Nhan-Fiction

Last evening, “League of Legends” had a problem with ranked queues (I play on the North American servers) and so Riot had to disable them for hours. Now, this may not seem like much of a problem, but the night of LoL matches ended up being a disaster in more ways than one. This is because, at least coincidentally, a lot of the higher-Elo players who normally would play ranked matches (talking 1,900-2,000+ Elo) ended up saturating the normal games. And guess whose team happened to be on the receiving end for some of these really strong players – that’s right … mine.

To say the games were one-sided would be an understatement. My team kept getting schooled one game after another, and this really showed the “gap” that epitomizes why high-Elo players are at the top. We got served a good helping of humble pie. That’s for sure.

I am a firm believer that the subtle differences are what separate the extremely strong players from the above-average ones in LoL. From last hitting just a bit more effectively to executing a combo in a slightly quicker fashion, a higher-tier player’s strength becomes that more apparent when you have to tangle with them in a real match.

Sure, we all come across high-Elo players a lot in normal games all the time, but when you have to face five at once with the real Elo gap being gulf-sized on a technical level, it doesn’t even become much of a contest. Your team plays their hardest and it falls flat. You think you were pretty good as a player, but then receiving a beat down from the cream of the crop forces you to wake up and smell the coffee – you have a long ways to go before you can call yourself a strong LoL player. This was evident last night for myself.

I know I am a lot more skillful than my current Elo rating suggests, and it is not higher because I have not put in the necessary effort to grind out the games toward a better rating. Having the taste of humble pie still lingering in my mouth makes me not want to be force fed this stuff ever again. The back-to-back games of “glimpses” of what it is like to play at high Elo only motivates me even further to dig deep and strive toward finding how strong I can really be at LoL.

Regardless of how far it really is, only the persistent ones make it anywhere. In LoL or in life.