User blog comment:Ohatsu/skill diference and why/@comment-25055281-20150420132453

There are many factors that determine your performance in this game and your rank, for example:

1-Reaction time, affected by your reflexes and experience and also by technical concerns such as  internet connection.

2-Decision making, which is in turn affected by game knowledge but also by actitude (both analithic strategic aproach and visceral emotional)

3-Luck...because MMR (the hidden value used to determine matchmaking) is statistically consistent, and once you play enought games the sistem will return satisfactory results, but only a few of those games will be placement/promotion/demotion (games in which you can actually drop) and this way luck may become a factor in your ranking...

To start with, your friend has a better PC and is more competitively driven. He may also have sharper reflexes and a better hang of the abstract, strategical facets of the game.

How to improve (mind you, if I knew an easy way to improve fast I'd likely be making money out of it) ?

A-Luck...forget it, you can't controll it and most of the time it won't be a huge factor. In the long run it shouldn't be a factor at all.

B-Reaction time: practice and may be narrow your champion pool until you notice a clear improvement (master a few champions, then build on that). It's usually more rewarding than spending money on your pc for minor gains

C-Decision making: this is way too complex...

On the emotional level, enjoy the game and don't flame...and don't click surrender too fast. Also try to improve yourshelf instead of getting obsesed with "becoming better than someone" (but keep in mind that motivation and actitude works differently for different people)

On the strategy level, there are many examples of 'mistakes' we low elos make. For instance, proper warding lets you take informed decisions instead of guessing, keeping in mind your opponents' builds will help you win trades first and teamfights latter, focusing on objetives instead of kills will give you far greater control of the game and more solid leads...in general "We won because I rushed armor and their carry had no arpen yet, so we were stronger in TFs and got an early 4th drake" is more consistent than "I rekt bc outplays bc I OWN"