Your teams morale and how you can affect it. (Positively for more wins!)
Let's all be honest, League has one of the most unforgiving playerbases at times. (aka not all the time, even though it feels that way) We all already know how your teams morale can be negatively affected in several ways and we all dread it possibly happening to us (not my promos! again, sigh).
This post isn't about that, this post is about how you can do better to help raise/maintain your teams morale and maybe keep your chances of winning within reach.
Your Attitude
Your attitude has a large contributing factor to your teams success, sometimes all that needs to he changed is the way you phrase a suggestion to a teammate that you think could use a boost in confidence. It's important to forgive those few minor mistakes that people are bound to make. We all make mistakes after all!
The following are a few key phrases I've seen time and time again that can be taken negatively and will lower your teams overall morale. I've paired these phrases up with a slight re-wording to give them an overall more positive and constructive vibe.
Harassment: /all: "RIP, our Lee never ganks, open mid."
Constructive version: "Hey, Lee, the enemy is pushing my lane in consistently and is open for a gank. Maybe we can burn a flash or get a kill."
It's important to stay positive with your jungler, he's the glue that keeps the team together, he's the guy running all over the map and has the most presence to make positive plays.
Harassment: "Nami, we're already 15 minutes in and you don't even have sightstone yet? WTF ARE YOU DOING???"
Constructive version: Hey, Nami, is it possible you could get some more vision? It would help as a pre-warning system if Amumu starts coming our way."
Specifically for you all-star ADCs out there: Your support is super important to your success, giving positive advice and feedback rather than harassing them can go a long way to boost their confidence, in turn they will try their best to help you if help them.
Harassment: "WTF are you doing, Ahri??? Fizz has been bot 2 times and you're not pinging MIA or even following him to help!"
Constructive: "Hey Ahri, Fizz is wandering around and putting pressure on other lanes, can you give us some warning or follow him to at least even out the odds please?"
Sometimes we forget to ping MIA or don't notice until it's too late, it happens to the best of us. Snapping at he person in question isn't the right way to go about it, instead, why not ask for their help the next time? Using "Please" and being forgiving of small mistakes can go a long way to maintaining your teams morale.
Harassment: "Where the hell were you, Yorick? Cho'gath TPed down while we were fighting dragon and owned us!"
Constructive: "Yorick, this is just my opinion, but can you please keep an eye on Cho'gath and keep your TP available next time? He wrecked us in that last fight."
In this example, Yorick either didn't have his TP up because he used it to get back to lane, or he didn't see the Cho'gath TPing in time. Again, instead of berating him for this mistake, try to offer some friendly advice instead.
Harassment: /all: "Report Orianna for feeding, what a waste of air."
Constructive: "Orianna, why don't you try to play a little safer and farm up? It seems the enemy J4 has really taken a liking to you."
Remember, asking for reports is considered harassment and is punishable in the summoners code. Not to mention, the amount of reports doesn't alter the chances of punishment or increase severity, instead, you may end up being punished instead. Protect yourself, and try to be more supportive instead.
These are just a few of the common examples we see every day. As you can see, it's not too much more effort to go out of your way and forgive your teammates and help each other instead. A happy team is a winning team.
Good luck out there on the Rift and keep it sportsmanlike!
