The Two Words That Will Boost Your MMR

[Jenova26]

**DISCLAIMER: This is written to appeal to 1600 MMR and below, but the content applies to all MMR levels**

As the title says, there are two simple words that WILL boost your MMR if you live by them. For the past few months that I have been frequenting this Forum and Strategy forums, I see a constant influx of "How can I win if mah team so bad," "Why my team all noobs," and "How do I get my MMR higher" threads.

Ultimately, no team is perfect by design. Especially in solo-queue. Your team will be noobs, wannabe smurfs, tryhards, failhards, "my stats so low cause I support", trolls, griefers, feeders, and butthole ninjas. True story though, so's the other team.

Until a certain point of competitive teamplay or top-tier MMR and In-House Leagues, Matchmaking games are FAR more likely to be decided by the number and extent of mistakes made than by great plays. The ability to capitalize on mistakes puts your team WAY ahead of the opposition. Allow me to reiterate, "WAAAAAY AHEAD."

That being said, the two words that WILL win you games and MMR are simply, "Communication" and "Teamwork."

Now, I understand that this has been stated over and over again ad nauseum. I understand that you all may have read this in several threads and you may be thinking, "Yea, I got it.... but mah team soooo stupid and dey no listen to meh!" If you are thinking this for even a fraction of a second, then, I regret to inform you, but you don't understand. So, allow me to explain the difference between ORDERING, LISTENING and COMMUNICATION.

Abandon all trolling, ye who enter here...

For proper communication, you need to first understand that you are not God. Your way doesn't go because you say it does. You can only effectively communicate if you understand a few things:

Your team does not play like you do
Your team does not have the same hero as you and cannot do what you can
Each teammate is NOT as skilled as you, in fact, they may be significantly MORE skilled than you
Your team does not have the same tolerance for punishment as you may. They may want to concede before the game is over
Your team may not understand English as well as you OR *GASP* they might not have sound/microphone.

ALL of these things need to be taken into consideration before you can lead your team to victory. You need to maintain a positive attitude and LEAD your team. No one plays video games to be harassed or threatened. NO ONE DOES ANYTHING TO FEEL HARASSED OR THREATENED. You speak TO your teammates, not AT them.

"I want to win" does not constitute a positive attitude. You need to be able to find the positives on your team and exploit them. Let your team know why something that seems bad is actually good. For instance, you have a Keeper of the Forest who is not helping in teamfights like he should and has been pretty much only farming for 20+ minutes. Chances are, your team will blame him for a death or a bad fight. In most regards, this may have been his fault for not being there, but how can that be seen as a positive? Answer? You have one of the tankiest, best teamfight, strongest push heroes in the game FREEFARMING. Tell your team that "It's fine. He's gonna rape lategame. Let's just pick smart fights until he's ready to push."

Let's look at what that statement just told your team: You have just assured your team that you can win lategame. You have reinforced to Keeper that he is a viable member of the team. Bottom line, you have restored hope in one simple statement. You have shed a positive light on what is generally considered a negative.

How about another scenario that we have all seen and will never cease to see (sadly): Your team has one guy who is desperately trying to support, though he may not fully know how. One of your teammates gets ganked and blames a lack of wards even though you know for a fact that your support has been warding. We all know what happens next, right? The supporter gets pissed off and doesn't want to help ward any more because he's not being appreciated for his efforts. Then, the less he wards, the more the jackass who keeps getting caught out will flame him. What do you say here? You have to keep the team unified to win, right? You have several options, you can agree with the guy that got ganked and tell the support to ward more which will only make him feel more ganged up on and he'll likely disconnect or AFK in well. You can agree with the support and tell the jackass with no awareness that he's a jackass with no awareness. OR, Option 3, you can say something along the lines of, "Hey, you probably shouldn't have been that far out without wards, but [SupportPlayer] has been warding most of the game. You should farm over here when you respawn since it's safer. I'll grab the next few wards."

Right there, you have given sound advice WITH an alternative course of action so he will be harder to gank in the future. You have reinforced that your support player is a valuable member of the team and offered to lightened his burden for a while so he can get some items and farm.

Thinking positive and relaying that attitude to your team will inspire them to work together toward a common goal. Every player looks at this game from a different perspective. Some people watch Honcast a couple times and think they are the next N0tail. Some people don't have a freaking clue what Honcast is. Whatever the case, you're all in the game together and you all want to win. Leadership isn't about knowing what to do or how to be better at something than everyone else, it's about knowing how to get your team to work together and how to use their strengths and weaknesses to the greatest extent possible to accomplish your goals.

Next time your team fails at something just remember what your father or your coaches used to say when you failed at something as a kid. They'd pat you on the back and say, "don't worry, you'll get 'em next time, buddy." Take this attitude into Newerth with you, leave the flame at the door, and watch the wins pile up.

Understand that for this to work effectively, you'll need to use your mic constantly. You need to be the loudest (in content, not volume), most consistent, most positive, and most influential voice on your team. If someone says something negative or is starting to lose hope, you need to speak up and reassure and reaffirm your team. Twist the negatives into positives and, the best part of this, after a certain point, your team will follow you without a second thought.