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Can we all stop pretending one player is supposed to do the job of the whole team?

Pr0Meister·7/10/2016, 3:59:09 PM·39 votes·3,498 views

I know the prelevant opinion on the boards is "if you are skilled, you will carry" but considering how the other main point seems to be "this is a teamgame", the first point seems somewhat contradictory to me.

Yes, I am writing this somewhat salty because of a lost game, but I took an hour and something to cool off and try to clear my head to try to get my point across.

Each and every role on the team is important- we are agreed on that, right? Meaning each role may make or break the game, meaning our teammates have as much as impact on the game as ourselves. Then will someone explain my noob asss, how am I supposed to offset the failing of my team beyond carrying one or two people? In the game in question, we started out with an MF top who fed the one thing I can't peel and kill off me- a Volibear (and this was after I said "any toplaner now will eat you for breakfast if you go MF top". I was Vel mid vs a Fizz, won lane by kills AND cs (even ended the game 30 cs ahead of Fizz). I tried roaming to our failing bot but it was warded and our Sion supp never engaged. Game ended up with 4 fed people on their team and one on ours. And I can't peel neither Fizz nor Voli off me AND do dmg in the teamfights. Enemy team says I am not good enough to carry but then again- is it the job of any single player on any team to pull quadruple duty?

I've said this before and I believe it is true: other player's failures can and will lose the game. Correction: a failing player can and it's highly likely WILL lose the game. This "if you are good you will carry" mentality seemsto forget it applies to EVERYONE, hence the other four players on the team. So if I go MF bot and go 0/5/0 is it my fault if we lose or the 3/0/0 Riven top is it fault cause she should have carried herself (and the rest of the team). This logic is flawed af.

It's the same when you have a Plat/Dia in a normal game and his team loses. Everybody starts with the heckling and the "where did you buy the acc" questions. Or maybe even a highly skilled but lone player has trouble carrying a feeding four. In a 5/20 game, even if I am a fed Zed with 5 kills there is little I can do against 4 other players at the same time who are 5 kills + assists ahead of me.

So why can't we admit sometimes there is nothing you can do and often it's not your fault that you are losing? The best supp Leona engage with full cc lock is useless if no one follows or they don't have the dmg to finish off the enemy. A jungler can't be everywhere on the map and sure as hell can't gank if every opponent is a full item and 2 kills ahead already. A good Sona supp is helpess if all her ADC does is farm and ignore how low she pokes the enemy or pays 0 attention to wards on the minimap and alert pings. Even a fed ADC can't be expected to kite, kill and peel 5 people off himself if his team never defends him. A lone Veigar can't push solo if his team recalls or goes raptors after a clean ace with 30 sec timers.

I am really interested in everybody's opinion on this one.

TL;DR Either this is a teamgame and everyone matter and has the same impact on the game, or you are supposed to be a wizard and carry solo 1v5. How come?

65 Comments

redniwediS7/10/2016, 4:13:10 PM11 votes

Each role is important, but each role is also flexible. Top lane can roam more than Mid, Jungle can split push more than Top, and ADC can secure more neutral objectives than the Jungle. If you go into a game expecting to do one job only that's fine, but if the situation changes you must be ready to rapidly adapt.

Carrying isn't about doing everyone's job, it's about putting any advantage you gain to it's most efficient use possible. I'll use Top as an example since I play that the most. If you gain a good lead what do you do? Do you keep going for kills and extend your lead, possibly drawing ganks from the enemy Jungle and Mid in the process? Do you do this for the kills or to waste enemy time and resources to release pressure on your team? Do you roam and directly pressure the enemy elsewhere, while sacrificing your top lane tower?

When the lane phase starts coming to a close do you split push objectives or team fight? Do you roam around the map looking for picks or do you play the role of bodyguard for another carry? Your kit will tell you what your champion is good at, but as a player you have to adapt your champion's innate strengths and weaknesses to the situation at hand.

If your team is highly defensive split pushing might be preferable, even if your champion is a mediocre split pusher. You don't do this to quickly backdoor objectives, but rather show yourself in a vulnerable position and split up the enemy team. You fight with the same goal if your team needs you for team fights when you're not a strong team fight champion. Work on splitting up the enemy team and making them more manageable.

Every champion has a limit to how adaptable they are, so if you find yourself frequently in situations where you need to adapt more but cannot you may wish to consider shifting your champion pool. There will be times where you get an easy win, and there will be times where the game is unwinnable. If you make sure you are ready for those close matches in between you can reliably tip the balance in favor of your team, if you know how and focus on improving your own skill. That is what it means to carry.

Scary Door7/10/2016, 4:03:08 PM9 votes

Pretty much agree with the OP.

On one hand people will say to you, "You can carry yourself out of [insert rank here]" and then say "This is a team game, stop trying to be a hero".

The general hypocrisy of the player base on the Boards.

venomous frost7/10/2016, 4:08:35 PM5 votes

you carry the games that are winnable, as in nobody is feeding their ass of and lanes are somewhat neutral, make the difference in those games.

Partholonian7/10/2016, 7:21:01 PM3 votes

Based on the title, I thought this was going to be a thread about warding. Because that's the aspect of the game where one person used to be expected to do the whole team's job, and now that's pretty much impossible to actually do but some people still expect it anyway.

Ethyreon7/10/2016, 4:11:19 PM3 votes

It's a misconception that solo q is a team game. You have a different team every game. The only thing that is the same between games is YOU. Some games might seem impossible, but you actually have to win games like that to climb high. If you're trying to tell me that you did everything correctly, got every CS, warded optimally, and most importantly used the advantages you got with your individual skill to impact the map and you still lost maybe the game was unwinnable. But I know you didn't because nobody is perfect.

League in the LCS is a team game. Solo q is only about measuring your solo ability. Your rank is basically an indicator of how likely you are to win a game with 4 random players against 5 random players. So yes it is your job to do the work of a whole team, at least if you want to climb.

EndlessSorcerer7/10/2016, 4:10:51 PM3 votes

You aren't going to be able to win every game. Nobody is denying this fact; you will lose games due to the play of yourself and/or your teammates.

However, you will lose fewer games if your skill level is better than your current ranking's average. If you are consistently and reliably performing well (not necessarily stomping or getting fed, but playing well), then you will have more influence over the outcome of the game and will have a better chance of winning it.

You don't have to 1v5 to climb; all you have to do is consistently perform well so that you can influence the game and attempt to help carry it for your team.

PapaGreg217/11/2016, 2:00:44 AM3 votes

One person cannot carry most games however one person can most certainly lose the game for you.

vampirekid137/11/2016, 1:08:41 PM2 votes

you are looking at 1 isolated game, this will happen, not all games are winnable, even a diamond might drop a game in bronze due to unwinnable circumstances, the rankings arent about 1 game, its about a trend, a trend you create by playing hundreds of games, even so guaranteed losing 1 out of 5 games due to being unwinnable, and 1 more out of 5 due to afks, you still have up to 3 games out of 5 to prove you are worth your salt and climb.

Goatfish7/11/2016, 1:18:45 AM2 votes

[deleted]

Ryzing2Diamond7/11/2016, 6:58:40 AM2 votes

That "You must carry your team to climb" mentality is an old one from the Solo-Q days. It's still very accurate actually. I didn't get to Plat without carrying. I'm going to assume you're in the high-low Silver range.

First let me tell you something that will make you climb a lot faster as you improve at the game. One, single, game, does not matter. It just doesn't. Play your best but don't get hung up on one game, it doesn't mean you're bad for losing 50/50 of your games, even pros do it.

Another old one that I like from the soloQ days. "The only thing you can bring to your next game is yourself." This is what you should focus on, okay? It's true that you have 4 teammates on your team, but they can't make a bigger impact than you do. If they do, you fucked up. Even if you win. You won't climb if the people on your team are contributing more than you do every game, because that'd mean you're where you belong, or a little above. That's what the first phrase is saying, you have to be the MVP on your team consecutively to climb fast.

The second phrase is telling you to focus on yourself, and listen to it. It's okay for your teammates to make mistakes, but it's not okay for you to make mistakes, because you're going to be dealing with yourself for your entire gaming career. You will only be dealing with them for one game. See the point?

Mr Fidori7/11/2016, 2:26:50 PM2 votes

I think we tend to speak that message a lot to offset the exceedingly common mindsest that it's "always my teammates fault." Can one person really carry every game? No. But if someone is constantly blaming someone else and never thinking about their own play, we tell them the other extreme of "it's all about you" in hopes that they'll meet in the middle and start thinking the way this post does.

HeeroTX7/11/2016, 2:45:14 PM2 votes

Here's how it SHOULD be (IMO): If you win, you get +10LP, if you lose you get -10LP (this is totally binary, +/- based on result) If you play WELL, you get +10LP, if you play BADLY you get -10LP (this is a range that modifies based on how LoL reads your performance) If you're "outperforming" your elo, you get some variable amount of LP to get you to the right elo.

So, if you play a great game, let's say you get +8LP for performance, if you then LOSE you get net, -2 LP (+8 for performance, -10 for loss).

In this way, if YOU (individually) play WELL you WILL climb. Your wins will move you up and your LOSSES will NOT move you down. In the same sense, if you play BADLY, your losses will move you down and your wins will NOT move you up. This means you have "control" of your rank. And you will be better positioned by YOUR performance rather than the randomness of "is this a good team". League is a team game, and TEAM performance should matter, but there's too many people that either INTENTIONALLY or unintentionally sabotage your team.

With DQ in place, players should be given more "control" of their rank rather than just placing it on "win/loss".

Silver Singed7/11/2016, 4:33:27 PM1 votes

You only have control of 10% of the champions in the game. Granted.

Playing at your correct MMR you will probably win 45% of games outright due to things outside of your control. You will probably also lose 45% outright. The trick is that 10% of games in the middle that are contested. Those are the ones that matter.

Don't get caught up in single games. It's more important to look at long term trends.

As for how to carry? Well, that's really role and champion specific.

For example, an ADC can carry by CSing flawlessly and then making no positioning errors durring team fights and not getting caught out. Personally I find carrying from the AD role to be very difficult but there are tons of people who do it.

A mid laner on the other hand? They can carry by winning their lame and roaming to get other lanes ahead. For a mid laner (and some top laners) it's all about finding opportunities to catch people out.

And no matter WHAT role you're playing, seeing opportunities for objectives is important. Getting a kill is pointless and risky If you don't also go out and take objectives off the map too. You need to always be thinking about how to take towers and how to take dragons. Something I've started to notice is that this alone is helping me get through games I probably don't deserve to win.

Hyrum Graff7/11/2016, 4:57:59 PM1 votes

These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

It's a team game. This means some games, you win or lose by your team. It also means some games your team wins or loses by you. If you consistently play well, you're going to win more than if you consistently play poorly.

WunThousandOurs7/11/2016, 5:14:17 PM1 votes

You are speaking that gospel! I agree and have experienced much of what you have addressed. I no argument. The game is flawed. I don't understand why some players feed or die a lot when you can just back or stop forcing fights.

The only thing I do disagree with is you going Mid with Velkoz against a Fizz with an MF Top. I don't know who I would pick since I don't know the full team comp, but it wouldn't have been Velkoz. Too many limitations when placed in a position where you knowingly have to carry a game in champ select.

100T iLL7/11/2016, 5:20:17 PM1 votes

does this mean feeders should take responsibility for feeding

Lugg7/11/2016, 5:24:54 PM1 votes

It is a team game. No one player should be able to solo carry a game, ever. This just proves how broken a lot of the champions are in the game. I have been in games where the enemy literally had one good player and they won the game entirely by themselves despite the fact that we won every other lane. Props to the player for playing great, but their is no sane way that team should have won the game.

There are also plenty of abilities that are broken as well, unlimited resets being the worst one.

TheRealMondo7/11/2016, 5:40:40 PM1 votes

For my elo the support has to do the whole team's job of warding. with only a max of 4 wards instead of 20. I ask for more wards they say "well you are support". Ticks me off

Hrkk Ptoo7/11/2016, 5:44:03 PM1 votes

Heres the thing I noticed while playing League Mainly Solo Queue Ranked. Your gonna win some and your going to lose some, every time you queue you roll that die of chance and hope you get a competent team. But odds are you won't or you'll have a weak link. To improve your chances In winning games you play champions you know how to play and know what to do with if you get behind. Many and I mean Many of my wins in ranked are because someone on my team rose to the occasion and pulled us from our inevitable lose. All i had to do was be competent and follow/listen. Other games are easier and you snowball to victory. There is no clear defined way to make sure you get a good team or carry for your team. You just have to deal with what you roll in that particular game.

My only clear hint is pick characters that scale well into late game if you can stall it out long enough you can come back. 3 of my most recent matches we had all inhibs pushed in and we came back and won. Also it doesn't hurt to try and be a leader. I main jungle so I usually shot call the main objectives in my games. But ill also try to lead our team help tilted players and talk to my teammates to understand whats going on and what I can do to help. Some games are lost causes and others you may actually turn a game around by talking to your teammates.

Another Key Point that 95% of the community ignores is the fact that people are going to better than you. Stop thinking your the best top shit in the game. You will lose games simple because someone understands or plays their champion or the game better than you. Remember you learn more from losing a game than winning one. I am a huge advocate have skill>Champion Pick.

And lastly stop being so god damn aggressive. If you lost lane, deal with it. You lost were still in this game but you need to play to your teams strenghts and not try to show us you can eventually get revenge for yourself. We don't care if you went 0/3 in lane. We can when you tower dive them constantly just to try and get 1 kill to your name and end up feeding 3 of their other players.