Decision Making vs The Blame Game

Hello everyone,

I want to help try and put something into more perspective because we've all seen those posts about how "it's not the junglers fault, you were out of position" or "It's your job to buy wards too" and etc... and I agree with them but that viewing angle doesn't reach everyone I don't think. That said, let's go ahead and get into it by placing you in a hypothetical game scenario.

You're playing in the mid lane against and all is well if not maybe just a little bit tough. You're going even with your enemy laner for CS and trades until all of the sudden a wild appears and the enemy team takes you for first blood. You're a little bit frustrated but nothing too serious and so you make your way back to lane. A short while later all seems fine, but then you remember that amumu ganked you already once so you go to ward but instead you take an unexpected bandage to the face and you die again. At this point all you can think is "Are you serious? Why is he camping my lane? I need a gank from my jungler soon..." and so you ask him for one.

FAST FORWARD 5 MINUTES

Your in lane and you managed to get Zed low despite him having the advantage and you ping your jungler who's taking scuttler to come in for a gank and you go in on Zed except... well... your jungler didn't come to help... At this point you're getting pretty mad, "This jungler never ganks and is completely useless!" you think to yourself. Now let's hit the pause button there.

"This jungler never ganks and is completely useless!"

The moment you have a thought like this you need to start playing around it. You should realize at this point that nothing is likely to change. It's time to realize that he's probably never going to gank your lane and you need to start making decisions with that in mind. If you know that you're jungler won't gank for you then you need to sit back and play safe because now that you know he won't help it's all on you. You can no longer blame him because he's not ganking because you now know full well that he's not even going to.

So now, let's assume that you already know this and continue with our hypothetical game.

So now you've died 3 times and you know you can't count on your jungler. That said, you continue to lane and you start thinking "Since this jungler is useless and doesn't gank, what can I do that I won't need him for?". You check your minimap and see that the enemy top laner just dived yours and is very low and now you feel tempted to roam top to see if you can get that kill since you can easily cut through jungle to get there. While you're looking though you notice that the now 3/0/0 is roaming to your bot lane who is over extended and your jungler is currently farming raptors. Now you have a choice to make... Do you attempt to counter Zed's roam and hope that Amumu isn't also heading bot or do you continue with your original plan and go for that juicy looking enemy top laner? You need to ask yourself two other questions before you can answer the first one here though. And those questions would be as follows...

"What could go wrong with either decision?"

and

"What could go right with either decision?"

The decision that you need to make, considering that you are currently 0/3/0, is the one with the least amount of variables that could go wrong. If you remain uncertain about either decision then you should do neither because your uncertainty could become the one variable that gets you or your allies killed in the end. After all, it's all on you now to make sure you don't keep dying and can get back into the game since you can't rely on your jungler. You can blame him only to a certain extent if it makes you feel better but once you know you can't rely on someone then the rest is all on you from there on out.

So let's think about what our choice should be without me actually making it for you...

POINTS THAT YOU NEED TO CONSIDER WHEN DECIDING:

• Zed is 3 kills up on you and already has a finished Ghost Blade and you only have your boots and an Amplifying Tome, minus your Doran's of course.
• Your ADC is running and is currently 1/1/0 and your support is running and is currently 0/2/1 and they are both half health and over-extended.
• The enemy ADC is running and is currently 3/0/0 and their support is running and is currently 0/1/3 and Morgana is low on HP.
• The enemy top laner is running and is currently 1/1/0 and is low HP after a tower dive against your running and is also currently 1/1/0 and is recalling on low HP.
• The enemy Amumu is currently M.I.A.
• Your midlane is currently pushed in and you're losing minions to the tower.

With all of the information outlined above you now need to make a choice and then you need to live with whatever consequences it brings. So what do you chose? What do you think the risks of your decision are? What are the benefits? Now that you know you can't count on your jungler and your bot lane is struggling, what do you choose?

TLDR:

Once you realize a team mate is being useless it's then your responsibility to play around and only make the plays that you know you can do without them.

**P.S. ** I'm by no accounts a high elo player nor do I think I'm provably qualified to make this post as I am only bronze 3 currently. Why am I in bronze though? Because I know what I need to do but I don't know how to make myself do those things. I'm one of those players who knows it's a bad idea to tower dive but I just can't resist it. I know I should recall but I can't bare to lose out on all this farm... I need to learn to use my knowledge and resist temptation and I'm certain that I'll climb. I made this post though because some people don't seem to understand the "it's your own fault and not your team mates" argument so I wanted to add perspective to maybe help some more people understand what you higher elo players are talking about when you say that.

So, to all of you high elo players, did I sum things up well enough here or are there flaws in my logic and reasoning that I should be aware of? I don't necessarily think that the jungler should have been blamed at all in this but I was trying to make the post feel relatable.