So You Want To Be A Better Teammate

There are a lot of benefits, for you and your teammates, by showing teamwork on the rift.  You’ll find yourself sincerely enjoying playing the game and will walk away from a game knowing that you got to share a positive experience with 4 random people.  But how exactly can you maximize that experience?

Communication

Communication is extremely helpful in the game.  That’s why we can type/talk/whatever with each other!  When you enter a game, you have 4 randomly selected players that you’re going to spend the next 30 minutes or so with in a game whose meta, at the moment, focuses on teamwork.  Say hi, introduce yourself, or just simply say “have fun!” It’s important to exhibit positive behavior from the get go because that’ll help break down the ice.  Your teammates will, generally, appreciate the fact that they have a nice guy (something some might argue is relatively rare in the game nowadays) on their team.  Exhibiting this positive behavior will also help reduce any tension later on the in game; basically, if you’re unintentionally feeding, your teammates are less likely to shove it down your throat.  Communication also helps to instill trust.  Your lane opponent leaves lane? You know what direction he/she was going? Let your team know.  Either ping “enemy missing” or just type in chat “Hey guys, Thresh is roaming towards mid.” Your teammates will appreciate it and will trust you more, which leads us to my next point.

Trust Your Teammates

As I previously mentioned, the meta focuses heavily on teamwork so it will be extremely difficult, though not impossible, to carry a game on your own.  Trust your teammates to make the correct plays and at the same time, make sure you communicate!  In addition, make sure you get your teammates to communicate with you as well.  By trusting one another, you will be able to make more successful plays across the map, especially in a game like LoL where communication is almost a non-factor during team fights (without the use of 3rd party voice comms).  It’s important to note that trusting your teammates does not mean that you are bossing them around.  When you begin to boss your teammates around, I’m willing to bet they don’t listen to you.  Why should they? What makes you have any authority over their actions?  Those are the questions that probably go through their heads when you start to give orders.  Trust your teammates to make plays and trust your teammates to trust YOU in the plays you make.  If you and your team can manage to do that, your team synergy will blow through the roof as you all move and play as a single unit.

Warding

Gone are the days when warding was solely the job of the support.  In a teamwork oriented game, you and your teammates MUST support each other and effective warding is one of the best ways to do that.  By warding the areas in close proximity to your lane, you are increasing the map awareness not only for yourself but also for your teammates in case the enemy starts to roam or the enemy jungler is nearby.  This will allow you and your teammates to prepare for any gank at any moment, assuming wards are properly placed.  Not only will this help out team map awareness, your teammates will appreciate it as you’d appreciate it if your teammate warded an area near your lane.  However, that’s not to say you should just go about warding all the time.  Make sure you do so when you have an opportunity to ward like: when you shoved in your lane, won lane, rotated, etc.  Upgrade your trinket, buy a green/pink ward, do what you can to increase the vision of the map.  Wards help protect you and your teammates while also providing vision of the enemy (which gives you the opportunities to make plays!)

All these things relate to each other and can maximize your in-game experience as well as the experience for your teammates.  They’ll help you to have fun with your brothers and sisters on the Rift as well as help you increase your chances of winning (which typically leads to even more fun).  But if you already have a winning formula that maximizes what you count as fun, stick to it!  The point of playing the game is to enjoy it but if you want to share that enjoyment with others, you know what to do!