How to Build a Successful League of Legends Team
Preface
There are a few simple ways to successfully build a League of Legends team. Building a team is all about synergy and getting a group of people who like working together, can communicate with one another, and can play well together, to inevitably work together as a team. The entire premise behind a successful League of Legends team is the idea that you can do your job and be able to rely on your teammates to do the same. This being said, it is not to assume that a team can be derived from five solo queue players who do well on their own. That is not the case. Five people who can work together and adapt to the unexpected will succeed much more often than five people who play alone and succeed. Thus from this foundation a team begins to form.
1. Finding members for your Team
Finding members for a team can be very difficult at times. People are hard to successfully pick out as potential team players and can only be truly pinpointed as the person you want for the team if you first allow them to play games with you and the team. Elo and history can only show so much granted there are truths laid within. Deep analysis and spectating potential players for your team can help tremendously if you are concerned about someone joining your team. Another way of searching for teammates is using online databases in order to have it do most of the work for you. Websites such as http://www.teamfind.com allow users to compile profiles and then apply to different teams or invite players to their team based on the current necessities. This cuts out a lot of the pain and searching for the right kind of teammate you are looking for potentially. Essentially it is a job application and you get to check their resume. There are five things I look for personally when people apply to my team which include:
Whining/Complaining: Whining is the most annoying and counter-productive thing for a team. People complain for various reasons, winning or losing it doesn't allow anyone to have a good time.
Ragers: Ragers are the worst, simply stated if a person cannot handle losing a game and learning from the experience by criticisms and productive help from the team, then they shouldn't be involved in your team at all. Which brings me to my next point.
Losing: Losing is not counter-productive at all as long as you learn from the mistakes made and work with your team in order to find a successful solution, saying it was someone's fault and then moving on doesn't do anything but make you devil's advocate and a jackass.
Trolls: Not to be confused with having a good time, someone that trolls your team consistently and doesn't play his role properly is an instantaneous no vote on team recruitment. You don't want to deal with someone who gets you killed consistently or makes non-intelligent plays because he thinks it'll be funny.
Non-committed individuals: A person who is on a team is dedicated to that team and should be there for the team when called upon. Showing up is the number one problem for people around the world today because they have a lack of focus and sense of duty to the team. If your tryout teammates can't commit to practice times or game times, they can't be on the team.
2. Practices
Practices should consist of strict time management. Get what needs to be done, done. There are many things you can do in practices to help better the team inevitably:
1. Analyze replays of livestream footage from last practice. Live streaming helps a lot because you can see what went wrong last game and fix it for the next game.
2. Make your teammates play characters they are struggling to master, more practice never hurts them.
3. Work on staying together and communicating on objectives, (Blue, Red, Dragon, Baron, etc.) talking and being able to communicate well is essential for a successful team.
4. Preparing for tournaments is a big deal. By knowing what champions the other teams like playing, you can begin to prepare by banning those champions during your ranked games to be accustomed to the other champions that may be played. It is logical to get ahead when prizes, publicity, and your team's reputation are on the line.
3. In-Game
All I can say about in ranked games and online/LAN competitions is take it seriously because your reputation is on the line and quite possibly a lot of people including sponsors for professional gamers may be watching you. Play your best and don't ever give up a game you can remotely come back from.
4. Team Leaders
This is important for all of the team captains. If you can't maintain control of your team it is very difficult to get things done. As a leader you need to make sure they respect you enough to listen to your calls when they are made regardless if the call being made is good or not. If they don't respect you they will never listen to you, which brings up the point that you have to EARN respect through your actions and should not assume that they will listen to you automatically. Dedication to your team and committing to anything they need help with will get you to where you want to be. If you are having problems with an individual talk to them and if the decision comes where you have to remove someone from the team for various reasons, then you have to be the person who makes the call. It sucks being the bearer of bad news and the face to be blamed but as a leader and someone who has the best interests for your team it needs to be done. You'll find success eventually, but it takes time.
Conclusion
Hope everyone got some good insight from this guide, if you have any tips/questions/comments/concerns please post them at http://byteflock.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4 where this guide is posted as all input is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
WorthyNinja
Team Leader/Jungler for PNR Gaming
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Junior Member
