Success and Failure in League of Legends

 

Failure in League of Legends.

Every human being is entitled to rights and freedoms. Some freedoms however, are just not possible to provide for people. One of these is the freedom from failure. In the history of Human existence, not one person has lived without failing. When you open your League of Legends client, and queue up for a game, you have to accept the fact that eventually, you will fail. You will not win every game you play, you will not win lane every game, and you won’t kill every creep you try to hit. But you know you’re in good company, because every pro player has also lost a game, got beaten in lane, and missed a minion kill. As of April 8th, the best team in the North American LCS has 16 wins and 4 losses, that’s 4 failures.

The only way to not fail in League of Legends is to not play. If you’ve never lost an LCS game, it’s because you’ve never played one. But that also means, you’ve never won. The key to becoming a better player is not only to fail, but to learn from those failures. If after a loss you just blindly blame your team, you won’t learn anything. So many players can’t look at themselves objectively and learn from their mistakes, and they never become better players. Analyze how you play, watch your own replays, and think about your decisions before you make them, and you will become a better player.

 

Success in League of Legends.

What do you consider success to be in LoL? Is it winning lane, or killing a creep? How about taking an early tower, or outplaying your opponent? The real answer is that only you can describe what success is to you. Setting goals for yourself throughout the game can lead to many small victories, even if you end up losing the game. Whether it’s a certain creep score by 10 minutes, a timed jungle clear, or trying to kill your lane opponent, you have to try to achieve them. Even if you fail, you will learn a lesson that succeeding wouldn’t teach you, and that lesson is what you could’ve done better.

If you really want to improve at CS, you can go into a custom game without any opponents, and just go to lane and practice hitting minions. If you really want to get better at trading with an opponent and getting kills, try playing lane bully champions like Elise, or getting an Elixir of Fortitude to give you bang for your buck. And if you really want to improve your jungle clear, again just practice alone. The only way to get better is to play. I can say from firsthand experience, after playing this game for almost 2 years, that my failures have only helped me grow as a player.

I think this outlook is much broader than just League of Legends, as these lessons can be applied to your everyday life. Sometimes life is rough, and people have problems, but it’s learning from those problems that makes us better. It’s okay to fail, because it means that you at least tried, and you saw the outcome. As I said before, your freedom from failure isn’t provided to you, the only way to be free from it, is to not try.