League of Legends: Teamwork

This is a post I wrote for a League of Legends fansite back in 2010. Some of it may have been changed to keep it more up-to-date.

Teamwork

For the sake of simplicity, everything in this post will be under the assumption of a full 5v5, Summoner's Rift game.

League of Legends is a team game. Even in solo-queue, you are only one piece of the whole. You cannot win a game by yourself (well you can, but let's assume your opponents aren't brain-dead). Sure, it does help if an individual player is good, but what matters most is teamwork. A team of less skilled players with great teamwork will win against a more skilled team with poor teamwork.

Step One: Get Over Yourself

It’s human nature to blind yourself from your own faults. No one wants to be flawed. Worse of all, no one wants to be told they’re flawed. 

But don’t worry, you have no flaws. Everyone else is flawed in comparison to you. You didn’t make any mistakes, your teammates did. Your teammates dragged you down and lost you the game. If your teammates were anywhere near as good as you, you would’ve dominated the game.

Clearly, this must hold true for everyone who thinks this. Everyone who thinks this plays this game together, and eventually plays with another person who thinks like this, and then they both -- or all five -- think like this. Now everyone is flawless, and everyone is flawed. This obviously doesn’t make sense, so get over yourself.

Set your ego aside. Your ego will do nothing but hurt your team, and yourself. Your ego will cause you more frustration, more anger, and more disappointment. Your ego will ruin your enjoyment of the game. Your ego will ruin your team’s enjoyment of the game. Your ego will ruin other’s enjoyment of the game. Set it aside, focus on the game, on your team, and on enjoying the game at hand.

Step Two: Get To Know Your Team

You can learn a lot about the people you’re playing with just by watching how they speak, move, and play. If they’re talking in chat, take note of what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. This can give you a glimpse into what kind of person they are, and in turn, how they may possibly play. Keep an eye on them in lane and see how aggressive or passive they are. Watch how much they harass, how much they last-hit, where they choose to move, when they choose to back away, everything. Watch when they gank, how they gank, how they move in a fight, who they attack, how they attack, when they jump in, when they back out. Learn how your team acts.

Step Three: Adapt

As you get to know your team throughout the game, learn how to adapt to their play style. I don’t mean to act like them. Try to meld your style to synergize with theirs. Place trust in your teammates and try to support them when there’s a chance. If you know your teammate is getting restless and may make a mistake that gets himself killed, be careful not to follow him into it if it isn’t beneficial. If your team is willing to commit to a fight, then commit with them. As soon as one person doesn’t have faith in their team, someone else will lose faith, then three, then soon the entire team has lost faith. The worst that can happen in a team game is a team that doesn’t work together. Everyone on the team needs to be willing to adapt to their team and work with their team for the duration of the match. Refusing to work with your team is worse than having a leaver. Refusing to work with the team causes disputes, reduces morale, and is more deterring than having someone disconnect. If one is willing to play, one must be willing to adapt and to work with their team.

Step Four: Fight for the Team

When team fights start happening, or even small scale fights, remember that you’re fighting as a team, and not as five individuals. When victory is achieved, your whole team wins, not just yourself. Similarly, in a team fight, if the opposing team backs off or dies, your whole team wins the fight, not just yourself. Keep this in mind when you decide what to do in a fight. You want to produce the best outcome for your team as a whole. Your own personal record doesn’t matter. You could have a 27/2/10 record, but if your Nexus is destroyed, you won’t receive a win for it. If you’re in a tournament, it doesn’t matter if you went 0/22/14, as long as you help your team achieve victory. All that matters is the team.

Many people tend to forget their teammates in a team fight. Support your teammates if they’re being focused or chased if you can (if it helps you win the fight). Sometimes peeling someone off your carry will let them turn around and kill the enemy team. Don’t get tunnel vision and only heal yourself if everyone is hurt. Sometimes the life of another person is more important than your own. If you’re Nidalee and you have some damage items, but your Ashe or Twitch has more damage than you, give them the heal attack speed buff instead of using it on yourself. If they have a Cho’Gath and you’re going to cast Black Shield on someone, cast it on the person who needs it most. Sometimes it’s also a good idea to save some of your crowd-control skills or nukes for when the enemy begins to move into your territory. A crowd-control reserved for protecting someone can prove far more useful than one used right away on the enemy. If your top damage dealer has a high amount of snowball stacks and is dying, do your best to save them if you can’t win the fight. When escaping a fight, sometimes its better to intentionally sacrifice yourself as a distraction to save your teammates. The list goes on and on.

tl;dr – It’s a team game, so play it like one. Work as a team as best as you can. Put some effort into it. Don’t give up. Your team, as a whole, is what’s important, not the people that make it.