Reign of Gaming

If you look around for riot posts at the beginning S3 they talked about a few reasons for hiding elo:

1) to prevent abuse and bullying based on someone's visible elo (OH YOU HAVE A 1300 Y U SO SCRUB) 

2) As someone said before, it prevents people from reaching a certain elo and then never playing again (SEE I DID IT)

3) Visible progress and rewards, and you get to keep your League regardless (this is related to #2, but the tangible carrot of being SO CLOSE to the next tier is something that makes humans go WANT)

I'd try to work with people, act like a mature human being, as I might be in a game for over an hour with this (or these) people

Sorry Internet, gamers can be people too

Congrats, both of you were dicks! Neither of you was helping.

Here's some food for thought: if your teammates are weaker than theirs, and you deserve to win, who's the one who's the one who match-making expects to make the difference and make the teams even?

Not going to lie, I laughed at "Match Making can tend to match people up more randomly, less balanced and sometimes pretty unfairly."

If you honestly believe that, then yes your essay is at least partially correct. Match Making is far from random, and its far from perfect. Riot won't tell us exactly how it works for a couple of reasons (people trying to game it, proprietary algorithms, etc.), but what they have said is that it does match teams fairly evenly (approximately equal average MMR, with some other information like number of games played as well).

It also intelligently changes your MMR - it predicts that which team is going to win, and adjusts MMR after matches accordingly (if you won when match-making thinks you shouldn't have, your MMR goes up more). 

To separate out the queues is impossible for ranked - it raises the same problem of MMR across game modes, and so you'd basically have 2 sets of MMRs and 2 sets of leagues, else someone would be able to either game the system or get ROFLSTOMPED (which no one wants to happen)

Shortly after I posted, they responded in the AMA

http://www.reignofgaming.net/news/24180-full-freljord-ama-roundup

Its most of the way down, or browser search for "marriage"

Riot specifically addressed this on their forums somewhere (I can't remember where or when), but they are still married.

To ICMS - LoL does require acquired mechanical skill - last hitting, understanding your champions abilities/AA/mechanics/range in order to not get caught and maximize your safety while poking, fighting, and kiting. Its not as insane in some ways as Starcraft - but its definitely there. 
Fighting game-style mechanics are very helpful in LoL, as then you'll be able to land your wombo-combos. Its not as taxing, but you need to be able to do with a wide variety of characters if you want to be successful.

To the OP - Singed is not a great support (obviously), but basically keep in mind what your goals during the phases of the game.

In laning, protect the ADC (and yourself!, you give blood money too). Try to zone the enemy ADC - if you can deny them farm, its just as good as your ADC getting farm. Ward - this is mostly to allow you to stay safe. 
Post-laning your goal is not to be an unstoppable killing machine, so with someone like singed - maybe setup a play with goo, but mostly just protect your backline (ADC, maybe your mid and/or top) from anyone coming to kill them. 

If you're put in a position like that - don't worry about what champion you're playing, just worry about what the goal of your position is. You can pull off any role with any champion if you're smart enough to do so.

Mages with long-range, effective poke are very strong (Lux, Nidalee, Xerath, Fiddle, Ziggs, maybe Gragas)

Tanks with mean initiates (Amumu, Blitz)

Sustains and shields are also quite good (Sona, Soraka is broken)

Mundo is also quite good, especially since they removed warmogs - he has free % damage with cleavers + sustain from his passive

Jayce is also nice because he offers AD Bruiser, and a long range (hurty) poke

This all can get used in ABAM - (all blind, all mid) or DAM (Draft, all mid) which is pretty fun as well. 

Quote from Dub_Rio »

If you can find your way to silver quicker my power leveling a smurf than trying to grind your way from bronze 4 I will truly be shocked. 

+1