Coaches Notes 3 - Nov. 2023

Approaching “Hard” Games

Every champion has certain things they don’t like to play against outside of regular counter match ups.

For Viktor and other control mages, it’s “high threat” teams with things like Lee Sin jungle, Pyke support, Riven top, Kaisa ADC, etc. 

For Tryndamere, it’s heavy kiting or lots of champs that will easily stack armor/build frozen heart.

These kinds of games are simply hard to have impact in.

There’s no getting around that. By nature of the game and the draft, it’s just going to be harder and there is going to be less to get.

It’s important to play within the bounds of your champion. Just because it’s a hard game doesn’t mean we can’t do our job.

Focus on what you are supposed to do and what you can do. Set limits for yourself for what you can’t let yourself do (ie. Viktor following a Sylas roam to fight in river).

The worst thing that can happen is forcing a play outside of our bounds and falling so far behind we can no longer do the little job we are supposed to.

Now sometimes in these games, doing our job isn’t enough to win. Again, that is the nature of these kinds of games. The answer isn’t to try to do more than you can, it’s to do the little things in your control to the best of your ability.

(~Emerald) Gotta Be More Selfish

Climbing to high elo (high diamond / low masters) for the first time is all about pushing your individual champion and style to be as impactful as possible.

To really learn what your impact does, how to have impact, and the potential of your style, you have to make decisions 100% based on your own information.

You have to take responsibility of your games and do your own work of understanding all of the variables and coming to a decision. The less biased you can be from the people around you, the easier it is to learn what impact you have on the game around you (and the easier to climb).

Somewhat ironically, in master+ it is kind of the opposite. We have to focus a lot more on external variables.

It’s less about stomping the 1v1 and pushing our character to the limits, and more about fitting our character into the specific unique game.

It’s important as a coach (or a viewer to others coaching) to remember the different stages of a League journey require very different perspectives. 

(Gold+) CSing Issues Are Rarely Micro

If I hop into practice tool with a random plat player and we last hit for 10 minutes, I believe I’d have a negligible gold lead at the end. I’d maybe be up ~10 or so CS.

However, one of the biggest and most fundamental differences in the ranks is raw gold generation through the early game.

This means the mechanics of CSing isn’t the difference, it’s somewhere in the macro and other laning fundamentals.

To get more minions effectively, you have to figure out WHY you’re missing minions. Are we roaming too much? How about back timers? Are we trading too much so we’re just not focused on the minions?

With that said, practice tool time is still a great resource to help put last hitting on auto pilot and especially to warm up with, but it won’t fix your CS numbers.

A Certain Amount Of Trust Is Required In Team Game

In a team game where each individual has clearly constrained kits and roles, everyone is relatively expected to at least hold their own.

If you take out one of the roles, it’s incredibly hard to win a 4v5. If someone is intentionally ruining the game, it’s even harder to win than if they just left.

Very similar to approaching hard games, you can only do what’s within your constrained kit and role.

To climb with the highest winrate possible, you need to do what you are supposed to do the absolute best. 

You CAN’T try to do more than your job because by sheer definition of your champion within your role, you can’t. 

One of the most common mental mistakes I see is people trying to do more than they can. And if you step outside of your bounds to try to save the world, you end up not being able to do your job AT ALL.

The most common example is roaming to the weakside to try to save your losing teammate where 99% of the time it’s correct to let them struggle but snowball the strong side even harder.