What league has taught me.

For all the people out there who think league is a waste of time. I just want to share a few of the things that playing league has taught me that I have learned to apply to my life.

** To never give up and never surrender. **

There are times when you are playing ranked and for whatever reason, you just want to /ff. Maybe the other team has pushed into base and onto your nexus turrets, maybe your top lane is feeding while flaming your whole team, or maybe there is a random afk in your game and it feels hopeless. Whatever the reason maybe, the chance to make a comeback is always there, but it really depends on if you are willing to try and not get discouraged.

** You can only control your own actions. **

If someone else is intentially feeding, you can only control how you react in these shitty situations. You can choose to get angry and start flaming, or to try to be positive, lend them some strength and motivate your team. You can choose to give up and feed, because you might be thinking fuck this game. You can choose to ignore them and focus on just enjoying playing the game. Trolls do ruin the game, but it's still just a game, you don't have to let that ruin your experience. Keep mindful of what's really going on and remember you are the only thing you can control. So if you want to have fun trolling or have fun being competitive. Remember it is all on you and so don't push your expectations onto other people.

**Your actions affect more people thank you think. **

One of the great things about lol is that its played with 9 other individuals, each adding their own flare to the game. No game ever goes the same, anything can happen, like random bushes with all 5 members of the enemy team (seriously like wtf, c'mon I just wanted to get that fat wave). And how these 9 different players interact shape the flow of the game, and if you remember that you can only control you own actions, you see that you have alot more control than you think. People might think a certain role in the game has the best ability to get a win, but it is in my experience that each role can carry the game, and it's not the role that makes the impact but the person. You might not think it's possible for support to carry. An example of the things support can do to carry a team is as simple as roaming to a solo lane so that lane goes even or wins. They don't even have to do much. If their laner is being zoned, just the prescence of support switches the dynamic of how that lane is going. While if the timing is off, it might leave your adc exposed, it could be the difference from that lane losing and their team snowballing. The actions of an indivdual player affects the rest of the players, positively or negatively. Toxic teammates are another great example where some asshole doesn't realize he's ruining the game for 4 other people, and that his actions are affecting people in a negative way. Whatever it is you do, your actions affect people even if you don't see it right away. When jungle backs, lanes that were winning and have oppertunity to continue to try and strectch that lead (like killing them) can't, without risking a possibility of it getting turned around with no backup from jungle. When bot lane chooses to shove, enemy top lane might feel obligated to tp and make a play, so try to shove or sneak away to tp. It's all connected so remember to take more time to think before you act, because that random ward you put out while top lane, might be what lets you tp for the ace.

Do your research

Understanding proper builds, summoner cooldowns, summoner abiities, item power spikes and the win conditions for champions makes a huge difference. Being prepared makes a huge difference and this can be applied to your life in all facets.

Devil is in the details

For everyone who has lost a game because of a missed smite. I have been that jungler who has missed that elder dragon, and the one that has stolen that baron. And yeah, last hitting is pretty important. That 40 cs you missed at 20 minutes could be the difference between you doing the extra damage to win the fight, or having that extra hp to tank that extra ability.

Don't sweat the small stuff

I know its important to cs, defend turret and whatever else you think is important. But its ok to miss cs to poke and get lane dominance. Its ok to miss that baron smite because you just aced them. There are more than a few times where my team could have just won the game if we pushed, but decide to do Baron or Dragon. Another example is when you are behind in levels and cs, but you know you have the ability to win team fights. I know it's weird because I just said that the devils in the details, but it's also true that tunneling on the small things can be more harmful than good. And what it really comes down to is..

**Constanty reprioritizing what you are doing to reach your goal. **

During early game, the first few minutes of the game is routine. It's all about getting that cs and getting control of lane (FIRSTBLOOD). But the real end goal here is to win the game and you do that by destorying their nexus. So its really important to understand how the small stuff, like last hitting, calling mias, rotating, etc lead to your end game, winning. Getting more cs so you have more gold to have more items, so you win more trades and can take objectives. Calling mias so that your team doesn't get exposed and lose defensive objectves. It is important to understand how to prioritize all these small objectives (ie csing), bigger objectives (dragons and turrets) to take action effectively to win. And to prioritize you need to understand the scope of your actions. In this game is all about creating oppertunities for positive plays. Like sacrificing your life so that your team can secure baron. Chasing the enemy to stop their recalls so your team has the time to finish the inhibitor. Not contesting dragon so that your team can farm and scale up. You want to be reprioritizing constantly based on what is going on so that you are doing the right things to reach your goal.

Timing

This something I learned working as a DJ, and once I started applying it to my ranked games, it has been so much easier. Everything is about recognizing the best time to take a specific action. You want to go all in when you know they have no summonrs and their jg just backed. Both enemy mid lane and bot lane recalled so you can get a free dragon. Your ult is down so you run instead of fighting. This is really important and while its not something I learned from league, I think its too important to not include.

**Only taking low risk high reward actions, but taking high risks when you need to. **

You counted your damage and you can flash and one shot the enemy, you have to do it then or you might lose the oppertunity because they back and get items or jungle comes or their summoners come back up. Your team has only nexus turrets left and the enemy team are on baron, you go for the risky play and try for the miracle steal or stay safe to only lose the game because of buffed supers.

Don't get too greedy

When you chase that 1 hp enemy into their jg only to die to find 3 enemies in a bush. When you flash in to get a kill on support and lose the team fight. When try to get turret without wards or summoners and get collapsed. When you buy mejais and lose all your stacks. When you go for that one cannon minoin and get blitz hooked lol.

I hope that this helps anyone out there in life and in league. **Drop a comment if you agree or disagree and if league has taught anything that has helped you personally in life outside the game. **