Teamwork & Constructive Criticism: OP

Just played a match where it was vs. bot, with me as Bard. Our Vayne was having trouble CSing, and kept getting too close. At one point, I went to pick up a couple chimes in the river. I was still right nearby in case something happened, because I don't venture far for chimes unless I know it's safe to do so. Well, she gets herself caught out by the two of them, I come back to try and save her, and we both narrowly escape death and have to recall, losing tower.

A lot of players would turn toxic at this point, but despite being furious with her by this point, I still did my best to be constructive. Said if I leave and signal her to be careful, that means play safe until I get back, that we both nearly died and lost tower as a result of her not doing so. This is, I believe, all I had to say to her the entire match. She played safer, we got a gank that helped keep us from falling too behind due to her being out CSed, and she ended up finishing 8/1/1.

At another point, she said in chat "nice warding bard," and since the people in this game have me preconditioned to read everything as some sort of attitude, I said "the sarcasm is strong." But she said she actually meant it, and I said thanks, but actually felt I could stand to ward more and had been slacking a tad since I was helping out in a couple of skirmishes that broke out mid.

After the win, she was saying that I was right, that she was awful during laning phase. I told her no, she wasn't, just that there were times when she didn't play safe enough, but that her CS could use a little work, like she herself said. It had been months since she'd played, though, so it was understandable, and I told her so.

There were so many ways that could've devolved to the point of costing us the match. I could've been harsher, she could've gotten snippy and sarcastic with me, our team could've ignored us when we were struggling (I'm tired of the enemy ADC getting one kill, no one coming to at least try to help until they've gotten a couple more and are already getting out of control, and then the team giving us attitude), etc. Except it didn't because we were all able to keep cool heads and work together.

None of us got into that "I'm gonna win this all on my own" mindset that causes people to run off on their own into obvious (generally un-warded) danger. There was always someone to back each of us up. It was kind of beautiful. If only every match in League was like that, win or lose.