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An analogy to help with the Singed Support issue

Glory ln Death··52 votes·2,888 views

Imagine that you really like soccer (or football, depending on where you're from). You go to the park most days for a few pick-up games. Sometimes there's even a pick-up tournament on weekends.

One day, you're about to start a game, and the guy who volunteered to play goalie suddenly tells your team that he's actually going to be spending most of the game near the opposite goal, rather than defending yours.

Don't worry, he says. He's played like this a lot, and having an extra person down there is really effective - in fact, he's won most of the games he's tried this.

Is that against the rules? No, as long as he doesn't touch the ball with his hands. Can it work? Sure.

But how does the rest of his team feel knowing that they don't have goalie? Pretty nervous, I'd guess. They're missing an important position and will be extremely disadvantaged on defense. They have no idea how to play around this strategy, and the goalie isn't even giving them a choice - he's going to do it no matter what they say.

That isn't sportsman like conduct. It is rude and disrespectful to your team. If he had been playing with a group of friends who had all played that strategy before, that would be fine. Or if he had asked if the team was OK with him playing like that, there wouldn't be a problem.

But he just forced it on his team, telling them what he was going to do and ignoring any objections.

No one would be cool with that in a "real" sport. Why is that behavior being defended in League?

Respect your team. Don't force unwanted strategies on them when they aren't used to them. Ask, don't tell. Be a part of the team.

63 Comments

Badmagick11 votes

I've tried explaining it in this way so many times. The best way i can do it is by comparing to real sports. So i hope more people see this because this is the root of the problem that people don't understand.

Glory ln Death10 votes

Especially because of how Ranked works, so many people forget that League is a team game. One person doesn't get to decide how their team is going to play the game - it needs to be a team decision.

Badmagick7 votes

Exactly. I compared it to football where singed is an offensive lineman but when the play starts he decides he wants to run a receiver's route, and ends up wide open down the field, but the play ended with his quarterback on the ground. Sure hes wide open and could've ran for a touchdown if he got the ball, but by ignoring his role's duties, his team can never get to the point of him getting the ball because his QB has significantly less help now.

President Swa1n2 votes

As someone who knows NOTHING about football,

wut

Aptest1 votes

Exempt that in this case, the offensive lineman did his math and realized one offensive lineman is mostly redundant on most passes. Therefore the QB actually is not suffering and his wide open for the ball play pans a lot more than it fails.

Badmagick1 votes

If you think one offensive lineman is redundant in football, I literally cannot have a logical debate about this with you. so good day sir.

Aptest1 votes

if that is your way of saying i can't get my american rugby analogies proper because i know shit about that game, you are correct.

ChaoticPinecone1 votes

There are rules about which players can do which, which isnt based on position but based on how you line up. This is a bit simplistic, but you need to line up at a certain spot to be considered "elligible" to catch a forward pass. Mainly that you need to either A) be on either end of the offensive line and not be of the front 5 offensive linemen, or B) not be lined up at the line of scrimmage. All while maintaining the necessary 7 to line up at the line of scrimmage. The Tight End is the prime example of (A) - you have someone who lines up with the lineman, but is also an eligible receiver. This position is so useful that every single team uses it.

However, some teams decide not to use a TIght End in the redzone. If you only need one yard, some teams opt for 6 or 7 offensive linemen for a short run. Now, if you do this, you can put your Lineman in a spot where they are eligible (see e.g. Donald Penn of the Oakland Raiders). But doing so is a team effort - first the team needs to fill his old ineligible spot to put 7 on the line, then he takes someone else's eligible spot, and the Quarterback needs to know that this Lineman is an eligible receiver. Plus, he actually needs to be able to do the role he switched to.

When its a team effort, its a surprise strategy that works - this 350+ pound offensive lineman caught a touchdown pass earlier this year. But if Donald Penn unilaterally decided he wanted to be an eligible receiver, 1) his team gets a penalty for not having enough people on the line, but if it isnt called 2) his QB wouldnt know if he is eligible or not, and 3) they lose a necessary player on the pass block.

Aptest1 votes

Apparently american rugby is a game with so many rules, any strategy needs to be passed to the referee in triplicates, approved, appealed by the other team, rejected, submitted again, re-approved, appealed to higher circuit and accepted there, and then the suggesting team may use said strategy, given they have paid reparations to the opposite team as well as legal fees and show the receipts to the referee beforehand.

Vekia8 votes

Teammates shouldn't be allowed to force a meta on me either.

Glory ln Death22 votes

The issue comes down to:

Does one person have to conform, or do 4 people have to conform?

When you want to play the game in a drastically different way, you need your team's support or it won't work. That is much more likely to happen if you are playing with friends.

Troll for Trump3 votes

It's not conforming if it's the majority which is doing the "conforming". Conforming is in something like a communist society, where the majority forces their mindset on minorities no matter what resistance said minorities would have.

If the majority is "Adapting". But, since they won't ever play with this kind of stuff again, they won't adapt.

If it was done over and over again with the same group, it'd be "adaptable."

In the analogies case, the soccer team has already played with the goalie in question multiple times, and knows how it works, so they would be fine with it.

Better analogy would be if it were a "new person wanting to play the game as a 'goalie'." Since the goalie would be a new person/stranger, you'd have a moral obligation to be nice to him, and have to be forced to contain your rage, similar to what would happen in a ranked game with the singed. Even if you hate it, you shouldn't be toxic.

EDIT: People are now telling the singed support guy to kill himself, so there's that :[

Glory ln Death5 votes

The concept being "pick-up games" - whoever is in the area joins in and makes random teams that may or may not have played together before.

Generally, trying to take an analogy too literally will break it.

DeathBot6668 votes

The problem isn't that they were forcing meta onto him.

The problem is that he got 1 role (support), and played a different role (jg).

Odinakos8 votes

The problem was also that one person was literally dictating how at least one other(adc) was playing. The adc had no other option that getting wrect at his tower or abandoning the bot lane all together. This may extended to jungler for sharing, the mid and top for being the only carry positions along with rotations and roams from a quite stronger enemy bot. It was hypocritical to say that one person should not comform to the rest of his team while 1+ should be dictated from others.

Kei1435 votes

an excellent analogy and probably the only one argument that is valid for his ban.

However, if you think about it. Every champ (and enemy champ) changes how to team interacts with each other.

  • When you have a Nunu on your team, you play heavy objective control.
  • When you have a Yasuo / MF / Amumu on your team, you want to play wombo combo (or heavy knock up)
  • When you have a Jayce / Ziggs / Corki / Ashe / Caitlyn / Nidlee, you want to play poke
  • When you have a Shen / Yorick / Trydnamere / Shaco / Teemo, you want to play split push
  • When you have an assassin, you want to play pick

Will the team be hurt if one person decided to play a different style? Probably. But if a champ is REALLY good at what they do (such as Yorick & Trydn in split pushing) why not play towards their strength? If they don't know how to, they can probably learn it (though it can be rather hard to do it on the fly).

Personally, I think that forming new strategies are excellent for the game's growth and this may just be one of those points where a new strat is being formed and people are getting accustomed to it (thus getting alot of back lash)

Glory ln Death3 votes

I agree with you. I've actually tried the "counterjungle support" strategy myself (with Ivern), and it seems really interesting. However, it ought to be done with the whole team's approval. They don't have to be ecstatic about it, but they should be ok with you trying it. Eventually, if it's a good strategy, it will pick up steam.

I'll just mention - in those games where I was playing counterjungle, support Ivern, I was in Discord (voice chat) with 2 or 3 of the people on my team, including the ADC. Everyone knew what I was going to do beforehand and was cool with trying it. And it was still AWFUL for the ADC. I wasn't even out of lane much after clearing one side of the enemy jungle (got back to lane around 3:00), and even that short time had put them horribly behind (nearly died, had to flash, rocket jump, and back - only had, like, 2 cs). Not to mention getting camped by their jungler after that...

Definitely an interesting strategy that has potential, but it really needs a specific team comp and coordination to pull off effectively. And right now, that isn't going to happen when you just pop into a random game with 4 strangers.

Kei1431 votes

I'd say this exposure is good for these strangers to think about how to play alongside with this specific strategy.

Though most people are probably focused on whether his actions are punishable and probably lesser about "if I do get someone like him in my game, how will I play around it?"

My bronzie creative theory crafting will probably allow me to play with him with excitement as I can imagine how to play it out (execution is another matter), but a large chunk of the community probably doesn't enjoy theory crafting and problem solving on the fly.

Elite4Runner1 votes

{quoted}

an excellent analogy and probably the only one argument that is valid for his ban.

However, if you think about it. Every champ (and enemy champ) changes how to team interacts with each other.

  • When you have a Nunu on your team, you play heavy objective control.
  • When you have a Yasuo / MF / Amumu on your team, you want to play wombo combo (or heavy knock up)
  • When you have a Jayce / Ziggs / Corki / Ashe / Caitlyn / Nidlee, you want to play poke
  • When you have a Shen / Yorick / Trydnamere / Shaco / Teemo, you want to play split push
  • When you have an assassin, you want to play pick

Will the team be hurt if one person decided to play a different style? Probably. But if a champ is REALLY good at what they do (such as Yorick & Trydn in split pushing) why not play towards their strength? If they don't know how to, they can probably learn it (though it can be rather hard to do it on the fly).

Personally, I think that forming new strategies are excellent for the game's growth and this may just be one of those points where a new strat is being formed and people are getting accustomed to it (thus getting alot of back lash)

Two things about what you mentioned in this comment.

First, you pointed out that the team is built around picks because they tend to have good synergy. The problem for me is that he is universally dictating the pick and position for others to build their strategy around. This is very unhealthy, especially when the pick is so unusual that people don't really know how to play with it. Also, who is to say that he is the first to suggest a pick to build around, or that nobody else suggests a strategy that would be better. If the team is willing to get behind him, great.

Second, you said "if a champ is REALLY good at what they do, why not play towards their strength?" Singed is not particularly good at being a support. Actually, he is quite ineffective at it. He has only one ranged ability, his W, which deals no damage but slows, good for supports .. and I guess we can consider his Q to be ranged when he manages to get an enemy to chase him, which probably won't be often as he will be facing a ranged champion .. so one and a half. He can be built tanky, so that is nice, but he has to be in really close to offer hard cc. I can see his flip being excellent peel for his ADC. As for being a jungler, he is really not even that great at that either. The best thing he has going for him is the fact that he has AOE damage, and on a support's budget, he won't be that strong of a counter junger. Speaking of farming, .. the AOE from his Q actually runs a pretty high risk of stealing cs from his carry, which is a big no-no.

So I don't really see this pick being all that enticing for teams to really want to build around. Can it work? Sure, in fact, I even imagine that this whole situation may cause people to look for and create a team composition that works well around a Singed support. I look forward to seeing it. However, I can think of many other off-meta support strategies that would work much better in just about any situation.

I can't recall if I said this to you in our conversation on my post, but I definitely do think that off-meta strategies are fun, so I completely agree with you, and I believe that Riot genuinely feels the same way. This is actually why I feel so strongly that it is important that people not accuse Riot of enforcing the meta in this situation.

Some off-meta picks and strategies are just not ideal or aren't very fun to play with. I don't think that it should come to a point where they become bannable, but repeatedly trying to force a sub-par off-meta pick onto your teammates is a good way to bring us to that point.

RivetAce4 votes

And yet, he consistently wins with the strategy. So why is it bad? If he's winning more than 50% of the time, even with a team that doesn't know what he's doing, imagine how good it could be if they did know! I say keep doing it and maybe it'll become the next meta.

Glory ln Death5 votes

The problem isn't whether it was effective or not, it's that he forced it on the rest of his team even when they objected to it.

No, you don't need your team's permission for every little thing you do. But when you're trying something that fundamentally changes the way the rest of your team has to play the game, you need to make sure they're ok with it first.

MtnDewsh1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Glory ln Death,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=NehHHphd,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-11-16T20:59:19.073+0000)

The problem isn't whether it was effective or not, it's that he forced it on the rest of his team even when they objected to it.

No, you don't need your team's permission for every little thing you do. But when you're trying something that fundamentally changes the way the rest of your team has to play the game, you need to make sure they're ok with it first.

No you dont, lol.

Battlecast Sona3 votes

if someone is winning 75% of their games but while they do it they're flaming, raging, toxic pieces of human waste, should they be allowed to keep playing?

Of course not. It's common sense. Who cares if you're winning if you're being a selfish prick to everyone in the process. This is why "but we won the game" isn't ever going to save anyone from an inting/toxic ban, because at the end of the day somebody HAS to win the game. Statistically it will be your team some of the time unless you actively feed the enemy team. Since he wasn't actively feeding the enemy team, he occasionally got carried (literally: watch a game he wins vs a game he loses and his kill participation is almost the same in both. He's literally doing nothing for his team.)

I'll never understand people saying "but he wins!" If I pick Rengar support with ignite and steal all my ADCs cs and kills, if we win, was I toxic? Yeah, I was still toxic.

FearEngineer2 votes

The only difference is that he doesn't actually win most of the games, so yeah, I guess it DOES make all the diff tbh

Battlecast Sona1 votes

my point was that winning doesn't necessarily mean fun for your team or not toxic. If someone is toxic we don't say "well he won all his games" - I mean shit, pros have gotten banned/suspended for toxicity (looking at you Saint). So I don't really understand everyone saying "but his singed w/r is 52%!" like it somehow protects him from being banned.

YOU LOST LMAO3 votes

You: "An analogy to help with the Singed support issue" "jk I'm here fishing for upvotes"

Glory ln Death16 votes

No, I'm just tired of people arguing about this. No one would be OK if someone acted like that in a real life situation, so why is it OK in League?

If I wanted upvotes, I'd just go to M&G.

xWaters3 votes

If I wanted upvotes, I'd just go to M&G.

So true lol. And nice analogy. I can only imagine the horrible lanes those adcs had to go through. Especially a kill lane like Thresh/Draven or something like that.

ReadyxPlayerxOne3 votes

Its not specific to singed. You could make him a tank and he could likely be as effective as volibear if played well. Problem is that most people who choose to do things like this are doing it to troll without consequences.

Glory ln Death11 votes

This is referring to the "support" Singed issue where some guy was queueing as support, but actually went second jungle the whole game.

No problem at all with playing champions in weird roles - I got bashed pretty hard for playing support Sion right after his rework.

Just so long as you aren't forcing your entire team to conform to your strategy and change how they fundamentally play League against their will.

Azure Hamster2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Glory ln Death,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=NehHHphd,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-11-16T20:48:17.024+0000)

No problem at all with playing champions in weird roles - I got bashed pretty hard for playing support Sion right after his rework.

And now Sion has the best support winrate. :D

Caitlyn

Glory ln Death2 votes

Yeah he does!

SpaceCaptViral1 votes

Funny thing is that if you had gotten enough reports for that you would have been banned. I also am 100% sure that addelaide will get banned again even now that he goes exhaust instead of smite.

It doesn't matter whether you stay in lane or not, if your team doesn't like your pick they can report you and you will get banned. To quote riot support: "I understand you want to play singed support, however, your teammates don't want you to play singed support."

Glory ln Death1 votes

A Rioter actually commented to clarify that support ticket in another thread. The reason he was banned wasn't due to his champion choice - the Rioter specifically said they wouldn't ban people for off meta picks - he was banned for consistently lacking communication with his team and ignoring their objections, even after clear evidence that doing so was causing un-enjoyable games for his team.

The only reason Riot would ban you for off-meta picks is if you are consistently causing problems for your team by doing so. It isn't enough that your team just doesn't like your pick.

The big indicator is, how does your team react when you win a game? If they appreciate your pick and recognize it's usefulness or are neutral toward it (consistently), you're good. But if - even after a win - your team is still upset and ticked off at you (consistently), it's probably not something you should keep trying.

SpaceCaptViral2 votes

So basically if you main a champion people don't like riot will ban you, very fair I suppose. I still remember the Evelynn mains getting banned before her rework.

Drahcir3 votes

Apparently his Support Singed has a approx 30% winrate.

J Epstein1 votes

Actually his Support Singed has a 80% win rate.

Battlecast Sona1 votes

given that even in the games he "wins" his score is like 2/7/1 I really, really doubt his w/r has anything to do with him tbh. Go watch some videos on his channel and the games he wins and loses the scores are almost identical. This tells me that his gameplay has little to nothing to do with his team's victory (it's almost always his team 4v5ing their team and succeeding somehow in the ones he wins...)

Joey3761 votes

[{quoted}](name=Battlecast Janna,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=NehHHphd,comment-id=000800000000,timestamp=2016-11-17T19:37:02.550+0000)

given that even in the games he "wins" his score is like 2/7/1 I really, really doubt his w/r has anything to do with him tbh. Go watch some videos on his channel and the games he wins and loses the scores are almost identical. This tells me that his gameplay has little to nothing to do with his team's victory (it's almost always his team 4v5ing their team and succeeding somehow in the ones he wins...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3C4-pnMiGc He is not trolling and wins a lot to say someone could play that many games and win because the team carried his is makes no sense what so ever he plays well and is in plat a elo many never reach he get's his jungle ahead by doing these strats. His score line will not always be great however he has a positive impact most games with his map pressure look at this video as well as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5jTpTHwF0 He went form silver to plat which is a big improvement on top of that he has a great attitude and is not at all toxic he let's his team know from the get go and often gets his mid laner or junggler ahead which is another way of supporting the team LOL is always evolving back in the day they banned junggler as well as eve mains which made no sense either. I can not not believe he banned because of this when mf support was troll until a pro did it, many high elo supports do not buy sightstone at all so that argument makes no sense at all. Calling someone dense, troll or worse because they have a different opinion about how the support role should be played is bs. Many high elo supports roam a lot or invade solo maybe not take smite but that's his own style that works for him with over 2.7 million mastery points with singed with a high win rate must mean he is not only a good player but not a troll.

HazyCloud73 votes

Always nice to see a post with sound logic and reasoning. Unfortunately the people arguing he should be able to double jungle without his adc's agreement don't any have any of that.

As far as they are concerned you can get assigned to mid lane and just duo top lane. The top laner might not be too happy about sharing cs and exp, and on top of that the enemy mid will probably get first blood tower but hey...you can't tell me how to play right? /s

Seriously, it is totally useless to argue with these people.

ShinkoMinori2 votes

Goalies are allowed to touch the ball with their hands...

Glory ln Death9 votes

Not outside of the penalty box.

SchmidttyGames2 votes

Or when the ball is played into the box by the goalies own team. Can't pick up a kick back.

dark100dark1002 votes

You can do whatever you want if you play with a 5 man team. But if you play with 4 strangers you need to respect others and behave as expected. This is actually the support problem discussed now in these forums that if you do your work, support is quite boring after some time. But as long as rito does not invent anything to fix this you have no other choice.

Btw the guy could also leave the champion select.

Cowseed2 votes

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh..... I get it now. He didn't ask and did his own thing.

Okay this is a long but simple way of explaining it. Other people use a lot of hyperbole, hypothetical situations and sometimes even bend the truth about some of the games they saw on YouTube but I understand now. But football is somewhat has a higher skill to strategy ratio that league so in a situation where it's random people who don't know each other in soccer you can expect people to actually find some order and work together but in league the same situation could apply if you wanted to play urgot adc but your team gave similar complaints. You are basically saying that if I play Poppy while at least 2 persons say I'm troll picking in 7 out of ten games then I deserve a ban.

I understand what you are saying but every person I will play with will be different. Some will be text book players and abuse all meta tactics to win while others will be willing to take risk and cheese people into oblivion.

theArtifacts1 votes

But it is against the rules.. he is off-sides.

Glory ln Death2 votes

Yeah... I don't play soccer.

https://media.giphy.com/media/5xYc45ly7QduU/giphy.gif

a special one1 votes

Yes but it clearly works. It is different but it works and i say it as an AD main, id rather have him with over 50% winrate who knows what he is doing than a noob janna on my team

Glory ln Death1 votes

Trust me - I've tried this strategy with friends in voice chat. Even when the entire team knows what's going on and is in agreement with it, it's a terrible game for the ADC. It may work, but - at least for the adc - it isn't a fun game.

It doesn't matter if you win if your team isn't going to have fun doing it.

It can definitely be developed into a working, effective strategy that doesn't require one specific player to suffer the entire game, but that's something that needs to be done in a group with people who are all working towards that goal - not in solo games. Once people figure out how to make it work, then they can start working it into the normal meta.

a special one2 votes

its not fun for the adc but its not fun for the enemy jungler aswell, so its balanced

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