Sometimes the #1 Challenger Player Has Bad Games Too

I woke up early one morning at 7:00 AM feeling more energized than usual. Since I was brimming with confidence, I decided to queue up for a ranked solo queue match hoping to get placed against some sleepy players for some free LP.

Turns out Riot had something else in store for me.

Introduction

I woke up early one morning at 7:00 AM feeling more energized than usual. Since I was brimming with confidence, I decided to queue up for a ranked solo queue match hoping to get placed against some sleepy players for some free LP.

Turns out Riot had something else in store.

Despite currently being Platinum 2 at the moment, I ended up in a game full of Challengers and high-level Diamond players, many of which were Master Tier last Season.

In fact, the challenger player on my team was actually none other than vìper himself, who quickly locked in Riven, his trademark champion. I was feeling pretty good about the game.

The Drafts

Our champion drafts were a bit poor with a triple melee AD pick from our first three players, but I was fairly confident that my stacked high-division team could dominate whichever poor platinum scrubs were about to get stomped by Riot's terrible matchmaking.

Then the loading screen appears and things start looking a little less certain...

Enemy Team Notables include:

• C9 Balls - Top laner for Cloud 9
• Keanekr - Mid laner for Team Dignitas
• Link - Former CLG mid laner

Results of the Game

3:40ish - Kha'Zix ganked top early in the game and Elise counter-ganked, resulting in both Riven and Kha'Zix dying.

6:00ish - Kha'Zix tries another gank, both die again in a counter gank about six minutes in. Riven requests open mid since he doesn't want to waste time and says mid and top were countered too hard. Team refuses.

10:00 - By this time we've evened up the game a bit with four kills in mid and bot. Riven and Kha'Zix die top lane 2v2 again. 

Game starts really snowballing around 13:00 and results in the conclusion below. Vìper apologizes for having an awful game. 

Putting Players On a Pedestal

Two days later, viper made an INSANELY sick play on Aphromoo's Stream

I mean, there's a REASON he's the #1 challenger player on the ladder, and it's not because he gets carried every game. Reddit was quick to offer a few compliments on the play:

Maybe Not EVERY Game - never lucky...

Anyway, viper was a cool cat and admitted he didn't play as well as he could have in my game. Despite the fact that he asked to open mid, he certainly wasn't toxic, and continued to play when we refused to open.

We put up a valiant battle, but the end result was that we indeed lost the game. In retrospect, open mid would have ended it sooner anyway. Our team composition had no front line or waveclear, so winning from that far behind would have needed some pretty clutch plays.

Key Takeaways

1. If the #1 Challenger Player can feed his ass off in a game, maybe it's not so farfetched that a random Gold 3 in your game just got dumpstered. Cut him some slack.
2. If a player asks to open mid don't chew their head off, maybe they genuinely think the game can't be won.
3. If you ask to open mid and your team says no, continue playing since the game will probably still stretch to 20 minutes anyway.
4. Playing at weird hours is AWESOME; check out 10 more reasons why at this link.

Epilogue

I got Balls and Link on my team the next game. Our Plat 2 Teemo got matched up against a Challenger (Flaresz) playing Camille, and was absolutely dominated. Again, sometimes people just have bad games. Also, nobody accepted my friend request :(

Did this article help you see non-intentional feeding in a new light? Comment below!