The #1 Cause of Feeding (aside from trolls)

People are VERY poor judges of their own strength. They are too confident in their ability to mechanics their way out of a problem, when the truth is a little strategic knowledge would prevent the problem from occurring in the first place.

I'm sure we've all had those Yasuos/Rivens on our team that refuse to ward, go extremely aggro all of lane phase, then never group later on, insisting that they can deal with whoever the enemy teams sends to stop their split push. Or maybe you've seen that one mid laner (Zed or Fizz, for example) that constantly walks into unwarded areas of the map, or mindlessly pushes their lane with no vision, then cries about their bad jungler when they get ganked. Or how about the Darius who gets a bit of an early lead and is suddenly God himself, running heedlessly into 1v3s and dying, raging in chat about how useless their team is.

Well here's some unfortunate news for you: you're not as strong as you think you are. In fact, you're probably a great deal less strong, because of how overconfident you are. I'm not going to bother explaining the Dunning–Kruger effect because most of you probably already know what it is and how it relates to this point. Instead I want to extend a formal invitation to all of you who suffer from this God complex: pull your damn head out of your ass and stop being such a cocky prick.

Just because you got an early lead doesn't mean it can't be taken away with a single mistake. Just because you're playing Zed doesn't mean you're automatically Faker and can 1v3 with ease. You still need to play cautiously, you still need to worry about making mistakes, you still need to ward, and you still need to respect the damage potential of the enemy team. Stop walking back into lane after getting a kill thinking "Hell yeah, I can handle whatever the enemies throw at me now! I'm king of the world! HAHAHA!"

No. Sit the fuck down. You're not anything special just because you have a few kills under your belt. Buying wards is still important, grouping with your team is still important, and most importantly, TAKING OBJECTIVES IS STILL IMPORTANT. Let's get one thing clear: kills do not, under ANY circumstances, win games on their own. Getting kills is a facilitator to winning the game. The game is won when the enemy nexus dies, not when you have 30 kills and 500 cs.

The #1 cause of feeding is, quite simply, overconfidence in one's ability. The fact is people cannot accurately judge their own ability with any reliability. They are biased in favor of overvaluation. How to properly take advantage of a lead once it's established is one of the most important skills to learn in this game. I've played so many games that were easily won by 20 minutes, but ended up lasting 40 because people couldn't capitalize on their advantages. They wasted too much time making poor decisions (farming instead of pushing, chasing kills instead of securing objectives, taking an air drake over baron, etc.).

I'm not trying to dissuade all aggression. I'm trying to advocate for smart, well-timed aggression, backed by an intimate knowledge of the positions and capabilities of the enemy team. Stop making assumptions about your power level. Think about what happened last time and don't make the same stupid mistake again. As I always have to tell my team, "greed makes you feed".