Difficulty is the Name of the Game (League of Legends)

Even though the mantra “win lane win game” might not be 100% true all the time, it is still the foundation of the game. It is not worth it to “throw away” your lane for the sake of saving an ally. Because while you prevent your ally from falling behind this way, you prevent yourself from getting ahead.

Every cs, trade, and movement against your lane opponent matters. Ask yourself, when you’re falling behind in lane, and start diverting your attention to what your teammates are doing, and then proceed to start to sacrifice your lane for the sake of your team, are you really doing it to win? Or are you just doing it to avoid the pain, the real fight, that is battling against your lane opponent?

Sometimes you may imagine a fed version of yourself, running over your opponent in two or three hits, and fantasize about the plays you’d make. But truth is, fights taken when you’re so far ahead against your opponent that they can’t really outplay you are really easy. They can hardly be considered the essence of the game.

Maybe the essence of the game is the moment when you’re even with your lane opponent, fighting over every last scrap of cs. When your lane opponent is slightly fed after getting a bunch of kills from you or your teammates, but you stand your ground and continue to scrape every last minion and pixel of health that you can get.

When you or your teammates make mistakes, the game is not over, it merely increases in difficulty. Falling behind is merely the process of the Elden Ring boss having harder-hitting moves, or maybe even new moves. But you still have the power to adapt and face those challenges all the same.

As a certain legendary Yasuo player known as Brohan once said:

I wish I could flame. But I’m not as weak as you guys. Like, sadly. I’m so self-aware aware every single time I flame, I’m basically just running away from the real fight within myself.

So the next time you want to start typing, or start focusing on every other lane and role except for your own, question if that’s what you really want within. Because even in the face of a towering mountain, you still have your legs. And a vivid painting is built up from thousands of strokes, each little line combining together to characterize the whole scene.

League is a zero-sum game: something cannot be created from nothing. And like reality, it suffers from the butterfly effect: one small mistake or one good play could lead to a completely different future. The one thing you can impact early on in the game and consistently, is your performance in lane. And some things, like the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent’s champions, can only be learned through trials and tribulations.

So keep fighting - but fight for yourself. Take responsibility for your mistakes: when you mess up a combo, that screw-up doesn’t go away until it’s remedied with practice. When a champion surprises you with their play, internalize it, learn from it, but don’t let it daunt you. You don’t need to give up after one misstep --- after all, the game doesn’t end there, it merely gets harder.

Difficulty is the name of the game.