Is it Possible to Hit Gold In a Month?!

Summoners! Many of you are hard at work, grinding away in the hopes to make it to the coveted GOLD division before the impending deadline of November 11, 2015, nabbing yourself the honorable Victorious Sivir skin.

Others of you have fallen by the wayside, dropping division after division on tilt, quickly losing hope of making it by the cut-off deadline. That's probably why you're here in the hopes to miraculously find a way to the promised land. Let's try our best to get you there!

Introduction

Summoners! Many of you are hard at work, grinding away in the hopes to make it to the coveted GOLD division before the impending deadline of November 11, 2015, nabbing yourself the honorable Victorious Sivir skin.

Others of you have fallen by the wayside, dropping division after division on tilt, quickly losing hope of making it by the cut-off deadline. That's probably why you're here in the hopes to miraculously find a way to the promised land. Let's try our best to get you there!

#1: Don't Lose Hope!

According to the latest statistics, in North America 34% of players are above Gold. That means that 66% of your fellow men (mostly men) are in the same boat. 

However, as the chosen one, YOU will make it out to join the league of nearly 600,000 summoners as sole wielders of the Victorious Sivir blade.

#2: Start from the Basics: What Is "Getting to Gold"?

Are all your friends laughing because they've already gotten to gold, platinum, diamond, and maybe even higher while you're stuck as a silver?

Well guess what, you can get the Victorious Skin by getting to gold in ANY QUEUE which includes:

• Ranked Solo/Duo Queue
• Pre-made 5-man Ranked Team
• Pre-made 3-man Ranked Team

This means that if two of your friends want to play some Twisted Treeline or 4 of your friends want to grind out some 5's points, they can help you get to gold (easily[?]).

If not, maybe they weren't such good friends after all if they have time to make fun of you but not to play with you... :( sorry mang

Meanwhile, let's check out just how possible it is to make it through the gauntlet known as Yolo Queue...

#3: How Long Will it Take?

Naturally, the lower you start off at, the longer it'll take. Let's run some rough estimates:

Solo queue

At worst, from Bronze 5 at a rate of 17 LP per win, your outlook is a bit grim.

8 Games - Bronze 4

8 Games - Bronze 3

8 Games- Bronze 2

8 Games - Bronze 1

9 Games - Silver 5

41 Games 

x2                           

82 Games NET wins to reach Gold 5

82 Games in a row x 30 min a game = 41 hours if you win every game in a row.

At a more reasonable 65% win rate you need to play about 275 games (I did the math, but can't figure out the formula at the moment...multi-variable algebra was never my strong suit.) Anyway, this comes out to 138 hours, or 5 hours a day for 30 days.

Rough life. Not very reasonable to solo queue grind but still VERY possible with 30 days to go. Probably better to do ranked team games instead (see below).

Silver 3 starting point

8 Games - Silver 2

8 Games - Silver 1

9 Games - Gold 5    

25 Games NET wins to reach Gold 5

TOTALLY doable in almost 30 days time at a few hours a day.

Meanwhile, how about Premade Ranked Teams?

Placement matches: 5 Games

Depending on how you guys do in your placement matches and what MMR you end up at afterwards, it's perfectly reasonable for you to end up in Silver, followed by 4 more games to Gold since ranked team games DO allow you to skip promos, even up through different tiers. (Confirmed fact, did it myself)

Personally, I've reached gold after 8 games with two players that have never played 3's this season, and it's a very casual feeling map mode compared to the chaos of summoner's rift.

As an added bonus, you can get an extra cool ward skin if you play enough ranked team games.

Conclusions

If you're silver in solo queue and are willing to grind it out to Gold for the principle of getting there on your own power, much respect to you. It's definitely possible in a month's time. You might even be able to do it in a week if you REALLY wanted to.

Here are a few short articles that might help you in your solo queue climb:

• Top 10 Things Players Do Incorrectly
• Top 10 Ways to Deal With Negative Players
• Top 10 Solo Queue "Fill" Champions

Meanwhile, if you're already gold and are looking to up your game for next season, be sure to check out the Top 10 Ways to Get Better at League of Legends.

As for you Bronze Players, we still love you, but getting to gold in solo queue is probably somewhat of a long stretch at this point unless you're willing to put in the sheer dedication that's eluded you until this point.

However, if you can pick up a good group for 3's, it's definitely possible to hit gold in a single weekend. Check out the Patch 5.20 Twisted Treeline Tier list for help picking champions!

BEST OF LUCK TO ALL

Got more tips to get to Gold? Working on your grind? Comment below!