Today I won a game I never should have, and it earned me a promotion. I was meant to fail that promotion due to that game. Here's how I turned it around, and here's how you can do the same.
I was top lane Tryndamere. I was against a retardedly over-aggressive Riven. However, each time she kamakazed, I'd accidentally go down with her. By the 6 minute mark we were both 2/2... but for some reason she scaled from the kill gold WAY faster than me. I returned to lane and got smeared faster than I could ult/flash. Then it happened two more times. Riven was 5/2.
I single handedly created a monster, and I failed to lose gracefully, which I previously blogged about. I fed the shit out of a riven. I threw the game.
Then my other two lanes lost badly. We got pushed into our base and lost all of our turrets. Surrender was initiated and 3 votes said yes. It was real bad.
The sort of things they were saying:
Then I won the game for us. I don't accept defeat.
I told my teammates that I'm a diamond smurf (which I'm not) and if they all just do what I say, we'll win. They listened, which happens surprisingly often.
The sort of things I was saying:
They called me liar and flamed me hard! .... but then they did exactly what I told them to do. Because they wanted to win. It always works that way.
I told them to:
Then an amazing thing happened.... they started apologizing to each other. Like, genuine "man-I-never-should-have-said-that-about-you" apologies.
My team followed my every ping and went where I said. We never caught up in farm or level, but we never got aced and we always had vision/map/lane control. We dropped a couple turrets and the opponents surrendered. Why? They were toxic to each other.... just like my team had been in the beginning. The other team didn't have me in chat to keep things positive.
Split pushing is not what really won the match. I could write a whole blog just about split push technique, which is hard. What won the match was my positivity that re-engaged my team, turned us into friends, and then my leadership communication and pings to keep us effective.
I would estimate 10% of my ranked wins come directly from me cheering up a losing team. Compliment your teammates, make them your friends even when they're toxic. DON'T put your entire team on mute like most do. Yea, it's not a fun way to eek out wins, but it's worth the promotion.
I was top lane Tryndamere. I was against a retardedly over-aggressive Riven. However, each time she kamakazed, I'd accidentally go down with her. By the 6 minute mark we were both 2/2... but for some reason she scaled from the kill gold WAY faster than me. I returned to lane and got smeared faster than I could ult/flash. Then it happened two more times. Riven was 5/2.
I single handedly created a monster, and I failed to lose gracefully, which I previously blogged about. I fed the shit out of a riven. I threw the game.
Then my other two lanes lost badly. We got pushed into our base and lost all of our turrets. Surrender was initiated and 3 votes said yes. It was real bad.
The sort of things they were saying:
- "You're all f***** idiots"
- "Plz just surrender so I can get this loss over with"
- "F*** this team."
- "None of you are good at this game"
- "Please uninstall"
Then I won the game for us. I don't accept defeat.
I told my teammates that I'm a diamond smurf (which I'm not) and if they all just do what I say, we'll win. They listened, which happens surprisingly often.
The sort of things I was saying:
- "I can tell you're actually really good, you just got behind!"
- "Vayne - you lost lane but have insane high CS... you're clearly good enough to win"
- "I've won worse than this in diamond, trust me. Let's do this shit."
- "Rainbows!"
- "Sunshine!"
They called me liar and flamed me hard! .... but then they did exactly what I told them to do. Because they wanted to win. It always works that way.
I told them to:
- Ward our jungle heavy
- Eat our jungle until the opponent show up somewhere.
- 4 man defend that area without really engaging.
Then an amazing thing happened.... they started apologizing to each other. Like, genuine "man-I-never-should-have-said-that-about-you" apologies.
My team followed my every ping and went where I said. We never caught up in farm or level, but we never got aced and we always had vision/map/lane control. We dropped a couple turrets and the opponents surrendered. Why? They were toxic to each other.... just like my team had been in the beginning. The other team didn't have me in chat to keep things positive.
Split pushing is not what really won the match. I could write a whole blog just about split push technique, which is hard. What won the match was my positivity that re-engaged my team, turned us into friends, and then my leadership communication and pings to keep us effective.
I would estimate 10% of my ranked wins come directly from me cheering up a losing team. Compliment your teammates, make them your friends even when they're toxic. DON'T put your entire team on mute like most do. Yea, it's not a fun way to eek out wins, but it's worth the promotion.
