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Playmaker: Leadership in games

Nybx4life·3/22/2015, 10:14:49 PM·2 votes·858 views

Now, I know this board is usually for those who try to help their team by improving themselves only; farming better, optimal item builds, champion mechanics, etc. But I realize after talking to some friends that the ability to lead a team is important. I feel it's fairly simple to learn to play as a champion, become familiar with how they play, and do well with them in games. Given 5 people who are put together who all are skilled with their chosen champion, it should be simple enough to win games, yet it's not.

I believe that's because sometimes you need someone to lead/guide the group together to make plays: Noting that someone should ward dragon, asking your jungler to camp top to give your bruiser some breathing space against a tough matchup, asking your hyper-carry mid to grab a vision ward to keep an eye on Baron, and more.

Now, I can't truly talk about this from a position of experience, as I never actually LED a team (I've carried, but never directed actions). So I want to ask you guys, the community: Have you been able to direct your team in one game to victory? What tips would you give to assist in leading a team?

11 Comments

Xela Syab3/23/2015, 2:29:27 AM2 votes

Leadership implies others are willing to listen lol. Sometimes you just gotta get mad and take it out on the enemy. Essentially people will listen to you if you defy the odds and seem like you can carry the game but by that time you're too busy getting cs and kills to open chat. I've had to deal with so many ragers and my own rage at some dumb things (jungler ganks bot lane 1st time in 20 mins after 3 dragons are nabbed because he was ganking top lane, mid lane never roaming or following a roaming mid laner or pushing tower to take objective, support never buying wards, top laner persistently feeding, adc not attacking minions)

Rorana3/23/2015, 1:55:44 PM1 votes

usually if you arent doing too poorly and just call out things to do after fights people will listen, like kill their mid and ping dragon, or after clearing wards out around baron tell your team you wanna bait a fight because you think you can win. Then when things go sour just apply sky's DST. Also being not hated or a jerk to anyone helps with people listening

Frank3273/23/2015, 2:02:15 PM1 votes

If you want to make a play somewhere on the map, ward it first. So if you want to push a sidelane there's 3 steps:

Make sure the lane is pushing in your direction.
Ward the enemy jungle between midlane and the sidelane you want to push. Easy with an upgraded trinket.
Make the call to push the sidelane towers.

If you've got vision of an area, your team will automatically gravitate towards it. It's not always even about playing safe, sometimes it's as simple as your team seeing an isolated enemy with one of your wards and getting bloodthirsty. Then, when your team got the kill, they're already close to the objective you want to take so they will almost always follow you.

junglerboy163/23/2015, 6:08:19 PM1 votes

The number one priority is that you get good at shot calling and spur of the moment decision making. After that though, the real challenge begins: Getting you team to listen to you. The best way I've found to do that is to personally play a solid game. Play well, help your team, get a lead on your opponent however you can, and then you team starts to trust you. To them, it is like "well, that guy is doing the best on our team, he must be doing something right" and they decide to listen to you. Once you have their attention though, you still have to be good at shot calling, and judging whether or not to listen to somebody else's calls. Learning to judge other people's calls is almost as important as being able to make good calls yourself.

Drackolus3/23/2015, 6:53:47 PM1 votes

Absolutely! As some people have pointed out, getting people to listen is important. They've gotta LIKE you, and they've gotta TRUST you. A positive attitude will get them to like you - good performance will get them to trust you. One bad call won't make them ignore you, but three bad calls will. First impressions are important too. I like to open up with a joke or seventeen, and also make some strategic comment to show that you actually ARE trying to win and not just goofing off. Even if it's "Oh, we've got a lot of poke bot lane, so we better use it early so that graves/leo doesn't get a chance to really engage on us. They'll kill us in a full health fight."

Nova Skye3/23/2015, 7:27:24 PM1 votes

You can be a good shot caller, but if you die once (B5), you lose a ton of credibility. I haven't figured out how to get around this yet. I tried being nice, I tried being encouraging, I tried never chatting once but pinging every little thought instead. But B5 players will follow a semi-fed 7/5/3 Darius to their deaths into unwarded enemy jungle before helping a 0/5/10 Sej contest a dragon.