Everyone looks for excuses when they fail to do as well as they think they should. Some blame their technology, others their team-mates and even more blame 'RNG' or some 'bullshit' mechanic. This article is to look into these well reasoned arguments for why you're not Challenger in LoL, 5k MMR in Dota, Legend in Hearthstone or whatever else you might be playing and more importantly to show you that, bar the most extraordinary of circumstances, you are the problem.
Excuse 1) 'I could make Legend if I had the cards/ I'm not winning because I wont spend £50 on digital cardboard'
For a lot of card games money can be a very important factor in reaching your skill ceiling (Magic the gathering I'm looking in your direction) however for hearthstone it's not as pivotal. Sure if you have all the
cards then you can build the best deck evertm and always be able to counter your opponents with your unbeatable deck right?
Wrong. There have been many, many budget decks in the competitive scene with the crafting mechanics and gold for playing games making them easy to build. Sure you wont have your super druid ramp-legendary deck but you can still play the archetypes that will climb you ranks, any skilled player can take a deck of basic cards way further than an amateur with a bunch of epics and legendaries.
Last time I played hearthstone Zoo was king and as far as I'm aware it is still a very strong archetype. Zoo relied on early game aggro combined with controlling the board by playing the most efficient creatures possible that could trade well and have synergies with each other. Zoo was a very cheap deck to make and if you could trade efficiently it wasn't hard to climb the ladder.
I personally dropped around £3 on the game to get the fun but ultimately useless card Gelbin Mekkatorque and although I'm not good enough to reach Legend rank I've been doing well enough on my own. Compared to a colleague of mine that shall remain nameless who has dropped at least £80 on the game at time of writing. They have a huge amount of the higher tier legendaries available to players in addition to most epics and rares but cannot seem to progress past rank 15. Not enough cards isn't why you're stuck on the ladder and can't seem to gain ranks.
Excuse 2) 'RNG Keeps screwing me over/My Luck is terrible I never get the draws I need'
First you need to repeat after me 'RNG is fair, cruelly and brutally fair.' There is nothing written into game engines to single you out as their RNG victim, nothing that makes everything you try to do fail without reason. Trust me I know how it can feel sometimes (especially since I started playing Blood Bowl) but RNG is fair to everyone by its very nature. However if you desperately feel put out whenever a random chance or a coin flip doesn't go in your favour then minimize the amount of randomness in the games you play. Don't play Chaos Knight in Dota 2, don't use cards such as Mad Bomber in Hearthstone (or learn to use the random cards to your advantage such as only using deadly shot when your opponent has a single minion out), don't play Blood Bowl full stop. If you want a game of 'pure skill' where there is no random elements at all then check out Frozen Synapse or Chess.
But going back to the Hearthstone point, there is no way to get rid of the inherent randomness in a card game, whatever you draw will limit what you can do and what is drawn is random. However with careful deck building and card draw mechanics it is possible to minimise the random factor in the game, this is how competitive magic players never get mana-screwed through lands, and the better built deck will come out on top in what it can play and when.
Excuse 3) 'My team-mates always suck/My MMR should be 'Xk' but pubs keep dragging me down'
This seems to be a very common excuse used by anyone who plays games such as Dota 2 or League of Legends in ranked matchmaking. Anyone queueing on their own will at some point come across uncooperative team-mates who appear to be very low skill compared to your view of yourself. Naturally these team-mates are the reason you lose that match and are forced to take a step away from your pro-gaming début.
Most team games have quite a well calculated matchmaking system where your statistics, your wins, losses and impact are taken to account in pairing you with both your allies and enemies. These systems aren't at fault when they pair you with your team, you are the problem. If you blow-out at the slightest mistake they make and are stubborn in relation to their stubbornness then you're not working as a team in a team game. Organisation and cooperation are the keys to the win and by immediately blaming your team-mates you are giving your opponents their victory.
There is the chance, in Dota at the least, that you've been placed way above or way below the rating you deserve. In the former case you definitely will be the weak link in your team, even if you don't see yourself as such, and you will slide down to a position that reflects your skill. In the latter case then you will admittedly face an uphill struggle, you will genuinely be the strongest player on your team and you need to use that extra skill to lead them to victory rather than mock their mistakes. Pick a high impact character and go to town on your enemies, who you should theoretically be better than, whilst being a beacon of leadership and communication for your team.
Excuse 4) 'Laaaaaaaaaaag!/FPS drop caused me to die'
This is either one of the more reasonable excuses or one of the worst depending on how you see it and how severe the issue is. People do experience connectivity issues with their internet providers and in the most extreme cases it can cause a loss or an abandon which is never a good thing. However unless your provider is selling you dodgy cheap broadband then this should never be a regular thing, you should never leave or lose a high enough percentage of your matches to affect your rating in any game and if you do you should either consider switching providers or not play competitively until the problem is resolved.
Similarly for FPS issues, your frames per second can drop drastically during games if you're not careful with settings, background programs or have malware on your machine. This should be something that you deal with before you start playing and it is more than in your power to fix rather than use as an excuse. If it's the case that you're constantly getting a horrible framerate then your machine isn't up to scratch when it comes to running whatever you're playing and you shouldn't be trying to play it at a competitive level until you get a more powerful system.
It might seem harsh telling people with intermittent connections or low quality pcs to not play what they want to play in the environment they want to play it in.However if you're getting 5FPS and disconnecting every other hour you wont be enjoying yourself and you'll become a burden on the people you're with if you're playing a team match.
To sum up this little article you have few or no excuses to why you aren't doing as well as you 'should' be in any ranked or competitive environment. The problem most likely lies with you so next time you get frustrated at not ascending to the next bracket or being on a losing streak take a long hard look at how you played and what you did wrong as there is always something you can improve upon to stop that happening again. Sometimes what's stopping you achieving your full potential is not playing enough matches, some people are so scared of losing what they've already got they wont take the chance to build upon it. I used to be like that on the Hearthstone ladder, every new rank was something to be savoured and if I lost a couple games in a row it was time to cut my losses and stay there for the season, but you've got to keep moving forwards as a losing streak could be broken and turned into a winning one at any time.
You are the problem, so stop making excuses and go do something about it.
Thanks for reading you can follow me on twitter for the latest article updates
https://twitter.com/Thalzahar
cards then you can build the best deck evertm and always be able to counter your opponents with your unbeatable deck right?
Wrong. There have been many, many budget decks in the competitive scene with the crafting mechanics and gold for playing games making them easy to build. Sure you wont have your super druid ramp-legendary deck but you can still play the archetypes that will climb you ranks, any skilled player can take a deck of basic cards way further than an amateur with a bunch of epics and legendaries.
Last time I played hearthstone Zoo was king and as far as I'm aware it is still a very strong archetype. Zoo relied on early game aggro combined with controlling the board by playing the most efficient creatures possible that could trade well and have synergies with each other. Zoo was a very cheap deck to make and if you could trade efficiently it wasn't hard to climb the ladder.
I personally dropped around £3 on the game to get the fun but ultimately useless card Gelbin Mekkatorque and although I'm not good enough to reach Legend rank I've been doing well enough on my own. Compared to a colleague of mine that shall remain nameless who has dropped at least £80 on the game at time of writing. They have a huge amount of the higher tier legendaries available to players in addition to most epics and rares but cannot seem to progress past rank 15. Not enough cards isn't why you're stuck on the ladder and can't seem to gain ranks.
Excuse 2) 'RNG Keeps screwing me over/My Luck is terrible I never get the draws I need'
First you need to repeat after me 'RNG is fair, cruelly and brutally fair.' There is nothing written into game engines to single you out as their RNG victim, nothing that makes everything you try to do fail without reason. Trust me I know how it can feel sometimes (especially since I started playing Blood Bowl) but RNG is fair to everyone by its very nature. However if you desperately feel put out whenever a random chance or a coin flip doesn't go in your favour then minimize the amount of randomness in the games you play. Don't play Chaos Knight in Dota 2, don't use cards such as Mad Bomber in Hearthstone (or learn to use the random cards to your advantage such as only using deadly shot when your opponent has a single minion out), don't play Blood Bowl full stop. If you want a game of 'pure skill' where there is no random elements at all then check out Frozen Synapse or Chess.
But going back to the Hearthstone point, there is no way to get rid of the inherent randomness in a card game, whatever you draw will limit what you can do and what is drawn is random. However with careful deck building and card draw mechanics it is possible to minimise the random factor in the game, this is how competitive magic players never get mana-screwed through lands, and the better built deck will come out on top in what it can play and when.
Excuse 3) 'My team-mates always suck/My MMR should be 'Xk' but pubs keep dragging me down'
This seems to be a very common excuse used by anyone who plays games such as Dota 2 or League of Legends in ranked matchmaking. Anyone queueing on their own will at some point come across uncooperative team-mates who appear to be very low skill compared to your view of yourself. Naturally these team-mates are the reason you lose that match and are forced to take a step away from your pro-gaming début.
Most team games have quite a well calculated matchmaking system where your statistics, your wins, losses and impact are taken to account in pairing you with both your allies and enemies. These systems aren't at fault when they pair you with your team, you are the problem. If you blow-out at the slightest mistake they make and are stubborn in relation to their stubbornness then you're not working as a team in a team game. Organisation and cooperation are the keys to the win and by immediately blaming your team-mates you are giving your opponents their victory.
There is the chance, in Dota at the least, that you've been placed way above or way below the rating you deserve. In the former case you definitely will be the weak link in your team, even if you don't see yourself as such, and you will slide down to a position that reflects your skill. In the latter case then you will admittedly face an uphill struggle, you will genuinely be the strongest player on your team and you need to use that extra skill to lead them to victory rather than mock their mistakes. Pick a high impact character and go to town on your enemies, who you should theoretically be better than, whilst being a beacon of leadership and communication for your team.
Excuse 4) 'Laaaaaaaaaaag!/FPS drop caused me to die'
This is either one of the more reasonable excuses or one of the worst depending on how you see it and how severe the issue is. People do experience connectivity issues with their internet providers and in the most extreme cases it can cause a loss or an abandon which is never a good thing. However unless your provider is selling you dodgy cheap broadband then this should never be a regular thing, you should never leave or lose a high enough percentage of your matches to affect your rating in any game and if you do you should either consider switching providers or not play competitively until the problem is resolved.
Similarly for FPS issues, your frames per second can drop drastically during games if you're not careful with settings, background programs or have malware on your machine. This should be something that you deal with before you start playing and it is more than in your power to fix rather than use as an excuse. If it's the case that you're constantly getting a horrible framerate then your machine isn't up to scratch when it comes to running whatever you're playing and you shouldn't be trying to play it at a competitive level until you get a more powerful system.
It might seem harsh telling people with intermittent connections or low quality pcs to not play what they want to play in the environment they want to play it in.However if you're getting 5FPS and disconnecting every other hour you wont be enjoying yourself and you'll become a burden on the people you're with if you're playing a team match.
To sum up this little article you have few or no excuses to why you aren't doing as well as you 'should' be in any ranked or competitive environment. The problem most likely lies with you so next time you get frustrated at not ascending to the next bracket or being on a losing streak take a long hard look at how you played and what you did wrong as there is always something you can improve upon to stop that happening again. Sometimes what's stopping you achieving your full potential is not playing enough matches, some people are so scared of losing what they've already got they wont take the chance to build upon it. I used to be like that on the Hearthstone ladder, every new rank was something to be savoured and if I lost a couple games in a row it was time to cut my losses and stay there for the season, but you've got to keep moving forwards as a losing streak could be broken and turned into a winning one at any time.
You are the problem, so stop making excuses and go do something about it.
Thanks for reading you can follow me on twitter for the latest article updates
https://twitter.com/Thalzahar
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