Champion Choice & Attitude: Why it matters

 

Frustration, anger, hate, anxiety. These are only four of many emotions and feelings a player experiences while grinding through Soloqueue. While not all of them might be of negative nature, most of them are. Occasionally a sign of teamwork or a huge comeback victory will fulfill the player with adrenaline or just simply put; happiness. Not only are mechanics and decision making a huge part of Soloqueue, but so is attitude and mentality. It’s a big factor which is often overlooked and treated as less important, which is wrong. Having the right mindset and emotions during a game can bring you much closer to victory.

 

It all starts with the attitude when clicking on the “match me with teammates” button. What is my goal this game? Am I in promos? What if I get bad teammates? Many questions might pop up and cause anxiety, which in the end causes a worse performance than usual. One of the most important things to remember is that you should only care about what you can control, which basically is your lane. This includes your performance, warding, minions etc. You will never be able to control your teammates. Therefore, it is useless to worry about them. All you have to do is worry about your own gameplay. And that’s where the next important part comes. Play to improve, not to win.  Most pro players have a winrate around 55%-60%. This is due to the fact that it is impossible to win every game. It’s a fact you have to acknowledge before queuing up. If you won your previous game, you have a higher chance of losing the upcoming one. That’s why you should focus on your own gameplay. Let me explain this more in detail.

In every game you will have four different teammates (assuming you're playing solo). This means that you cannot change them during the game. But, on the other hand, there’s one thing which all of your games have in common: YOU. This basically means, if you improve, your chances of winning improve too. Worrying about teammates is like worrying about the weather, you cannot change it, only adapt to it and wear appropriate clothes. This should be your mentality in a game.

Further more, focus on different aspects of your game. For example, you're playing Ezreal, make it your goal not to miss any skillshot. It might sound impossible, it might even be impossible, but at least you’re trying. Repeat this for a few games and you’ll see how easy it becomes for you to hit your skillshots. At some point, you want to improve your map awareness, because you noticed that you die a lot to ganks. Now for the next few games, you want to check your minimap more often than usual. Suddenly it becomes a habit.

With all of these improvements combined, your overall skill level will grow and you’ll climb in no time.

To sum up, it’s useless to care about your teammates or worry about their performance, all that matters is your own. After we discussed this, it’s very important to make a great champion choice in order to climb the ladder.

For me personally there are 3 different types of champions;

The easy ones: Champions that have a basic kit, one or no skillshots and are good for beginners. As examples I’d have Annie, Garen, Warwick etc.

The standard ones: Most champions in the game qualify for this part. They are neither easy, nor very hard to play.

The “flashy plays” champions: These are the ones you see montages about. Zed, Yasuo, Riven, Azir etc. Now ask yourself, why are these such great choices for montages? They have huge outplay potential and require extreme champion knowledge.

 

Now to explain this further, let’s assume that everyone as a person has 100SP (Skill Points). 100 Skill Points are used in every game by every player, or should be at least. Everything you do requires a certain amount of skill points. Here’s an example.

- Csing: 10SP
- Checking the minimap: 10SP
- Trading efficiently: 10SP
- Hit skillshot: 20SP

Etc.

Now why is a champion like Annie considered “easy”? She does not require a lot of skillpoints. So you are level 6, everything is ready. Now the question you ask yourself; Can I burst the enemy down? If yes – do it. If no – poke. Very simple right? Flash – Ult – Ignite – Q – E and the enemy is dead. This overall requires an amount of 20SP.

Now let’s analyze the same thing with Zed. What do I have to worry about? Where do I put my Shadow? Will I hit my three Shurikens? How many AAs do I need? Etc. You have to worry about much more, which requires about 60SP. Now, you only have 40 SP left for all the rest. You basically focus too much energy on that thought process to be able to farm/trade properly.

So why aren’t Champions like Annie or Garen played a lot in higher elo or LCS? Very simple. Their skillcap is very low.

Let’s assign CP to some champions to explain this. Annie in our example has 40CP. You gain 2CP per match you play with Annie. At about 30-35CP you know everything about Annie.  There is no way for someone to learn more about Annie, since there is nothing to learn. The highest “outplay” you can perform is a Flash Tibbers. Zed on the other hand has 90CP. You again gain 2CP per game you play with him. At about 60CP you know Zed decently enough to play him good enough. But, you can go up to 90CP on Zed. His skillcap is much much higher than Annie’s. There’s higher outplay potential.

 

Now to explain everything, you have to combine CP + SP. If you don’t know the champion you are playing, it requires more skillpoints to be effective on him, since you have to pay more attention to your movement. This makes your game otherwise worse. So, it’s best to play an easy champion to be able to focus on all the other things in League of Legends. Basically there’s game knowledge and champion knowledge. When you lack champion knowledge, your game knowledge will be worse since you have to focus too much on your champion.

At the end, all that matters is your own play and your champion choice. You can't depend on your teammates.