In high-intensity games such as League of Legends, tilting is all too common. Tilting refers to getting caught up in a negative mental state that’s detrimental to your gameplay. Fortunately for you, there are ways to reduce the risk of tilting. This article will cover everything you need to know; from the effects of tilting to tips to avoid it.

Why It Matters

Whether you’re a casual player or aiming for Challenger, tilting has a large impact on your game. There are two primary ways that tilting affects your game.

For one, it affects your performance. It’s no secret that people play worse when they are tilted. From taking bad fights to ignoring objectives, people make countless mistakes while tilted that they would never usually make. In a game with such a big focus on punishing mistakes, this can easily lose a game. If you are trying to climb in solo queue, tilting can potentially set you back hours.

Secondly, tilting makes the game less enjoyable (for you and the people you play with). There are countless reasons that people play League of Legends and most of them revolve around having fun. If the game isn’t enjoyable to play, it defeats the purpose of playing in the first place. Even for people whose primary goal isn’t having fun, enjoyment is, at the very least, desirable.

Know When You’re Tilted

Knowing when you’re tilted can be harder than it seems. Although slight, there is a difference between being tilting and momentary frustration. The problem comes when people mistake tilting as momentary frustration. To deal with tilting, you need to make a conscious effort to calm down and reset mentally. Due to the nature of tilting, this becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on. The ability to distinguish when you are tilting, or even starting to tilt, gives you a chance to deal with it before it gets out of hand.

Again, learning this distinction isn’t necessarily easy. What’s more, you won’t always be successful when you try to reset mentally. Despite this, assessing your mental and emotional states is a valuable skill to develop, even outside of League of Legends. Like any skill, you must make an effort to develop it. You need to actively think about whether or not you are tilting whenever you feel frustrated. By doing this, you’ll learn with experience how to distinguish the two feelings.

Know What Tilts You

Much like knowing when you’re tilted, knowing what tilts you lets you take action to prevent tilting. If you can successfully avoid things that tilt you, you can reduce the chance of tilting. What these things are and how to avoid them will be different for each person. Because of this, I’ll be using a few examples to demonstrate the idea more clearly. The most obvious example would be avoiding roles that you don’t enjoy. If you don’t enjoy or aren’t confident playing a particular role you should avoid it as much as possible. Even if you have to dodge, it’s worth waiting out the timer if you know you’ll have a negative game experience.

Another good example comes in the ban phase. While banning is typically used to avoid direct counters, there are times when banning a champion you hate playing against can be more valuable. This is very dependent on win rates and pick rates, but if you’re confident in playing bad match-ups, there’s no shame in banning champions that you personally struggle against. The last example has to do with your personal experience with other roles. If you consistently have issues with players of a particular role, it may be worth finding a duo who plays that role (or even filling it yourself). That way you can ensure a more consistent experience. The general idea of knowing what tilts you is to limit the chance of tilting as much as possible. Of course, you can only do so much, however, the control you have over external factors, the better.

Manage Your Playtime

Managing your playtime is vital to preventing tilt. Although League of Legends isn’t physically demanding, it does demand a high level of focus. While it varies from person to person, everyone has a limit to their focus. As you continue to push yourself to maintain this focus, you will experience mental fatigue. The longer you push yourself, the greater the fatigue. While there are many symptoms of mental fatigue, the most notable in this case are irritability and decreased performance. What this means is that not only are you more likely to make mistakes but those mistakes are also more likely to bother you. From this, it’s easy to see that the longer you play, the more likely you are to tilt.

The best (and perhaps only) way to deal with this is to manage your playtime. As previously stated, everyone builds up mental fatigue at different rates. It’s up to you to learn how quickly it sets in for you and make judgments based on that. The same goes for your breaks. How you recover from mental fatigue and for how long is something you need to learn from experience. In general, however, you want to avoid things that require a lot of thinking. The goal is to rest your mind, similarly to how you would rest your body after physical sports.

Play with the Right People

Unsurprisingly, the people you play with can significantly affect your mental state. Because of this, you must choose your duo carefully. You can break your choice of duo into three main criteria.

The first criterion for a good duo is someone you get along with. While this may seem obvious, getting along with your duo will reduce the chance of you tilting. Not only is conflict less common between people who get along, but it’s also resolved more quickly. In addition, enjoying your duo's company can help offset mental fatigue, a common cause of tilting.

The second criterion for a good duo is having similar goals. It can be extremely frustrating when teammates aren’t putting as much effort into their games as you are. This problem is only made worse when it’s your duo. Similar goals mean similar expectations which again reduces the chance of conflict.

Finally, the third criterion for a good duo is a strong mental. When playing with others, your mental is only as strong as the weakest link. A duo that tilts easily or is constantly complaining will only drag you down with them. On the other hand, having someone with a strong mental can keep you grounded.

Conclusion

To conclude, there are many factors that affect the risk of tilting. Thankfully, you have a lot more control over tilting than you would think. From realizing that you’re tilting to choosing a good duo, every step you take can significantly improve your League of Legends experience. If you take anything from this guide, the best advice I can give is to self-reflect. Self-reflection helps you to better understand your emotions and thus gives you a greater degree of control over them. Thank you for reading my guide and may every game be tilt-free.