Failure is learning. Thoughts on keeping your head above the sea of insults in League of Legends.

"OMG our f***** support was just f***** feeding the whole game!" "Feeder!" "F****** Noob!"
"Nubfeed!" "You should just quit life cuz you suck so bad." "omG i'm reporting you!" "Stupid f***!"

These are just some of the delightful words of encouragement that I have heard thrown at not just me but other teammates after a match in League of Legends when a team of mine looses because either someone has died to many time to the enemies ADC and said ADC has been "Fed" so to speak. Perhaps someone is just starting to grasp a new champion that they fell in love with on the free rotation and would like to try out a new item build or new rune combination. I've done this many times just to see how well it would do against the human element instead of the A.I. opponents that we all know and love but instead of it actually working, it fails miserably. This is where some good old constructive criticism can go a long way or it could actually make someone unhappy depending on how you word it. Using the above method will more than likely not get you any honors after the fight whether you have won or lost and probably a swift retort to boot.

Now for those of you out there that are unfortunately finding these types of players, I have a powerful yet contradictory statement for you that I heard a while ago. "Failing is a learning experience."

How are you ever going to get better at something if you do not mess up every now and again. You cannot expect an apprentice blacksmith to make a grand work of art right out of the blue. Now I know some people might think that some people have done similar things but in this sense it is highly improbable. They must work at their trade, ever improving on what they know and in the process learn new things that they may have never thought of. I do believe that it was Thomas Edison who came up with the quote "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" and "There is a way to do it better - find it." So what if you have lost a few games with the new champion you have grown fond of or the item/rune/mastery build you have set for your main champion isn't working out the way you planned it. Don't let someone else ruin your day about it. Pick yourself back up, reevaluate your strategy and then act accordingly.

 If someone starts going in the heavy AD direction, then go pick up some armor. If you think that your champion might work a little better with attack speed runes instead of straight damage runes then switch them out and try it again. You are going to have to get used to new builds all the time and readjusting to what your enemy builds because each match holds new players and new strategies. It might throw you out of your comfort zone to build more along the lines of defense instead of straight damage but if it helps you either get the kill or deny your enemy the last hit on a minion then it is well worth it. If you happen to die in the process, well that is a lesson learned. If you know you can't beat Jarvan in a straight up brawl then play it safe and try and bait him into a trap with you and your jungler. You can always farm minions and neutral monsters until you can go toe to toe with him. If Master Yi is being a pest and running through your team like a hot knife through Jello then try to catch him off guard and group up after he blows his cooldowns because if Yi is fed, then it's going to be a group effort to take him down unless you happen to have a heavily fed Yi on your team. I can account for this as I have seen it done even though it ended with both Yi's killing each other. Just remember that failing is learning. If someone starts griping about how you are bringing down their Elo or something then don't mind them. They can go build a team of their own if they think they are up to playing with other pre-made teams.

Also, another big thing that goes a very long way is not lashing out at the other players that have been saying mean and or hurtful things to you while you are in game. Not only does it take your hands away from the fight but it also takes your mind away as well. If all you can think about now is how this nozzle just lit you up because you may have perished twice to the same person then you aren't going to be figuring out how to get back in the game and take that enemy down and get some sweet, cold blooded revenge. Let's be honest with ourselves. There is nothing more satisfying than loosing a lane to one champion or player for the first ten minutes of the game and then coming right back around and being able to stomp a mud hole in then or make them run in terror of your sheer awesomeness.

League of Legends is about teamwork, strategy  and skill. You may be a skillful player or you may know the ins and outs of certain champions. You might have developed many different types of strategies for when the coin flips to tails instead of heads but if you do not have teamwork, then your group will surely fail in either capturing objectives, getting kills or just straight up winning. The moral of this post is to not be a jerk and to use constructive criticism during your match. There is no sense in using vulgarity or racist remarks in mid fight. Help your teammates and achieve victory.

Gamers being recognized as pro athletes?

Athlete. Lets look at this definition really quickly.

Dictionary.com definition

Athlete - a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill. 

Now the British definition on Dictionary.com

Athlete - a person trained to compete in sports or exercises involving physical strength, speed, or endurance

Now just by taking a quick glance at this term, one wouldn't think that a "Gamer" or the so called "Pro Gamers" would not be considered Athletes by these standards. I tend to disagree with this though just by a little bit. Generally a pro gamer would not fit all of the criteria to be called an athlete but lets take a look at these requirements.

Physical Strength? This one can be kind of tricky as I cannot think of any electronic games out in the verse that would be used in the Major League Gaming circuit or even in the Electronic Sports circuit. There might be but I have yet to come across one. So I am going to say no on this until one surfaces.

Speed and Agility? Now we are getting somewhere. Now when you think of speed you might think of Usain Bolt. This talented individual is what one would call the pinnacle of Speed and Agility within his respected right. Now if you have ever seen a gaming controller or even a mouse and keyboard in front of a Pro Gamer, you will immediately know what kind of speed their hands and figures are capable of. Just go here and see what I mean. This video is about something called APM or Actions Per Minute and as the name states, this is how many actions a person can do in one minute in games such StarCraft and StarCraft 2. This might not sound like an impressive feat but take this into consideration. On average, a beginner in the Real Time Strategy gaming world may have an average of 40 to 50 APM. When you look at a pro gamer, their APM is generally quadrupled to that of a beginner with an APM pushing 300 plus. One individual, Park Soon-Jung has been noted to have a record of 818 APM. Now this does not necessarily indicate skill in the game but if one does have skill and speed together, then the odds of winning are definitely in your favor.

Endurance? Now this is also pretty interesting. Endurance is the ability to remain active for long periods of time and help recover from fatigue. Now this could be anything from being able to lift 50 pound boxes all day for 8 hours to being able to workout for an hour and not break a sweat. Now there is no debating that an all star quarter back is going to have a decent threshold for fatigue but at the same time how long are they able to remain active? This is debatable. Now coming to pro gamers. Their endurance is much different than a quarter back would be. Most if not all of their fatigue will be generated through their fingers, hands and possibly their arms. Let's try out a test. Just take the hand that you use the most and wiggle your fingers up and down for as long as you can and count that. I can last about 45 seconds before my fingers try to lock up on me. Now these pro gamers are either typing or clicking buttons on a much faster scale than more than likely you or I can manage and they aren't stopping for however long their rounds or matches last. I know that a typical League of Legends match can be anywhere from 20-50 minutes. Give or take who's been feeding the other team...sorry about that guys. Now trying and keep that up for 20 to 50 minutes over the  course of three games. Might be a little difficult.

Now we have one more thing to tackle. A sport, exercise or game that requires physical skill. This can be a little dicey. Now we have two types of sports to deal with. Regular sports and then electronic sports. Now sports in general have been around since as early as 2000 B.C. by some accounts were as electronic gaming has become a fairly new phenomenon with the earliest accounts coming in around the early 1970's. I am not going to lie that this topic is very controversial as I am pretty sure that their are many people out there who would not consider electronic gaming a sport at all and then their are the pro gamers and the people that watch their streams frequently would argue that they are. Many other things are considered sports like NASCAR and Chess so it would seem prudent to nominate electronic gaming to be next in line to become a sport in the eyes of the world. Let's look at it this though. A toucan isn't tomato soup and tomato soup isn't a toucan. Pro gamers are not pro athletes and pro athletes are not pro gamers. They are in two separate classes of sport and that is what divides them and so far keeps them divided. Now when someone invents a virtual reality simulator that allows us to physically run through the lanes of League of Legends and allows us to instantly become a war hero with an eye for detail in Call of Duty or a marine slicing Protoss gutting Zerg Queen and allows this to be played in a tournament were the players pour everything they have into that one match, then I think that pro gamers could and would be considered "Pro Athletes."  Now I am going to grab some popcorn and wait.