Reign of Gaming

Well it's kind of hard to say on one hand there are players like Froggen and Toyz who absolutely destroy people with their vastly superior mechanical skills. They always credit their teams and superior teamwork when they win, but obviously having your ap mid dominate doesn't hurt the team's chances either.

I think team's need teamwork and they definently need to practice together, but it doesn't hurt to have a Michael Jordan or two on your team either.

Of course, if a player got an incredibly skill will carry a game, but the needed of teamplay is more important. To point an example througth soccer, FC Barcelona star, Leo Messi, carries most of their games. He makes tons of goals and assists. Same do Atletico de Madrid star Falcao, keeping up their team with his killer instint each game he plays. Tons of examples more. 

But lets look last match FCB got against Glasgow Celtics: the scottish just got 1 point at their favor (fisical superiority) while FCB got more individual cuality, more velocity, more goal, and soo on. Celtics just performed an incredibly teamplay and won the match, by knowing what they can do and what they cant: lets go to defence, close pass lines, make some counterattacks and go with aereal ball. Play what you can do well, not try to do what you can't do and your cance wins grow up. If you bet for them you sure won a good amount of money. Of course, there are tons of teams who play this way against Barcelona, but the velocity at ballon than Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Cesc can imprime plus the superiority cuality of Messi against anybody make this plans usefull... most of times.

So if you've got some cuality, just go throught it. Don't try to fly when you are a turtle, just try to stay in your movile house, and make some bites. You can win, you can loose. But if you try to win a run against a cheetah you are going to have a very hard game.

Sorry can we put Darien on that list of top laners? He's just as good as those guys (when he doesn't counterpick himself, god damn it don't pick Yorick into Nidalee). To be honest, I think the reason that Moscow 5 stand out from other EU and NA teams is because they practice so hard and probably go with the mindset that you mention in this article.

I mean Diamondprox only knew Lee Sin when he was picked up by Moscow 5 and wasn't platinum rated (afaik he was gold) so maybe you're onto something.

Good read, just remember, Moscow 5 > All.

- Euro fanboi out

If it makes you feel better, TPA picked Nid after m5 picked Yorick both games.

There's a book called simply "The Book Of Basketball", where author Bill Simmons takes a look at the most succesful _teams_ in NBA history and then takes a look at the best players. Not to spoil, but one of the conclusions of this book is, among others, that Russell was an infinitely better basketball player than Chamberlain, despite the latter being the record holder in scored points, rebounds, women and boasting.

In general, team made of players who could all be rated A- but synergize great with each other will always beat a haphazard collection of A+ MVP candidates. Coaches around the world know this since forever and as LoL is becoming a sport, pro teams should also realize this simple fact and act accordingly *cough*benchhotshot*cough*cough*.

Great article, very interesting indeed.

A player that I truly consider to be the summit of what you described regarding individual skill vs. team skill is ForellenLord, the "mighty" elo record-breaker that simply can't go anywhere with his team.

By Elo he could very well be considered League of Legends' "best player" (please note the bloody "), yet who the hell are ATN in the competitive scene? No one...

I wasn't aware the last salaried teams would be based on the ladder. News to me and an interesting way to threaten the established teams. In a way it's also a way to say - stop the foolish around in soloqueue and work on your teamplay.

The asian teams are better in skill, team work and professionalism in every position. It´s that simple.

Their top-laners might be more ahead of their european and american counterparts but in mid, jungle and botlane they are better as well. Both have a lot of work to do before they can get near them.

I disagree. It's not that the successful Asian teams are just better at everything. They do one thing better though - the whole execution of the plan. If anything we see a lot of really strong top laners in different places on different teams. But as we just saw with CLG.prime and Voyboy even a good player might not mesh with the team.

I also want to point out how you fail to mention AP players, of whom we also see very strong players spread around. ForellenLord, Froggen, Alech Ich to name some. They can loose even if they win the lane and go spread terror.

And why is all this? Because the most successful teams play with a really strong team coordination. I am willing to make a bet - the most successful teams in season 3 will be the ones with the best cooperation. It might even mean my favorite team won't pull though. M5 has a struggle in bot lane, where ADC and support pulls in two different directions.

The level of teamwork at the top level really brings home the fact that, at the end of the day, League of Legends is more about strategy than mechanical skill and individual decision making. Sure, you need mechanical skill to play out good strategies, but ultimately success is more about team cohesion than anything else. I think too many ranked players forget this, and unfortunately this misconception is only propagated by tier lists which are often misinterpreted as ranking individual champion strength rather than what they bring to the team as a whole. 

To those of you who cite games in which individuals have seemingly carried their entire team, realize that oftentimes, they were only able to get in the lead because of their team's aid, and that oftentimes they were only able to carry on with their streak because of their team setting up situations in which they were able to do so. Protecting and setting up for one person to shine is merely another strategy in itself, a team based strategy.

Now, I don't mean to imply that Asian teams are simply better than the European or North American teams, but my dip into Social Psychology and many of the studies conducted in the field have shown that, mentally, there is a difference between Western and non-Western societies in terms of individual thought. While Western cultures tend to value individuality, non-Western cultures tend to think in more collectivist terms; and I believe that this may be a barrier keeping many people from reaching the top - the lack of that mindset which thinks about the team as a whole rather than considering individual contributions to a team.

Pretty sure it's not a matter of Eastern/Western culture that's causes NA teams to solo queue all day instead of practicing as a team. It's just sheer laziness.

When teams have players that rage, blame and argue midgame you know they are doing something wrong. Those kinds of guys have a debuff aura stronger than any item in the game.

Quote from nochange »

When teams have players that rage, blame and argue midgame you know they are doing something wrong. Those kinds of guys have a debuff aura stronger than any item in the game.

If we ever get to have signatures on the GD forums, this is going to be mine.