Reform is possible (Storytime+ poll)

Tl;DR @ the bottom boys

I've been a part of the League Community since Season 4. I started this game with friends all of whom have quit, and have had every honor ribbon. I've also been chat restricted, and on an alternate account, even permabanned. Now I am not the type of player who starts shit for no reason, I was purely a reactive toxic player. I hit my peak in S5 where my reaction for another player being a jerk (even in lobby where I could have dodged) was the old running it down mid strategy. I considered my innocent team mates nothing more than casualties and did not really grasp that what I was doing was 10000000x more toxic than whatever the player who pissed me off had done. The account was perma'd and I decided to limit my time on league. I played purely for rewards and then retired the account once I'd achieved them. It kept me from feeling invested enough to want to retaliate, and in the "off season" I'd casually level another account. This season with the mass reworkings of some of my favorite champions I started playing league again "full time", focusing on earning rewards on all seven of my level 30s. It was a fun undertaking, but I noticed old habits die hard. In spite of earning honors on many of these accounts, I inevitably was chat restricted off a single game on my highest honored account. That honor loss was very sobering for me. In spite of my efforts to curb my behavior, I was still unable to completely avoid my toxic behavior.

I did a lot of introspection. Why did I feel the need to talk back to assholes? Why was it so difficult to simply mute and report? The answer was simple, avoidance was not satisfying for me. I was not raised to avoid confrontation, I was raised to stand and be true in the face of adversity. I grew up 15 minutes from Philly, where shit talk meant you'd be squaring up. Every pvp videogame I played online had its own vigilante justice, shit talkers got Pk'd into the ground sometimes to the point they'd have to quit or start over under a new identity. I actively participated in this activity. To simply ignore a flamer, to trust an automated system with punishing this tool just left a bad taste in my mouth. I started counting up my accounts, figuring out how long it would take to level a new one and weighing whether it was worth to lose one of my accounts to let a tool know what a tool he was. You'd think considering how long it takes to level an account to 30 without XP boost running I'd lean toward it not being worth right? You'd be wrong.

When faced with the choice of being a D-bag or feeling like a B**** I'll always choose being a D-bag. It felt like letting these people off without saying SOMETHING was wimping out. It was like giving up your lunch money without a fight. Like letting some dude grab on your lady and simply walking away. Riot wants us to be honorable, but I could not see the honor in seeing something WRONG and ignoring it. That is until recently. You see, League of Legends is not like real life, nor is it like other pvp oriented games. While it happens sometimes, more often than not the majority of players may never play with one another a second time (on Summoners Rift). The game is so widely played that you're basically guaranteed to have a jerk in one of your games. It's exhausting, and furthermore it is unavoidable. Much like in life, in League you have to choose your battles. What is the likelihood that telling off another player is going to change their behavior? What is the likelihood you'll have the same type of player in your next games? It is a never ending cycle. Ignoring these kinds of players isn't bitching out. You're not defending your honor from some random, they literally do not matter. Continuing to fight these players is like dealing with the head of a hydra, for everyone you feel you dealt with you can expect two more in your next game.

What lead to this realization for me was a series of games I had on my favorite alt account. I'm trying to unlock the Grey Warwick skin on that account, so I always avoid flaming. I'm honor 3, probably extremely close to honor 4, and am rocking a 63% win rate on it (70% in 3v3 my main game mode for that acct). The following 3v3 games went like this:

Game 1:

1. Am que'd with a duo wanting to go the support/carry strat. In spite of being a jungle main, I oblige and go bot. Before minions even spawn the carry is telling me how to build, how to play the lane, and being very obnoxious. I tell her I will be fine. I am not fine. I get totaled and am getting extremely tilted by the carry flaming me. I really want to respond, I honestly and truly do. Instead I let them know I'm going to try harder, and mute the chat to ping if they need me. The response is them both spam pinging me obnoxiously to further tilt me. I mute pings and focus on my game. I turn the tides, lock down the enemy support so that she cannot protect her carry and we win every team fight. Say nothing, report the carry and move on to the next.

Game 2: 2. Am que'd with the same duo. They're once again wanting to go the support/carry strat. Once again I oblige. This time it is they who are getting destroyed. I am 1/1 vs my lane opponent and they are 0/2. In spite of this I do not flame them. It happens. For some reason they abandon their lane and I am forced to solo defend turrets. I am repeatedly dove and killed. By the end game I am 1/7/1, the carry is 1/3/0 and the support is 0/6/0. Support claims she is tilted. Carry starts blaming and flaming me again. End game screen, stats show I have over twice her damage in spite of being a melee tank. Very irritated she's blaming and flaming when she straight up gave up since she lost lane. I let her know this is the second report I'm dropping and leave (exact words).

Game 3: 3. Am que'd with the same carry. Her support dropped for the night it seems. Carry starts out immediately flaming me pre game lobby. Informs the random that I am a terrible one-trick (the acct is one champ only) who feeds. Having OP.gg up I link my profile, inform the new guy of my win rate (62%) vs the carries (33% on trist over 30+ games). Let him know we had some bad games, the carry is just toxic but we'll be fine if we play to win. The carry wants the random guy to support her, he laughs and not-so-politely refuses. Mute the carry, focus on the game. He and I carry hard, she loses lane but contributes more than she did in the previous game. Post game lobby, I drop another report and say nothing.

Final Game: 4. Am que'd with the same carry. Once again she starts out immediately flaming me. Informs the random that I am a terrible one trick who feeds. Once again I drop my op.gg, explain the situation, and let the random know to just play it out. Random ask the carry why tf she's so mad considering my stats in game 1 were even (we came back), game 2 were all did bad, and game 3 I clearly carried. Carry insults me some more and ask the random to support her. This time the random agrees. Get in game, before I can mute the carry she informs the random that I'm going to hard feed the enemy brand. tilt ensues, I give up first blood. It's ok though because after that I solo win lane. Then I get a triple. Then I die one more time. Then I popped off and we won (in spite of our dislike of each other, we worked together very well and won the game through a joint effort). End game screen, I drop report number 4. She starts shit talking in spite of the fact we all were fed and did well together. I don't respond. I read what she has to say and then I leave.

I decided to call it a night after that. We won 3/4 games together, I worked very hard to keep her alive, and even when she performed poorly I did not flame her. In spite of this for 4 games she berated me, demeaned me, and was just a general POS. I truly thank her for it. You see she opened my eyes to just how irrational toxic people in the League community are. In other pvp games, where the community is smaller at least, people who shit talk are people known to you. In League, the shit talkers are literal strangers. They go into these games expecting strangers to play a certain way and then lose their collective shit when their fantasy is fulfilled. I for one am done dealing with these entitled little sheetz. It's like walking down a crowded city street and stopping for every dick who bumps into you. If you stop to confront every one of them, you'll never get to where you're going. My behavior has steadily been improving in League since I took steps to control myself. Now that I have finally reached the point where I can actively tune out annoying people I truly feel like I can call myself reformed. It took me 3 years to get it, but I finally do.

Tl;DR- It took op 3 years to realize toxic kids in league are irrational, and like most ill behaved children, are better left seen and not heard.