Dear Summoners: A Semi-Inspirational Speech

Dear Summoners,

My name is Dustin, a player from Texas and I am Bronze II. I have played this game for a very long time, since Open Beta. My friend introduced it to me the week that Poppy and Udyr were released. With no knowledge of DOTA at all, no experience with Starcraft, and only a night of playing Warcraft II with a friend, the mechanics of this game both confound and spellbound me to understand it better.

Season 1 began when I was able to afford internet that was good enough to play Ranked, but I had learned only 3 champions: Nasus top, Nidalee top/mid, and Amumu jungle. I was always invited to games solely for the purpose of being the jungler and playing Amumu. The claim was "Amumu is so tanky while dealing so much damage, that it's hard to ruin a game while playing with him if you build right and just land your Bandages." I followed this logic to the end of Season 1 and learned eventually that I have no idea what I'm doing without being yelled at for my mistakes and them being pointed out over what voip I used at the time.

The events in Seasons 2-5 are a blur involving getting tired of being yelled at, quitting League for a year and a half, picking it back up, and deleting everyone on my friends list to start fresh, away from the negative, angry influence of the attitude problems of my friends at the mistakes I made. Through frustration that stemmed from lack of teamwork by my team, not following up to my initiation combo, and throwing games, I decided I'd stop jungling. Then Xin Zhao became a champion and well, I was hooked. The argument that "We need ap" when the entire team picked ad-based champions forced me back to Amumu several times and I was fed up with him, so I stopped jungling basically forever.

I spend a lot of my free time watching videos on self improvement in League of Legends, read articles on advice for getting better in all aspects of the game, and updating myself on the current state of the League. In the past few months, I have been able to stay out of Bronze V, hovering at the lower LP of Bronze II, getting demoted, or winning promos after an almost immediate winning streak. I'm not sure why my passion for improving has become so vehement in the past seasons. Maybe it's to prove to myself I can improve, maybe it's to spite my former friends who told me I'm never getting out of Bronze (Or a reference to whatever MMR/Elo that was pre-rank labels). I want to get better to improve my gaming experience and the experience of my teammates, no matter how badly they're doing.

As you read this, I just lost a game with Ezreal because of various reasons:

1. Top was disconnected for most of the game.
2. I couldn't secure kills that happened bot so I wasn't ahead in gold early.
3. I was confused on what my build path should be because I don't main Ez.
4. I don't main Ez because I don't know who to follow on Youtube to learn him.
5. Seeing that Ashe and Bard were a duo, I was nervous and missed a lot of cs.
6. Our jungler, Malphite went ap first, armor later, and missed ALL of his ultis.
7. If he didn't miss his ultis, his timing was atrocious.
8. Yasuo played too aggressively and was easily camped by Warwick, who got fed.
9. Nobody but me tried to hinder AP/Tank Naut top from taking free turrets.
10. When Swain (Top) finally reconnected, he bought flat ap and no hp/mr nothing.

That being said, I have trouble understanding/accepting that "Not all games can be won." I think they can. I think that it doesn't matter how hard someone snowballed, how well their positioning is, or how well coordinated the carries are with their team. I believe that someone, at some point on the enemy team is going to make a cocky, ill-timed, ill-positioned series of stupid mistakes and can create opportunities that can be seized to put you on the road to a comeback. I don't think I'm wrong. I have been in games that I have had to personally drag us out of for the win, and it's been happening more and more often. I'm not saying I can win all 4v5's with an afk and 2 feeders, but I'm saying that just because it's hard, doesn't mean you should give up. I did not win this game, and it's made me realize a few things.

1. Raging at your team makes them play worse.
2. Using constructive criticism in losing games wastes time you need to be using to pay attention to things outside of chat.
3. The more you rage, the more mistakes you're going to make that you can't see as they happen, but your team can. This turns you into one of the worst kinds of hypocrites.
4. You can not do the job of everyone not doing their job at the same time. You can not be omnipresent, and despite all your mechanical skill and champion/game knowledge, your actions are based on your cooldowns, positioning, and choices just like everyone else.
5. Accept that you aren't playing well and ignore the status of the game. Use your brain power to focus on yourself. Aim well for that skillshot. Pink ward that brush. Use skillshots for hit confirmations instead of facechecking. Remember the basics. Keep your cool.

Every single game is different than the one before, and tells a story you can learn from.