League of Legends Gamer Psych: Why Do I Have ‘Stupid’ Teammates?

I was never a competitive gamer. Growing up in the ‘90s, I preferred games that told stories over games where you could compete with friends. In fact, when I was first introduced to the competitive environments of Counter Strike v1.3, Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge, and Starcraft, I preferred fighting against the computer. Fast forward to the present day, however, and I am now a borderline Gold/Platinum Filipino League of Legends player — which translates to Bronze in the competitive scene, I know.

Now if you’re reading this, then the odds are, you’re probably a Filipino competitive gamer as well. And most likely, the question raised in this article’s title has crossed your mind at least a dozen times in your life. So, why do we have stupid teammates?

‘League of Legends’ Players: Why do my teammates suck?

Picture this. You’re playing a game of League of Legends; let’s assume in the middle lane. You completely dominate your lane opponent, going 3-0. You eye an easy win, and you suddenly find that one of your other lanes has gone 0-3, effectively nullifying the advantage you feel you’ve built. Five minutes later, tensions mount, the enemy wins the first major teamfight, and you start asking questions like: “Who fed the Rengar? Who fed the Darius?”

Well believe it or not, your teammates aren’t exactly to blame.

‘League of Legends’ statistics of winning lane

There are three lanes in a game of League, plus the Jungle position. Let’s assume you play mid and have a 100% chance of winning your lane. Now unless you have the ability to roam quickly around the map, you have relatively no control over the outcome of the other lanes. All you can do is assume that you have a 50% chance that your allies win the top lane, and a 50% chance that your allies win the bot lane.

‘League of Legends’ Scenario: [(50/100)*(50/100)]*100% = 25%

What this means is you have a 25% chance for each possible scenario to result. There is a 25% chance that both lanes win, a 25% both lanes lose, a 25% chance of top winning and bottom losing, and a 25% chance of the reverse. Now pay attention to these numbers. Only in one of four scenarios can you expect both lanes you do not control to go in your favor. This means in 75% of your games, even if all matchups are of similar skill level, at least one lane you do not control will lose.

You can lose your lane too

Now those were the stats IF you could win 100% of your lane matchups at mid. But let’s be realistic and assume your enemy won’t go down without a fight. If you are against an opponent with similar skill level, you can assume a 50% chance of winning your own lane as well.

[(50/100)*(50/100)*(50/100)]*100% = 12.5%

Now things look bleak. You have a 12.5% chance that all three of three lanes win, and an 87.5% chance that at least one lane loses. You have a 50% chance of at least two lanes losing, and a 12.5% chance that all lanes lose. This means in almost nine out of ten games, You will either have an ally who loses lane, or lose lane yourself.

Blaming the Jungler

Now the Jungler is an interesting wildcard. The trouble is, the statistics of the jungle position are hard to determine simply because different junglers have three different methods. Gankers are junglers that focus on helping lanes tilt the equation in their favor. Farmers are junglers that focus on building gold and item advantages with little presence in lane. Control junglers are those who disrupt enemy junglers, nullifying their presence.

Now while most junglers can apply all three methods to some extent, players themselves will choose one method and stick to it. The number of champion options aside, this leads to a form of rock-paper-scissors interaction between jungle players, where you have a roughly 33.33% chance of having a jungler who can help your lane. 66.67% of the time, they will either be focused on farming for late game, or controlling major objectives.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not every jungler’s absolute duty to ensure you win your lane. IT IS YOURS. The fact that you received three ganks in ten minutes from a Lee Sin while your team’s Nunu hasn’t helped at all does not automatically mean your jungler is terrible at his job. At the same time, if your Lee Sin missed two dragons to a Nunu, it isn’t his fault. The enemy jungler is simply better suited to dealing with that specific situation.

The answer: Your ‘League of Legends’ teammates are not stupid after all

At the end of the day, think about this: These people you call stupid are within the same rank and division range as you. If you are bronze, you can play games with people up to silver. If you’re silver, you can play with bronze and gold, etcetera. In essence, you will always be with people within the same maximum skill range.

The point is, abusing your allies for losing lane is as fruitless as fighting mathematics itself. Lost lanes are just the result of statistics. The idea that your team is unskilled for losing lanes is simply a fallacy created by the human mind to explain why they performed poorly when you succeeded.

And the truth is, it shouldn’t even be too big of a League of Legends deal either. In solo queue, losing a lane does not necessarily mean losing a game. The real loss happens because of the trash talking and intentional feeding that you — yes YOU — do just because you expect to be paired with pros 100% of the time.