Silence is the key to victory in League

Sometimes on EPBAV we have important shit to talk about. But this week, I have to chat about something dumb that happened to me in solo queue Wednesday night.

On this very website I have been fairly vocal about my problems with Patch 7.16, so with 7.17 out this week, I was stoked to jump in and check some of the new stuff out. I was pretty pleased to see that most of my games were now only lasting 40 minutes or so rather than the 50 plus of last patch. Even the mega tanks didn’t seem as mega tanky as they did before. All was well.

But in my last game of the night, something kind of beautiful happened: our top laner confidently locked in Zyra top against Yorick. Now I know what you are thinking. “What a terrible match-up that is for Zyra,” you say. And you know what? You are absolutely right. It is a terrible match-up for her.

I had picked Rek’Sai in the jungle, because when someone locks in top Zyra you think, “Well, I haven’t played this champion in a bit, might as well just dive in here.” Despite her being a top lane Zyra, I popped into the top lane and we were able to kill Yorick a handful of times together. Things did not look nearly as dire as I once expected. But as all good things in a game with Yorick, my hope for victory faded away at about the 15 minute mark.

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Turns out that Yorick is a real pain in the ass when he is allowed to scale. And turns out, Zyra isn’t really awesome at keeping him down in CS. When the Yorick began taking towers left and right, our Zyra started complaining. When I pointed out something to the effect of “what can you expect, you picked Zyra top?” she showed her hand as someone who came to troll. For the rest of the game, everything was my fault. Blame the jungler became the main narrative for her.

Now I want to be clear that I was asking for this by even saying something to her at all. That is my fault and nobody else’s. She felt attacked by what I said and punished me for that the rest of the game by yelling at me and refusing to surrender a impossible battle.

There is a lesson to be learned here, and shockingly it is not “dodge games with Zyra top” (although that isn’t the worst idea). We were probably going to lose that game. In fact, I am willing to say that the likelihood of a loss was at least 90 percent. However, when I opened my mouth to say something to the already pouting Zyra, that went up to 100 percent. As soon as we started arguing, as soon as that player started spending more time berating me than they did playing, the game was over.

The real thing to take away from this is to just shut up. I know its hard, especially if you are a loud, opinionated person like me. I get it. I don’t like it when top Zyra’s waste my last game of the night either. But, the damage is done, I decided to play the game, and I should just shut up and play.

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We have all been in games where two assholes are yelling at each other. You almost always lose those games because two of your teammates are too busy fighting each other to focus on fighting the enemy. I am sad to say that I have been one of the two assholes more often than I would like.

If you are like me, and have this instinct that you need to engage when someone is complaining loudly in chat or berating a teammate: mute everyone when the game starts. This is hard for me, and it will be for you, but it is for the best. Mute them and never look back. You will win more games and you will get less mad. Do not engage, do not talk to people, it is a path to sadness and LP loss.

Next time you get a top Zyra, roll your eyes and move on. Leave them alone and maybe you will win your game.

Riot Games