Advice for Enjoying and Succeeding in Ranked Play

I posted this in the Miscellaneous forums 6 months or so back and someone told me I should post it here... so I figured, hey... why not?

A year or two ago, I realized that the way I was approaching the game was leading to a few unhealthy things. Most notably, the way I was treating others was not right - I was never a HUGE rager and I never got warned for behaviour, but I noticed the problem. And it was not helping me win. So I took a long look at things, and I came up with a few rules that I would try my best to follow. These rules weren't easy, and I can't say I always followed them perfectly... but they helped me a lot. Both to enjoy my time with the game more and to climb in rank. I started off the 2013 season in low silver(S4 or S5, forget which) and climbed to Gold 3. I started the 2014 season back in Silver(S3 to be precise) and climbed to high Platinum before the season ended. They've also helped me in other team based competitive games I play.

I wanted to share these three rules in the hopes that they might help someone else like they helped me... so here they are... my 3 rules for how I approach team games like League of Legends and a brief explanation of the reasoning behind them:

1. My goal is not to win the game. My goal is to become a better player. Winning games is the result of me succeeding at this goal, but it is not the goal itself. The logic behind this is twofold. First, if I were to just magically win 100 games in a row and end up in diamond or masters, I would lack the skills to justify this and would probably go on an equally impressive losing streak to counterbalance it - so the better goal is to improve my skills so I can gradually rise in rank as I earn it. Secondly, if my goal is to improve as a player, nothing can get in the way of this so the actions of other players should no longer frustrate me nearly as much. Even in the worst game, I can still practice things like csing, map awareness, defensive warding, defending against superior numbers, etc... so the game is still good. Additionally, if I play well and lose, that's still a good game for me.

2. Never criticize other players, under any circumstances. The reasons for this should be obvious, but I'll briefly explain my reasoning. If someone is playing badly... and I criticize them, I don't see any positive outcomes. At best, they ignore what I said and keep playing as best as they can... but far more likely they'll either reply to me criticizing something I've done wrong and starting an argument, or possibly even just give up entirely and start playing even worse. But just as importantly, League of Legends - unless you're a pro on a team making money - is just a game, and while it's still important to do your best(since you should always give everything your best), there's no reason to start insulting others over a video game in my eyes.

3. My mistakes matter, nobody else's do. If I make a mistake, I will write a quick 'Sorry guys, my bad!' and move on. If someone else makes a mistake, I will ignore it - if they apologize, then I will tell them it's no big deal. Whether or not it is a big deal! This ties into the second rule well, but it's important enough to make a note of it on its own. People will rarely 'call someone' on a mistake they've acknowledged themselves, and people will rarely flame someone for taking responsibility for an error. And probably the most important thing to avoid is getting your entire team involved in flaming each other. You want people focusing on the game, not what that asshat toplaner called them or where that support thinks you can shove that ward(hint: by this point it's probably not going to be 'by baron'). As a final note on this one, by telling someone it's not a big deal, you can quickly switch their mindset from 'oh crap I screwed everything up' to 'oh good, we can still win this'. Morale is important... maintaining it is key.

I hope this advice helps someone out there. It certainly helped me. Best wishes for everyone who still plays and best wishes in whatever other gaming endeavors those of us who aren't find. :) Sorry, no TLDR... a TLDR wouldn't be helpful anyways ;)