'Lose Means Improve'

'Lose means everyone gets mad', says Fabien 'Febiven' Diepstraten, mid laner for Fnatic. 'No, lose means improve, why would you say that?' replies his teammate Seong Hoon 'Huni' Heo.

The Underlying Problem

When you lose a game in solo-queue, be it a single game, a game in a series, or even a game in your promotional series, how do you feel afterwards? Do you feel angry towards teammates who you felt could've performed better or do you accept that losses come as part of becoming a better player? People regularly go on losing streaks in ranked and even in normal games and I ask myself 'Why are they doing this? What are they doing wrong?'. I believe the answer lies with the way players interpret a 'loss' and this is a concept I want to discuss today.

What is a Loss?

'Losing' is generally considered a negative thing; you haven't succeeded, you lost something important to you, your favorite team didn't win a match etc. It's ingrained into our society that a loss is a bad thing and because of this when players 'lose' a game they interpret it as a bad thing and respond in a negative way. Be it towards themselves in the form of feeling like they aren't good enough; or towards their teammates, resulting in a negative environment for everyone to play in.

Rather than seeing losses as a negative thing, playing to improve looks to change losses into learning oportunities. With every loss, instead of feeling down and angry with yourself/your teammates, look at what you can learn from them and what you can do in following games to improve.

Playing to Improve

'Playing to improve' is a concept you may not have heard of before and I'm suggesting it as an alternative to most people's attitude of 'playing to win'. League, much like any sport, encourages competition and because of this people try their hardest to prove themselves and be the best. Because many players are basing their skill off of the amount of wins they recieve they're not getting the most out of each game as they could have if they were playing to improve.

Playing to improve essentially means that you take each game as a separate series of events, a loss the game before doesn't affect you because you learnt something from that loss. Did you feed your enemy laner? Now you have a little more knowledge as to what to change next time you lane against them in order to help you win the lane. Did you mess up a skill combo? You now know what you need to practise in customs or normals in order to become more skilled with that champion.

The benefits are tenfold and the best part is that when playing to improve the game becomes a game again, rather than something to get frustrated about.

Give it a go!

In conclusion, playing to improve is a great way to lighten up the game again and help you become a better player, whilst relieving things like 'ranked anxiety'. It helps you to overcome tilt and gives you an edge over players who might not actively look to learn from their mistakes. It's a great trait that any player, pro or not, can use to level up their gameplay. Give it a go yourself and see the difference it makes!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments and suggestions below, or tweet me @quinn_humphreys!

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