The Problems With Champion Mastery

love the painting analogy

Nice irelking montage bro

A small question :
I have been playing for so long with Lux, she's my biggest main, and I get myself a lot of success in climbing rank with her throughout the year, and I reached emerald this early season with her with only 10 first games
However, the more I play her, I feel like Lux is getting a little bit too "weak" - or I thought so, with the new changes to mage items this new season
Then I played Malzahar - my 2nd most played main - won a lot, felt better when playing him and kept spamming him for free lp on rank rn
My wr with Lux is 4-6 rn , and I feel a little bit off that I played exactly like what I used to play, but my result gets worse. Is my problem is that I still can not adapt with the new changes or is it that she really needs the next patch buff to shine again? For me at least

As a challenger EUW player, I totally agree with what you said in the video. You are one of the few coaches that successfully understood this. Well done on all the information you explained here!

Evil Alois: "fundamentals arent important" XD

Random comment here but hopefully it helps someone. I don't really play league any more but when I did, I was in bronze and got mad all the time and called everyone trash. Then one day a fellow bronze said to me your also trash your in bronze, the whole team laughed at me. Something about that struck a nerve. After that I accepted I was trash then climbed my way to Gold!!!! remember, your trash folks and you'll get better. Sounds dumb but when you have this epiphany you'll climb. It's like magic

I haven't finished the vdeo but I just wanted to throw it out that I envy people like Irelking who can play 1000+ games with a champ they love. Because I only have one champion that I can play with pure muscle memory and after a while it just gets boring, Illaoi is fun and all, but I like learning new champs so It's hard to back to one I've "mastered". I suck at the game but with Illaoi I literally can't remember the last time I've lost lane, even when the game was stacked against me with a camping jungler or roaming supports and counter picks just because I've been in all of those situations and instinctively know what to do in all of them. Now I'm learning Sion and it's been very fun, I really like learning champs and just wish I could play one's I've "mastered" more since I know I'm about to get bored of Sion as well since I know feel comfortable fighting his absolute total counters like Riven and Fiora and am able to completely carry games by myself. I want to learn Twisted Fate but I am so bad at squishy champs it's unreal

Who are the player in the video ?
i know irelia is irelking, yasuo is pzzang, but who is the akali ?

I have no problem with champion mastery, but it should be looked at as "preference" and "passion for," not mechanical capability. I am a cassiopeia otp with millions of mastery and I wouldn't mind creative ways of showing it to express individuality, but pushing the paradigm that my mastery points infer a better ability to pilot the champ (it is somewhat correlated to be fair) can result in a toxic dynamic when losing in a game.

Irelia at 2% HP, sees 3 people. Kills all 3 and ends up at 60% hp....

Can't even focus on wtf you are saying when there's a irelia doing stuff I never seen before in my life -.-..... I zoned out in awe.

league of legend players discovers dialectical materialism

a bit off-topic, but are you making a Hwei guide soon?^^

Coach mentioned PekinWoof, i can die happy. Pekin is such a good content creator, he puts out an educational video every day where he vocalizes his thoughts. Very insightful, very useful, very respectful as well (the number of times hes complimented an enemy or straight up admits he got outplayed or something); he's really good and calm. Doesn't rage, and also tells you the elo he's playing in. If he smurfs, you're gonna know it cause he'll tell you. He gives you insight into how much a challenger level player actually thinks about and is aware of. Even when i don't play league for long stretches of time, i still watch him because he's just so good.
Would be interesting if you could get him on the BBC podcast, or at least take a look at his stuff. Very fun guy, my favorite keague streamer.

It really helped to hear Coach Curtis's comments near the end about looking at the game through your champion's lens. I don't think I make my macro decisions that way

that part when you say it's jungle diff is very convincing, love the vid

Alls I'm seeing is irelia 2 shotting everyone. Some skillfully plays yes but dashing a million times and the turning on a dime to 2 shot tanks or bruisers not that fun or skillful when facing. Similar things to yasuo and yone.

With true champ mastery you smash the easy and skill lanes, and still win the counter lanes.

i feel like i got some of this by default because of how i play the game. i quit league twice and only came back a third time to play lillia. since then shes been my otp and lately the games have been feeling oddly easy while playing her. not sure if its because im now at the experienced level or im just getting lucky with getting easy matchups, but im having so much fun with her

So I wanted to add my take to the painting analogy: A one trick might only have one color, but they can utilize all of the smallest shades of that color that there are to create a beautiful monochrome painting. Their paintbrush might not be of the highest quality or they might not even have one. What they do have is hands they can use to paint the canvas with their shades of a color, and hands is not something that most league players have.

Great video on a topic I've often been confused with myself. Cheers!

But is it an excuse if its true? Some champions just cant thrive in certain comps. Like ye, you can try to do X, Y, Z, but in the end counterpicks DO exist.

This applies to life aswell :D

cool vid but to be honest i was too busy watching the irelia ascend

great content as always curtis. im a 2m mastery points swain myself and I'd love to see your learning curve of the champion. Any posibilities for you to stream or upload longer whole game videos of this? Would be very interesting to see.

For laners yeah champ mastery is most important. For jungle there are so many important fundermentals that are universal that understanding these are actually more important than the champion you are playing. Once you've learnt them you can then look at champions you enjoy the most. But for lanes the fundermentals are basically controlling waves and vision in that one part of the map. Jungle have their camps, the opposing junglers camp, neutral objectives, lane states, jungle tracking, jungle cs teacking, jungle pathing, gank pathing and invading to learn before it makes any difference between champions.

No lvl of mastery will win you games when team ff at 10min.

Another great video; thanks as always for everything you do Coach!

I think you are rigth i am mad when i loose a game, but at least me watch the replay to see what can i do better, ofc not all the game, most likely a bad teamfighh or a losing lane

This video was so eye opening for me, im sure ill come back and replay it before getting again on rankeds

Irelia, Yasuo, Zed, Lee Sin, Riven, Akali...always the same champions with the "insane" plays, but only because their kits were build with added complexity that made them far more rewarding at higher skill levels of play (at least in soloQ). It's especially dumb how rewarding point and click abilities are. Makes me feel like my skillshots don't matter and I'm wasting my time playing something else.

I think your champ mastery can only ever be as good as the players you verse and their champion mastery.

For example when I was P1/E4 playing tristana mid, I gained what I thought was champion mastery after 400 games lol. I "felt" able to play most of my match-ups really well, team fight well, position well etc.

A specific example is, I thought I had mastered the tristana vs fizz match-up, I would play super aggressive and keep him under tower and bully him all game. I thought I finally had mastery of this match-up as it always played out this way in my games.

However I climbed to E1 and all of a sudden I feel like I have no mastery in that match-up, they play way more aggressive, they trade better and they know their all in windows much better. They play in a way I haven't even seen and more specifically a way I haven't "felt".

So now I have to re-master my champion to accommodate to my new elo range. Most of that is unlearning the poor habits I was previously doing that worked and don't anymore which is pretty difficult.

This is why I am actually starting to think you might be better off cycling champions every few months as you climb. Otherwise you are constantly required to keep unlearning bad habits you picked up on your champions.

The example of Nathan playing nocturne is a good example of this. It took him like 20 games to gain a shit load more mastery of the champion than someone who has played 100s in silver.

What if you are silver, you play 300 games of Xin Zhao, and finally you get to gold, then you decide it's time to take what you've learnt and apply it to learning a new champion like Wukong, then you play him until you reach plat. This way you are not having to unlearn to poor habits you had from playing Xin vs silver players and instead get to build your Wukongs mastery starting in gold.

Thats my thoughts anyway, great vid brotha.

"Thirteen year veterans" is what you were looking for. Another great breakdown. Thanks!

Hey mate, love your vids, but please boost the audio of your voice up 5-10 db

Everything i believed has been destroyed with this video.
Thank you so much for opening my eyes.

Coach curtis the colab must happen between you and husumlol for a swain video

Idk who the Irelia player is in the vid but its the reason i hate that fukin champ

I've one tricked my champion for nearly a year 1000+ games... I'm only a beginnner level champion mastery prettymuch.

my rule of thumb is ignore champion mastery, expect them to understand their champion better than i know them, respect their play until they prove otherwise

mastery requires you to be able to teach someone else how to play the champ imo

What do I do if my main keeps getting banned?

Hi Curtis. Do you think a "Craftsman" level of mastery exists for simpler / lower agency champs (e.g. Malphite)?

This might be off the tangent but I was wondering how people realize that they want to get good at this game.

Curtis mentions D**king around in normals isn’t going to help you develop your champion mastery, and I think I’m one of those people. I genuinely don’t know if I want to get better, so I want to know the experience of realizing that “I want to get good at this game” from diverse sets of people.

Compared to fighting games league is so complicated because figuring out what the mistake is in the first place is so hard. I'm sure some games I've played I've picked the wrong champion (Taliyah into a comp where everyone outranges her), but I can't ever tell how much of that is cope vs how much is legitimate.

If you wear a hat people won’t call you bald. But if you always wear a hat you’ll always be unconfident. If u don’t wear a hat you give people the chance to mock you. It can go well or poorly but you’re allowing change to happen.

This is the same as wanting to get better at your main but over prioritize draft instead. You’re not guaranteed to get better every game (that you have mental clarity) but you also might. No progress happens when you’re mentally preoccupied, so allow yourself to get stomped and pay perfect attention. People suck at winning all of their “guaranteed” winning matchups. Allow individual games to be lost and play for a great loss. A great loss can turn into a win at many moments. That’s the most a league of legends player should ever expect. (Like i think that’s healthy and productive at least)

Ramble ramble ramble :)

Nice video bro

you mentioned a while back you’d redo the irelia guide you made, are you still planning on making another irelia guide?

Gosh you're such a good coach. You are the coach for most people who overthink and otherwise get really depressed by all the BS and anxiety.