Coaches Notes 2 - Oct. 2023

Diamond+ Over Compensation When Tilted

Last week I mentioned the diamond+ guys often have skills that are on par with much better players. Usually, it’s their champion knowledge or 1v1 lane phase or something micro-related.

Unfortunately, solo queue judges you based on your mistakes, not really on your best plays.

I’ve found when the Emerald/Diamond/LowMasters players get tilted, they start to really emphasize their personal “strength” and completely forget to “do their homework”.

For example, maybe a super micro-talented Kat player is ego 1v1ing mid-lane while jg and support are both in base (and the enemy supp is on a timer)

Or an Anivia main is taking a really flippy skirmish because they ARE super good at skirmishing but the situation just isn’t right.

Or a Jayce main is split pushing during teamfights because he is farming well but again is mistimed. 

In all of these situations, the players are focusing so hard to get their “play” in, that they completely ignore the game state. Ironically, the better you are at something, the less you need to focus on it. 

9 times out of 10, your “strength” will be stronger when you can complement it with proper timing created through “doing your homework” by looking at the map, slowing down, and playing on tempo.

Get into the details on how and when to use your strength. Don’t tunnel vision on the small execution of it.

Extending Games As Long As Possible

Any player can coinflip a game at level 3. Any player can pick a random bot roam timer and maybe blow the game open.

It takes a really good player to make sure the game can’t get incredibly chaotic for as long as possible.

Especially in emerald+, I can typically tell someone's rank JUST by when they do their crazy stuff. The higher rank someone is, the longer they are okay holding an even or slightly winning game state.

Similar to what we talked about last week, you can’t force good plays. The good players are just better at pressuring and waiting.

Shorter Reviews Make For More Clear Focuses

I love to talk a lot about League. Sometimes this leads to long-winded or theoretical talks that aren’t directly helpful to the review-ee. 

On top of that, the longer the review the more complex and confusing situations can become.

Especially where the whole point of the JS Academy is multiple reviews, there is no need to get overly analytical for 1 vod.

This week, I’ve been focusing on keeping the reviews shorter and more practical. I believe it’s easier to understand, helps us get through more vods, and opens up time at the end of sessions where we can talk in a more open-ended fashion.

Always Refocusing On The Details

The longer the season goes on, I tend to see people stop focusing on individual games and individual learnings. A lot of “I just need games” narratives pop up.

This happens with op.ggs too. Since you have more games played, it’s a lot harder to change your winrate (or champ winrates). This makes it feel like individual games less.

This happens to pretty much any ranked player at some point. We start to believe we either just need more games, or maybe this part of the season is harder to climb, maybe we think we just need to wait for the new season to start.

It’s all cope though. The only way to build the mountain of games on your op.gg is from the grains of individual games. Every individual grain impacts the mountain.

Not only that, but how we approach every small game affects our future approach to building the next mountain.

Having lapses in narratives is 100% normal and okay, it’s important to refocus and restart when you catch yourself.

A strong mental isn’t an “unbreakable” one. It’s one that is able to refocus when the focus lands on the wrong things.

In my own climb, I stopped taking serious notes and getting into the details of POV reviews. I have had to start recording games again and reviewing intently.

Visual Demonstrations Are Fun

I started to use more visual aids in my notes and learning objectives. It adds some spice and humor. 

Any extra ways or examples that help a person visualize a champion or how to approach a situation I believe is extra helpful.

Here are some of the pictures lol

Kennen solo ulting enemy while the rest of the team is trying to get stuff done. Don’t waste huge teamfight ults before your team wants to fight!

This is where we’re allowed to fight Yone. Yellow = you can poke him and farm safely. Anywhere outside of the Yellow means DANGER, DO NOT FIGHT, DO NOT FARM SAFELY, DO NOT POKE CARELESSLY.

The reason this is so important is on every bounce wave, the wave threatens to go towards the pink. You HAVE to have some way to deal with it. Maybe ult the wave, maybe get jg to help, maybe TP back, maybe bait out E + Q3, maybe you poked him so hard already it’s not a problem. Just be prepared.

This is showing where melee champions want to stand relative to the wave to threaten to all in ranged champions.

If you’re in the pink, the ranged champ is typically super safe. You gotta stand up and out of the wave to put big pressure on the ranged champ.

This is a macro guide for one of my assassin players. We were working on side laning, flanking, and taking good picks in the jungle.

No reason to be in mid lane just chilling as an assassin in the mid game!