MagikarpUsedFly released a video last week about his first moments playing League of Legends and it got me thinking about my first time in the game that has swallowed my life. I was a freshman in college with very few friends, looking to just get the attention of anyone I could. I went to a commuter school, which didn’t really have a sense of “community” or an “ability to talk to people outside of classes.” That would be except for one place that accepted all people regardless of who they were: the cigarette smoker’s pit.
I don’t smoke cigarettes and never will (no judgment), but I gravitated towards these people standing outside of the campus building. They looked just as miserable as I felt, so I fit right in. Talking with a few gathered vagabonds one day, a kid who I had barely talked to, named Doc, started ranting about this game he’s been playing for years called League of Legends . I had heard of it, but I was never a fan of PVP. I preferred to fight enemies that were just a bunch of zeros and ones that couldn’t tell me how bad I was playing.
Doc hyped himself up as an amazing player, one who would be willing to spend some time teaching a noob like me a bit about his League. That night I downloaded the client and saw my first loading screen with Aatrox. If any other champion had been on that landing page, I doubt I would have even given the game a chance. Vi, Shyvanna or even Teemo would have looked too cartoony and I would probably have a bunch of hours of my life back.
I vividly remember my first few games, trying to learn what the hell I was supposed to be doing. They were all played on Twisted Treeline, a map I haven’t touched since, either to avoid painful memories or just because it’s boring (most likely the latter). Riot gives you a few free champions to start off with, and then lets you pick from the free champions that get rotated in. In my first game of League of Legends , I jumped straight into Anivia.
Anivia is not a newbie-friendly champion; she has the hardest auto attacks in the game to land and her skills require a ton of aim. I didn’t know how to play her correctly, I just assumed you were supposed to wait until level six to actually farm the creeps; auto attacking was more of a suggestion than a necessity. I even used my free RP to buy the bird (which was also how I used my first refund). I told Doc how Anivia was now my “main” and he says “maybe you should try someone else?”
I miss those days of naiveté, when I would just pick one of the three lanes and tower dive my opponent over and over. There was no need for strategy or meta picks, just a bunch of cool fantasy tropes punching each other into oblivion.
Eventually, I started playing more than Doc, hitting Gold before he got out of Bronze. Sometimes I see him in-game, grinding that ELO as an ADC main. I’m not sure whether to thank him or call him a bunch of swear words, so I just spectate his games in silent judgment.
