It happens to the best of us. One day we go from dominating our competition and climbing to Tier 1 of our current rank, to the next day when one guy calls you a really unique and insulting slur and it sets you on the downward spiral back to Tier 4. And all the while you spiral down you think, “What is happening?! I was playing so well!” Well, my friend, it’s safe to say you’ve been tilted, and I’m here today to help you manage that tilt so you don’t ever have a massive drop off like that again.

Tilt Management Tip #1 - Take A Step Back

Sometimes we all need a break from the game. Even if League has and will continue to be your primary game for years, sometimes it’s better to take a break from what we know and try new things. Be that through playing another MOBA, taking time to catch up on shows and series we’ve missed out on, or even playing other genres entirely. Everyone needs a step back. Why?

Well, think of it like you would a problem from school. Whenever you were snagged on a question, your teachers would always tell you to pin it and come back to it so you wouldn’t be held up on the same problem for too long, right? Well, that philosophy works here. Sometimes gaining the perspective of other games or even allowing us to detox our mind from the insane community of League of Legends can bring us back fresh and ready to handle the task at hand.

So, if you’re noticing a downward trend. Take a break. But, if League is your 100% ride or die game, maybe invest some time into modes like ARAM, Nexus Blitz, or even in Normals doing things that are uncommon to your play patterns. Just relaxing from your usual approach could be all that you need to shift your mindset.

Tilt Management Tip #2 - Stay Hydrated and Get Rested

In today’s competitive gaming world, competitors are pushing themselves to the max to achieve personal bests and achieve all there is to achieve at their chosen game. So, it’s no surprise when folks started turning their attention to traditional sports to mold habits after. Ones that raise awareness, responsiveness, and overall improve the health and feel of a player competing in their craft.

Staying hydrated is one of the best things a competitively minded player can do to boost their odds, but did you also know that it helps in tilt prevention? That’s right! By staying hydrated you help to regulate the various bodily factors of your life, and the closer that you can push these factors into normalcy the sooner these factors become less distracting or deteriorating to your mood and play. So what are those factors? Well, staying hydrated helps improve the following:

• Quality of Sleep
• Digestion
• Weight
• Mood
• Joint movement
• Alertness
• Coordination

And that’s just to name a few. Maintaining a good intake of water every day is going to be key in improving your performance when you sit down for your nightly solo-queue grind. With this and the rest of our points coupled together, I’m sure you’ll find tilt-proof success!

Additionally, getting a good night’s rest is the next best thing that you can do to insure your rise to the top of the ranks. Though deserving of its own point entirely, I felt it wise to include it here alongside hydration as a mark to maintain since staying hydrated directly improves one’s quality of sleep. Not to beat a dead horse, but getting a good night’s rest improves and maintains all the things that staying hydrated does, but just a little bit more since sleep is so vital for our day to day cognition. It’d be one thing to just get your hydration quota through soda (not recommended) it’d be another thing entirely to climb League’s ranked environment with nothing but 3 to 4 hours of sleep everyday. It’s just a no can do. (At least consistently.)

So, take the time out to drink water throughout the day. Guys out there should drink about 3.7 liters of water, while girls should drink about 2.7 liters. Pair this with an adequate bed time to establish a rhythm in your sleep cycle and you’ll wake up feeling fresh and energized each day to tackle not only your day to day, but as well as your time gaming in the evening.

Tilt Management Tip #3 - Mute Chat and Pings from Toxic Players

A throwaway point you might think, but it’s one that needs to be mentioned. Players have a tendency to deflect and since Humans are naturally biased towards themselves, they’ll deflect what is going wrong around them onto other people or circumstances that present themselves counter to what they expected.

In League, this often comes in the form of missing pings, item pings, or even flame in chat. And there’s little we can do to combat this behavior. But, Riot did provide us a way to ignore the flamers and the tilted entirely by allowing us to mute ALL communication with them.

But, you may be thinking, “Isn’t cutting communication a bad thing?” and in some regards you’re right. But, when a player’s poor attitude is so bad that it begins to rub off on you and distract you from the goal at hand, then muting all communication to secure your game state is completely okay. What was a 4v5 becomes a 3v5 if you spend your energy raging at a teammate and buying into their distraction. So, it’s always better to mute and move on at the first sign of toxicity.

For my personal muting strat, I layer it out slowly. First, if a player comes at me with negative vibes from the start, I’ll mute their chat alone and save myself from having to read their negative energy. If their pings are excessive and are always directed towards me and not objectives or plays ahead, then I’ll mute that. If this spreads and ramps through the team, I’ll mute EVERYONE without a second thought and just focus on what path I think is best to make the game winnable for me.

Tilt Management Tactic #4 - Ignore Your LP and Play to Improve

This one is easier said than done, especially when you’re close to pushing into the next ranked tier. But, if you put your eyes on overall improvement vs. the immediate satisfaction of winning, in the long marathon that is the ranked League of Legends season, you’re going to get to where you want to be.

And sure, there’s a time and place for immediacy, but one of the best ways to go about saving yourself from the tilt is to constantly remind yourself that you’re improving, while not letting thoughts like “I’m bad” or “My team is trash” enter into your mind. Learn to look at the wider picture and the moment to moment upsets won’t feel as bad if you take them into the context of the marathon.

In fact, when thinking about this point, one of my favorite videos to show to my friends and prospective students who are learning the game is this one by Leon Massey on Youtube. While much of Leon’s content centers around the FGC and fighting games in general, this particular video is great at isolating an often underrepresented mindset when it comes to competitive gaming, and I encourage you all to watch it and learn from what he presents here. Though comical in his presentation, Leon’s point of ditching the, “Michael Jackson” aka “I’m bad” attitude, helps one get over and through one of the major ways that players tilt themselves from a constructive mindset. Removing yourself from that though progression allows you to look at a wider angle of what’s happening, and if you take this wider lens, then you’re sure to adapt and adopt criticism into your gameplay loop.

Tilt Management Tactic #5 - Embrace the Chaos aka Let It Go

This one is a little weird for me to say. Especially since I’m someone that has a very methodical and structured method to climbing that I don’t deviate from when I’m 1000% giga-try-harding to climb in ranked.

But, to piggy-back off a point from the video I linked above, everyone plays the game with different motives. Some players play because they get value from competing in the game itself. Other players get value from smashing their opponents and winning hard. Some players get value from simply improving. And one of the most infuriating and difficult things to deal with in League is that you can get ALL of these guys at one time in the same game, none of them at other times, or a mixed bag at any moment. Ultimately, depending on how many you get of one thoughtline, and who’s popping off the most, that really dictates the pace of the game.

So, here's my tilt management suggestion to you. Embrace the chaos. Come to learn the signs and watch out for certain mentalities when playing. Are two particular players playing hyper-aggressive on the team? Cool, learn to match that and play to their pace. Maybe things will work out. Is pacificity the focus here? Well, if we’re playing towards a scaling win-con, make it happen. Is there a mix of tempos everywhere, but good things are still happening? Sure whatever, go with it!

And yes this is more about playstyles than mentality, but they often go hand in hand. If your teammates are aggressive but don’t stress from situations that go south from their aggressive play, then they’ve likely got a more relaxed mindset despite the playstyle. Simply mirroring their energy is going to be enough to keep everyone on track and prevent you from following into the trap of potentially raging since things didn’t fit your expectations.

I know-I know. This is a weird point to make but letting go and realizing that you don’t have full control over the game state at all times is the crux of this point. There are other people with different goals and mental stabilities on your team, and the moment that you realize that you can’t control them the better. Sure, you can influence them. But their decisions are their own, and it’s important to separate them from your own choices especially if they go south. Never mix their bad into your view because that could bring out that inner flamer or bring you to believing that you yourself are the source of the problem, when in reality it could just be you’ve had a bad string of games.

Just learn to maintain critical distance from your teammates and let go and embrace whatever the game presents to you. Often you can dictate it from the start, but until you get to that flow-state of domination, it’s always best to just ride with the tide when it comes to your teammates flow.

Tilt Management Tactic #6 - Play Shorter Sessions

If you’re familiar with Mid Lane Academy or Coach Curtis on Youtube at all, you’re going to hear me repeat what he claims as one of the best methods to climb, and that’s having shorter sessions overall. Coach Curtis suggests 3-game sets or 5-game sets, in a best of format, and I support that whole-heartedly.

The reason why pro-athletes don’t practice from dusk till dawn is because our bodies aren’t geared to maintain a learning and improving focus for that long. We need breaks, time to rest, time to analyze, and time to just escape from the grind. So, narrowing your gameplay sessions down is one of the best ways to open yourself up to a natural and passive improvement.

This method also coincides with tilt management in that since we’re narrowing our focus down to a certain select few games, then we’re already passively gearing ourselves to pay attention to what is most important. And that’s our gameplay and what we control, and nothing else.

I encourage you all to check out Coach Curtis on Youtube. He’s a massive scholar of the game and I’ve many friends that have gone through his Mid Lane academy that rave about the results they’ve gotten from his methods. To give you a taste, I’ll link my favorite video of his here.

Closing Out

With all that said, those are some of my best tips I have to offer you. Some are gameplay focused, some are lifestyle adjustments, but adapting any of them be they physical or philosophical will improve your mentality and performance overall.Feel free to reach out if you’ve got any extra tips or methods that have helped you curve Tilt as well! We’re always out for more ways to stall the inevitable ragefest that burns within each of us.