RAGE Thread

[Kaden]

I've surrendered games I'm having fun with if it's clear we're going to lose anyway.

It takes a while to really get a good feel for when to surrender. If you lose a team fight, for example, you need to be able to see WHY your team lost a team fight. Were you all together? Did you get the initiation? Was the map positioning optimal for your team? Did your carries/tanks maintain appropriate positioning? Did your team focus/did your team focus the correct targets?

If the answer to all those questions is "yes" and you suffer a decisive loss or ace, surrender. If the answer to some or most is "I'm not sure," then wait until you CAN be sure before deciding; it's not hard to whip up another team-fight to analyze. If the answer is no, then tell your team to get their act together (just make sure it's in a mostly-constructive way).

Dariden -- and to a lesser extent, Trygelan -- HATES to surrender. He likes to see the chance for victory regardless of how the game is actually going. I'm sure he has a different interpretation of that, but there ya go. Sometimes it's perfectly called for. I know more than once I've just been pissed and called the surrender vote more symbolically than anything else.

The other thing to keep an eye on is the champ make-up of each team. If you're running a team of, say, LeBlance, Blitz, Kassadin, TF, and Zilean and you're losing the early/mid game, then you might as well just surrender. On the other hand, if you're running Tryn, Yi, Karthus, Kog'Maw, and Kayle then don't freak out if you're not doing great right off the bat; just keep your loses to a minimum while your team gears up. Which brings me to gauging CS. Keep an eye on the creep scores compared to the other team and which champs have the best.

Look at playstyle, also. If you're balling up and crashing into the other team and losing fight KNOCK IT OFF. Diving into Amumu, Nunu, Kennen, Xin, and Brand WILL get your team rocked. Don't do that shit. Split push. Or play a roaming gank-squad.

Just recently I was playing in a game with Waff/Dariden/Teemer/Tryg and, by all right, we should have lost. I was Lux and the other team would just 5-man dive down our mid lane. After a couple of charges I realized that all 5 were pushing, so I went into their bottom lane and just pushed (28 second ult on Lux makes her a beast pusher). Yeah, by most definitions my team lost the 4v5, but by the time the enemy got to our Inner Turret, I was on their Inhibitor Turret. By the time they were on our Inhibitor Turret I had damage on their Inhibitor. Then people respawned and everyone got pushed back.

They continued to do these pushes without defending so we continued to counter-push empty lanes while 4 defended. Before we knew it, Super Minions were wailing on their Nexus turrets and they had to back off if they didn't want to lose the game. It was a situation where countering their playstyle is precisely what won us the game.

So, yeah. My point is that there's a lot to look at when judging how a game is going. The more you play the easier it is to just look at a 25-minute-mark fight and know how the rest of the game should play out.