Hi humans.

A while back, I had a “moment” in my League of Legends career where I got overly frustrated with ranked games, and publicly announced that I was temporarily retiring from competitive League of Legends play. I specified that I would only be playing normal games with my friends for fun.

Since then, you might have noticed that season 3 started, and I already made my way back up to about 1400 elo. No, I did not already come out of temporary retirement; I just took a different approach to solo and duo queue, and no longer see it as a competitive environment anymore. That’s why I’ve decided not to even call solo queue solo queue anymore, I call it yolo queue.

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “yolo,” it stands for “you only live once.” Most people declare this acronym prior to doing something very stupid, justifying their action by saying that you only live once, so you might as well do it.

Although I personally don’t really like the concept of “yolo,” and prefer the parodies of “yolo” instead (such as “better put on your seat belt, because yolo”), I thought League of Legends would be a great scenario when “yolo” would be very applicable.

In addition to this, I’ve come up with a short list of ways you can rethink solo queue so you get less frustrated while playing. We’ll start with,

Solo queue is no longer named solo queue, it’s named yolo queue.

Being forced to support when you main AP carry? Just support anyway, because yolo. You suck at support? It’s okay, yolo. There’s a troll on your team? Just play, because yolo. About to lose because of the troll? It’s okay, yolo. As you can see, saying “yolo” to every potential problem that arises will make you feel much less anxious and much more relaxed.

Solo/duo queue elo is not an indication of how good you are at League of Legends, it’s an indication of how good you are at solo/duo queue.

League of Legends, as a game, is about role fulfillment, teamwork, coordination, strategy, reaction, and overall group efforts. Solo/duo queue, on the contrary, is pretty much all about farming (last-hitting minions) and leadership skills in regards to leading complete strangers.

As you can see, the two are very different – this clearly means that just because you are good at League of Legends doesn’t mean you’ll be good at solo/duo queue, and vice versa. I’ve seen plenty of people with lower elos than me who are better at the game; I myself am also better at the game than many people with higher elos than me.

Nothing bad happens if you don’t get a high elo.

Sure, you might miss out on a few end-of-season rewards like a skin and a profile border, but nothing bad is going to happen because you can’t make it to a particular elo.

If your friends are young and immature, they might mock you for sucking at solo/duo queue, but once they understand that it doesn’t really matter (maybe you can speed up that process by sending them a link to this list you just read), everything will be just fine.

With that perspective, I was able to successfully come back to League of Legends solo/duo queue and lose 9 out of 22 games so far this season without ever getting annoyed or frustrated.

Is the competitive aspect of League of Legends troubling you as well? I suggest you shift your per­spective to be more similar to mine, and League of Legends will become a lot more fun.