AFK Players are aggravating

Woah!

Before you go, this isn't a complaint post. This is actually something I felt would be a great motivational story for those of you who are ticked off or raging. If you are a player who gets tilted easily or a player who gets tilted by AFKs, I dedicate this story for you. My friend recommended I post it here, so I hope it helps. Hopefully, people don't hit surrender less with this post. You can scroll down to the TL;DR.

In League, I have had a lot of AFKs. I have even gained lost streaks in ranked with AFKs and intentional feeders. However, there are quite a number of games I pry through those and win. Sometimes I change perspectives, sometimes I don't. And through my experience, this is definitely a game that hit base with me.

>#Background/Introduction

Today I was playing with my friend. I will not name who above is my friend, but they were relatively new to League. I love playing with them and having fun games. As a Vayne main, I also love to challenge myself. I play most of my games as Vayne or pick her against counterpicks to learn. I do feel my mechanics are great and can rival a low platinum player. I lack a lot of game knowledge though. A lot. And that's why I play with my friend. We both just have fun learning and exploring what we don't know.

Yet, when we played a game with our Graves (with 100-200 ping which I do sympathize with), we couldn't enjoy our game when he decided not to gank any lanes despite our team-composition being heavily late-game oriented! We had a weak early and were prone to easily losing lane! I was very irritated, not frustrated, but irritated and annoyed by his incompetence. I understand he was lagging but the fact he decided to let us lose a lane that could've been snowballed with one gank, fail to help his top and mid-laners, just farm for the game, and AFK for its entirety really insulted the team. We put about 15 minutes of work and he decided to AFK.

Truth be told, I was possibly a reason. I did say "Please gank. Be useful" with his reponse being "shut the fuck up vayne". If I was in the scenario again, I would still say it though. 100-200 ping is the amount I get at EUW and I can still be responsive enough to be a useful asset. Just might have to die a bit more though...

So we had an AFK Graves and the Tristana has 20-30 CS lead on me. Why? Karthus' poke is insane and causes us to lose lane fast. We can't even push the wave into their tower and when they managed to almost kill our bot-lane inhibitor tower, Graves decided for the first time to gank. However, it was too late. Soraka and I were too weak to sustain so much poke and Tristana's early game power over Vayne. In addition, top-lane already lost its first tower and was also behind. Mid-lane was doing decent but due to all lanes losing, she was also getting pressured.

He starts a surrender vote and Fiora wants to leave with Ahri, but me and Soraka decline. "No, we can do this. We have late I say".

Graves, seeing that all lanes were a tragedy at this point, left the game quickly. Nobody spoke. It was silent. Him leaving was actually better because now we could access the jungle for the farm we lost. And so comes the story of a tilted team's battle for revenge against Graves...

>#Payback Time

We should stomp them late-game.

However, reaching late-game was another story. Thankfully, the Tristana did not know how to capitalize on her kit and advantage, thinking she could duel me by herself against walls. Or dueling me and Soraka at the same time. Or dueling a Vayne with just a slight gold deficit without a powerspike(because Vayne's BORK powerspike is stronger than Tristana's BORK powerspike even with a 300 gold bonus lead).

Karthus' squishiness was also a nice factor and the rest was mechanics. Since we were all pushed to our base, it was easy to farm(go back to base and come to our inhibitor tower in 2 seconds and rotate individually for items) and I was quite fed at this point. (6/0/1). Ryze, knowing he was fed, tried flanks which I could mechanically counter. Fiora and Ahri used their macromechanics and we managed to sustain.

We were all tilted by Graves, but we all communicated our various pieces of game knowledge and managed to capitalize on almost every mistake they made. (E.G. Fiora deliberately forcing Teemo to blind her so I can clean their team up or Ahri poking them so we can shred them down). We wanted to win and didn't want Graves to ruin all the time we put into it. So with everyone on the same page and determined, the chat was silent and focused. Truly an awesome game.

>#Late Mid-Game Stress

Late-game's right around the corner but they get baron. Ryze and Teemo and Karthus have scaled due to kills, tower deaths, and objectives. I get a spirit visage since Maw is temporary for burst damage and I'm aiming at sustainability through a teamfight to dish out damage with Fiora. They take baron but I can easily clear waves with everyone, and poke them down. We all strategically position for even the slightest error to:

• Charm them - Ahri
• Condemn then - Vayne
• Root them - Soraka
• Slow them - Fiora

Suddenly, Fiora dies - we lose our inhibitor. Then Ahri, then soraka. But I took down Tristana and Karthus. Rush to top-lane, tower going down get a triple-kill. But our tower only has 350 HP left.

We repeat these close calls, but somehow we win every team fight. At this point, I am incredible fed. (16/1/??) Fiora is strong and everybody has their core items. I can 3-shot Tristana and Teemo and Karthus with basic auto-attacks or 2-shot them with my ultimate up. Fiora can 1v1 anyone. Soraka can easily heal us with a R+redemption combo. Ahri helps us lock down chases and disrupt their flow.

So teamfight after team fight, we lose a majority of our members but win the fight. Yet we can't push waves since we're so focused on making sure they're dead if they're close to our base so they don't get objectives(drakes) and keep pushing. So I split and get infernal now that they're dead. Fiora gets to split-push and get one tower. She can teleport into teamfights.

>#Late-Game Win

So through many macromechanics(poking from the wall in our base, taking down wards, strategic ambushes), we manage to get a baron and take down their towers. I can easily duel 3 people and Fiora can duel two and almost three. Our group, strong, wastes no second ending this before they can get an advantage to build. We managed to win after acing them in a 3v5 with Ahri clearing waves for us and defending.

Then, the glorious nexus is exposed after the mid inhibitor is down. And in 12 seconds...

...League's announcer states "Victory"

>#Conclusion/TL;DR

And we win. We won a game where we had an over 1K-2K gold deficit, no towers, an AFK player, and no objectives in the beginning. We turned such a dire situation around.

The positivity, the dedication, the motivation, the power of this team was so fun to see. One of my most favorite comebacks and moments in League and this is why I love Vayne/Fiora/Ahri/Soraka/Late-game champions. We can laugh at the reported Graves who gained a loss from this and I'll enjoy my champion capsule and key fragments.

So if you're ever in such a dire situation, remember this story: You can win. Don't hit that surrender button.