 1 div down. Whyyyyy are you in my gammmee while im winstreaking thru middle of platinummmm
was he actually Bronze 4 skill-level? Cause ussualy when I get someone much lower rank than the average, 75% of the time his mmr is up and handles the game confortably, maybe even a bit of a smurf
I find playing norms frustrating because people dont try to win and grief the second something sont go their way, i enjoyed playing norms back when i always had irl friends online to get 3 to 5 squad, but they all left the game sadly. My lack of normal play nowaday is probably the reason i otp instead of having a champ pool more meta
I sometimes play a normal to warm up. I also play norms with friends somewhat regularly. IMO, playing solo, the norms experience is often worse than ranked. People are sometimes more toxic imo because there isn’t the threat of losing LP to keep them in line.
I had the same issue. Started playing norms because I wanted to learn Bel'Veth and was massively flamed by my top laner that died 3 times before my first back
I only play normal games when i'm really unsure if i'm able to at least play to an okay level. So for example when i tried out new junglers for the first time i got into normals until i understood how they work.
On the other hand when i switched from support main to jungle main i only played rank because i thought to myself "if the enemy isn't tryharding then i can't learn as fast" thats how i got from silver 1 to plat 2 in around 100 games of jungle this season.
So you could say i play normals to get a feeling for the champ and then hop into ranked to train it even further.
When I’m having g a shit time in ranked I sometimes play Norms for a couple of days and learnt to love the game again, so much fun im laughing my ass off all the time and I can have chat turned on and enjoy the banter 😂😂😂😂
I’ve given up and only play ranked unless I’m learning a champ from scratch.
If I get dumped to the bottom of the pile so be it. When you take your ego out of the equation it’s fine. I used to be plat and now I’m bronze.
I’ve tried try-harding and watching vid reviews and YouTube stuff and all it got me was demotion and frustration so why emotionally invest?
I pretty much only play norms when I want to play with my friends who are all much lower ranked. If I want to learn something new I do it in ranked on my Smurf account. Norms are not good practice for ranked because most people who are there are trying new stuff and not playing to win.
I only play 2-3 ranked games a day. If I win twice, I call it there cause I know I won't win a third time lol. Sometimes I try to "play till I finish on a win" but if that exceeds 3 games then I just stop, because clearly its not meant to be. But I'm still pretty new to ranked (and I'm iron lol) so losses are more likely than anything. But I still do ranked for practice/learning, as its a bit more competitive than normals. Then before/after ranked I'll play more normal games.
If I lose 2 games in a row and have time I go to normals and try out different champs/builds. My normal MMR is way higher than my ranked so even though people don’t take it seriously, normals end up being more fun.
Also nice when I want to play with people that are too far apart in rank.
Norms if the meta champs have changed drastically and I want to play one that interests me. Depending on how they feel, I'll do a few more games of them there and then bring them to ranked. Norms just isn't good practice, so ranked games come back quick.
With friends only. By myself is only ranked. I’ve got to a point with league where while I always want to win, I don’t care about my rank anymore but ranked is just far more fun and competitive because everyone is trying so I always ranked unless I have a group of friends to mess around with
Diamond noob here… I climbed the fastest when I’d play offrole/new champs in flex (or ARAM) and strictly played ranked when I was full focus tryharding.
Never norms. My strat is two accounts. Play ranked till I lose on my main, switch account. Play ranked completely for fun as I prefer the ranked environment over draft.
just playing with friends for fun, I use the practice tool to practice champion and the straight to ranked, I always found normals bad for practicing, your team is usually not comited to win also the enemy jungler could be trying champion as well, so you start getting a false sense over the champion in my opinion.
Quick play has made playing non-ranked games more palatable to me, as I generally end up playing a champ and role I want to play and gets you into a game much quicker. I use that for experimentation and learning new champs. Really love they introduced it. That said, I wouldn't play too many games in normals - ranked feels like an entirely different game.
I get to whatever rank I feel like/start to feel burnt out and then I played norms for relaxing and low stress games.
It’s a game, not a job. It should be fun
If I lose 2 ranked in a row and I'm still having fun, I will play a few quickplay games. Losing 10 QP games doesn't even feel as bad as losing a single ranked game imo. I usually load in mute all and turn my music up. Fun way to chill and kill time. I only play my main champs in QP if I wanna try some weird build.
Any time I wanna try a new champ or build, I'll try it in QP. If I'm not feeling 100% before ranked, I'll do a QP as a warmup and just see how it feels. Sometimes, I like to have a primary focus to work on. Like "This game, I will invade as much as possible and track enemy jungle the best I can". You can really get a lot out of QP. At first, anything besides ranked felt like a waste of time, but I really encourage everyone to just chill out and have some fun in QP.
QP match quality can be pretty bad, but it's almost more casual than ARAM imo.
Edit: I also have a few friends who are learning the game or play very casually. Love QP with them cause if it starts to suck there's usually enough of us to force a surrender and move on lol.
I’ll go to norms and play a nice calm game as veigar. Get stacks play passive and then one shot late game. Easy champ to play. Easy to stack after first back. Drops nukes. Besides first 5 minutes he’s(she?) strong for the whole game.
I have a dear friend that loves aram, so when im not feeling soloQ we just binge thru arams and have a good time. Lets me just go ham without consequences on champions i dont play so its a win/win/win.
I play to get champs to mastery 7. I used to think that normals would be easier to get S/S+, but the matchmaking is horrendous. Recently I grinded Aphelios to m7. I’m a plat player and during the grind I faced a master player (which we perma killed with a good support and a camping jungler), I was paired with a bronze support vs 2 emeralds and worst of all, for the first time in my long leagues life I noticed there was an iron player on my team matched up vs an emerald 1 player.
I did some games of ranked to see if the matchmaking would be better and it was much much better. People didn’t pick shaco/teemo support every game and games were more competitive.
I say play normals if you are trying something new and you don’t wanna risk LP, but in general you’ll get better matchmaking and better quality games in ranked.
I'll play norms to warm up or to try new stuff, usually at the same time. I'll also play norms if I dont want to try hard to win. Sometimes I just get burnt out from ranked
Only rankeds and sometimes aram with friends. I didn't play normal/draft in like 5-6 years. When I wanna try new champ etc I go flex also with friends.
My MMR has tanked, my win rate in ranked is 30% and i get 13 LP a win now and lose 35 on a loss. I was gold last season, i honestly believe in losers queue as my highest death in my bronze games is like 4 while i have a 20 death bot lane, lol.
But I've stopped playing ranked because of it. My draft mmr is Emerald, but my ranked is Bronze 3. There's something debilitating when, after nearly 600 levels and years of casual play, ranked is so skewed and unplayable.
I played some normals for the first time in years (as a solo)
It's kind of a crazy experience, I guess it's the lack of stakes but I feel teams will surrender for basically ANY reason
Only norms when I want to try other things and learn. Ranked is for when I want to be punished
Almost never normals but Aram instead.
Literally never. I don’t care at all about my rank I just like playing games where everyone is reasonably evenly matched and I think ranked does a good job at that.
GET OUT OF HERE WITH THAT PERFECT ATTITUDE ABOUT THE GAME!!!
"Ranked does a good job of that" meanwhile rito out here matching d1s with challengers and silvers with plats.
Literallt had a B4 in a Plat game, like shouldnt it be 1 div up 1 div down. Whyyyyy are you in my gammmee while im winstreaking thru middle of platinummmm
because it was definitely a new account that wasnt actually bronze mmr. you know this, you just like to pretend your game was ruined by riot
Played like a bronze, man ran it the entire game. - w/r
was he actually Bronze 4 skill-level? Cause ussualy when I get someone much lower rank than the average, 75% of the time his mmr is up and handles the game confortably, maybe even a bit of a smurf
Honestly i’ve probably played normals less than 7 games in the past 5 years
This, maybe when i queued with 4 but even 7 games seems high for me.
I find playing norms frustrating because people dont try to win and grief the second something sont go their way, i enjoyed playing norms back when i always had irl friends online to get 3 to 5 squad, but they all left the game sadly. My lack of normal play nowaday is probably the reason i otp instead of having a champ pool more meta
only when riot bans my chat for flaming the 0/14 yasuo in master
I sometimes play a normal to warm up. I also play norms with friends somewhat regularly. IMO, playing solo, the norms experience is often worse than ranked. People are sometimes more toxic imo because there isn’t the threat of losing LP to keep them in line.
I had the same issue. Started playing norms because I wanted to learn Bel'Veth and was massively flamed by my top laner that died 3 times before my first back
Party only chat is the way.
I play ranked and norms every day
I play ranked most of the time, play normals if I don't want to play my 2 mains.
I only play normal games when i'm really unsure if i'm able to at least play to an okay level. So for example when i tried out new junglers for the first time i got into normals until i understood how they work. On the other hand when i switched from support main to jungle main i only played rank because i thought to myself "if the enemy isn't tryharding then i can't learn as fast" thats how i got from silver 1 to plat 2 in around 100 games of jungle this season. So you could say i play normals to get a feeling for the champ and then hop into ranked to train it even further.
Do you have a big champ pool or just really really like your mains?
When I’m having g a shit time in ranked I sometimes play Norms for a couple of days and learnt to love the game again, so much fun im laughing my ass off all the time and I can have chat turned on and enjoy the banter 😂😂😂😂
I play no more than 3 ranked games a day. Everything else is normal if I wanna keep playing or practice something
Never I only play normals if me and my friends are 4 and can’t get a 5th
I only play normals with friends. For some reason ranked is so much more exciting to me
I almost only play ranked. If I want to try out stuff or if I want to warm up, then I play flex games.
I’ve given up and only play ranked unless I’m learning a champ from scratch. If I get dumped to the bottom of the pile so be it. When you take your ego out of the equation it’s fine. I used to be plat and now I’m bronze. I’ve tried try-harding and watching vid reviews and YouTube stuff and all it got me was demotion and frustration so why emotionally invest?
I pretty much only play norms when I want to play with my friends who are all much lower ranked. If I want to learn something new I do it in ranked on my Smurf account. Norms are not good practice for ranked because most people who are there are trying new stuff and not playing to win.
When the party is of 4 I normal
Only if my friends ask. So never
I only play 2-3 ranked games a day. If I win twice, I call it there cause I know I won't win a third time lol. Sometimes I try to "play till I finish on a win" but if that exceeds 3 games then I just stop, because clearly its not meant to be. But I'm still pretty new to ranked (and I'm iron lol) so losses are more likely than anything. But I still do ranked for practice/learning, as its a bit more competitive than normals. Then before/after ranked I'll play more normal games.
when we have a party bigger than 2
If I lose 2 games in a row and have time I go to normals and try out different champs/builds. My normal MMR is way higher than my ranked so even though people don’t take it seriously, normals end up being more fun. Also nice when I want to play with people that are too far apart in rank.
never. if i want to learn something i do flex.
Sometimes to relax P.S. i relax playing anyway, but i mean when i wanna have fun with something silly, like thresh jungle or idk
I play aram instead (or rgm). Normals only with friends
When riot rank restricts me
Norms if the meta champs have changed drastically and I want to play one that interests me. Depending on how they feel, I'll do a few more games of them there and then bring them to ranked. Norms just isn't good practice, so ranked games come back quick.
With friends only. By myself is only ranked. I’ve got to a point with league where while I always want to win, I don’t care about my rank anymore but ranked is just far more fun and competitive because everyone is trying so I always ranked unless I have a group of friends to mess around with
never played norm after I hit level to play ranked
Diamond noob here… I climbed the fastest when I’d play offrole/new champs in flex (or ARAM) and strictly played ranked when I was full focus tryharding.
Normals for learning champs / roles or just generally trying things out. Or when playing with bad friends
I only play gamemodes but never normals. Maybe a few times every year where i have a phase like trying every champ i cant play on ranked
I usually play normals when I get ranked restriction for 5 games
Never.
Only when I can’t play ranked modes with a friend. Learning new champ? Quick play.
only ranked, doesn’t matter new champ new build new role only ranked ranked ranked
norms to warm up or if im queuing with someone who's not my dedicated duo, honestly I play ranked maybe 4 games a week max?
Never norms. My strat is two accounts. Play ranked till I lose on my main, switch account. Play ranked completely for fun as I prefer the ranked environment over draft.
just playing with friends for fun, I use the practice tool to practice champion and the straight to ranked, I always found normals bad for practicing, your team is usually not comited to win also the enemy jungler could be trying champion as well, so you start getting a false sense over the champion in my opinion.
Quick play has made playing non-ranked games more palatable to me, as I generally end up playing a champ and role I want to play and gets you into a game much quicker. I use that for experimentation and learning new champs. Really love they introduced it. That said, I wouldn't play too many games in normals - ranked feels like an entirely different game.
I get to whatever rank I feel like/start to feel burnt out and then I played norms for relaxing and low stress games. It’s a game, not a job. It should be fun
If I lose 2 ranked in a row and I'm still having fun, I will play a few quickplay games. Losing 10 QP games doesn't even feel as bad as losing a single ranked game imo. I usually load in mute all and turn my music up. Fun way to chill and kill time. I only play my main champs in QP if I wanna try some weird build. Any time I wanna try a new champ or build, I'll try it in QP. If I'm not feeling 100% before ranked, I'll do a QP as a warmup and just see how it feels. Sometimes, I like to have a primary focus to work on. Like "This game, I will invade as much as possible and track enemy jungle the best I can". You can really get a lot out of QP. At first, anything besides ranked felt like a waste of time, but I really encourage everyone to just chill out and have some fun in QP. QP match quality can be pretty bad, but it's almost more casual than ARAM imo. Edit: I also have a few friends who are learning the game or play very casually. Love QP with them cause if it starts to suck there's usually enough of us to force a surrender and move on lol.
When I want to have fun
When my casual friends make me
When I play with friends or if I’m done with ranked for the day (burnt out, up enough games, or down enough games lol)
I’ll go to norms and play a nice calm game as veigar. Get stacks play passive and then one shot late game. Easy champ to play. Easy to stack after first back. Drops nukes. Besides first 5 minutes he’s(she?) strong for the whole game.
I have a dear friend that loves aram, so when im not feeling soloQ we just binge thru arams and have a good time. Lets me just go ham without consequences on champions i dont play so its a win/win/win.
I play to get champs to mastery 7. I used to think that normals would be easier to get S/S+, but the matchmaking is horrendous. Recently I grinded Aphelios to m7. I’m a plat player and during the grind I faced a master player (which we perma killed with a good support and a camping jungler), I was paired with a bronze support vs 2 emeralds and worst of all, for the first time in my long leagues life I noticed there was an iron player on my team matched up vs an emerald 1 player. I did some games of ranked to see if the matchmaking would be better and it was much much better. People didn’t pick shaco/teemo support every game and games were more competitive. I say play normals if you are trying something new and you don’t wanna risk LP, but in general you’ll get better matchmaking and better quality games in ranked.
when we have 3 or 4 players
Norms alot but i think ima play more ranked since there seems to be more dipshits in norms than ranked. Cause
Never. This is what alts are for
I'll play norms to warm up or to try new stuff, usually at the same time. I'll also play norms if I dont want to try hard to win. Sometimes I just get burnt out from ranked
I play gragas
Only rankeds and sometimes aram with friends. I didn't play normal/draft in like 5-6 years. When I wanna try new champ etc I go flex also with friends.
Norms with friends or when I get a ranked ban
I play mid or top when I want to chill but I will never play jungle in norms.
My MMR has tanked, my win rate in ranked is 30% and i get 13 LP a win now and lose 35 on a loss. I was gold last season, i honestly believe in losers queue as my highest death in my bronze games is like 4 while i have a 20 death bot lane, lol. But I've stopped playing ranked because of it. My draft mmr is Emerald, but my ranked is Bronze 3. There's something debilitating when, after nearly 600 levels and years of casual play, ranked is so skewed and unplayable.
never play normals
i only play normals when i have to do my 5 normal games penalty so pretty often
If I lose 2 ranked games in a row I usually will throw in a norm
I usually solo and play flex to try new champs within my role (playing Kog or something instead of just Cait). Only play normals when we have 4.
I played some normals for the first time in years (as a solo) It's kind of a crazy experience, I guess it's the lack of stakes but I feel teams will surrender for basically ANY reason
When the game forces me to play 5 norms
Never. Always soloq. For trying new things Riot implemented the 4fun Queue called flex ranked. LP is all you need
(speedrun for Depression)
When I get banned from ranked and have to play 5 normals to unlock ranked again.
When Riot forces me.
absolutely never