Gold is mid elo. Look at the rank distribution - the midpoint where half of the players are above and half are below is somewhere around mid silver. If you’re Gold 3 or above, you should be proud!
Subjective descriptions like “high” and “low” are all a matter of perspective.
From the perspective of pro players it’s pretty “low”. From the perspective of the larger player population, it’s not “low”.
Something to consider is that a section of the playerbase is relatively “tryhard” and a section of the playerbase is relatively “casual”. The expectations of the former group are higher, because they (perhaps rightfully) expect to generally be a higher rank than the “casual” players. Using completely made up numbers, if the lowest 20% of the ranked population is mostly “casual” players, then the rank distribution for “tryhard” players is mostly about the top 80% of the ranked population, excluding that bottom section where it’s mostly players who play just for fun and don’t care much about improving / trying to win. From that perspective – and using those completely made up numbers – gold may again seem “low” for a “tryhard” player.
Just for data:
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Gold 3 means you’re in the top ~33% of players
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Gold 4 is the top 40%
The midpoint is roughly halfway between Silver 2 and 3 (actually good work on the distribution there, Rito)
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Riot has a key in the patch notes for how they breakdown the skill levels
