I Was Wrong About Playing In Bronze 

Coach Curtis unironically managed to make the only non cringe and best apology video of our generation, and I didn't even realise It was an apology till the end ❤

Between Coach Curtis and Midbeast, it’s clear to see OCE produces the most humble players in this community

I've definitely seen this happen. I hired a coach to help me get to Platinum last year. During that time, I learned a ton about the game just going from just gold 4 to plat 4. Going back to playing in normals with my casual friends, I realized how much I knew now, and how much my opponents in platinum knew compared to the casual players in normals. I'd point out things that would seem obvious to myself but had gone completely over the head of my friends. All that to say, the mental stack capacity or knowledge of the game for any player can't be assumed just from time spent with the game. Every player learns different skills from playing different champions and roles, and many people have never had a better player directly teach them what they don't know about the game. Playing with my friends and talking with my coach also showed me that people can develop intuitions that are completely wrong. Casual and new players have a very narrow view of the game so their game knowledge often lacks the necessary information needed to make it optimal. A coach or just a higher elo player who has a broader view of the game is needed to help expand that game knowledge by starting with what is known and expanding slowly into the unknown. Telling a casual player, "Just CS better," means "Don't miss last hits," to them; as they don't yet know how wave mechanics affect CS numbers more than just last hitting. Communicating information in a way that doesn't leave room for misinterpretation is crucial for better coaching in the league scene and teaching in general.

Love the ability to admit your own mistakes and the things you viewed incorrectly. This kind of thinking is all too rare out there. Your content inspires me to be better in league and in life. I feel like your philosophy towards self reflection and self improvement has helped me to improve in many areas of my life.

Cool to see the evolution of your coaching methodology. Been following for a couple years now. ❤

Thanks Coach! Personally, I think the original video did serve an audience. I was stuck in bronze because I just tried to do too much with the muscle memory I had built on my champion. Anxiety made me do things that didn't make sense and miss key abilities. I needed to change my mindset. So getting some CS with a particular emphasis on the first 10 minutes and why I was missing it before, patiently waiting for the enemies to make obvious mistakes while valuing my life, and just grouping with my team got me into silver on a huge win streak. I just sort of relaxed and let the game play out. The games felt really easy instead of stressful. And that was from your video. Also turning chat off. I'm still steadily climbing through silver now, most of the games feel very easy, and I'm having a blast.

5:35 YES. THANK YOU Coach. I've been preaching this to Skillcapped for ages, but they really just didn't get it. A lot of high ELO players can be so good at the game, but have AWFUL insight when it comes to understanding teaching what's necessary. They made fun of your Zed video for being too in depth, but looking back, I learned more from that one video than a year's worth of Skillcapped content, so the joke is really on them. Got my full refund after I failed their "climb guarantee" at least lol

As a teacher myself it is refreshing to see a League coach who is so down to earth and reflective of their practices. It breaks my heart to see coaches who are rude and belittle players with less experience who are merely wanting help and advice. I enjoy your videos even as a jungler because you break down concepts better than most other coaches I know of and you seem both knowledgeable and reasonable. Kudos and keep it chill!

I’m glad Curtis seems to be one of the few coaches who understands that teaching is a skill in itself. Another thing I appreciate is the comments about ‘muscle memory.’ I work in the top tier of my field, and sometimes people ask ‘How do you do x thing’ or ‘why do you do x thing?’ and I don’t like giving answers because the answer is often just ‘idk man just intuition’ or ‘just muscle memory and practice.’ I genuinely don’t like not being able to explain my moment to moment decisions but that’s just how it is.

This coach doesn't just optimize your game sense...but the actual coaching itself.

I love this video.Been playing for over a decade now. I saw you and your aforementioned low elo annie video just two days ago and really felt that it under explained all the micro interactions that was going on. Now this video came out in such perfect timing. it takes a quality person to analyze and reflect on their mistakes- qualities befitting a great coach. Thank you for this self reflection! You've got a new subscriber!

Nice video man. As a coach I can relate to that completely. There's a huge difference between a coach that knows where the issues come from, and a coach that simply says what he sees. There's so many bad habits in low elo that only better players can recognize and verbalize it to the player, in a way to improve him.

Wholesome Coach Curtis, reviewing your old video and reflecting on your performance in the bronze elo game was really good to highlight the skills you showed off without thinking much about them. My favorite coach on League from germany who coaches all elo brackets always emphasizes that you should know your own champion and the enemy's before even thinking about trading, wavestates etc.. Without champion mastery you won't be able to execute on any fundamentals because you are still struggling with everything else going on in the game. The things he prioritizes for beginners are mostly simple matchup analysis and how to get leads in lane/jungle. 😊

I appreciate your videos so much Curtis. Both the stuff you put out on your own channel and on BBC is some of the most informative league content I can find. I recently discovered another channel that I feel like is trying to do what you're talking about in this video by vod reviewing games at every Elo and talking about specific examples of wave state management and tempo which is the most helpful for a high bronze/low silver player like me

Thanks for another quality video Coach! Keep up the good work much love

You really nailed with this 3:11 Its almost impossible to isolate skills in this game. Yeah we have practice tool but few skills can be polished using it (buffer abilities with flash, jungle clears, weaving autos and abilities...) but still theres lot of things that only can be integrated on your musle memory by just playing games. The learning curve this game is infinite and thats one of the reasons lot of people stick to it. Amazing reflection about coaching.

Props to you for making this video. I just watched your last video as it was in my recommended and I was "upset" with your last video for almost all you said here. Very good follow up video to recognize all the little things that were missed in the first. Well done!

Really glad you addressed this, because honestly that video was one of the last videos I watched from you in a long time. I felt like you completely undermined the complexity of all the nuance you were performing subconsciously and even though I didn't know everything you were doing, I knew there was way more to it. Really enjoyed this video.

We lowbies appreciate you Curtis. Your humility and focus on practical pedagogy in league is commendable. I've enjoyed watching your guides and have learned a lot. Keep up the good work!

I saw the video he put up last year just moments before this one, and touched on these same points. I must say it is admirable that you are this self aware Curtis, must respect for your understanding and your desire to help people not just get better, but actually enjoy a game, that has a very steep learning curve especially for beginners, actually have fun. You a real one man! Cheers.

Really nice to see this and your other vids on the topic. You hit the point clearly when you acknowledge the muscle memory and deep analysis that just becomes 2nd nature after 1000's of games

Bro, it's so awesome to see you growing as a coach, analyzing your own mistakes and learning from them, as well as digging deeper into your experiences to get to the real meat of the matter. Inspiring stuff - and I also find the advice valuable, since I'm a silver player.

Coming from a sports coaching background, there's a swing between the mindsets of "Figure it out yourself" to "This is what you're supposed to do". The people who figured out HOW to do it right now dictate WHAT to do, but ironically not HOW they figured it out. The result is a generation of learners who go through the motions, but don't built the mental resilience and mechanisms that enable them to be able to repeat that on their own. This shines when, as a coach, I try to demonstrate a skill _badly_ ... and I can't. What beginners instinctively do is so far removed from my current skill level that I cannot put myself in their shoes and do what they do. All I can do is recognise where they are coming from and teach them how to overcome their barriers as they are _right now._ Your reflection shows a similar realisation of the disregard for the knowledge gap between a veteran and a new player. You have to guide them on learning the champions in the game, but in regards to the complex mechanics, it''s more important to teach the general principle and allow them to figure out HOW to best apply that principle. What I found in my long climb out of Silver was that the less I "listened" to pro guides, the better I understood HOW I would accomplish my in-game objectives, as long as I knew what they were. Simple things like "This is a cannon wave, I should shove and reset - but if I can't do that, I'll take the sub-optimal play and adapt" or "My goal as support is to ward the jungle, but if I have no team support i have to leave it blind instead of risking being picked, so I have to adapt my pathing and change my priority". These are the high level decisions that win and lose games. Mechanics come into play when there is interaction, but the decision making from respawn on where to path to can influence the outcome of the game. The review process can evaluate WHAT decisions were made, and really understand WHY the player made them. That will uncover the underlying problems that prevent them from reaching the next level.

Thank you for posting this video. I was watching the video you did before this one that you felt you had to correct, and I'm glad I came here to see this. I'm 40...I'm far past my gaming prime, and recently have been actually trying to get good at league. I peaked at silver years ago, I stopped playing due to frustration with the process and info I was constantly getting, but am now trying to work my up starting from Iron. I always felt like the difficulty of this game was overlooked immensely. Nobody wants to admit that a video game like this can be hard, but in all the games I've played in my life, including stuff like high-end raiding in WoW and in the very early competitive CS scene, this is by far the most difficult game to master. The knowledge and muscle memory required is absolutely insane, really like playing an instrument is the closest thing I can liken it to. It's truly very difficult. Thanks again for this video :)

Amazing video, well done walking back a previous statement and showing your understanding of a new position. I learned quite a bit watching this as well, and now actually understand this concept, too!

The only mainstream coach that views coaching as an art form, and approaches it with the care that that entails. Superb content as always.

Great VID Coach Curtis , I started to learn league better by OTP'ing, and the fact u said Learning Objectives make me so happy , so glad you are brining your wisdom to new elo's. Great Job.

This is the most in touch video I’ve ever seen in the league community. The amount of knowledge that’s packed into what players expect you to have as base knowledge is absurd. I’m so glad you were able to recognize this and package it into a video, especially given your credibility and status as someone like me - a gold player with no will to improve, just enjoys the game would never be taken seriously if I created this video.

Man, you are huge. I had to stop playing league a while ago due to not having available time anymore (just killing time on wild rift recently), but I still watch your content. You are a fantastic and professional coach and content creator. Keep on the amazing work!

I am thinking about getting back into league and watched your old Annie game yesterday (probably thanks to the algo thinking I needed it) , and let me tell you, as someone who has like 6000 hours split between mobas with a little over half being dota, I questioned your methodology... And I'm really glad to see this one today. I don't know you or you content very well, but your intellectual honesty is refreshing to see.

I had never seen a video of yours, saw the one about the reddit post and didn't watch it since you had this video in a pinned comment. I am very impressed by the depth of analysis you have not only of league but of coaching and what people need. I have spoken a lot about mental capacity over the years, saying I understand what I need to do but doing it while trading and farming and watching the map doesn't feel possible. You are actually the first person I've ever seen bring up this subject. Legend.

Thanks. I was feeling like this for the last vid but I couldnt put it in words. Very well done!

Massive props for making this. I'm way late, but I discovered the first video last night and was listening with steam coming out of my ears because I'm a low-elo support Karma OTP (hundreds of games) who doesn't flash offensively without a clear advantage and goal and never dies (but also loses consistently more than winning). I still got benefit from the video, but yeah, my experience was different than that of the players you were addressing. I really appreciate you understanding how this topic can be tackled better and then tackling it! Thanks for making content for players like me.

extremely well thought and well laid out arguments. It takes real courage to sit down, admit mistakes, and most importantly correct them. Thank you so much coach Curtis for years of quality content!

Kudos for recognizing and acknowledging the mistake. It's nice to see you're actively learning how to teach better and reassess your process. Your points about champion-specific priorities make a lot of sense.

This was a good video especially the last part for a new player knowing how your 1 champion interacts with over 130 other champions can be overwhelming but is crucial for getting better

I just happened across the original video this is responding to and was thinking exactly this. Good deal realizing it. Massive respect and I'll definitely be looking at more of your content because of it.

I had a similar comment on that video (almost exactly that one you quoted?) and I genuinely appreciate your reflection on that. It shows how mature and how great a coach you are, trying to understand lower elo players' perspective. "Champion mastery comes even before fundamentals" 100%. Back when I commented on your video I was stuck in gold, now I'm still in low elo but slightly higher (high emerald) and what helped me improve was watching high-elo streamers discussing all matchups for my main. Understanding the matchups -- which ones I can win early lane into and which ones I cannot -- is almost the sole reason I climbed. Of course, that came in hand-in-hand with farming a little better and managing my wave a little better too. Couldn't do that when I 1v1'd the wrong champ at the wrong time and died level 2. Couldn't manage my wave either into certain matchups like heimer or irelia, until I watched high elo players handle annoying lanes. Thank you for this vid, it's incredibly insightful.

Absolutely great video man. That was exactly what I got out of Alois stuff. That noone of the fundamentals people preach on the net are useful to me if I don't know my champions limits to win lane. If I can win trades, I can then apply all I know to either grow my lead. Or not lose it. But if I just sit back and focus on not dying I'm simply giving up my entire sides prio. And simply hoping for a lucky team. Which isn't the way to go to climb at all. Learning how to play with and around jungle at all times, while also getting a lead/preparing on lane. Helped a ton

What you brought up in this video explains why even when I take year+ long breaks from the game I can come back and climb up to plat pretty quickly. Despite taking such long breaks I still have well over 15,000 games played. I've played LoL on and off since it was in beta. So many mechanical things I have committed to muscle memory, I have new friends with game counts in the hundreds who struggle in silver and I really never sat and considered the massive difference of play time between us. It was always just "oh it's so easy bro, just farm up and don't die, don't make silly mistakes", but there's a lot that goes into that. I've never figured out what keeps me hard-stuck around mid/high plat but if I had to guess it's probably because every time I come back to play the game I usually don't stick around for more than 4-5 months, just enough time to climb, get a good feel for the meta and then quit and do it all over again.

I appreciate you making this video. I remember watching the old video when it came out and thinking it made sense. But I was hardstuck silver then and when I tried to apply that concept to my games it didn't go well. And looking back I know that it didn't go well because I couldn't play my champion or execute mechanically. Even if I got high cs and scaled I wasn't able to play teamfights effectively so all my gold from cs was pointless. I only really started climbing once I started limit testing more and really learned how to use my abilities correctly. I started consistently winning lane and felt much stronger mechanically than most other players in silver. I could tell that these players did not really know what they were doing and it was easy to pressure them in lane and consistently get kills off of just starting fights. After developing my play this way, when I finally climbed to gold last split it felt easy.

It's funny I just watched your old video yesterday, then you post this today. Crazy. Good info thanks.

I was literally thinking about the video last year, about how you said keeping it simple and being confused. Thanks for finally clarifying it is not as simple as it looks

Your first video definitely helped make my climb as a returning player easier, but I understand the sentiment of this video. I was definitely helped by the more broader tips like letting the wave push into you and playing off mistakes and it made my climb super easy abusing that shurelyas veigar build. I think watching a variety of league content, even outside coaching, teaches you a lot about the game and emulating what you watch in your own games to really work it out goes a long way at least for me. If you want to really improve at anything, just watching and building familiarity is invaluable in your free time.

This is my first season and watching your content has helped quite a bit Thank you!!!

Thank you for this, I always felt like there was some secret magic going on in that other vid and other coaches who had done similar things.

I watched that video recently and am very glad to see u put an update to it... that annie gameplay was crazy

Thank you, I really thought you hadn't thought about it when you released that vídeo. This made a huge difference for me.

Incredible insight, Well done

Hey Coach Curtis, I'm loving the philosophy here for teaching people relevant and efficient skills. I've done some learning methodology work and I think I have a good trial for you to remake a video about playing in bronze. Pick your least played position, then your least played champion in that position. This will set you much closer in personal champion knowledge (can't do much about your total knowledge), and will show players how to win without relying on muscle memory. Playing without flash will also help reduce your skill advantage as flash is the most mechanically complex summoner spell. Putting yourself in high risk positions early (lvl 1 invades, roaming, kill chasing) will also help showcase the general knowledge of League trumping the fundamentals on laning/jungling. Ideally there would be a way to completely remove your mechanical advantages, but minor things like increasing your ping (I usually notice 18-25ms on your vids) to around 50ms or playing tired (ie playing after your job, not as your job) to slow down your subconscious reaction times will mimic the behaviors of average players more closely.

I love this!!! I’m so glad you decided to help!

That was actually the last video of yours that I watched. And I quit league within a month because I felt “it’s so simple, I’m just dumb.” My mental had changed though and I appreciate this video! There are many things that are hard to grasp for players like me. I often forget that my opponent is another player trying to win. My eyes gloss over and I’m just enjoying my champ. Intensity has changed everything for me. Hopefully I hit gold for the first time in 9 seasons 😅

great video! As I was pulled into playing League a few years ago yet lacked any video game experience before I really struggle to this day with this game as great as it is. I mean the complexity of League could be compared to 5D chess or something crazy like that. But it really is the mastery of that complexity that makes the game fun to play!

Respect for owning up to your mistakes and learning from it. Setting a solid example for the students :)

I made a comment on your original video that touches upon the exact same thing - what you considered "simple" is actually tons of experience and muscle memory. It's great to see you address this even after a year now! I would say everything up to high plat/low emerald (gold/plat pre rework) is just understanding League, i.e., all the champs, items, towers, minions, jungle camps, objectives etc. I think it's really nice that you as a coach only coach above a certain level. As you said, below a certain level of experience you simply get better by playing, regardless of coaching. It's really great you acknowledge that and do not prey on the money of these players!

I actually needed this, i started at the other video then saw your comment so came here. I've played since s1 off and on over the years, with about 7 of those years being an active player. I never broke out of silver - made it a game away from Gold 5 times. I hated that so much at one point that I developed a hatred of myself when I played ranked because I felt like the knowledge I acquired was useless since I didn't have the skill. But I just didn't look for the right knowledge. I played Dota for the other portion of those years and play both games now, made it to Crusader (gold) and again, crapped out 1 game away from Archon (plat) and then had a 10 game lose streak, in which I quit ranked - couldn't afford to feel that way about myself. However! I did come back to league last year and play both league and Dota now and let me tell you, some fundamentals from Dota are immensely helpful in league (although I still try to block my minion wave mid and deny my own creeps - oops). I've been only playing normal in league at the moment (ranked is the only way you'll get your role in Dota) because I don't want to take it too seriously, but some of those normal games were gold/plat elo just because I was csing better and had a different perspective on minimap awareness and a ton of other little things that Dota took more advantage of. I took years off for my mental state to recover and its in a good spot now. I feel like even though I'm not really in my teens/gaming prime and am on the brink of the "old man" 30 mark - It really is fundamentals that are helping me improve. My mechanical skills were acquired over time through other means. I took fundamentals from Smite/Dota2 and implemented them in League because I never thought of them before. Dota taught me how to cs better than a training camp ever could since enemies can deny their own creeps (cutting your gold completely and denying a portion of xp) it forces you to pay attention to both your and their wave - even as a support(pos 4/5) denying your own wave and managing it via pulling jungle camps into the wave in order to bring it to your Pos 1(adc) or 3 (top) Dota has pos 4 - a roaming support that sticks with the offlane (top laner in league) then rotates across the map primarily like a jungler - taught me how to think about map awareness and roaming. I'm not saying this to go against the fundamentals section, actually to agree - because in Dota - i HAD to stick to learning a singular hero because if you try to counterpick all the time with Dota's insane amount of hero's with no set roles you will absolutely get wrecked, and I was a jack of all trades master of none player. The fundamentals came over time while I was learning Chen because he forced me into learning how to micro the creeps - and with no damaging abilities at the time - that was his only offense/defense. he had a .1% pick rate in most ELOs. I desperately wanted to learn him, and I lost more games in a row than I could count- now 200 games later my winrate with him is above 53% even thought my elo didnt change a ton - I still got way better at the game and was able to transfer those skills to other Dota heroes and eventually to league. The fundamentals were absolutely a benefit that I grabbed - but it REQUIRED the understanding of a singular champion in order to maintain them.

This is the first piece of your content I’ve seen. This is great content. Subbing and hitting that bell, gotta look forward to more in the future!

It's a really interesting conundrum in trying to find where your knowledge-base and the knowledge-base of your audience overlaps, it's probably the hardest part of communicating. Kudos for recognizing a weakness and addressing it.

Your coaching videos are incredible. I'd be extremely interested in getting a session if you coached toplane, but for now, I'll take the concepts that you speak about in your videos and try to apply them to my own game.

I used to have trouble in bronze when I first play there. Now the biggest struggle would be staying in it!

Really good video actually. I remember when I just started playing the game like 2 years ago, it was impossible to even look at the minimap, everything was so overwhelming. I had no idea what champs did, so I didn’t even know if I was safe to walk up or not in situations, if I should fight or not. There is this idea all high Elo players say that “you’re in low Elo because of bad decision-making, not mechanics” without realizing how insane their mechanics are compared to low Elo players. It always pissed me off.

Love your content. Keep it up!

Aaaaaand stuff like this is exactly why I love Coach Curtis. Undeniably one of the most humble coaches in the game, at the LEAST.

So essentially, there is no "one concept works for all" when it comes to climbing. There are tons of things. However, If one thing _had_ to be the highest in priority, it would be "champion understanding" not just of what you play, but of what you're up against too.

Oh my God, so much respect to you man for realizing your mistake and, not just apologizing, but also explaining your updated view. May God bless you, Curtis.

I love the humble display of maturity in this video! New sub ❤

I am going to be honest, i was interested in your coaching before but this video just made me settle to go and get a session with you whenever it is available. Great respect.

This video makes me realize I've always used the term "fundamentals" to mean something different than others. When I think "fundamentals" that means what champions do, how to move, what makes tower go pew pew and kill you, what items are, how gold works, how XP works, keeping track of yourself in fights, etc. I would consider stuff like wave management, trading, leaning, roaming, backing, etc. as a level above "fundamentals", in the "basic skills" that require you to first have a strong grasp on fundamentals. It's also worth noting that "basic skills" are an incredibly challenging thing to learn, especially to fully automate all of them to free up your mental stack. That's just because League is a hard game though so it's to be expected. The most rewarding thing about gaining mastery in "basic skills" is when you suddenly start noticing that you're naturally thinking more about advanced concept/macro/etc.

You are such a nice person and your videos never disappoint. Keep going!

I just loved this video, thanks for it. And the point about understanding the champions before even fundamentals is awesome! I remember that in the previous one I got into a discussion in the comment section saying that you still were using micro and knowledge subconsciously and that made huge differences in the gameplay and with that got flamed by others.

7:59 , this!! I was playing league from beta to season 5 on a top tier level. My fundamentals are still great, been playing other MOBAs for years. But I don't have fresh muscle memory, I don't know what some champions do, how to efficiently lane with or versus them and I'm struggling in high plat. A lot of people that want to improve in this game (or any game), feel like there needs to be some secret to climbing. There isn't really. Yes, you need to know some techniques and strategies but it really comes down to how much time you put in to the game. When you play 200th game in the same lane matchup, you will do so much better than when you played it the fifth time. PS: Curtis, this is really good catch on your part. I believe that every high level coach should watch this video

This is such a great re-examination. I was aware of these concepts from teaching and coaching other topics and it's great to see a League coach recognize it and self correct instead of just clickbaiting like some coaches.

Massive props for making this I was quite miffed with the original video

Great self awareness and honesty, thanks :)

Takes a real man to go back and address their mistakes / bad info. Great video

I had an adc coach one time. I was low gold at the time. And he actually went 5 vods I had and was shocked at the amount of PVP that was happening. And he told me of fundamentals I could improve on and then instantly just ways to PVP better. (Trading/mid-late team fighting) As someone who plays all roles outside of jungle. Has been in the MLA and had random coaches. Max rank been d4 currently e4. Each rank is different. Many higher elos say they are all the same but I don't think so. Different things are more important in these divisions! Adaptation is key. Off ramble - coach Curtis content is one of best content I've ever seen of this game. I super hope to be back in the MLA sometime soon again and the content doesn't stop coming. Thanks for taking the time!

I’m glad you pointed out how important understanding what each champ does is. When I started playing in 2017, this was my biggest problem. I ended up maining jungle because you rarely interact with the other jungler in low elo, so I didn’t need to know how match ups played out, who wins fights, etc., which gave me a bit more breathing room to learn the basics. I’m still silver though, largely because I don’t have the drive to reach for gold/plat. I’m perfectly fine making mistakes in my game, so long as the people I’m playing with also make those mistakes.

In mathematics pedagogy, which is basically studying how to effectively teach math, they are also breaking away from fundamentals as something you spend so many years on and they're probably going to do this in science in general I imagine. Basically it's more important for beginners to understand the big picture of the journey that they're going to go on rather than spend a ton of time tediously doing something that they'd naturally pick up because their brain will want to get it out of the way and get to the thing that matters. You can explain calculus to someone who really only knows some algebra in a way where they can conceptually understand what's going to happen; they're going to calculate areas between curves and an axis, and they're going to do this basically by splitting it into a bunch of blocks, but they don't actually need to do that. Our brains learn new things through scaffolding and reincorporation. As you teach new concepts on your way to doing integrals, you can attach each new thing to the big picture. It's a classic way to keep things in your working memory and your long-term. League is a pretty complicated game, there's a lot of macro concepts, and there's a lot of interactions, but if you teach game mechanics and metagame trends, which are much more conceptual and fun for people to learn, they will simply play and farm better naturally, because they know that they need to control waves and things like that, which is much more interesting and engaging than "you need to last hit every canon or people will spam you." They'll be more engaged, remember the concepts better and they'll be able to use them functionally because they're in their working memory as well. I'm not that good at League I don't play that much, but I do know the correct way to play and it's so much easier to win games as a support if sometimes you just blast a way of just to show the person that if we just push it right now we will have to go pressure, or will be able to back and they'll be in an awkward position where they kind of have to stay and we get kills that way, it just proves to people so quickly that they're focusing on the wrong things.

This is a great introspective (retrospective also?) video that I really appreciate.

Love the vid, climbed to diamond from gold because I learned Orianna (using your old 3 year old video that still somewhat holds up). Thanks for the content!

wow we love to see someone eat some humble pie while still offering amazing advice. the best coaches learn from their students

"CS better and don't die" is the advice I got starting up on League and all it led me to was 2 years of playing adc like an absolute coward, ignoring fights to meet the 10cs/min quota and not taking any fights that could result in me dying (even if it would be a massive W for the team macro) 💀

great video really glad you made this video

love this video, I've been hoping someone would say something about the importance of actually piloting the champion in lower skill brackets for so long and it's so refreshing to hear you say it

I think the video that you made was fantastic. it really left a good impression of you as a coach on me. The weird thing is you DID make points on how to get good CS and not die a lot. These 3 sentences explain EXACTLY what you did during laning phase and it's the points that you made during the video. *"I'm just letting him push waves into me and trying to cs, I'm not even trading with him"* *"He's roaming but I'm not following his roams"* *"I see when the canon wave spawns and I recall to spend my 1300 gold"* now you didn't go deep into the last point which maybe some players won't realise why this is good exactly, but I think when you're a bronze player it doesn't really matter if you don't know WHY it's good, you just have to know that it IS good. These 3 sentences explain EXACTLY what you did OVER AND OVER AGAIN and it's the points that you made during the video. *"I'm walking to the wave nearest to my base/me and collecting it"* *"I'm hovering around my team when it looks like they're going to fight (aram/drake/baron/random skirmish)"* *"I see the teamfight doesn't go down and I try to kill the splitpusher"* mechanics come from simply playing the game a lot, watching high elo OTPs and mains playing and trying to get your gameplay to look like theirs. Macro Similarly comes from playing the game a lot and watching high elo players make decisions, which if they're a streamer they often mention what they're doing and why they're doing it. You could have made the video a lot better than just commentary over gameplay, with an editor, a shorter video with key points summarized and displayed to the viewers, but imo you still got unjustified backlash, I don't think you deserved much of it.

I just discovered your videos randomly, and what you said in that video was what I felt when looking at the previous. I totally agree with what you said, and two points in particular: - Mastering your champion is more important than mastering fundamentals It's really true and at school my group made a project in which we wanted to predict win or lose in a LoL game based only on state at min 0 (meaning who are the players and what champ they play). It turned out that at any elo the most important factor to winning the game was the skill of a player on the specific champion they are playing, by far. The second factor of success was its rank in the ladder, but in the end it was almost useless. (For people interested, we managed to predict the right outcome of the game 69% of the times) - Underestimating the difficulty of the game I think anyone who has a friend who recently started League will agree with that, because when you start a game with them, it's obvious that Iron 4 players would crush them 100% of the times, especially people who never played MOBAs or video games. There are so many things in League of Legends to understand and do instinctively that we only realise we are doing it when we see people NOT doing it. The game is hard, and as you said, you may spend 10k hours in it, you could still end up platinum, and that would already be good. Appreciated the content.

As a player that tried PC lol coming from mobile i can actually say your points are very valid. Almost all games i played (which are not many by any means) went awfully just because i would not understand how other champions i was facing worked and what the items did. Also the keyboard and mouse are a big trouble for me but i guess all of this i just mentioned comes as you said with time and practice. Understanding higher concepts made me hold a bit more of an advantage to gap my mechanical and overall knowledge disadvantage but i for sure know that if i sat down everyday to play a game i would at least be around gold by now if not higher but i don't want to think like i could because if i learned something in years of gaming online is that ego is, by far, the bisggest thing preventing your progress.

Fantastic video. Well said. ❤

great Video!! in addition to the points you mention I want to talk about one thing that is even more important in my understanding: Fun! the best learning experience is when I am having fun. And it is not fun to “learn how to farm better” or anything like that. I want to learn how to do Riven Animation cancels, I want to learn how to do flashy mechanical outplays, I want to learn how to place seaky wards etc. Not because it will improve my gameplay the fastest, but because it is super satisfying to learn and to see my improvement.

I usually do not comment on videos but for the first time I saw a LOL video where someone really took the time and taught about it before doing a video. I saw the first video and in the end of this video where you said that you did many things because muscle memory I remember exactly a play you did on lux where you placed a ward and stay in the bush to kill her when she comes to break the ward.. I remember noticing that your position inside of the bush was exactly perfect to don't be revealed by the swiper while lux break the ward, you positioned the ward a little ahead and stay a little behind just enough to have range and don't be revealed.. this is the exact example of muscle memory that a low elo player would never do. So congrats for this video, for the first time I see a really good one and I hope this conclusion helps you to be a better coach!

well done for making this video. everything you said here was pretty much what i thought was wrong with the original video. respectable self-evaluation

Being self aware of all the little things that we do as veteran players ( experience players who have years in the game) important. I loved your out look on this topic.

What an amazing video. I remember watching your first video thinking, "Bro is legit using high-level macro knowledge and not mentioning it..."

So I just left a comment on the video that this guy is making this video about; its amazing that he made such a turn around. He spent time teaching and learning from these people he made a bad take on; and he realized it and came to fix that mistake. Coach Curtis; well done; thank you for the content and the humility. Great work

Thx!! Rly loved this vid I have basically no gaming background and I was feeling kinda bad BC I'm like bronze 4, and started the split at iron (though I was bronze before), and the thing is I'm almost lvl 200, and that feels like a rly low rank for that lvl, but to be fair I've switched between ADC, jng and Shen top. This vid got me motivated to try and master Shen and start from there, thx again!

This video hits on all the points I believed was the problem with coaching off of the few coach videos I've seen around. It's more about identifying problems both in detailed mechanics and even more importantly in general thought process. Because once you get the thought process down you can more easily pick up those good habits and intuition of how to play the game.

Great mentality, Coach Curtis. Definitely an example for other coaches to follow.

Lmao, I JUST made a comment on your Playing in Bronze video that said basically the same thing as your last point here, then RU-vid recommended me this video. Huge respect for admitting your mistakes and explaining it out in detail like this.

I remember the first time I understood what you were describing here. I was watching my friend in plat play (I had gotten the game a few months prior) and I just saw him throwing random skillshots in bushes as he roamed, but not every bush and not on every roam, and remembered thinking “wait why is he throwing skillshots in some bushes but not others”. Now it’s so obvious when you might need to check a bush and when you don’t need to, but at the time I was so confused as to why sometimes he threw skills in bushes but sometimes he didn’t. To me it looked so random, which was so frustrating because there was no framework I could discern that would tell me when to check bushes and when not to.

Massive respect on how you reacted to the critique. This is how creators should handle this, literally everyone is on your side now. Well done.