I can't see how intentionally playing against players that you could 'stomp' on a character you know well is more rewarding than challenging yourself against players of a higher caliber. Back in beta I got a few dozen free wins playing first blood shaco, and it forced me into a higher bracket and made me learn to be a better player.

If you are playing characters you suck at against players you know you could beat, you aren't giving yourself a challenge, you are learning a new champion with training wheels on. Giving yourself a challenge would be if you played the character until you stopped destroying your opponent and started having difficulty winning, because that's when you are ACTUALLY getting better at the game, not just learning a new character. And getting better at the game will help you get better at other characters as well.

Something about Bruce Lee fearing not the guy who practices 1000 kicks, but the guy who practices one kick one thousand times.

*First blood shaco was an old trick with shaco where red and blue buff spawned at 1:30. At that point in the game, very very few characters could jungle reliably. Only the top players could jungle without taking smite/rally, and warwick was the only 'true' jungler. Shaco firstblood was achieved by starting red pot+5 potions (red pots were 300g and gave a flat amount of HP and damage, instead of level based), boxing up red buff, then killing wraiths as well. Wraiths and red would give level 2 (red brought you to 295/300 or something very close), and you could do this before the minions reached the middle of the lane. At that point in time, shaco could be level 2, with +350 bonus HP, +20 damage, and a red buff (that used to have a larger slow and deal more damage). With an allout attempt, you could actually one shot most mids with base HP if you took rally and runed properly. With a casual attempt, you could deal more than 50% of their hp in one hit and finish them with the second autoattack before they could react. It was a very cheesy and unfair trick that may have been the direct cause for the change to buff spawn timers. However, it forced me to learn to play better because the trick didn't work against people once I played in a higher bracket. Those who took flat HP quints and started with a dorans or boots or played closer to their tower in the early levels made the one trick pony fall flat and I had to learn to adapt.

 

Except I'm not versing players that I can "stomp". I'm playing against people who are the same caliber as I am, using a champ that I'm not as good at, because it would support my team better. I'm the guy who will go into a game with a Zilean because I'm paired on bot with a Fiddle who likes to tower dive. It's stupid, and on some level I know that I won't make much of a difference, but those games when I do and we end up completely dominating the other team makes it completely worth it, because I was able to make a fairly un-used champion viable. Plus, I get better with the champ every time I lose, because I learn from my mistakes. Also, I'm not sure where you get the idea that I use lower skilled players as a training ground. I know how to play the champions I choose, I'm just not good at them because I don't play them often.

 

I apologize, I took this to mean that you stomp with Annie and you aren't as proud of those scores as you are of scores with champions you don't know/play well.

And my response was that if you are consistently playing 16/3/9 with one character, it is not indicative of you knowing a character well so much as it is indicative of you playing against players who are not at the same caliber as yourself (or at least the same caliber of yourself while playing that character). If you aren't sponsored, you aren't going to consistently get that score with a champion unless you are tempering your victories with losses on other characters that artificially deflate your Elo, because there will always be someone better than you.

I disagree that playing your best character is a cop-out or that playing your best character in normals is somehow a bad thing, because I would much rather lose to an Annie in mid than a shaco jungle using a quadra gp10 build who is obviously much better than me and not taking the game seriously by playing "troll builds"

I know for a fact that when I play on a smurf to introduce friends to the game, I don't learn anything from playing AP Pantheon. This is a hyperbolic example and obviously playing Alistar instead of Annie isn't the same as playing AP Pantheon instead of ANYTHING else, but I think it's pretty true in both cases. You would learn more by playing your best all the time than by putting on the training wheels so-to-speak and learning new champions against opponents you could 'stomp' (because consistently going 16-3 is stomping) by playing at your best.

Just my 2 cents.

 

While I agree with you in principle, Churchey, in that it is better to make sure that you maintain competition at a level that is challenging, I think you are deflating the importance of practicing and learning other characters that you are not particularly skilled with. Even if that means your Elo deflating. Since competing at a level that remains challenging and not knowing a character well enough to counter and adjust for others playing them at that level is a distinct disadvantage and liability.

For instance. I suck with Pantheon. I always did and I always have. So, since I sucked with him so much I never bothered to really learn his ins and outs. So when I played against one he would consistently stomp me if he had so much as a skill level at or near par with me unless I was playing a direct counter.

It wasn't until I pushed myself and spent fifteen, twenty games getting stomped as him that I learned how not to let it happen when playing against him.

I'm about to start doing the same with Alistar. Because I find a good one is just so incredibly disruptive when I play AD carry that he can generally shut me down without terrible difficulty.

 

Right but if you are an elo where playing your best character is an autowin, you aren't at an elo where you will learn anything valuable beyond the first game you play with a character.

 

I think what Churchey is talking about is people who never play their best champions for whatever role they're playing in normals when they are players that do not play much or any ranked. We all need to practice champions at somepoint and hopefully get better at them. He also makes a valid point that if I am constantly destroying as a certain champion, like Graves, then I am not really playing at my true level if I keep taking Vayne into these games. What I should be doing is spamming Graves until I start averaging out my wins and losses. Then it is time for me to grow and learn against opponents that are more skilled.

Since I do not play ranked, I practice champions in solo or duo queue for normal games. But If I get into a group with 3 or more players, I am going to play my best champions for the role that I am in. This is because, generally, when I get into a group of that size or larger, we are trying to win. I am doing my team (friends) a disservice if I try to play Lee Sin in the jungle rather than Nautilus or Maokai.

In solo or sometimes duos in normals, I'll try to play champions that I do not consider myself very good at. This doesn't always happens and sometimes I'll end up playing one of my bests but not often. Usually it'll be a rarer pick such as Vayne or Blitzcrank.