So this past weekend I was able to reach the halfway
point of my journey, the Silver III league. Once again my first attempt at
promotion failed but the second proved more fruitful.
But it is that first attempt that I want to talk
about briefly, because it brought me closer to raging at League of Legends then
I have in months. First what is raging, for me the urge to mash in ALL CAPS at
my team about the smallest and largest mistakes, the ability to argue the
smallest disagreements of the team. And to be truly angry, angry at a video
game, see where I am going with this yet?
So let’s look at the situation, game one of
promotion I decide to take to the jungle with one of my favorite tanks,
Nautilus. His ability to stick to the enemy while being an ignorable nuisance
is something I find invaluable to the teams I like to play in. So suffice to
say I was confident with my ability to help lead my time with this champion. So
the game starts off with my successful gank of top and bottom securing a kill
in each for myself and one for the AD Carry bot lane. Before I can go mid
however, our Vladimir player dies 1v1 to the opponent, an Annie. So I proceed
with my set forward plan try and help mid as much as possible and get top fed,
as bottom was doing fine. Before I know it Vladimir has died three more times,
twice to the enemy jungler Lee Sin (once during a counter gank in which he was
unable to escape) and once more to Annie 1v1. After the second gank I noticed
that he had not bought wards yet to help him defend against Lee who was sitting
him. So I decide to try and encourage him while letting him know he needs some
vision, “Sight vlad, you need some. Come on man !” Before I can type the next
message asking if he wanted me to pick up some wards for him since he was
behind, vlad responds with “Enjoy your 4v5” and AFK’s (AFK meaning away from
keyboard) from the game leaving us to fend for ourselves down a player with a
Fed Annie. To say the least I was angry, just a tad. It seems that everyone
else on the team understood what I meant so I couldn’t make sense of my
apparent mistake, and that only angered me more as the game went further and
further downhill but because he didn’t disconnect from the game surrendering
was impossible because our support player thinks “Surrendering is Dumb”, which
in some cases I can agree as surrendering can make you miss out on a potential
upset comeback. But Trust me folks, this game was beyond saving. So to say the
least I was angry but was able to accept my defeat without making a fool of
myself in the team chat too badly.
The Second game however, went much too similarly for
me to keep my composure. When almost the same exact thing happened in the
second game, I lost my proverbial “shit”. My caps lock may as well have been
glued down, my play became erratic and worse as time went on, and well, I was
definitely being the type of person that I have reported other people for
plenty of times.
Suffice to say I didn’t play for the rest of that night
a took a long look at league and remembered a promise that I made myself way
back in league, that if league become something stressful and not fun I needed
to stop playing. So the next day, I did not uninstall (HAH! Tricked you !) I
jumped back into ranked and well I was just generally more polite, accepting
and I took it as serious as I should have the day before. It’s a game, sure a
game that is competitive and I want to succeed in, but overall a game and games
are meant to be fun.
The moral of the story is, ranked doesn't give you
more or less of an excuse to be an ass to your team, despite what happens or
what they do, you can only control your own play. And when you can control
yourself to that point, even 4v5 victories are possible.
See you next time !
