Greatest Pet Peeves with Pro League Players

When it comes to pro players in the league of legends scene, there are a bunch of pet peeves that come to mind on how they go about their practice and competition.

This article will be covering the following:

1. Draft prep
2. Scrim Draft Prep
3. Watching Film on Opponents
4. SoloQ
5. Itemization
6. Readiness to play and Drive
7. Silence / Shyness
8. Closed Mindedness
9. Branding
10. Extras

Draft Prep

Coming in unprepared for draft meetings and practice week

There is no worse offender by a player than to come into the draft meetings completely unprepared despite the analyst(s) on the team distributing draft information to their players before the practice week begins.

This is what a prepared individual should know:

1. Knowing the champions their opponent plays
2. What rotation their opponent picks commonly
3. Their own/opponents blind picks and counter picks
4. Enemy team’s drafts/comps
5. Preferred matchups, picks for the day

Why is it important compared to just having the coach handle it? Each player has their own unique takes, insight, and connections. What picks can they pull out that they only know. Perhaps they saw a game no one else did which suddenly has applications. They connect the dots.

The end result is wasting less time repeating known information. A draft that drags can result in players getting bored. “Going in circles” and “overthinking”. Frustration builds in. You lose out on getting straight to the most ideal drafts.

Do not slack as a player when it comes to preparing for your drafts. Teams win and lose by drafts.

Scrim Draft Prep

In essence, a player should come into practice with a plan on what they want to play and what works well with it. The core purpose is to prevent wasted scrim games from poor drafts.

I know of countless examples of players showing up to practice talking about how they wish to play Graves, Lillia, or Swain. When pressed what they want with it, bans, and matchups they are unable to say. This may occur DURING the draft itself. Do not be this person.

Watching Film on Opponents

Never watching any VODS/Replays of their opponents

Most of the time a player will depend on the analyst’s scouting report and tendencies notes. It should give a good base level of understanding.

While helpful, not all analysts receive the pay nor have the time to go into exact specifics shown below for each individual role.

1. Lane/play matchups
2. Trading
3. Openers
4. Presence, degree of risk
5. Fight tendencies

This information can be used to create plans around brush control, spell usage and choice, how hard can you play for priority, can you bait out certain spells or fights, is it possible to go greedy items/runes/summoners (think Cull, gathering storm, ghost), and more.

As an example, some players on Azir actively use their Q to poke or may be easily baited into using their W. They end up going OOM early while not making up much ground. This makes melee picks more effective at gaining priority vs them, staying on the map longer, and generally having more impact early on.

Fighting game players will do exactly this. They watch how their opponents play their specific character. What their neutral game is, how they play corners/walls, use meters, movement for baiting whiffs, and react to pressure. A game plan is then devised on what is punishable.

Everyone has their own approach, discipline, and game plan within their team. Yes, at the highest levels (worlds) you won’t get as much out of it. However, that little effort may prove the difference.

SoloQ

Barely touching the game outside of scrims

It was evident this would show up on the list. Often players will go through various moods and motivation cycles that result in either a high volume or low volume of SoloQ practice. The common reply to why they aren’t playing is…

1. NA soloQ is pointless. No one is trying and the games are low level. I am not learning anything from when I play. I could make better use of my time doing something else.
2. I am just tired from the day’s practice and want to relax. I perform better this way.
3. I no longer have interest in the game or find this meta rather boring.

All these can be valid reasons. Here is the catch though… none of that matters in the end since you are a professional player looking to win it all.

Game volume helps keep the rust off. Exposure to skirmishes, team fights, and possibly new ideas come through. The first time I ever saw IBG Ekko was in a soloQ game. This was weeks before LCS teams started abusing it.

There is also how the player uses soloQ that impacts their view of it. Most go in with the idea of “I need to get some games in”. This makes it feel boring and pointless. Instead, they can set goals like achieving a 10 CS lead by herald timer. Work on their lane presence as Tristana by baiting ganks constantly and testing survival. This helps escape the “just another game” mentality.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with taking small breaks when feeling burned out. Wanting to put focus on watching VODS and sharing this information with the team/coaches.

But make no mistake. No matter what, there needs to be an effort playing soloQ. The best teams have players who are committed to this.

Itemization

“But Canyon did it”

I have heard this one so many times. They see a game the night before with a new build, say nothing, and go into the game trying it out. There is no thought on “is this actually good?” or “what is the situation?”.

A player should have an investigative mind to test it in practice tool, look at the numbers, question it, check soloQ stats, test it in soloQ, and bring it up staff on how it fits (yes, things like redemption Olaf does not require practice tool).

It sounds like a lot, but League is heavily based on math. To ignore this would be missing ways to fully utilize your gold and economy. Finally, always look back at how the item performed in the game. You may be surprised it had very little impact even though victory was obtained.

Duskblade feels better than Goredrinker

An analyst or coach may present calculations to a player showing how an item is poor for the situation. The player will still ignore it in favor of whatever makes them feel good when playing the champion. This logic of “feeling” can be useful, but only to a degree.

Let’s use Aphelios as an example. He can go AS/MS stats or heavy AD/pen. In this case, Aphelios rarely has time to stand and auto attack. He will depend more heavily on his gun spells for DPS resulting in higher AD and pen builds being more effective. Regardless of sluggishness, the way the game was played out along with the math shows the heavy AD build having more value.

A mid lane example is an Annie going crown to negate plays on herself. She feels safer sidelaning and pressing in fights but loses out on her ability to threaten enemy backline. She becomes a secondary threat which the enemy backline can ignore most often. It feels better and yet is worse for the fight win cons.

Going steraks because it makes you feel tanky while giving damage except your champion has low base AD and no other HP items. Anyone can take a quick look on the wiki page to see how poor the item’s return is in those cases.

There are numerous examples to be made that require players to think more intelligently about items. Every team fight you are capable of “x” amount of damage based on your build and of course, skills. Games have been won and lost off builds alone.

Once these mindsets are realized will the player begin to become an innovator and adapt their build well to whatever is happening in the game.

Readiness to play and Drive

Arriving to scrim 10 minutes before the start

The most annoying part of any esports team…

1. People being late to practice
2. Feeling tired because they stayed up late watching shows/hanging out with friends on discord
3. Coming into practice ready to play
4. Failing to look over the new patch for the week

Anything that affects your ability to be 100% for the day can result in a wasteful practice day. Poor practice creates tensions amongst teammates. Practice may end early, or the initial games are sluggish, low energy.

There is a level of respect which needs to be given to their teammates since everyone has the same goal, winning. Once this is lost, others may follow suit. The team loses their edge. Small gains lost may be the difference.

If a player screws this up going into practice, then they must ensure they give whatever their 100% can be. Communicate more if your mechanics are failing. Request simple and more stable picks to prevent messy games. And of course, don’t forget to apologize to your teammates for what you did.

Drive is the other piece I will touch on.

“He has that dog in him”. This is what most will think of when it comes to drive.

You lose a series, your season ends early, or generally performed badly in the split. If the player cares to not repeat this for next split/season, then they should go out and show it. However, I see many players sit back and relax instead. They talk up wanting to be better without the actions to support it.

Don’t bother making false promises or faith will be completely lost.

Silence / Shyness

“Okay”

The “shy gamer”. Players specifically who are not known for sharing their opinions, contributing towards team strategy, and much more. These players usually don’t have the confidence nor the ability to speak up.

It reminds me of students who were afraid to raise their hand or actively ask questions in school. I was one of those students. I progressed slower and remembered less compared to those who participated because they were more actively engaged in the learning process. Even if they already know the concept, sharing their thoughts with the rest of the group can be incredibly useful. Students explaining concepts to each other can get through better than teachers. This is the same for players explaining strategies/concepts to their teammates. On top of that, teaching the concept helps you remember it better. Reinforces it.

Most players who aren’t “shy gamers” either did sports, clubs, or it’s their natural personality. Any player who is like the “shy gamer” must force themselves to participate even if it feels hard. The team needs to support and push them. If it never improves then the team loses out on an entire member. I would never push away a player like this but know you must showcase higher level gameplay to make up for it.

Closed Mindedness

Spending 3 hours on a 10-minute topic

This will be quick. Players who actively ignore what is being explained to them because they strongly feel their conclusion is correct. There is no chance given to hear out the other. It leads to either everyone caving into that individual or long arguments that go nowhere.

Don’t be this person.

Branding

I am not going to get any viewers anyways

I heard this tale many times.

No one will watch me. What’s the point? Tired after practice. I care about being the best and social media is distracting.

The list goes on for not building their own personal brand without thinking about how useful this can be in terms of both finding opportunities and also for their future after esports.

Yes, the beginning may be rough. Most people start out at ground zero. The fact they are pro players is already a big help to separate them from the pack. Next, you don’t have to follow the same path as everyone else.

The first thought is, “I have to make it streaming on twitch”. No, that is not required.

1. There is recording gameplay and uploading it
2. There is creating highlights or clips from games without needing to stream
3. Participating in twitch rivals or simply being apart of others streams
4. There is doing small skits, posting pictures, highlight your life and other hobbies, and more that can easily garner attention
5. Hell, in this day and age there is tik tok even

There are so many different approaches to social media and they all think there is only one way. Stream soloQ.

Put more effort building your future if you plan on staying for the long haul.

Extras

1. Stomach problems — eating food they know that upset their stomach and require several bathroom breaks throughout the practice day
2. Watching anime or scrolling through twitter after every scrim game
3. Listening to music during scrim games
4. Not making their bed before a video interview
5. Not cleaning up after eating
6. Certain language choice — we’ll leave it at that
7. Looking like they rolled out of bed
8. Not taking care of their body, health
9. Talking behind their teammates’ backs to entertain “popular” groups/cliques
10. Always having an excuse to not go out with their teammates
11. Trying to be too innovative (Azir support, Frozen Heart Shen)
12. Spamming my feed with thirst likes