League of Legends Tip of the Day: Don't Beat Yourself Up

Imagine you're in a game of League of Legends. You're playing as Ekko, and you're the most fed member of your team thanks to some excellent mid game roaming. The team is looking to you to carry them, as much of the team's gold is on you, and most of your teammates are at serious risk of getting outscaled, since they didn't have nearly as much success in lane as you did. The game is hanging on the edge of a knife, and the spawning of the Elder Dragon ensures that the game will be resolved one way or another soon.

It doesn't take long before the two teams fan around the Elder Dragon, each of the two aware that this may well be the final battle. As the two teams posture, you see an opening to engage on the enemy team. You throw down your Parallel Convergence and dash into it, but not before forcing enemy flashes and taking quite a bit of poke damage for your trouble. It's fine, though, you reason, since the enormous shield from Parallel Convergence has just kicked in, and you still have your ultimate available, so you begin to dive into the fray. Before you can, however, you get hit by stray orb from Syndra, which does enough damage to be slightly worrisome. You get ready yo use your ultimate to prevent hr from killing you with Unleashed Power, but she never uses it. Instead, she sends the orb flying back your way with Force Of Will with an auto attack in toll, and the unthinkable happens. Between the two spells, the auto attack, and Thunderlord's Decree, she does enough damage to kill you from nearly 3k effective health with both your ultimate and Zhonya's Hourglass still available. Ashamed, you drop your head into your hands and can do little but watch as the enemy team slaughters your team, takes the Dragon, and pushes to end the game.

Sound familiar? Yes? That's because the tale I just recounted is exactly what happened to Jensen during Game 5 of the NA LCS finals, and the teamfight that I described is the one that sent Team SoloMid on their way to Rio de Janeiro instead of Cloud9. Despite the huge stakes of that game, however, I would offer Jensen the same advice that I would offer any of my readers that struggle to maintain their composure after a play goes south: Don't beat yourself up. So you miscalculated and made a poor play, that's ok. You're only human, like the rest of us, and miscalculations happen to the very best of players, as the example with Jensen demonstrates.

Longtime fans of this article might point out that this advice seems contradictory, since I've long been an advocate of reviewing your own play and trying to fix any mistakes that you see. Am I now saying to not do that? No.

The reason review is a helpful tool for self-improvement is that it's one that is often divorced from the emotions that tend to run high during the game itself. In order for review to be helpful, you need to approach it with a critical eye, one that's not clouded by shame, arrogance, or even the jubilation of victory. In fact, I would argue that it would be better to not review your play at all than to do so while any of the aforementioned emotions hold sway over you. It's entirely likely that doing so will simply lead you to draw false conclusions, which is often better than no conclusion at all.

So for your sake, and the sake of your LP, when you lose a game due to a misplay, don't get hung up. Just let it go. If I got hung up over all the mistakes that I made in my games, I'd never have the courage to load on to Summoner's Rift again. There's nothing to be gained from holding onto your shame, so don't. Accept it, learn from the mistakes that caused it, move on, and earn some LP.