~For the Hardstuck Hard Carries~

Summary: Keep an eye on your team, address and make up for their shortcomings.

This is mainly aimed at players ranked Initiate -> Ritualist, and specifically the ones who feel like they’re doing everything right and carrying 75% of their games, while still losing. This is a discussion for the players who feel as if they have skills and lack agency in the outcome of their games.

Those of you who had no problem getting through Ritualist/Emissary/Archon and into the big boy ranks will read through this and think I’m a coping shitter or something.

You would be right!

However after months of playing and being hardstuck Alchemist, I made a change and climbed up to Emissary 4 in less than a week.

What prompted this change was something I heard, I can’t remember if it was a reddit comment, a discussion, or what but it was:

***Bad players don’t adapt. They play their meta at all costs and then complain when their teammates don’t keep up***

I’ll explain the phrase and sum up this post like this:

While you climb through Alchemist (Or any rank), you are mainly playing with Alchemist players (+ or - a tier) who have been there for months.

These players are not going anywhere, they belong here. They will not perform at any level better than Alchemist. Everything you saw in that Nightshift tournament you watched, Deathy’s tutorials, etc just don’t really matter because your lanemate is a 0-8 Victor feeding the enemy infernus.

YOU MUST ADAPT. You can’t follow an Eternus blueprint to carry an Alchemist lobby. You need to play differently.

*Differently how?*

IT DEPENDS ON THE GAME. You must learn to adapt to the shortcomings of your team and make up for them.

This can be done in a variety of ways,

from taking charge and shotcalling/IGL when the team isn’t making use of opportunities after won fights

going for a 2v10 style long term farm because you’ve recognized that the goat is on your team but the other 4 are vegetables

going permafight build because you got fed off your lane and your teammates are getting rolled in their lanes

going for a long term 1v11 farm because both teams are bad and in a deadlock, so you have time to just become a demon and show up at 25 minutes to wrap the game