My team-mates suck

This is an article for competitive game play, not for soloQ

I get really mad when a player makes a comment or has the attitude of “my team-mates suck”. This usually is a passive-aggressive comment or shown by how that player interacts with the rest.

It can be said in many different ways:

  • “I can’t improve”
  • “I can’t learn”
  • “I can’t practice properly”
  • “When they do X it frustrates me and I can’t focus”
  • “I’m not motivated”
  • “It’s not fun”

These kinds of comments or attitudes prove an extremely narrow vision and show how weak that player is.

Being a professional is not about only playing your lane, it’s about doing everything in your hand to WIN. And winning is done as a team. If you are not willing to help your team improve you are fucking up your team.

There are no excuses

There’s 3 common profiles I’ve encountered during my coaching career. They all use different words to say the same: “I don’t want to win badly enough”.

The laner or Mr. Mechanics

Traits

  • Usually Top, mid or ADC
  • Usually mediocre communication
  • Try to lead but doesn’t really know how
  • Self-proactive, not team proactive
  • Sees the team as a resource for him to excel, not him as a resource for the team to win
  • High matchups knowledge. Mediocre game knowledge

Excuses

“I win my lane but all the other lane lose.”

Are you transitioning your leads? Are you communicating to do it? What do you need from your team to do it? Are you roaming every time you can? Are you coordinating with your jungler to execute them? Are you droping vision when you push waves?

“My jungler doesn’t know how to pressure.”

Have you explained it how to do it? Are you reviewing his pathing together?Are you communicating ingame properly around it? Do you have a plan about it before getting into the game?

“Enemy jungle is camping in my lane. I can’t play the game.”

Are you setting up counter ganks? Is your team making plays on other sides of the map? Is your team aware of enemy jungler position? Are you communicating properly around the vision you need to avoid ganks?

The shotcaller

Traits

  • Usually support or jungler
  • Good game knowledge
  • Good mid-late game shotcalling
  • Ok mechanics
  • When shotcalling intensively mechanics get worse and gets frustrated

Excuses

“I can’t shotcall because they don’t follow my calls.”

Do you have a clear hierarchy of communication implemented? Has everyone agreed on their roles and have a plan to improve on them?
Does your team understand that to improve as a shotcaller you need to be given the chance to fail? Have you explained it?
Have you asked them why they don’t follow you?
Are you reviewing comms to check the message was clear Is your wording correct? Are your sentences too abstract? Are you asking instead of commanding?

“We lose so fast that there’s no macro.”

Are you reviewing every game looking for the mistakes and patterns?
Is it a jungle pathing issue? Is it matchup knowledge related? Is it draft related? Is it miss execution?
What are you doing to help your laners not get crushed?

“My ADC / Mid is too bad. I can’t build synergy.”

Are any of you proactive? In game do you communicate with him? Do you ask him about what he wants to do or only tell him what to do?
Is it a mechanics or lane knowledge matchup?
Are you analyzing the game together to make sure you reach the same conclusions? If not, what are the fundamental differences between how both of you see the game?

The solid player or Mr. OK

Traits

  • Ok lane phase knowledge
  • Ok game knowledge
  • Ok playing loosing matchups
  • Doesn’t snowball winning matchups
  • Ok communication. Doesn’t create plans proactively, gives good info.
  • Preferres slow pace games over full aggression games

Excuses

“They don’t call for my TP.”

Does your communication around your TP enable them to ask for it? Or is it more like “I can’t TP now”? Do you plan TP plays or just wait for them to do it for you? Are you looking for proactive TPs?

“I can’t create pressure because we lost the draft.”

Is your champ pool deep enough? Do you have enough match up knowledge? Can you go even in losing matchups and win in even ones?

“When I scale, the game is already lost.”

Do you create enough pressure to pull enemy jungler and free your other laners? Do you create advantages 1 vs 1? Are you translating your lane advantage into team advantage?

Don’t be that guy

You should have the “everything is my fault” approach. Always look for your part in everyone else’s mistakes.

All the answers to the above questions give you actionable steps. As you can see, there’s always so much to work on. At an individual as well as a collective level.

When you think about the game, think about what is needed to WIN more. Not what you need to do to be a better mid, top or whatever. What can you do to increase your chances of winning. In many cases this will be help your team-mates improve.

Absolutely never make passive-aggressive comments blaming others. Don’t have an attitude that makes your team-mates feel that you think they are bad. This just means that you have a very low self-critique. It means that you are weak but you don’t want to accept it.

If you think that your team-mates suck it just means that you aren’t good enough.

 

2 responses to “My team-mates suck”

  1. Alejandro Cremades Guisado. says:

    Hey Deilor!

    Como no y como siempre, ya no me sorprendes, es fácil que todos tengamos ejemplos de amigos o incluso uno mismo para aplicar cualquier de estos casos ya que puedes contar con las manos los jugadores que logran exprimir todo lo que ellos mismos pueden cambiar por si mismos.

    Al fin y al cabo, todo esto se resume en la siguiente frase:

    You should have the “everything is my fault” approach

    Concentrar tus fuerzas y energías en algo que no está en tu mano cambiar, no es ”rentable” darle más vueltas, como en la vida, hay cosas que pasan y no se pueden cambiar porque no están en tu mano pero desde luego, en una partida, siempre hay algo que podría haberse hecho mejor o de otra manera.

    Sin duda, es practicamente imposible, si no me quedo corto, que uno sea capaz de aprender todo por si mismo y, por eso, es importante ser capaz de construir un criterio apropiado para poder decidir lo es productivo en el aprendizaje y la mejora como jugador.

    Me gusta mucho leer tus articulos y, tristemente, no he podido aportar a tu proyecto para hacerme con ese magnífico teclado.

  2. Breathless says:

    Thank you for sharing this from your experience, highly appreciated. Very clear, hope to read from you again soon !