User blog comment:Leyrann/Elo rating doesn't work & Elo Hell exists/@comment-69.54.134.154-20121222072408

It's worth noting that the system developed by Elo (he was a mathematician and is who the system is named for) is actually designed for 1v1 games like Chess. In the case of league, which is a team game, it's not really that accurate. Several reasons for this, first, individual performance does not equate to team victory, second, not all roles exert the same amount of effect on the course of the game (e.g. Support's can't turn a losing game into a winning one, if their team is failing to properly utilitize their ward coverage, ADCs can't turn a game around if their team can't tank worth a damn for them, etc.). Third, given the complexity of League, no two games are really all that similar, their almost never a fair 50-50 from the start (picks matter, so do runes, masteries, etc.) though they are still close to it. All these things together, and we see why elo hell exists. Elo isn't actually a very good representation of player skill, but rather an amalgamation of many factors, a lot of which, are beyond that player's control.