NOTE 1: I don't have ELO to back me up. My ranks still climbing, but I still have wisdom to share, and I do play with many high-ELO friends. I've written a book about League, and I run my own business as a life-coach.

I share what I've learned here aimed to help others. I offer people Fresh, Creative Ideas they may not have heard. I offer a chance to EXPERIMENT and potentially IMPROVE your game EXPERIENCE.

I know you can appreciate the time it took to write, and I trust you'll be gentle and kind.

But, hey... if you gotta hate, or take sides, or pick fights -- best of luck to ya, I'm sure it'll take you far in life

NOTE 2: Like my other Solo Q “Secrets”, these are just my own experiences, and conclusions I’ve discovered. I’m a human being, I’m sharing things I feel will help others. They are SUGGESTED EXPERIMENTS.


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[Solo Q Secrets #001] Surrendering Wins Games

What’s wrong with this picture?

League Of Legends ranking system is pretty interesting, especially in solo queue.

Even the best, highest, most amazing players lose (EDIT: "only win", thanks Pogo :P) 55-65% of their games.

Eg: oRb LemonNation (avg wins 63%), Aphromoo (avg wins 54%), and AltecRu (avg wins 61%)

League Of Legends is kind of paper, rock, scissors-ish in solo queue.

Or kind of like poker, skill is involved, sure… but a certain kind of luck plays a big part.

I end up playing with people who rage and act like they deserve to win 100% of their games.

Are you as good as the pro players in the example above?

'Cause... they lose a lot of games.
NOT ONLY THAT – but there’s MANY pro games and tournaments with money on the line where all 5 members of the pro team which is losing… agrees to honorably surrender. They understand that life has matched them against an opponent so they can lose gracefully, and hit the training room.
They don’t WASTE TIME and ENERGY being ATTACHED to some clearly lost ‘cause, that is NOT worth DRAGGING OUT.

So… you’re going to lose a LOT of games, too.

And if everyone’s going to lose a big chunk of their matches, then what’s the point?

Well, pros benefit from those losses.

They take them well.

Ever watched Aphromoo stream? Or even a new streamer like Hafu?

High level players are pretty zen.

They laugh during games, have no problem chatting and joking, and most importantly...

...they barely rage, and they know when to surrender.

They lose well and often, and they succeed because of it.

What benefits can be found from all these losses?

You want different, better games... then you need to try different, better things. Surrendering gracefully is one thing to try, and I highly recommend it.

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TL;DR?

(I applaud your attention span :P)

There are MASSIVE benefits to surrendering gracefully, if you've never tried it, EXPERIMENT. Give it a shot, it may improve your game experience.

Thanks for reading

UPDATE:
To be clear, very clear -- I'm not saying you HAVE to surrender, and I'm not saying you HAVE to keep playing.

I'm saying Do What Works For You, but you may want to join my Graceful Surrender Experiment.

Sheesh! lol
Like this? Read more of the series:

[Solo Q Secrets #001] Surrendering Wins Games
[Solo Q Secrets #002] Boring S*** Gets You Kills
[Solo Q Secrets #003] The Skills Of Strangers (Or... Not)
[Solo Q Secrets #004] ELOs Like Money - Use It Wisely
[Solo Q Secrets #005] P-P-P-P-P-Pokerface.
[Solo Q Secrets #006] Breathe In (The Soul-Crushing Defeat)
[Solo Q Secrets #007] Clash Of The Titans … Personalities
[Solo Q Secrets #008] Kills, Kills, Kills… Using Smart Aggression Secrets


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Reply and BUMP IT or...

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Thanks so much, guys!

Keep ryzin'!

On the flip side of the coin, rage surrendering can throw away a lot of winnable games.

I agree because I've been trapped in a lot of unwinnable games because of "those" 2 people. Where my team says "we can win" but won't even play a proper comeback attempt (See: facechecking, engaging 3v5, not warding).

I've also had people want to surrender because THEY specifically had a bad lane. But we have a fed kog'maw and a LOT of peel for him (lee jungle, leona supp, swain mid, riven top). Even though our feeding top was raging, he played the game out to the best of his ability and managed a nice comeback helping us to win the game.



I agree with you 100% sir, but make sure you have a firm grasp on the game situation before you go for those early surrenders!

Thank you so so so much, Deshawn. It's great to hear from someone who "gets it".

And yes, I could've mentioned the other side, but it was long enough already

'Cause I agree with YOU 100% -- but in my experience, League has NO SHORTAGE of ppl who drag games out, desperately face-checking for the comeback, but hardly any games I've played had people who surrender cause of a "rough lane".

When that happens it usually a 4-1 vote, know what I mean?

On top of that, do I seem like the type to inaccurately assess a game?

[grin]

Not you particularly, but I was just putting the info out there for others to keep in mind.

I hear ya man, I figured as much, and you really nailed it. Thanks for adding the other side

I appreciate your perspective, Leninon.

Thanks for commenting.

The whole point was to try "gracefully surrendering", I get the impression you're unfamiliar with what that even is, let alone that you've given it a *sincere try*.

But... whatever makes you happy man

Hey this is the guy trying to coordinate the gameplay review post from earlier.

I can definitely see the pluses in this post but there definitely needs to be balance (which has already been addressed).

I am definitely bad about quitting games but I wouldn't say you don't deserve those wins for giving it you're all and catching your opponent's mistakes (Sometimes it's better coordination that secures the ace even when you're behind).

I should definitely improve myself on surrenders. This should probably be a matter where you try to talk it over your teammates even if they're strangers if it's questionable. A lot of leagues players nowadays are prone to "I lost early game we lose" but we should probably base the match on mid game and the team fights.

Somtimes you have to lose to win.

As he stated, my time is valuable... I would rather Get 7-8 games in 3-4 hours, having surrendered 3-4 of them. Most surrender games are obvious... one lane fed hard early and we are sitting back at our inhib turret, down 10-15 kills @ 20 mins. GG and start over.

In the end I only get X time to play.... If I only get 3 games in.. and all of them are fighting an impossible battle for 60 mins, when i knew @ 20 we couldnt win.. im going to log off unahappy.. if I just surrender those off and come back to win 2 or 3 in response.. my time was better spent, more productive and I log out in a good mood.

Edit: Think back to when you would play some sports game(or any game) and you knew that if you didnt do X by Y point in the game, you couldn't win. So you start your game and end up dieing in first stage(or your losing by 50 points @ half time of a sports game)... you tell me you play those games out??? I highly doubt anyone does. If something goes terribly wrong early and snowballs, you would just hit "reset' and start a fresh game and try not to make that mistake again.

I stopped reading part way through. Some of this is horrendous.


1. You argue "some of the best players lose 55-65% of their games" then point out 3 professions players with win rates at 55-65%. If my win rate is 55%, I'm losing 45% of my games. If my win rate is 65%, I'm losing 35% of my games. A 65% win rate doesn't mean I lose 65% of their games. The best players in the world WIN 55-65% of their games, not lose.


2. If 3 people on your team wanted to surrender at the 20 minute mark, but the game drags on for 60 minutes (and you still lose), then the chances are pretty good that it's actually the negative attitude of the 3 people that wanted to surrender that caused the loss, not the two "try-hards" that refused to surrender a third of the way through the game. And why do you want to cite professional players when you talk about win-rates, but you ignore teams like CLG.EU that can lose early game really hard, turtle, and then make a comeback win late?


EDIT: 3. It's also worth noting that the win rates of the pro players you cite are against other high level players. If one of these 2400+ players played at 1200, he'd have a drastically higher win-rate. It may not be 100%, but it'd be extraordinarily high (90%+ at least). This is why players in lower Elos expect to win every match. Your win-rate is only around 50% when you're at your proper Elo. If you're well below your proper Elo, you'll have a drastically higher win-rate.