Just Why...?
In a team game like League of Champions, teamwork is obviously important.
And that isn't just true from a pure gameplay standpoint — it applies to the mental side of things as well.
When you're ahead, all you have to do is play to lock in the win. But even when you're losing, giving everything you've got for the victory is still a virtue. There's a reason they call it e-sports, after all.
That's why everyone encourages you to cheer on a teammate who made a mistake and tell them to keep their head up. Of course, games where that actually happens are vanishingly rare. There are even people who, while winning, will still dig in and flame whoever they don't like. Sometimes that gets under the other person's skin so thoroughly that they throw a perfectly good game and drive full speed straight into a loss.
Anyway.
Because of things like that, when someone makes a critical mistake, people fold pretty easily. Even a winnable game can fall apart once the team locks onto hunting down the culprit. Someone who felt bad and wanted to try harder will naturally think, Well, I've already been flamed, so screw it — and just want to give up.
Maybe that was why the enemy team had quit.
They'd halfheartedly cleared a few waves, then given up even on that and vanished entirely. Their Shen had been left alone trying to hold back the incoming minion waves, only to end up nearly dead from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of those tiny attacks and scramble away — just like clothes getting soaked in a drizzle.
And just like that, the game had ended with a whimper.
Still, I figured I'd shown enough of what I needed to show, so I turned my eyes to the viewers' chat.
"The game blew open a little too fast, but I think I still managed to show you what I wanted. If a top laner wants carry potential, you have to stubbornly shove your own lane like this."
I added some extra explanation so the viewers could roughly follow along. But for some reason, the chat didn't look particularly convinced by my play.
Hmm.
Fair enough — there hadn't really been any impactful highlight moments. No matter how hard I'd focused the whole game on spacing against Macaoi and tracking pressure from other lanes, from a viewer's perspective it could easily look like we'd just farmed each other all day until the game ended.
Of course, you only see as much as you understand. There were people who knew my play had contributed meaningfully to the team's win. But it was also true that I hadn't really shown much. The ones who actually seized the opportunities I'd created were my teammates, after all.
If Virego had failed that bot-lane gank, it would've been a straight plus-minus zero. And if you really had to pin down the single biggest reason for the win… it would be Virego snatching the killing blow on the Infernal Drake the enemy team had been safely securing, with that overwhelming performance. That was what shattered their mental, whether through internal collapse or whatever else, and made them give up the game.
"Well, you all have a point. The game did blow open off Virego's Infernal Drake steal. But what I was talking about is basic top-lane fundamentals."
What I'd wanted to show them was, after all, nothing more than the basics. The identity of my stream was League of Champions top laner. I wasn't Challenger or Grandmaster, but maybe that was exactly what made this kind of eye-level teaching possible — competing at a level people could actually relate to.
The ones I'd faced at those ranks were genuine predators. Whether it was accumulated experience or raw natural instinct, they made the spacing I concentrated so hard on look trivial, created their own kill angles out of nothing, and knew exactly how to exert their influence. Compared to them, I played knowing what to do in which situations. And because I'd climbed up from the lower tiers, I figured I could say things that would actually help the viewers.
Wasn't that why they'd come to watch my stream in the first place? Sure, some people might've shown up just for the aggro of a girl streaming. But I wasn't exactly a beauty selling my face on camera, so I at least had to leave them with something useful. That way they'd come back tomorrow, and the day after.
So to the viewers who seemed willing to hear me out, I explained things step by step.
"You all basically know that League of Champions is a game of resource trading, right? And that you should usually group for objectives."
"But side-lane champions, by nature, contribute less in teamfights than tanks do. So players like me throw a tantrum — if you rotate down, I'm taking this turret. That way the enemy either has to send two or more people my way, or give up the turret to try for the objective. Whichever they pick, your team needs to come out ahead. Alright — that's the basics."
It must have been content they already knew, because up through that point everyone seemed to accept what I was saying.
"So let's rewind a bit from there. I'm ahead of Macaoi in growth, right? Higher level, better items. I haven't completely wrecked him, but I've got him pretty well pinned. Macaoi has no real pressure on me. In a situation like that — do you guys roam mid or bot to exert influence?"
"SilverPantheon put it well. If you roam, you just become a generic top laner. If you actually want to play top well, you have to keep a stranglehold on your own lane. I don't know about other roles, but top is like that."
But the next thing I said, the viewers didn't seem nearly as willing to accept.
Which was fair enough. League of Champions is a team game, and prioritizing the whole team's growth over your own individual development is generally the right call. What I'd said could easily sound extremely selfish. Of course, some people probably played top lane precisely because they liked that aspect of it.
"Hmm, let me explain with the replay. Right here — at this timing. I've opened more than half a core item of a lead on Macaoi, right? If I leave him alone and roam here, Macaoi's going to farm freely."
"No — this is where you do the cost-benefit math. While I'm gone, I'm taking losses too. At minimum two minion waves crash, and during that time the enemy is also clearing jungle camps with no XP loss. And then I have to actually intervene. I need a kill just to break even."
"I used to think that too. But flip it — what if I just focus on my own lane? Look, like I did. Macaoi was turtling under turret, so I just cleared the wave fast, overfarmed, and walked into the enemy jungle camps. No XP loss for me, and now the enemy team is the one spending turns on my side of the map. Their mid came and took a loss, their support might come too. I shouldn't be the one spending turns — I should make them spend theirs."
That was the logic I'd moved on. I wanted people to understand that. I didn't want to hear that I'd just gotten lucky, or that the enemy had simply played badly. And beyond that, I wanted the viewers to be able to enjoy the game more themselves. Getting jerked around by your team the whole time is just too boring.
"That Headbutt Dino comment earlier was good too. Stubbornly drawing the enemy team to you like this is pretty similar to what those players do, right? But that's because it's a meta that gets results. The harder you've stomped the enemy top, the more of a monster you've become, the more you need to pull the enemy toward you. That's how your team gets free value elsewhere — whether it's objectives or turrets. Ah, but that Virego dragon steal really was beautiful."
With that satisfied feeling, I wrapped up the explanation and watched the highlight. He'd pre-placed his ultimate's landing zone in a safe area, Blinked into the dragon pit for just a moment, then used the ultimate animation to come right back out. That sheer will to survive no matter what crowd control came in was enough to draw admiration and laughter at the same time.
The viewers still didn't seem convinced by what I was saying. A few looked like they got it, but most of them seemed to think I was just being stubborn.
"No, even from a risk-reward standpoint, staying in your lane is better, isn't it…? I'm not saying you have to force fights by drawing aggro no matter what. You set up vision properly, watch the map, and if the lineup of people coming looks winnable, you take the fight. If not, you just run."
Unfortunately, my lecture had failed. Maybe the explanation wasn't enough, or maybe it just wasn't convincing. Maybe my teaching skills were lacking because I was a university leave-of-absence student, not a professor. Back when I did tutoring, my students had been happy about how much their midterm scores improved…
Well, whatever.
There was something the viewers and I had been talking about even before the game started. Sometimes a streamer has to run the content the audience wants.
"Hmm, maybe. But this isn't some huge stream, and for a not-particularly-famous streamer like me… I wonder how many people would even want to manage the chat…"
I'd been worrying about what I'd do if nobody volunteered. As if to prove that fear baseless, applicants flooded in within seconds. And it was still ongoing.
Just like the viewers had been left speechless by my play earlier, this time I was the one who'd forgotten what to say.
Just… why…?