The RIOT Act

[Mr. Zhu]

One of the things Tryg and I have been frustrated about is that we often feel like there isn't someone suitable for taking a role for us if we want to do something other than ranged or jungle. We were talking about ways to work around that, but it really just comes down to people not having a wide enough variety of champions under their belt. For example, I have a pretty strong Morde that could totally catch people off guard, but what configuration of people would allow me to play that without really sacrificing a role, so to speak?

Well, I can fill all roles except for Jungle and I've been working on my game there so yar. But I do believe it's also an issue of specialization, I mean sure, I can play a mean ranged AD. However, I'm just not in complete flawless practice at ranged AD because I don't practice it non-stop. Whereas, if you put me top, mid or support there are so many characters that I am able to play at a high level there. To me, being in a team is all about specialization. I guess we have to figure out a system that differs "hey we're playing for pleasure" as opposed to "hey we're practicing to actually improve as a team." If we're all playing for pleasure, it's fine to have someone substitute your main role because it gives them a chance to practice it and you a chance to practice another. But in a legitimate team practice, we should definitely stick to the roles that we know is our bread and butter and try to improve ourselves more and more there. Even if you know the lane so well, try new champions, try new bot lane duos, try new jungle lanes etc. Just like all the top teams, while the players can play many different roles and stuff when it comes to scrims, ranked 5's and practice time they always play what they play on the team because it's what moves them forward as a team, instead of trying to figure out things like "hey you should let me jungle this game." Versatility = Good, but in a team of arranged and have certain needed roles and such we need this specialization. So I urge that our team find two things. One, find the role you know you can play and want to specialize in and let everyone know that, possibly in a new thread and we need to define the times we play by practice and non-practice so we know when to put our try-hard faces on and practice hard, or when we can just dick around and try out different stuff. Also, I feel like practicing in Solo Queue ranked is also a good way to go about practicing your role. Sure it's not the best, and the people you meet there are shit ass annoying but when the rest of the team isn't there practicing at a ranked level of play is really not a bad thing at all.