A good mindset can be the difference between having a productive day and going on a five-game losing spree. This guide will go over tips that will help you to improve your mindset and become a better player in League of Legends.
People often point out the mechanics and game knowledge of professional players when talking about how good they are. This causes many players to focus solely on these two aspects of the game when trying to improve. Very rarely do people comment on the mental fortitude and mindset of the best players in the world. Having a good mindset is something that many players do not think about when they are trying to improve at League of Legends.
The goal of this guide will be to help players get into the right mindset for improving, and to show why having the right mentality is just as important as having good mechanics and game knowledge.
Reviewing VODs is a common method used by many players when trying to improve, but some players tend to focus on the outcome of a play rather than the decisions that led up to the play. When reviewing your own games, going into the replay with a results-oriented mindset is extremely harmful, and doing so will hinder your ability to review properly. Focusing on the results causes players to think that they did not do anything wrong and that they made the right decision because nothing bad happened after a play. Reviews become inefficient due to players focusing on the wrong things.
The harm will also transfer into your gameplay; as you climb higher and higher, your opponents will inevitably get better and better. Opponents in higher ranks will be able to spot out your mistakes and punish them accordingly. This can be avoided by shifting your attention away from the results, and towards the process that led to the decisions. When reviewing games, it is a good habit to always ask yourself, “Why did I do that?”. Doing so will help you to break down decisions and plays into factors that you did and did not consider. For example, if you are reviewing a game where you died to an early gank, breaking down the play into the factors considered may help you to identify your mistake. Maybe you were only thinking about your opponent having low health and mana, which made you overextend and play too aggressively. But you did not think about the vision you had on the map and the location of the enemy jungler. It can seem overwhelming to have so many factors and variables to consider while laning at the same time. Starting small will help to make things much easier; as you get better and better, you will be able to take more factors into consideration because some of them will eventually become muscle-memory after constant repetition.
Sometimes things go wrong even if you make the right play, it is important to understand that not all bad decisions will be punished, and not all good decisions will work out. For example, your team just picked off an enemy player, causing the opponents to be at a disadvantage. With Dragon spawning soon, your team decides to fight a 5v4 in the river. But you end up losing the fight and subsequently the Dragon. That does not mean that your team made the wrong decision to fight, and the opponents made the right choice. Perhaps you lost the fight due to poor ability usage or bad positioning, but the decision to take the 5v4 fight was still the correct play. There are so many factors that come into consideration when deciding if a decision was right or wrong. Breaking down why things happened the way they did, and what factors impacted the outcome is extremely important for improving. Oversimplifying plays by looking at the outcome of the play harms the learning process and does not help you to improve at the game.
Your emotions play a big part in how you perform in games. Tilting and getting angry will often lead to rash decisions and mistakes that will lose you games.
If you find that you are a player that tends to get annoyed by trash-talk or emote spams from your opponents, consider muting all chat and emotes. They do not give any advantages to your gameplay, and disabling them will allow you to fully focus on playing without any distractions from the enemy team.
Do not be afraid of muting teammates, even your team can get on your nerves sometimes. If a teammate has been flaming you the whole game, it is unlikely for them to say anything helpful or positive as the game progresses further. You cannot control what other people say, but you can control and limit how you receive and react to their words. Keeping yourself optimistic and focused will win you more games and make you a better player.
It is also important to know when to stop and cut your losses. If you find yourself feeling frustrated after a game, or you go on a losing spree, stop playing and do something to relax. You can take a nap, eat some food or go for a walk; just do anything to get the game out of your mind. The break could be as short as an hour or as long as several days, the important thing is to make sure that you are feeling good and refreshed before starting the next game. Playing while frustrated will cause you to make decisions based on your emotions rather than the state of the game.
You never see professional players rage and break their keyboard when playing in competitions or tournaments. This is because they know that losing their cool and having their emotions take over will only produce negative results. After a bad loss, you should take a breather and figure out what went wrong in the game. The moment the next game starts, it is important to forget about what happened in the previous game and play to your best ability.
This tip ties in closely with the first one. A lot of people have the common misconception that their LP gains and rank is an accurate indication of their progress. This is not necessarily true, and thinking this way can cause more stress and harm to a player. Sometimes you may play poorly and still win games, other times you may play a perfect game and still lose.
Going into a game with the goal to improve is better than going into a game with the goal to win. This may sound odd at first, but putting improvement first will result in wins further down the line. Playing to win is a results-oriented goal which could lead to more pressure in a game and a fear of losing, commonly referred to as “ranked anxiety”. Some players are afraid of playing ranked because they do not want to lose LP or demote. If you go into a game to learn, and accept that you will make mistakes, you will not feel as much pressure and the game becomes much easier to play. Making mistakes and losing is part of improving, therefore, you should make it your priority to identify and correct your mistakes rather than prioritising the win.
Playing to improve also helps to avoid autopilot, which causes players to do the same things and play the same way every game. You do not want to autopilot because it does not help you to improve at the game. Improvement comes from trying new things and seeing what works and what does not. Some players are afraid of trying new things because they fear that if they mess up, their teammates will get angry at them. Getting over the fear of messing up and getting flamed will help you to avoid making decisions based on emotions. Sticking to the same routine every single game will cause you to stagnate, which often leads to some players being stuck in the same rank without seeing any improvement for multiple consecutive seasons.
It is impossible to play well and win lane every single game, everyone has bad games or days where everything just seems to go wrong. Even professional players have had their fair share of moments where things just go wrong no matter how hard they try. That is why League of Legends is a team game, there are four other players on your team to depend on when you are having a rough time.
Trying to carry every single game and constantly looking for game-changing plays will put a lot of pressure on you. Some players who have this mindset tend to play too aggressively in bad matchups in a desperate attempt to win the laning phase. This leads to players dying unnecessarily and giving their lane opponent a lead that is bigger than it should have been for that specific matchup. Then when the laning phase ends, the opponent uses their lead to impact other parts of the map and puts the player’s team at a massive disadvantage. This could then cause the player’s teammates to get upset and start arguments within the team, further decreasing the cohesion in the team, and increasing the chances of losing.
This mindset is harmful as it could potentially cause you to have little trust in your own team, which may make it harder for you to work together with your teammates. When you do not trust your teammates, there is a high chance that arguments and internal conflict will arise within the team. Eventually, everyone is going to start playing by themselves and the whole team will become extremely disjointed. This mindset can also lead players into thinking that they are always unlucky and get bad teammates every game, while the enemy team is always filled with Challenger players.
Despite what some people might say, knowing how and when to get carried is a valuable skill to have. It is important to know that there are four other people on your team with a similar skill level to yourself. Sometimes you just need to hang back and let someone else do the heavy lifting, especially when you are playing into a bad matchup or just lost the laning phase.
This one may seem obvious, but a lot of players forget that League of Legends is still a game at the end of the day. They get too caught up in trying to become a better player and rank up that they forget to enjoy the game. Players end up mindlessly grinding game after game and neglect their mental health. Eventually, they start feeling miserable when they play the game, which sometimes leads to burnout and players quitting the game entirely.
You can avoid burnout and have fun by playing what you want to play. You do not have to constantly play the strongest champions in the current patch. It is okay to play your favourite champion even if they are not very strong at the moment. You can also try experimenting with different runes and items, who knows, you might even discover a new build that propels your favourite champion to the top of everyone’s tier list. You can also try playing the other game modes such as ARAM and Teamfight Tactics to freshen up the game.
Perhaps you can change things up by playing a different role or finding a new champion to main. Trying new things also makes you a better player by helping you to understand how different roles and champions work. Keeping the game fresh and engaging can help players to have fun and feel motivated.
Becoming a good player does not just mean having good mechanics and extensive game knowledge. It is extremely important to look after your mental health and go into games with a good mindset.
Always try your best and remember to take care of yourself!
