It’s a popular topic amongst writers and players across the board that to be successful in League of Legends you need to be a good team player. Whilst that is certainly true, and there are very obvious Dos and Don’ts surrounding this, the balance for Solo Queue is not often defined clear enough on where we should be a Team Player and where it is more optimal to consider doing our own thing for the good of the team.

It’s often forgot about, that being too much of a Team Player will hold you back from the targets you wish to achieve. That’s not to say you should start being a jerk, but for the solo queue framework you should be only as much as a team player as there is a strategic advantage to doing so. If not going with your team will help your team more than being with them, then consider doing so. Just try not to be a jerk about it!

We all know this guy hates working with us!

So what do I mean by this?

Whilst it is difficult to truly define, it’s not impossible. There are things we should be thinking about and things we shouldn’t and it’s learning to recognise them that will ultimately put us in the right mind set.

Solo Queue is very aptly named, and it’s a hybrid of mind sets that will give you the ultimate goal of victory. You should be relying on your team to support you in times of hardship, but you shouldn’t be relying on them to carry you. It is a very unhealthy, yet surprisingly frequent, occurrence that people get so focused on the team game mentality that it hinders their playstyle, they stop playing their very best with the focus in mind that “My team will carry me”.

It goes without saying that the best way to succeed is to improve yourself, and relying on a team to carry you through to success is detrimental to all involved. You will be remembered as “that guy that had to be carried”, you’ll have learnt very little from the match itself and you’ll have decreased your team’s chance of success. You could be being that individual that holds everyone back, that individual that many of you at some point have probably had to carry. They may not be all that bad, simply complacent to be carried.

You'll also find that there are people who are so into teamplay or openly typing about how team work is everything and start giving you lectures about what they saw on LCS the night prior, and I'm sure I speak for us all when I saw, those people can be just as annoying as the flamers when they spend all their time typing stories about being a great team player, instead of getting their heads down, and just playing the match that they are currently in.

So?

So with what I’ve said outlined, it’s worth dropping that oh-so-common reminder that anyone can win at Solo Queue. At lower leagues the primary focus should be on yourself, improving your play, recognising your own mistakes, making your decisions on how to snowball an advantage into a victory, and how you can get that advantage in the first place. Encourage your team when necessary, but also when it is genuine. Work with your team, but don't bow to their every whim, maintain your own individuality and your own playstyle. At higher level play, teams can be formed around specific players and their play styles, that'll never happen in Solo Queue, hence the importance for your own individuality and skill to be the deciding carrying factor.

Whilst I do not discourage teamwork, it’s very important in a team game, the perspective of a lot of players needs to be slightly different, we can work with a team perfectly, but without our own individual skill, our own ability to give something back to the teams that we work with each game, then there is no progression. There’s very little improvement and therein lies another one of those “ELO Hell” traps that people often perceive to exist.

Champions like Fiora using TP give us the perfect balance of team focused playing and solo carrying.

TLDR:

- When playing a game, enter with the mentality that you have to play the best you possibly can to win.
- Don’t use that to be a jerk – In your mind it might be down to you to carry that is not an excuse to start being abusive.
- Don’t Coast – Don’t spend each game doing nothing, you become a burden for every player that comes across you from that point on.
- Team play is good, but it is not the sole key to winning solo queue. Whilst it’s a valuable skill if the 5v5 world is where you’re aiming for, or the higher echelons of Solo Queue where the team play elements are second nature. But if you’re looking to improve and looking to climb there, Team Play contributes a lot less.
- Following on from the point above, do not ignore your team’s existence as that is a reportable offence and will also not make them think of you highly, using your judgement as experienced players you can make decisions that are ‘correct’.
- Blindly following a team can be just as harmful as ignoring them.

Playing Solo Queue is hard, it’s about the perfect balance of a number of elements, a lot of it will come with experience. Teamwork is just one of those elements to balance, and with all things that require balance, there is such a thing as too much. Keep practicing, and never give up.

Good Luck and Have Fun out on the rift.

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