A 12 Year old boy that goes by “Xiao Xin” lives in the province Jiangxi in southern China. He live streams his League of Legends matches, once winning 18 matches in a row is considered one of the most skillful players of such a young age. With an average of 50,000-60,000 viewers each live stream and a record of 140,000 viewers became hired as a streamer for Panda TV, a popular platform for live streaming, (which is owned by the son of the richest man in China). Even professional League of Legend teams have considered and want to recruit him.
Photo courtesy: 2P.com
Xiao Xin’s mother was interviewed and was questioned about her views and reactions to Xiao Xin’s success. Xiao Xin’s mother states that she was never aware that he could play League of Legends at such a high skill level, she hopes he will become better and better with no intention of stopping, not just as a career but also for the long run. She says it is also lucky that a lot of his friends got to know him and start to care about him and soon enough like him.
In the interview she also mentioned that her initial reaction was that she was worried that it would affect his studies just like any parent would. Her and her husband didn’t approve and wanted him to study instead but they realized how talented he is so they began to support him and his talent. When questioned about Xiao Xin’s plans for the future she said that she and her husband will support Xiao Xin to develop his talent all the time.
So… You have found a game called League of Legends. You have probably installed because all your friends play it, but you have no idea of what you need to do. You start the game, you select your region, and you click the Play Now button. You fill in the name and the password of the user account you just made (really, I hope you can do that. If not, don’t even bother playing the game…) and you click the Log In button. You see the PVP net screen, and your mind goes like: “WTF!? What the hell am I supposed to do here!?”. Well, this is probably what you see:
Before all else, I actually have to write a . between PVP and net. However it will become a link, and I don’t want that to happen. So I will just keep on writing PVP net, that should be clear right? 🙂
On to the explanations.
The “Home” sign. No matter where you are, if you click that you will be returned to the screen as currently shown.
A message like this sometimes appears between the “Home” and the “Play” buttons. It indicates that there is a problem with the game. It can be that there is a bug and a champion is disabled like in this case, but it might also tell you servers will go offline, there’s a problem with an item and therefore it’s disabled, etc. It’s just a warning for you, and since usually that area is empty you should notice it.
The Play button. If you click here, you will enter a screen which allows you to select certain game modes. I will elaborate on this later, for now there are more important things.
Your Summoner Icon. You can change it by clicking it, a little menu will appear and you can select your favorite. It does not affect anything in any way, so just choose the one that looks the coolest or prettiest. The number in the bottom right corner of that icon is your Summoner Level, of which the highest value is 30.
Your Summoner Name is on the left. If people ever want to add you as friend, they will have to use that name. Other people can see it, so be advised that you take a proper summoner name (no racism, insulting and other idiotic stuff!). Also there is the current number of RP (middle) and IP (right) you have. RP (Riot Points) can be obtained by spending actual money, whereas you get IP (Influence Points) from just playing the game.
The Store. If you click it, you will be shown a screen with a lot of buttons on the left side. You can purchase all sorts of things, but you should find that out for yourself.
Your own Profile. Here you can see how many wins you have per game mode, your last 10 matches including your statistics, which champions there are, what Runes you currently have, what Masteries you currently have set, and what Summoner Spells are available for you. If you click the box that says “Find Summoner”, you can also take a look at other people’s Profiles; however you can not see their Ranked Stats and which champions they own.
The left button links you to stories about the League of Legends lore, in case you have any interest in that. The button on the right brings you to the Help function, which you will not need if you are reading this 😛
The chatrooms you are currently connected to. If you log in for the first time it is probably empty, but as you can see I am connected to the PlayWithRiot chatroom and the Mobafire chatroom. Usually people who are active in this community go there and have fun with each other. Also any private chats appear in the area, if you are talking with a friend for example.
The button on the left is your Friend List. It is empty if you connect for the first time, but the more you play the more friends you will (hopefully) make. If you click it, a tab will open. You can see your Friend List, the people you recently played with and the people you ignored. All the way at the bottom, you can add a friend folder (for example, make one for people you know via Mobafire, or people who speak the same language as you), search for other players (which will bring you to the screen as discussed in #6, but then of that player) and add a friend.
The middle button shows the Chat Rooms. If you want to, you can click the button all the way at the bottom and join a chatroom with a certain name (hint: try Mobafire).
The button on the right shows your Notifications; Friend invites, game invites, and all sorts of messages from the game itself will appear there. Note that you can click most of those to get some additional information, such as accept/decline a friend request or accept/decline a game invite.
brings you to the Options. If you are not satisfied with the current settings, you can alter them.
So far the basic explanation of PVP net, on to some more in-depth stuff!
What to do next?
Well, now the fun part starts. You are almost set to play your first game (note: You might have already played 1 or 2 tutorial matches. If you have not done that yet, please do so, they are not great but they give a basic explanation of the game and its mechanics)! But before that, you can already spend something. Head over to your mastery page (if you can not find it just yet, click the button that brings you to your Profile and click the Masteries tab).
You will notice that you have 1 point available (since I am already level 30, I have 30 available whenever I create a new Mastery Page)! You will gain 1 point every time your Summoner Level increases (maximum is 30 points). You have a completely free choice when it comes to where you want to place it. I will explain more about masteries later on, so just trust me here and place a point in the Sorcery mastery in the Offense tree. You can either left-click on the mastery you want (not here, in-game) or you can hover your mouse over the icon and scroll up. On the left you can also give a name to that mastery page, but for now Mastery Page 1 is just fine.
Now that you have done that, it is actually time to start playing! Hit the big red Play button, and you will be shown some options.
Play.
So now it is time. Time to actually start playing the game.
You should first complete both tutorials, as they teach you the most basic things there are to the game. You can reach them from here:
and here
Once you have successfully completed both tutorials, you should play some Co-op vs. AI matches. If you click that tab, you must choose your Game Mode. A brief explanation is given, but I recommend learning how to play Classic first. Click on Summoner’s Rift to the right, and set the Difficulty at Beginner. This means that the bots are not playing that well, but since this is the first time you are going to play they might be a challenge.
Hit the “I will invite my own Teammates” button at the bottom if you want to invite your friends, click the “Match me with Teammates” button otherwise. Once you have done that, you should notice you are back in the very first screen. Only one thing has changed: Instead of that big red Play button, there should be a timer. It shows for how long you have been waiting. It should not take that long; eventually you should get a pop-up. Click the Play Now button, and you will be taken to a screen which looks really chaotic.
Let me explain:
#1 is your team, containing you and 4 others.
#2 is the opponent team, consisting of 5 bots. In other game modes they might be people.
Note that I started a game myself here, without any teammates or opponents. Usually that list will be filled. You can see the names of your teammates, but not those of your opponents.
#3 shows the team chat room.
#4 is where you can choose your Champion. Every champion has its own unique skillset, providing a different approach to the game each. Choosing your Champion is probably a difficult decision at first, but just pick one you think might be fun. There are always 10 champions available for you. Those Champions are in the so called Free Week Rotation, meaning that every single person can play that Champion. Note that if someone already picked a champion in your team, you can not pick it yourself. If you do not manage to pick a champions within 90 seconds, one of the available ones will randomly be assigned to you. I will provide you with more information about Champions later on.
#5 is where the runes and masteries are situated. Leave Rune Page 1 and Mastery Page 1 as they are.
#6 is a place of interest. Those 2 icons represent Summoner Spells, which you can use when playing. You can only pick 2, so choose wisely! If you click either one of them, a pop-up will appear. You can see 13 options, of which 7 are currently available (assuming you are level 1). I recommend taking Heal and Ghost for now. More information about this will follow.
#7 shows the Lock In button. Once you are completely done with everything, click it. This will make the Champion list disappear, and a list of Skins for the Champion you picked will appear. You probably don’t have a choice right now, since you can not choose the Skins that are Locked. Now all you have to do is wait until every player in the game is ready, and then the game can begin! Note that it is not necessary to click it, after 90 seconds you will automatically be locked in.
In-game.
After a bit of loading, you will probably see something that looks like this (it should be bigger for you, I personally know my way around it so I set it to be smaller):
#1 gives you some info about yourself. The time the game is lasting, the number of Champions you killed, the number of times you died and the number of times you helped someone else get a kill are on top. Slightly below that is your FPS (Frames Per Second) and your ping. Even lower is the amount of kills your team made in total, and the amount of times your team died in total.
#2 contains more info about your Champion. The icon shows with Champion you are playing (in this case, Lux). On the bottom right is your Champion Level (maximum 18). Below that is your xp bar, so you can see how long it will take until you gain a level. To the right of your Champion icon, are some stats. From top to bottom: Attack Damage, Ability Power, Attack Speed, Movement Speed, Armor and Magic Resist. I will elaborate on those later. Every number that is green, has been increased in some way. In my case that comes from Runes and Masteries.
To the right of that are the items you currently have in your inventory. At that time I had not bought any items, but obviously I bought some later; items are the most important thing when you are in game. As you probably expected, I will go into those later.
At #3 you see your skills. The 2 bars at the bottom show your current health/maximum health, and the bottom bar shows your mana. Not all Champions use mana; some use Fury, Energy, nothing or something special. The 8 icons each have a different meaning; the one on the left is the Champion’s passive or innate ability. If you hover your mouse over it, a small pop-up will appear containing information about that ability. The 4 icons to the right of that are usable abilities, which are usually bound to the Q, W, E and R keys. The R skill is often referred to as ultimate. Again, if you hover your mouse over it, you will be able to read some additional info. Since I haven’t chosen any spell yet, I can take any of the abilities with a + above them (unless it’s grayed out). More information will come later. If you move on even more to the right, you will hopefully recognize those icons. They are the Summoner Spells you chose! The left one is bound to the D button, the left one to F. The icon all the way on the right is the Recall button. You can click it, or hit the B button on your keyboard, to return to your spawn. Note that this only works if you are not being attacked during the channeling time.
#4 contains some system icons. Here you can set various settings, you could play around with them yourself. There are more options that you can change. Hit the ESC button, and you will find another menu. Try to fiddle around with the settings until you like them.
The two buttons on the left, a red one and a yellow one, are smart pings. The red button can be used to ping a target (such as a turret or an enemy Champion) which indicates you need help somewhere (use the G button as shortcut for it). The yellow button can be used to tell your allies to Fall Back from a certain area (the V button is the shortcut for it). If you click either, you can drag your mouse in 4 directions to ask for assistance, tell there’s danger, say you’re on your way or that an enemy is missing.
Just below that is the mini map. It gives you a brief overview of the map. Below is an enlarged version, along with some more explanations below that:
The green part on the bottom left is your base. It contains a spawn (the place you come to life when you start the game or when you died and are revived), a Nexus (where minions spawn from, and which the enemy must destroy to win), 2 Nexus turrets (defending the Nexus), 3 inhibitors (when destroyed, the enemy team will have a bonus, which I will explain later on) and 3 inhibitor turrets (which defend the inhibitors).
The red part on the top right is the enemy base. If you are playing normal games, it is possible that the red part is your base and the green part is the enemy base.
The part above and left of the orange line, is top lane. The part between the orange and blue line is mid lane, and the part below and right of the blue line is bot lane. Each lane contains 3 turrets (seen from the base: inhibitor, inner and outer, represented by green and red circles) and an inhibitor.
The space surrounded by the orange and blue lines is referred to as Jungle, where you can kill some neutral monsters (the black and orange dots). They grant gold, and some grant mana and/or buffs. More info will come later.
Some more general info: You can use the enter button to chat. If you write /all in front of your message, all 10 players in the game will receive the message. If you write /r (name of friend) and then your message, you will send a Private Message (PM, or whisper) to that friend. If that friend has sent you the last PM you received, his/her name will automatically be filled in (so you don’t have to type it). You can also try clicking some other buttons outside of the chat function, just to test their effects.
Dota 2 is a five versus five team game. You win the game by destroying your enemy’s Ancient building also known as the Throne before the enemy team destroys yours.
At the start of the game every hero is weak, with little experience and little gold. Experience gives you levels and access to stronger skills, and Gold buys you items that make you do a variety of things, like run faster, do more damage, and cast special spells.
Your goal is to spend your time gaining exp and gold as fast as possible, or assisting your team in doing so while limiting and reducing your opponents’ exp and gold gain. If you gain a significant exp and gold advantage by the later stages of the game, it usually allows your team to destroy all heroes in your path, followed immediately by buildings, and ultimately finish killing the enemy Ancient, upon which you win the game. How you go about doing this is playing Dota.
Lets start off with some more basics.
Creeps
There are three lanes that spawn creeps every 30 seconds at the :00 and :30 mark for the entire game. These creeps run down each lane for both teams and attack each other until they die. You want to be close by for that because when your enemies’ creeps die, they release experience for your team in the area.
To move your hero to go to these lanes, you select your hero by left clicking on your hero and then right click the ground to move your hero to that position. If there is an enemy where you right click, you will issue an attack command, which means your hero will move to that target and attack when in range. All heroes have a basic attack that is often called a right click or right clicking. This is the main way that you do damage, especially in the early game. Most heroes do a low amount of right click damage in the early game because their levels are low and you have little gold to purchase expensive and strong items.
If you are the hero that does the final damaging blow to kill a creep (called the last hit), then you also get gold! If you do not get the last hit, you only get experience, assuming that you are close enough. This is the first thing that you will have to practice to become a better than average Dota player. Learn to get the last hit on a creep so that you get gold in addition to exp. In addition to last hitting, every player gets 5 gold every 3 seconds just by being in the game. However, last hitting is still extremely important because if you can last hit more often than your opponents, you will help your team get the gold advantage that allows you to buy the items that win you the fights that wins you the game.
This may make you think that this allows you and your opponent to stand in the same lane, but your opponent can attack their creeps when they get below half of their Health Points (HP) by pressing the ‘A’ key for attack and then left clicking their creeps. If they last hit one of their creeps instead of you, it’s called a deny and an exclamation(!) point will appear over their head, showing that the creep was denied. When a creep is denied, it gives less experience than it would have, and there is no chance to receive the gold bounty. You don’t get the gold yourself from denying, but preventing them from getting full exp and any gold is worth the effort.
This creates a scenario where the player who is better at last hitting will get more gold and experience than their opponents, so do your best to focus and last hit for the first advantage in the game.
Being in one of the 3 lanes in the early game is important because of the gold and exp gain, but there are more places you can farm such as neutral camps, which are the many areas where neutral creeps spawn and sit. They can be farmed by either team, and the main locations of these neutral creeps are in the heavily forested regions on the map also known as the Jungle. There are very few heroes in Dota 2 that can gain gold and experience in the jungle at the start of the game because the creeps are stronger than regular creeps, but if your hero is one of those heroes, it’s often worth it to put 1 hero in the jungle to start the game.
To sum up the very beginning of the game, heroes are distributed to each lane depending on their role and then do their best to get last hits and exp while limiting their opponents last hits by denying as well as some other advanced methods.
My favorite advanced method to deny your opponents of gold and exp gain while enhancing yours is to Kill Them.
You will get opportunities to attack enemy heroes (called harassing) while you are laning, but that mostly depends on the hero matchups. Matchups in reference to the laning stage (early game) means what heroes you are playing, and what heroes your opponents decided to put in a lane against you.
If your opponent is playing a melee hero (a hero whose right click is very short range) and you are playing a ranged hero (a hero whose right click is a long ranged projectile like an arrow) then you have many opportunities to harass your opponent when they go for last hits. If you harass your opponent enough and his HP becomes too low, it may give you an opportunity to use your skills to slow, damage, or stun (preventing any action) your opponent and Kill Them. If you are the one getting harassed, make sure that you use your consumable HP regeneration items that you purchased at the start of the game to keep your hp full after you take damage so that the damage required to kill you is increased. I’ll tell you which ones to buy later.
If you kill your opponent in lane or throughout the game, you accomplish a few things. First, your opponent isn’t in lane anymore because all dead heroes are removed from the map for a set time depending on their level, and after they respawn, they have to walk back to the lane from base. Any exp and gold from creeps that die while they’re gone is wasted. Second, you gain exp and gold for being present at their death, and that should make you a higher level, making your skills and right click stronger than your opponent.
With that advantage you just got, it becomes easier to kill them again, and again. This is called snowballing. You gain a small advantage, and you use that to take another advantage, and another advantage. One way to stop snowballs is by killing the player who is snowballing since you get extra gold from a wealthy hero, or a hero who is on a kill streak!
Keep in mind that snowballing might be because of you. If you repeatedly die (also known as ‘Feeding’ your opponent gold) then you are allowing your opponents to get an advantage and snowball. DO NOT FEED. You want to maximize kills on your opponents, get last hits and exp from creeps and in the meantime minimize your deaths. To avoid feeding, if your opponents are trying to kill you and you think you will lose the fight, it’s generally best to throw your stun or slow (if you have one) and IMMEDIATELY run straight towards the nearest tower.
My second favorite advanced method to deny your opponents of gold and exp gain while enhancing yours is to Almost Kill Them.
By Almost Killing Them, you put their life at such a low point that they will be forced to run back to their fountain (which regenerates your health points (HP) and mana points (MP)). They will only go back if they are out of regen items, so it’s much better if you kill them instead. If they do run back to their fountain they are wasting time, as creeps are dying without giving exp, creeps are not being last hit, and no one is around to deny you while you are last hitting, which gives you more gold and exp. This is not nearly as good as when you Kill Them, but it’s better than nothing.
Look How Far They Have to Run Back When You Harass Them
The best way to harass your opponents is to attack them if you have a ranged advantage, or use your spells to do damage while you get last hits. If you do disable them with a slow or stun, it’s important that you also right click them while they are disabled.
Another version of this is called zoning, or in a sentence, ‘yo go zone that offlane hero’. What that means is you put yourself between your opponent and the creep wave to make sure that they stay out of exp range. This is a bit advanced for a new player because you’ll more often than not just feed your life away, but that should better teach you your hero’s limits, 40+ minutes of pain at a time. You should attempt this when there is only one hero in the lane and you are equal levels. This will often turn into your two heroes auto attacking one another, but as long as you both use regen like a Tango you are gaining advantage because you keep them from exp.
Here is an example video showing this. Spending mana is often worth it to zone as well:
Before I throw more words describing lanes at you, here are the generic descriptions of places on the map. Things that I didn’t point out that are worth recognizing, are the super strong Roshan and his icon near the Dire offlane, who can be accessed through the river, the Radiant(green) jungle which is between their Safe Lane and their Mid, and the Dire(red) jungle, which is between their Safe Lane and Mid.
The option to zone your opponent is mostly dependent on the position of your creep wave. A creep wave is where the two spawning creeps on each side of the map meet to fight. Creeps do a very consistent amount of damage, so if no one does any outside damage, it often takes a very long time for the creep balance to get out of whack. If you do extra damage, your wave will have more creeps left over, which does more damage, which kills theirs faster, which results in your wave building up creeps and pushing closer to the enemy’s tower and safety net. Unless you are trying to take a tower, you do NOT want to push a wave,ESPECIALLY in the early game. You should NEVER auto attack, or attack constantly, the creep wave. You should only be attacking their creeps when you are last hitting, and occasionally denying yours (can only attack below 50% hp) if the balance is off. The best rule to follow to keep creep equilibrium (stationary creep wave) is keep the same amount of creeps on their side as on your side.
The reason creep equilibrium is so important is because in the Offlane, or dangerous lane, you want your opponents to be as far away from the safety of their tower as possible. If your creep wave is close to your tower (but not inside the tower’s range) then it doesn’t take long to run back to the safety of your tower. If they are VERY far away from their tower, it gives you more time and opportunity to chase your opponents and get a kill. It ALSO gives your hero a chance to zone the Offlaner, like we discussed above.
Sometimes Killing Them and Almost Killing Them comes unpredictably, like when one of your allies walks over to your lane from a different lane and helps to kill your opponent. That’s called a gank.
Someone setting up a gank is ganking, or is described as a ganker. Ganking is integral to games because it allows you to throw imbalance to lanes, or to hurt your opponents’ ability to predict where heroes are. If you show up mid briefly with two extra heroes to gank the enemy mid, this gives your mid hero an advantage that will allow him to lane better because his opponent dies, or almost dies. Ganking is one of the ways a player can control where the game is going. You want to ensure your lanes are collecting more gold and experience, and sometimes that’s done by killing enemy heroes and creating pressure on the map.
If your ally on the mid lane plays terrible and has a bad laning stage, you can help him by ganking the enemy mid. Sort of like teaming up on him. If one of your opponents is snowballing, you can use a few heroes to gank them so that they don’t get out of control. Always remember that two to three weak heroes is almost always stronger than one fed or snowballing hero because you can team up on him.
The last advanced method is called pulling. To pull, you attack a group of neutral creeps and then run away so they follow you (this is called pulling aggro). While they are following you, they run into YOUR lane creeps, who have no brain, will see the enemy, and follow them back into the jungle to attack them. When you do this, the lane creeps are helping you kill the neutrals, and the neutrals are helping you kill the lane creeps. When the neutrals die, you and anyone nearby get experience. If your lane creeps end up dying to the neutral creeps, then the enemy doesn’t get exp for them! If you get the last hit on the neutrals, you ALSO get gold!
I’m sure that was a little confusing, so watch this quick clip for a demonstration of pulling on each side of the map.
Radiant Single Pull:
To expand on pulling a bit, a regular pull camp will not be enough to clear your wave. In fact, it usually takes 2 neutral camps. You can get your creeps to fight more neutral camps , but first let me explain how neutral creeps come into the game.
At the :00 second mark of every minute (with the exception of the first minute of the game), the game checks to see if there are any neutrals in their spawns. If there are no neutrals in their spawns, a new set of neutrals is spawned. To trick the game, all you have to do is pull the neutrals at the perfect time and run away (:53) and by the time the clock hits :00 a new set of neutrals will spawn, and the previous set will walk home to realize they have neighbors. This is called stacking, and this is one of the ways you can get your creeps to fight extra creeps. Keep in mind that stacking camps also makes farming gold and exp much faster for heroes with strong Area of Effect (aoe), so if you’re ever running by a camp on your side of the map, make sure to attack the camp at :53 and run away!
Back to pulling, if you stack your pull camp so that a second camp spawns, you now have two times as many creeps attacking your pull camp. This is by far the easiest way to pull safely, but it isn’t the fastest way for your hero to gain levels. The reason is because two camps attacking your creeps at the same time is too much damage. If you use this method for pulling you’ll deny your enemy’s exp, but you won’t get very much exp yourself because few neutrals will be dying each wave. You’ll get more or less depending on which creeps spawn because they do different amounts of damage. When you stack pull, I recommend auto attacking so that you can clear more creeps, unlike I did in this clip.
Stack and Pull
The better way to pull, though more difficult, is to CONNECT the pull. To connect a pull, you’re imitating how you originally got your lane creeps there in the first place. Once the neutral camp is almost finished, you need to have already pulled a different close-by neutral camp into the previous one. If you can accomplish this, then you can clear about two full neutral camps with every creep wave. The time to start the pull is at the :13 second mark or the :43 second mark for both sides of the map, but you may need to adjust the time slightly if you are early or late. Connecting the pull is much harder and will require some eyeballing and practice. Usually when 1 full hp creep and 1 half hp creep are alive is when you should start to pull the second camp down. Each neutral camp is slightly different, so practice on this will make perfect!
Here is a video of a connected pull on both sides of the map. You can practice this in an empty game, if you’re afraid to try it in a real game.
Radiant Pull Through
Dire Pull Through
Make sure that you don’t mess up your pull connect! If you do, your lane will push, which messes up the lane equilibrium. Messing up the lane equilibrium will give your opponents more exp, more chances at last hits, and it makes it harder for you to gank them. It’s much harder to connect the pull on the dire side, so be extra careful on dire.
If you DO want to push, doing a single pull without stacking or pulling through is fine, but it’s rare that you do this on purpose.
Pulling is a really good way to get levels in the early game, and an okay way to get gold. The most important part is that you have two people in ‘one’ lane getting levels, and it denies your opponent from levels because some of the creeps die in the jungle!
Keep in mind that all exp gained by killing enemies is gained by your team in an area, so one hero standing in lane gets all the exp from the creeps in lane, and one person pulling gets all the experience from the neutrals that die near them. If you both stand in lane, you split that same exp equally. One hero pulling and one in lane is much better for exp gain overall for your team.
Following a couple of months of dormancy, iNation come back with a blast as the undertaking at last includes a gaming association rather than just being the name behind a Counter-Strike group.
iNation have declared their arrival to action with the procurement of another squad, which will have uncommon preparing condition by Balkan measures.
iNation, who will be taking part in Rising Stars Balkans, from December 18-20, have the following roster:
Luka “emi” Vuković Nestor “1NTEL” Tanić Đorđe “DJOXiC” Niciforović Aleksa “axeler4” Srećković Marko “shev” Krajčeski
“The players around here always had potential but they never had proper conditions for success,” Trifunović told HLTV.org.
“My goal with this project is to make sure they have those conditions and to give them the chance they deserve.”
Drilled by Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunović, who is currently accountable for coaching sessions at iNation, the group highlight five understood players in the Serbian scene and as of late played in a D!ngIT Weekly Cup under the name CSGO-Saloon.
Valve has been criticized a lot over ranking system in CS:GO, which still accordingly isn’t yet cleared off with doubts. The way ranking system works, how do you rank-up, get de-ranked and how does the system filters your rank changes accordingly in Match-Making system. In this guide below, I’ll truly by means will try to make you people understand on how Counter Strike: Global Offensive: Ranking System works.
To be very honest, I was earlier myself confused over how these ranking system works in CS:GO, being a Counter Strike: 1.6 player for more than a decade, it was quite hard to adapt that Professionalism in CS:GO was determined by ranks and not by gameplay and vice-versa, if you are really good at the game, why would your rank be at diminished state? This, kind of viciously getting revolve around.
In this aide, I will attempt my best to clarify how positioning functions in CSGO and what you require to build your rank. Remember that all that I portray is focused around my individual involvement with incalculable alt accounts and smurfs; as it were I don’t have any official reference for my cases, which is a bit different, as I had CS:GO since the very begining for review purposes but I started to play it regularly after couple of years, so the account was on held to a good friend who is Counter Strike: Global Offensive professional player.Neednot to mention the Pro player thing, but it really changed the way I should have understood the ranking system, as I played my first Match-making with ‘Distinguished Master Gurdian’. Okay, okay, not much into what happend and what not. Lets explore a bit of more on how actually the Ranking system works.
The Ranking System
Silver I
Silver II
Silver III
Silver IV
Silver Elite
Silver Elite Master
Gold Nova I
Gold Nova II
Gold Nova III
Gold Nova Master
Master Guardian I
Master Guardian II
Master Guardian Elite
Distinguished Master Guardian
Legendary Eagle
Legendary Eagle Master
Supreme Master First Class
The Global Elite
Knowing Elo Points System
Each Ranks covers an apparently extensive variety of Elo Points. Case in point, 2 players with the same Rank might not have the same units of Elo Points. A player near to advancement would clearly have more Elo Points than one near to downgrade, despite the fact that both have the same Skill Group (Rank). An aptitude gathering is more like a tag on a certain scope of Elo Points.
One other thing worth specifying is the way that the Elo Point reach considered for choosing a player’s Skill Group is NOT relative. What this sentence means is that for instance if players with Elo Rating of 1000-1500 are viewed as MGE, when a player with 1450 Points picks up 51 more focuses, he will development to DMG however he WILL get downgraded once again to MGE in the event that he loses literally the same 51 focuses in the following recreations. I clarified this on the grounds that an alternate aide guaranteed that the apparently slider utilized for choosing positions gets “reset” on every advancement and/or downgrade which I accept is false. The reason its uncommon to derank on a misfortune instantly in the wake of picking up a rank is on the grounds that its unrealistic to lose enough indicates cause it NOT on account of the focuses are reset.
MVP does NOT produce Elo Points out of slender air, it just concedes a bigger offer of the won focuses. In the event that the player with most Elo Points scores the MVP, he will might get a greater number of focuses than alternate players on the grounds that everything relies on upon the setup of the group and the amount of focuses every player has. In any case as a rule, scoring a MVP will have an enormous effect on the amount of focuses a player gets for a Round Win.
The Beginner Phase
In a specific end goal to accomplish a higher rank after position matches, you must win the early matches. For example, winning the initial 3 matches in a row and getting the 10 wins with 4 aggregate loses will provide for you a higher rank than losing the initial 3 matches in column and getting the 10 wins with 4 aggregate loses.
Here’s an illustration, when a Silver IV solo lines, he will dependably find matches with close expertise aggregates on both sides (cordial and foes). A Silver IV can NEVER be matched even against a solitary Mg2 on the foe group. Notwithstanding, in the event that he lines with an Eagle it will be conceivable. When you’re in position matches, this farthest point is fundamentally evacuated and you will be coercively matched with individuals of significantly higher/lower rank on both sides and therefore increase/lose considerably more Elo Points. After you get 10 wins, you will demonstrate your expertise gathering and whatever is left of the matches will be played out ordinarily.
Factors affecting Ranks / Elo Points
There are two and ONLY two factors that can affect a player’s Elo Points (either gain or loss). The first and foremost is Round Win/Loss; You and other players on your Team will always lose points if a round is Lost. How much point each player loses depends on how much points they had in the beginning. A player with more points would lose more than a player with less points in case a round is lost. It is impossible to gain Elo Points on Round Loss and lose Elo Points on Round Win. The second important factor is MVP; The player with most MVP will most likely gain more Elo Points than others.
So what affects your rank (points gained or lost) in a nutshell is:
Current Elo Points (rank)
Round Win/Loss
MVPs Gained
Rank Upgrade / Downgrade
It’s yet controversial in the observation of the mass community, however, if you have read the explanation of Elo points above, you are likely to be lighter head now. But for the readers who are still unclear, we still have a point to discuss.
Elo Points are directly in proportion to Ranks. For instance, if you are winning rounds and matches with certainity and you are playing average, likely chances are you get more Elo points. More Elo points means you get the much closer to upgrade, even if you loose a match but you have played extra-ordinarily well, chances are you get more Elo Points. And as stated above, MVP’s also lead you to get more Elo’s.
Similarly, the inverse side of the Rank System works pretty much well. The Uprade system will have the exact methodology with inverse after-affects, which accumulates the losses of rounds and not the whole map.
Tie / Draw, Surrender, Kick, & Abandon Functionality
A tied match or a draw would not have any noteworthy or unique contrast contrasted with a win or misfortune on the grounds that its all focused around Round results. Both an advancement and downgrade is extremely conceivable when a Draw happens. In the event that each of the 10 players surrender before the amusement begins, no focuses with be exchanged.
A player who leaves a match will keep any progressions to his Elo Points until the focuses round he takes off. Case in point if a player loses the initial 3 Rounds of the match and fury stops, he will just lose the focuses for those 3 rounds and how his Team performs a while later won’t influence that single person whatsoever. Same is connected in the event that he wins a few adjusts and detaches for any reason. The completed diversion will at present appear as misfortune ever, the additional rounds won or lost at all have no impact on his Elo Points.
The effect of Kick is the same as a standard leave, the primary qualification it that it won’t open the decision to Vote Surrender. So if a Team votes off an individual player, they will simply lose the inclination of keeping their current concentrates through a surrender.
Contradictory Rank Upgrade / Downgrade
There are numerous cases of Ranking-Up on a Game Loss and Deranking on a Game Win, some are with screenshots and/or even features. So one may inquire as to whether its conceivable. Scientifically talking, it is conceivable to derank on Game Win and/or rank-up on a Game Loss which is greatly unlikely and uncommon.In view of how Elo Rating functions in CSGO, it is feasible for an individual player to speculatively pick up enough focuses through Round Wins so as to disregard all the misfortune and development to the following Skill Group.
In any case, the expertise bunch contrast must be extremely inconceivable (i.e. he must be matched against players of higher expertise assembles on adversary group and players of lower or same ability aggregate on agreeable group) and he likewise needs to score most or possibly the majority of the Mvps. All things considered, if his group loses nearly (14:16 i.e.) and he is VERY near to propelling to the following Skill Group, he may have the capacity to get advanced.
If its not too much trouble remember that it is just difficult to addition focuses on ROUND Loss, however it is numerically conceivable to win enough adjusts to increase focuses while even now losing the Best-of-30 Round diversion. Nonetheless, I am unsure on the off chance that its as of now conceivable after the late matchmaking changes and upgrades. The exact opposite can also be true, one player might be able to lose enough points to derank even if he wins a 30 round game.
Smurfs & Boosters
Obverse categories, Smurfs belong to the category of the High-skilled players (Not ranks) playing with Low-level accounts to let them help leveling them up or playing on Low-level accounts to boost them up. For Instance, a player of MG2 or above playing with Silvers on the same lobby might help the Silver to rank-up delicately and pretty quickly.
The other side of the story, Boosters (I dont like them personally), are sort of leechers who desire to get their ranks boosted without struggling or investing time and skills. They choose the path of ‘Hackers’ by getting to play with them and win some matches to rank-up.
FAQs
My colleague won 10 games and they are MG1, I won 50 I am still Gold Nova II. Why?
Basically, the more wins you have the harder it will be for you to Gain/Lose Elo Points. In other words, your rank gets closer to your true skill as you play more and more games. A player with 20 wins is able to rank-up and/or de-rank A LOT faster than one with +100 wins because of this. Please bear in mind that it both affects gaining AND losing Elo Points, so even though you might rank-up slower if you win, you also de-rank slower if you lose.
I am a Silver Elite Master and have won 20+ games, Still no rank upgrade?
There has been a lot of controversy circling around what’s known as Elo Hell. What is Elo Hell? It’s basically the idea that you can be stuck in a lower Rank (usually Silver-spectrum) and have a really hard time climbing up even though your true skill is a lot better. In other words, you can be stuck in Silver for a very long time while winning and top-fragging most of your games without ranking up.
Source: RetriButioN’s Guide on Steampowered.com // www.counter-strike.net
As we continue the fight to push ESEA forward on all fronts, you’d be forgiven if you thought we turned our attention away from regional expansion to focus on other initiatives. In reality though, nothing could be further from the truth, and I’m pleased to take the wraps off of our newest region, ESEA India. – Eric,’Ipkane’ Thunberg.
Things have changed for good now for Indian CS:GO community as world’s one of the largest eSports Entertainment organization have decided to play their cards in world’s largest democracy, India.
ESEA, not to be confused with is yet another independent gaming client which allows you to merge your profile and in-game stats with the official steam mechanism to provide a better and pleasant gaming experience. It requires you a legit steam account with a fair reputed CS:GO game and a Subscription package to play with the client at ESEA servers.
Creating an account
As usual and common on every other platform, ESEA has a very gentle signup process where the first step you got to through is linking your steam profile. This is a very simple as it seems and you need to login to ESEA with your steam account to proceed for further credential creations.
Adding subscription to your account
After setting up your profile for the first time you will be much excited to play your first game on ESEA, but to keep up with the quality of the community elegant and clean from spammers and abusers, ESEA has a mandatory criteria for users to have a subscription active. Which also means that you need a paid premium recurring license to play on the ESEA client.
You can either subscribe to a premium via trial codes (part of a promotional from ESEA) or by paying for subscription on a periodic basis. The monthly subscription comes in a three-legged usership, Premium, Insider and Black. The features are listed in a more detailed manner at ESEA’s subscription page, you can choose a suitable pack for yourself as per your needs.
Managing your ESEA profile
Considering everything goes fine. You are now a paid-user of the ESEA subscription, the first and foremost step is to setup your profile and add some personal and professional details about yourself. Add an avatar, a little bio and you are good to add friends!
DESPITE BEING A GROWING INDUSTRY, INDIAN ESPORTS HAS FAILED TO ATTAIN A DESIRABLE SEX RATIO, AS COMPARED TO WESTERN COUNTRIES SUCH AS USA AND SWEDEN. THE LACK OF FEMALE PROFESSIONALS HAS BEEN DISTINCT OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS. HOWEVER, THE NEGLIGIBLE NUMBER HAS FOUND REPRESENTATION IN THE FORM OF ZERAH GONSALVES.
Better known as Angela, she has been a stalwart of the DOTA 1/2 scene, often playing and shout-casting matches. TalkEsportconducted an exclusive interview with her, regarding the small representation of women in Indian e-sports, tie-up with ZION Rams and the DOTA 2 community.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO COMPETITIVE GAMING AND SHOUT-CASTING IN GENERAL?
Had watched number of friends play competitive DOTA 2 and always wondered about the pressure, the environment and the skill required for it. Never really thought I could reach that level, but once I did, I was also into shout-casting, which I preferred as it forced me to learn the game faster on the professional level and had to keep myself updated with the meta-game. Also, shout-casting came to me through a Sri-Lankan tournament. While competitive gaming came due my friends.
I’M SURE YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION BEFORE, BUT HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT BEING A GIRL IN THE FLEDGLING INDIAN E-SPORTS INDUSTRY?
On the contrary, I would say that the Indian e-sports community has been more supportive, there have been times when I would question myself in terms of the community accepting me in a different role ( e.g., Hostess at Games Arena Game God ) but with a bit of luck and community acceptance I could go ahead and make the most of it.
Coming back to the topic, when I first started out as a caster, I got mixed reviews but also the fact of me being a girl caster worked in my favour as there was more scope for a female caster than that of a male.
DO YOU PLAY OTHER TITLES OUTSIDE DOTA 2?
Yes, of course. Left 4 dead 2 (one of my fav’s), Portal 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO, League of Legends, Speed runners ( more of a fun oriented game but also helps in improving reaction time), OSU also helps improve reaction time.
PS4 – FIFA 15, The Crew, Injustice, WWE :D, Gears of war.
COULD YOU EXPLAIN TO US, YOUR TIE-UP WITH ZION RAMS?
I always appreciate companies which think beyond sales, ZionRAM has been one of those which is steering the luck of boosting eSports in the country. I am very glad and proud to get associated with them!
ARE YOU COMPLETELY INTO E-SPORTS OR ARE YOU PURSUING ANOTHER PROFESSION ON THE SIDE?
I am studying game designing on the side, but more towards the part of understanding the making of a game, more than making it a career in the future. I could say that my curiosity towards gaming has made me take this program. As of now I am completely into e-sports and would like to continue pursing it as a profession.
YOU ARE FROM BANGALORE; DO YOU THINK THE CITY HAS THE STRONGEST COMMUNITY IN THE COUNTRY?
I wouldn’t use the word strongest but definitely one that could be, given the right people to manage the scene. At the moment, players are not looking at things at a serious note. Which is also due to lack of backup given to them. The more professional the organizations/ the team management gets, the stronger the community will prove to be.
DO YOU THINK THERE IS ENOUGH REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE INDIAN E-SPORTS INDUSTRY? WHAT CAN BE DONE TO INCREASE THE NUMBER?
No, there aren’t enough women in the Indian e-sports industry. But there definitely are lot of women who love to play different games, example – games like Temple run, “ Candy Crush which has the highest amount of women playing the game “, reason being it was advertised well and is easy to access and play.
The problem with Indian e-sports industry is that we do not promote it well or educate the public, which is to change their mentality and show them how gaming can be taken as a profession and has more scope than just time consuming. Also having more events, tournaments and promotional activities would help not only increase the women gamers but also gamers in general.
SINCE YOU JOINED E-SPORTS, HAVE YOU SEEN A CHANGE IN THE SCENE IN INDIA?
I have been in the scene for almost 5 years. Initially when I started playing Dota 1, I didn’t really have much knowledge of the scene. I got myself involved into the scene in 2013 through shout-casting. There were few casters back then, which of course has changed a lot as we can see many new casters have emerged. As per the scene, the tournament prize pool as well as the player base has increased drastically. Also now it’s not only about being top in India.
WHERE DO YOU SEE INDIAN E-SPORTS IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?
Tricky question. I say it could go both ways, depending on how the sponsors, organizers, teams and players work with each other. We could either be struggling or be booming.
Wohoo! It finally has made its way to the official Dictionary.com, which also means, no-more explanations on what E-sports.. Esports defines? and how to make people recognize or understand the word without any brief description. It is no more a foreign word.
In a recent release of the list of fresh words added into the dictionary, the word which most importantly means everything for us and everyone of you, made it course to be officially noted into the Dictionary.com word directory with the brief explanation, ‘competitive tournaments of video games’.
“We rely on research in traditional publications, as well as technology like corpus research. In our case, we are currently using a corpus that has over 19 billion words,” it wrote. “The corpus contains a massive collection of sources, from literature to news articles to television and interview transcripts, balanced to reflect actual usage of language.”
Other game-related terms joining the new word parade are “permadeath” (the permanent death of a defeated character, after which the player of the game cannot continue with the same character) and “completionist” (a player who attempts to complete every challenge and earn every achievement or trophy in a video game). But clearly, “esports” is the important addition this time around.
Abacus has introduce a new mid-range graphics card called INNO3D GeForce GTX 950.
This is a true gaming GPU designed for every PC gamer. It’s built to the exacting specifications of the GeForce GTX family and powered by NVIDIA Maxwell the most advanced GPU architecture ever created—to deliver up to 3x the performance of previous-generation cards. It delivers incredible performance and unmatched power efficiency.
And just when you thought what else does this card have let us tell you it is HerculesZ modular design which makes it easy to clean and install with fan design made with japan bearings allowing 24X7 operations, reduced fan noise and is 3times more durable.
Plus, it offers cutting-edge features like advanced sampling and Dynamic Super Resolution technology that delivers 4K-quality gaming even on 1080p displays. This ground breaking new display technology delivers the smoothest and fastest gaming experience ever. G-SYNC’s revolutionary performance is achieved by synchronizing display refresh rates to the GPU in your GeForce® GTX™ powered PC, eliminating screen tearing and minimizing display stutter and input lag. Scenes appear instantly, objects look sharper, and gameplay is super smooth, giving you a stunning visual experience and a serious competitive edge.
This card is now available in the market at the price of 14495/-. Abacus peripherals Pvt ltd are the national distributors for NVidia INNO 3D graphic cards. For more details on price and purchase write to [email protected]
About Abacus Peripherals is one of the reputed distributors in the country with over 18 years of presence in IT Distribution and Manufacturing. Today Abacus has 28 branches offices across India ready to cater need of the industry for all computer and peripherals.
Abacus has launched a new mid-range motherboard called BIOSTAR H81MHV3.
Biostar H81MHV3 motherboard is a built on improved version of the prior entry level Biostar H81MLV3 with higher specification and new technology in the Biostar family. The product extends beyond your normal motherboard experience to provide you with excellent 6+ experience in Audio, Video, Speed, Protection, Durability and DIY.
The H81MHV3 gives users an additional HDMI port and Giga LAN providing them with a better internal LAN speed. The H81 chipset has two SATA 6Gb/s ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports. It also supports two DIMMs for a maximum 16GB of RAM. It features the latest technologies in Biostar such as BIOS Flasher and Biostar Online Updater for easy updating and restoration of the BIOS, as well as BIO-Remote2 for remote system control via Android and Apple devices.
The motherboard is now available in the market. Abacus Peripherals Pvt. Ltd. is the national distributor for Biostar Motherboards for over a decade. For more details on price and purchase write to [email protected].
Abacus Peripherals is one of the reputed distributors in the country with over 18 years of presence in IT Distribution and Manufacturing. Today Abacus has 28 branches offices across India ready to cater need of the industry for all computer components and peripherals.
Sorcery 
Heal
Ghost
Lux
( more of a fun oriented game but also helps in improving reaction time), OSU also helps improve reaction time.
