Context and leaving Hellions.

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About 6 months ago or so, I decided to stop playing league of legends, I went completely mia for 3 months. This was a nice break, and only two people tried to contact me during this period as far as I can remember. Ryoo was one of them. In the end I was going to start playing league but in my perspective a lot more casually. I guess I didn't follow through with that so much in the end.

At the start of the year I was in university, and was going to help out Ryoo with his team as a coach, it doesn't take a lot of time to do this compared to being and staying as a good player so I thought this would suit me. Ontop of him having a lot of players on his team that had never played competitive before it would be necessary to have somebody to organize them.

Something came up and they decided that they weren't going to play with tgun anymore. I believe they initially tried to pick up nada but he was very enthusiastic with SNT at the time. So being that they needed a shotcaller and a support to fill in for tgun, ryoo thought it was better to have someone with experience on teams/knowledgeable in the game vs a support main that was straight from soloq.

So I went from not playing for 6 months, to playing a few times a week for a month, to changing roles and playing in the OPL. I was playing as much as I fucking could, but this was all about a week before OPL and while I agreed to do it, I knew it was going to be a rocky start at best. If we are to look at the first 4 weeks I would definitely say without question I was the worst player on the team, probably league. I really do appreciate the kind words people like rusty, cookie, Joo gave to me at this time.

That being said, if I am shotcalling and playing a really simplistic reactive champion (janna) it is what was expected. In my perspective around week 5-6 I started to pick up and I personally believe our win against av was majorly because of me. I remember bomb won lane with Ahri in one of the games very easily, but then died a few times for free due to not knowing what to do. Getting the players to run around the map to take towers was my job, so once I was able to leave bot late, I think we achieved that goal effectively. I also had the decent sneaky Alistar flank into flash 4/5man knockup that won us the series at the very end. I was especially happy in that moment because I knew if that happened 4 weeks ago I wouldn't of done any of that and lost.

After this period I think my performance has been decent and actually improving. After week 6 I stopped shotcalling, though I believe I should have continued, and unfortunately a lot of teams decided the strategy against our team was to 4-5 man dive bot a lot. (AV towerdived bot like 7 times in our 3 game series) Our team didn't respond very well to this unfortunately. Despite criticism a lot of my deaths at this point on is just being a tank or initiator on a losing team, sometimes even saving teammates. There is not a lot you can do. However, my best champions are not tanks (bard lover here) and being a ad/mid player for 5 years makes adopting them the hardest, I think I have come a decent way in that regard though. That being said, the only person I have ever cared about when it comes to my performance (actually I do care what joo thinks) is myself , and I have never been happy with myself in that regard. I believe this is why when I play ad, I get high lp, when I play mid, I got high lp, and now even with support, I have gotten reasonably high lp. There is still a lot for me to learn and every game I feel... wow I have done something really stupid. I am much happier now having mental mistakes that I can fix, than mechanic errors which I don't think I can.

That is what I like most about support though. I personally believe I stayed relevant as an adc because I was a relatively smart player. My mechanics were never fantastic so thats my only explanation. Maybe you know my history a bit and remember moments of me flashing in with twitch (which I know Atlus refuses to forget!). The thing you have to know with those sorts of situations is, its obviously dumb, I know its dumb doing it, but in a lot of those circumstances as an ADC you have no control over when you start a fight so even when I was telling my team to engage for 10 minutes while playing twitch (not farming, ready to get good R off), they wouldn't, so Id just go face first in and hope it worked because doing nothing with an advantage while I leak farm is stupid. Not very Smartz, but thats the mentality behind it at any rate. If there was ever an explanation why I tried to keep Ashe relevant when she wasn't, this was it, more control (it is also, imo, why i excelled at and prioritized Kalista so much). I feel Joo and Zahe are fantastic players and have only gotten better, but at the time on yssc they were very hesitant to make the engage iirc.

With support I am less gated with mechanics, and more gated with decisions. That is to be said, I don't think I have bad mechanics, but you know, I am not 17 with insane reactions, maybe I never was. This has made me actually very excited to play league again and like I said in the past, find a passion for playing this game again.

I never wanted to be anything but the best, but obviously as ADC it was easy to realize that I was not the best for a long time, its a reaction based mechanical role, I think I squeezed what I could out of myself there but its not enough. As support I think I can challenge for that title. Obviously I am only 2 months in so I have so much to learn right now, but hopefully later.

So why am I leaving HLN, despite imo, finally becoming a decent enough support to be able to start in the opl?

well, its no secret HLN are having problems and I think sometimes you just need to revitalize yourself. In terms of roster I always think side-grades are very helpful when you are in a mental trough. I personally don't believe wzrd is necessarily better than BMA (though I suppose wzrd roams to skirmishes faster aka river wizard), but, even if they are exactly the same, wzrd was the right choice because trident were demoralized afaik.

I think Hellion went from 3-2 to 3-7, and scrims weren't much better. I think whoever replaces me, as long as they are challenger+, will be an upgrade in a sense just to revitalize the team.

There is also the other issue that they have the gaming house, and maybe this is a very selfish point of view, but I don't have the desire to enter into a gaming house for a team that isn't contesting top 4. If I am going to commit to moving across the country I would want it to be for a reason. I don't particularly enjoy loud environments (though I do enjoy the stage quite a lot.) I know whoever they pick up will be more than happy to join them there, and that probably will make them feel more of a cohesive unit, at least I hope.

I think when you add everything up, Hellions can revitalize themselves over the break with some new breath. I was offered to stay on to help in other capacities, but at this time I am a lot more passionate for this game than I was 6 months ago, and will continue with that path for a bit. There is nothing in my life I have enjoyed more than playing competitively, and I would like to thank Hellions for the opportunity and faith they gave me. Even though playing is the thing I want to do the most right now, I don't think its the right time for me to doing it with Hellions. Maybe me and Ryoo can be reunited at another place and time. I believe they have already started looking for a replacement, so if you want Hellions to give you a shot, you should talk to Soulstrikes.

I will be happy to hear any opportunities teams might have for me, otherwise I will just play soloq and improve on myself for a while.

A special thanks to Joo and Egym for giving me advice whenever I played against them, &
Cookie, Frae, Bomb, Soulstrikes, Ryoo for being the teammates that you were.


Thanks for reading,
James Goddard

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