Either League of Legends has changed or I have.

First, let me preface this by saying, I've never been suspended or banned. I'm not going to sit here and say I haven't gotten reported before because, honestly, I think we all have at one point or another. I'm just giving observations based on my recent League of Legends experience.

So I haven't really played much summoners rift in the past year or so. In fact, I generally just play some AI for first win and call it a night. In the past, League of Legends was fun. Then it became really, really toxic. It got to the point where after two or three matches you are guaranteed a rager that is intent on ruining your day.

Let's fast forward to tonight. I played three matches. The first match, I did well enough. It was my main role and the new system allowed me to get it. The second match, I decided to fill so I could practice roles I didn't know. Going in I knew I would probably not do terribly great as I read some guides minutes before the match(I had a feeling the system would pick support when doing fill so I just read a few guides to be safe). I tried really hard but surprise surprise I didn't do well. My team didn't rage and they even laughed at the enemy team saying isn't this game suppose to be fun anymore? We ended up winning when we were WAYYY behind. Seriously we were behind the enemy team on gold from 16 minutes till after 40 minutes. Still we played the game for fun. We ended up winning. The other team made a small mistake and raged on each other in all chat.

Could be a fluke right? Played another match with fill selected, got the same role, did terrible again. This time my teammate raged on me (ADC), I down played the event. We both made mistakes and I continued to support them (I was playing Thresh). We were down gold from 9 minutes to 35 minutes. Still turned it around and won. We just let the rager rage. Still grouped up, just made the rager feel like a rockstar letting them have kill after kill. Figured it was the best way to downplay the situation and work as a team.

You may think why would you want to make someone raging at you feel good? Maybe they had a bad day. Maybe they've had several bad matches in a row. Toxic players make non-toxic players toxic sometimes. Even if they are just that kind of toxic player that wants attention it doesn't really matter. This game is suppose to be about a group of people coming together to have fun. Raging against someone whose already on tilt while you think it's fun in the moment, is like scratching an itch. A few seconds might feel good but do it for half an hour and your skin is now bleeding. Just try to soothe your skin and it will feel better faster.