League of legends is the most popular game in the world. In less than 5 years it’s captivated the world gaming community in its constantly changing and enthralling competitive environment. In fact, I have made some of my closest friends by finding a common link in our love of not just gaming, but League of Legends itself. But in every competitive game tensions can and will rise, and not everyone can cope with these occurrences in the proper way.

We have all had that game where someone either starts spewing toxicity to either the enemy team or their own team and we have all had that time where someone challenges what they say, and they simply leave the game in a fit of rage or frustration. Sometimes, the person that leaves is the accused and not the accuser, and some times the person that leaves is one of us. Anger is a basic human emotion that we all experience, but the way we handle it is important. My personal way of getting past the frustration of feeding my lane and being flamed, or watching my jungler or bot lane feed it to remember that these champions and players are actual people behind a keyboard and computer screen. I imagine myself in a room playing with these people and try to put myself in their shoes.

Losing in a game of League that isn’t entirely your fault can be very frustrating and I’m sure that is something that we can all agree on, but being part of the reason the team loses is not a burden any of us would like to bear;  especially if a contributing factor to why the team lost wasn’t our own gameplay, but instead what we said in that chat. So please, the next time any of you or even myself grow frustrated in a game by the way someone talks or acts, mute them and move on. And if you don’t want to mute, try to ignore the bad things they say and pick up on the good things like enemy positioning or shot calling. Everyone wants to have fun in this game and win, so treat other player as people and it would go a long way into reducing the unfun feeling of toxicity and frustration.