Let's talk: Fair game, Counterplay and Outplay - Boards vs Reality

Hellow everybody.

I know you missed me, so let's see how offended some people will get today, by talking about the holy trinity of the boards: fair game, counterplay and outplay.

What are these, what do they truly mean and what are they not.

Let's find out together.

Before we start, if your opinion contains the "forced 50%", there's a can in the corner of the room, please throw it there, and come back to continue reading afterwards, ok?

Let's start with "Fair Game", because this one, is the easiest to throw out the window.

A fair game is.....well.....it is.....it's.....nobody knows.

As i already can hear you smash that keyboard saying stuff like "But Masquerena, a fair game is when all 10 players are of equal skill".

Ok, lemme ask this: if all 10 players are of equal skill, but one of them is having an off game for whatever reason, be it you, an ally or an opponent, is it a fair game? No, it's not, because even tho statistically it is a fair game, game play wise it isn't. Even if statistically, all 10 players have the exact MMR, to the hexadecimal, there are so many outside factors that influence it to the point where it's not even funny. Say my jungler is a Shaco main, doesn't hover and I ban Shaco as per usual because that PoS (champion not player) should rot in hell, then the guy starts inting because "I banned his main", or, he doesn't int, but he's incapable of playing anything else, but since he's 2-2 in his promos to get out of Silver, he takes the risk, but he's bad and just can't keep up. Statistically, a fair game, outside factors included? It ain't close to fair.

"But Masquerena, a fair game is a game that reaches 90 hours and it's so close that one mistake can lose it".

And you think that ain't gonna breed any toxicity? I've played lots of comebacks where allies, or myself (don't look at my last WW game, it was totally Malzahar's fault) fed early and still pulled out a win, or we played 4v5 and managed a win, or also lost a 3v5 (we were the 5), but none of those games had less toxicity than the more "unfair games", to be honest, those games had as much, if not more than most of the "unfair games", because if someone makes that game losing mistake, the whole team lashes out to that person, the losing team is just so much more toxic in those games than the normal ones.

But that's just a loose definition of what fair game means. For some, a fair game is where they win doing the same build of AP Jhin every game and stomped with, because when they lose with it, it's the team's fault, clearly, if they don't hard stomp, it's still the team's fault because they didn't peel for him and allowed him to hoard all the kills, but when they finally get that one stomp, that's the fair game, for others, a fair game is one where they had fun, but "fun" is even more subjective than "fair".

Synergy and matchups are also an impact on a "fair game". A teamcomp with synergy and favored matchups vs a teamcomp lacking multiple classes and difficult matchups. In a "fair game" where all 10 players have the same MMR this match goes south pretty fast. (suggested by Kai Guy and added because it makes sense)

A fair game for me may not be what Moderator X who removed my comment because I told a guy who spent 3 seasons in Bronze and the 4th in Iron that "Not saying they are smart, just smarter than you." when he said that Akali's Q is the only skill that can't help her chase/run, because for some reason that was considered harassment, but what Mod X considers a fair game may not be what me or half the boards would consider a fair game, which also of course, what half the boards would consider a fair game, may not be a fair game for the other half, so on an so forth, and everything can be broken in tiny packets.

What I think is a fair game? Not placing a 5 man premade against a non 5 man premade in normals unless their que time is past 1h, then I can say that as the gentle being of pureness that I am, they can play against a non 5 man.

Also, just don't use OP.GG to "check team mates" if you're bellow Diamond, there's no point, not only some of those stats are broken A F occasionally, but you just tilt yourself if you see something you in particular don't like, and starting a game tilted contributes only to one thing, you seeing the defeat screen.

I know your gimmick is to flame, dodge, repeat But the only thing that Ekkos is the sound of your defeat.

There's a good bunch of players that players have 3 preset commands:

when an ally feeds, execute reply 1: "GG nab jugle, reprot Tilayah" when an opponent feeds, execute reply 2: "GG nab, mah haz zkillz, u nab, mah kerry" when it itself feeds, execute reply 3 if all allies do good, if not, execute reply 4

• Reply 3: "zorri taem, mah haz uff geam"
• Reply 4: "reprot nab jugle, fidah mad mah luz, reprot, bam fidah"

Now, let's move to "outplay", as this can be tossed out the window in 1 sentence (unless your name is Feedamere, Foodyr or Yeet with silent T and to some extent Garfie...Rengar):

"Responding to a situation much better than your opponent".

Outplay is purely based on one's knowledge about his own champion, the opponent's champion and general gameplay. Nothing more, nothing less. If both players play something equally bad, the one that wins outplayed the other, that simple.

And finally, the most beloved word of the boards, the father of the trinity, COUNTERPLAY!!!

Where do I even start with this one?

I guess I can start with the fact that 99% of the boards uses it wrong on top of overusing it?

Why do I say that? Well, because those guys see it as something simple, "me, opponent, nothingness", basically showcasing why it's used so badly, because counterplay isn't black and white, it's a delicious shade of grey.

Counterplay can be split in 2 opposing yet complementing parts, the Yin & Yang, the Yasuo & Feeding, of League of Legends:

• Direct Counterplay > referring to the direct interactions between champion A and champion B.
• Indirect Counterplay > referring to one's ability to use strategies NOT directly correlated or unique to it's champion, such as: minion manipulation, tethering, proper trading, proper farming, damage foresight, mouse sensitivity, cookie cutter builds, being able to actually use your own champion's combos.

What Indirect Counterplay means....let's look at an example, vs . Ori is a monster against Akali, and one of my most favorite champs to play against her, yet in lower elos, Akali wins against Orianna, because despite Akali's kit being harder to use than Ori's, the lack of overall knowledge from the players simply allow Akali to get out with wins she shouldn't have, but once you hit Plat, it evens out, and D+, Ori wins the lane and most of the time, game as well. Sure, Orianna has little to no counterplay AFTER Akali is on top of her while also having all her cooldowns up, BUT, Ori's kit coupled with good game knowledge allows her to make it so Akali can't get on top of her with everything up, making it so that once Akali is on top of her, half of her kit is already down or used poorly trying to prevent Ori from comboing off.

Can Akali one shot Ori even without using her whole kit when both play good? Sure, especially if your ally Lee fed Akali a bunch of kills early when going for tower dives while missing his Q and R's a minion. (look, I know it's not possible to R a minion, but it's an ally Lee we're talking about, he's making the impossible, possible, because he doesn't see any limits to stop him, literary.....and watch out, that's a road sig.....that must've hurt)

Point is, "counterplay" stands for "preventing the opponent from completing his game plan", and it includes all the tools available, be them inherent to your champion or not. You can tether the enemy with any champion, you can freeze with many champions, especially ranged ones, you can abuse cooldowns with any champion, you can CS with any champions, shocker, I know.

Part of "counterplay" is directly "outplay", so of course that when you lack the knowledge to outplay your opponent, it can feel like "no counterplay".

Sure, there are some things at the highest level of play that too close to black or white than they should be, but that's because Riot listens to half the boards that keep saying that the disparity between good players and bad players should be removed, because why not? Let's start punishing players for being good, after all, you all seem to enjoy the damage meta, as that's kinda of the only way to remove or lower skill disparity, but hey, if that's what you enjoy, please keep at it. How about we turn all melee champions into Garen and all ranged champions into a Draven that doesn't have the axe minigame.

As always, I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts down in the comment section.