League of Legends: All About Tilt, and How to Fight It

Your value as a League of Legends player is dictated by much more than your simple mechanical ability. It's certainly a part of it, but there are other, less obvious (and impressive) attributes at play. As an example let's deconstruct a hypothetical scenario in which you, playing Lux, have outplayed and solo killed the fed enemy Ahri, and thus manage to turn the tides of a seemingly hopeless game. The most obvious component of the play is, as we mentioned earlier, the mechanical proficiency. Without those mechanics, you simply would have missed all your skill shots and died. However, you also managed to hit your skill shots because you properly read the tactical situation. Lux doesn't have a chance in hell of hitting Light Binding on an Ahri who either has Spirit Rush or Flash up, so you either recognized these were down or hit her while she was animation locked during Spirit Rush. Either way, your ability to tactically appraise the situation also played into the kill. Both of those successes would have been for naught, though, had you not also done an excellent job of reading the map and properly determining that it was unlikely that the enemy jungler or support would arrive to save the Ahri or exact vengeance upon you for killing her. Thus your strategic knowledge and awareness also came into play.

There is also a fourth attribute that came into play during your victory that often goes undiscussed, one that is a pillar without which the other three would be meaningless. I speak, of course, about your will power. The first decision you made in the long chain of decisions that eventually ended in you getting a solo kill was the decision to fight in the first place. A lesser man or woman might have backed down, reasoning that the play was too unlikely to work or worse, that the game was already lost, so what's the point of even bothering to salvage it? Willpower is the keystone upon which all your other skills rely, for your skills are useless if you simply decide, either by fatigue or malice, to simply not use them.

Thus, the greatest enemy of any League of Legend players isn't any specific mistake, champion, or even team. The greatest enemy that any ardent player of League of Legends must first overcome if they wish to be successful is their own self. You must be the master of your mind and, more importantly, your spirit, for without that you're doing little idling your life away playing the game. If that's all you care to do, then that's totally acceptable. Not everyone is a competitive player, and no one should look down on another player for enjoying the game in a casual fashion. Simply know that my advice is tailored to those of you that, like myself, enter every game striving to not only play but to win.

So the first thing any player that wants to truly unlock their potential as a player of League of Legends, or any game, must first do is learn to control their tilt. "Tilt" is a term that I use broadly to describe many different things. Tilt is the rage you feel when your top laner dies to the enemy Fiora in the first three minutes of the game. Tilt is the dark pit of disappointment that you cast yourself into every time you know that the last team fight was lost because of a mistake that you made. Tilt is the gnawing, hollow emptiness that you feel when you look at your match history and think to yourself "can I go no further?"

I won't mince words. Dealing with tilt is fucking hard, and it's not a process that will end in some glorious epiphany, after which you'll always be the master of your own will. In order to fight back against tilt you must be aware of it and combat it every moment of every day, and it will always come back stronger once you do. But it's not a fight that should be surrendered, as every blow makes you stronger. There will always be new things that tilt you, but the old foes that once you kept you down won't affect you anymore once you've dealt with them. In time, even things like feeding teammates or outright trolls won't even cause you to blink. You've seen it all before. Your mind is strong enough not to get affected.

So, have I got your attention? If I have, then you're probably wondering, quite rightly, where it is that you should start upon this journey. Well, I'm glad you asked! Over the years I've gained a reputation for being a remarkably level-headed player, but I too had to start somewhere. For now, here's three tips that I recommend any player that truly wants to take control of their tilt start off with:

1. Make Sure That You're Doing Your Best

This tip is in the number one position for a reason. Much like willpower is the keystone upon which all of your abilities in League of Legends rely, so too is your level of effort the keystone upon which your ability to control your tilt is built upon.

To put it bluntly, if you're not willing or able to put forth your best effort, what are you hoping to accomplish? If you're playing League of Legends in order to rank up and show your own proficiency, then why would you not go all out trying to accomplish that? Do you think that you should put forth a mediocre performance and get rewarded anyways?

The truth is, you will always know when you're not playing your best, and it will undermine all of your efforts to control your mentality in one of two ways. It will either provide you with an excuse for your own poor performance, or it will make that poor performance weigh even heavier upon you. In either case, you're not going to succeed with a mentality like that.

The solution here is simple. When you go into the ranked queue, know that you're playing for keeps. Don't play new champions in ranked. Don't play champions or matchups which you're not familiar with if you can avoid it. Don't play while you're too tired to think properly, or when you've been on a long losing streak. If you're anything but psyched up and warmed up, then stick to the casual queues or ARAM until you're ready to give the game your all, or you'll end up getting nothing in return for your efforts.

2. Remember, You're Only Responsible For Yourself

If I were to put forth a poll in which I asked all League of Legends players what tilts them the most, I'd almost certainly find that the most common cause of tilt is poorly performing teammates (or Yasuo). The funny thing about this is that it's also the source of tilt that is the most easy to overcome, as it only requires remembering a single mantra.

You're only responsible for you.

What does that mean? Simple. The only things that you should ever allow to affect your mentality are things that you, personally, can change. You know what you can't do? Make your dumbass mid laner buy the right items or play the right champions. Just yesterday I had the "pleasure" of playing with a Zyra mid lane that managed to die to the enemy Katarina by the time I had cleared my third jungle camp. By the time I had finished my Blue buff, my top lane Galio had also died to the enemy jungle Pantheon, despite my repeated pings and warnings that Pantheon had just finished his initial clear and would be looking for a gank right that moment, a gank that the pushing Galio might as well have been offering him on a silver platter. As you can see, that game didn't end well.

And yet, I was fine to requeue instantly, and absolutely killed it in the next game. Why? Because I realized immediately that the game was completely out of my control, and I know that it's not worth worrying about tings outside of your control. Even though the game was clearly lost, I did everything I could to save it. After a chain of ganks I managed to get my bottom lane pretty far ahead, and while it ultimately proved fruitless I felt good coming out of the game because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had done all that I could to win, and that's all I can do.

Feeders and trolls are a part of League of Legends, and only fate determines what team they end up on. For every game that your have like mine, you also get a game where the enemy solo laners forget to switch champions and both end up getting wrecked in lane. The feeders and trolls will help you just as often as they'll hurt you, so worry about the things you have power over, like your own performance.

3. Keep Your Eyes on the Big Picture

You don't go from Bronze to Diamond in a day. Hell, you rarely go from Bronze to Silver in a day unless you're a paid booster. Climbing up the ranked ladder isn't about winning all of your games. It's about winning at least 51% of your games. Anything above that is nice, but also unnecessary. Don't get bogged down in thinking about a single game. There will always be more games, and more chances to improve upon yourself and put up a better performance next time. Even professional players that are playing for six figure salaries and a shot at massive fame understand that.

Two years ago, the only people who knew who Ui "Untara" Jin-Park was were diehard LCK fans. He was a top laner of ill repute that played for Rebels Anarchy, a team of that most of you have never heard of. A year later he was lining the bench of Star Horn Royal Club over in China's LPL, the place where Korean esports professionals go to end their careers. While that didn't happen to Untara immediately, as he was eventually picked up by CJ Entus and put through an LCK split that can only be described as "disappointing", everyone thought that the end of 2016 was also the end of Untara's career. CJ Entus, one of the pillars of the LCK, had been relegated at last, and while Untara wasn't necessarily the primary problem with the team, he also wasn't doing much to help them pull out of their death spiral over the course of the 2016 Summer Split. There was only one person who didn't think that Untara's professional career was over. Untara.

Two nights ago, SKT Telecom T1, the juggernauts of Korea and the best team in the world, found themselves down a game against KT Rolster, their greatest rivals. The Telecom Wars are the highlight of the LCK, and losing to their rivals was thus unacceptable for SK Telecom T1, and so they made changes. Huni, hailed by many as one of the preeminent top laners in the world, was pulled off the stage and in his place sauntered in one Ui "Untara" Jin-park, who then went on to devastate Smeb and win the series for SKT Telecom T1.

Would the have ever happened if Untara had given up on his career two years ago the same way that everyone else did? Untara played the long game and focused on the one thing he could. He worked tirelessly towards making himself into the best top laner he could, and now he's the starting top laner for the best League of Legends team to ever exist.

If Untara can go from the LPL to the top of the LCK, then what excuse do you have for giving up on getting yourself to Platinum 5, Diamond 5, or even Master tier? I've played this game since closed beta, and ever since ranked came out I always had my eyes on one goal. Make it to Diamond. I found myself falling short in every season. Hell, I ended Season 1 with 1350 Elo, which was barely higher than the starting moment. Yet years later, as the end of Season 5 was approaching, I finally made it. My journey had come to an end at last, and I hit Diamond 5 after weeks of constant grind. And let me tell you,

I've played this game since closed beta, and ever since ranked came out I always had my eyes on one goal. Make it to Diamond. I found myself falling short in every season. Hell, I ended Season 1 with 1350 Elo, which was barely higher than the starting moment. Yet years later, as the end of Season 5 was approaching, I finally made it. My journey had come to an end at last, and I hit Diamond 5 after weeks of constant grind. And in that moment, it was all fucking worth it. Every time a game ended in which I knew I had caused us to lose, ever time I had lost a game due to incompetent or insufferable teammates, even the times that I had considered quitting the game altogether in frustration. All of it was worth it for that moment where I, at last, reached my goal.

It's not easy. Nothing worth having is. Still, there's no feeling in the world like setting an ambitious goal and hitting it. Keep that in mind while you're bogged down in the worst games of your life. Always remember that if you truly want to be the best you can be, it will feel worth it in the end, no matter how hard or trying the journey was.

And if you don't want to be the best...Well, then why on earth did you read this far? Go back to complaining about how OP Yasuo/Vayne/Fiora/Heimerdinger are.