What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This saying truly makes sense in the context of the competition we’ve just spent about 3 months participating in on League of Legends*. The difference is, we died, quite a few times actually (421 to be precise).

We went up against players stronger than us, and even though losing is never fun (let's be honest), we can’t deny that we had a blast. We wanted to share with you the feelings and lessons learned by the last team of the Corporate League, sometimes nicknamed “the red lantern” or even “the doormat”, because behind all those computers and failed moves, there are hearts beating.

The wolves come out of hiding

It all started with an email exchange from our dear Suzanne, Head Coach People at Insign: “How about joining a competition on LoL?”. The answer was clear, and for the first time, the gamers of the agency found themselves in the same email loop. None of us even suspected that more of us were engaged in big battles in the realm of Hyrule or on the Summoner’s Rift after work. With as many occupations as there are different locations, a team of people who had sometimes never met began to take shape.

Once we had our list of potential players, we assessed our levels: 2 silver, 1 bronze, and 7 beginners. For those not in the know, we can put it differently: we were weak. But the desire, will, and enthusiasm were strong. So, competing against tougher opponents? No fear at all ;)

Time is XP

Quickly, the best among us took the lead of our team. With two very patient captains, we soon started spending our evenings on Discord to practice. And what’s amazing is that our captains quickly became outstanding managers: organizing, teaching, planning, advising, and all of this with no training ;)

“How about one more?” became a common phrase during weekdays and weekends alike. At first, it wasn't easy because LoL is a game demanding both strategy and operational skills, but fun always took over. We kept training (to be honest, we only had 5 days) until the first official Corporate League match arrived.

“A tough blow for the French player.”

The first matches were nerve-wracking. Worrisome because we’d been playing together for 5 days, our opponents had been practicing for months, and they had hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of gameplay advantage over us.

From the draft phase (picking champions) that precedes the start of the match, the pressure was so high, we forgot what we were supposed to do. Between misclicks**, troll picks***, and other target bans****, the match began emotionally before even the first seconds into the Summoner’s Rift.

When the match started, the anxiety didn’t decrease: “What do we do? Do we invade*****? Do we counter invade******? We must have vision of this area before them! Why didn’t you tell me he was missing from your lane?”, “Oops, I forgot to buy items..”.

Often the game didn’t last long, and our morale wasn’t great at the end of it. Yet, we immediately returned to the official game client to start again, always with the same goal: to improve.

The dead sheep no longer fears the wolf.

After our many defeats, the team shifted its mindset. Understanding it was going to be very difficult to win a match, we decided to surprise our opponents with questionable moves: doing whatever it took to get the First Blood against them even if it meant dying (hello Orange), changing lanes at the start of the game, picking an unknown champion (yes, totally planned...).

We also lowered our objectives: we didn’t want to win, we aimed to last at least 25 minutes, steal drakes (Thibault’s specialty), and have one of our successful actions featured in a best-of the competition.

...not forgetting to have fun, because that’s the essence of it all!

The result? We pulled it off ;)

Preserve appearances and you preserve everything.

Just because we lost doesn’t mean we can’t live our pro-gamer experience. So, even as rookies, we wanted to do what we do best: our communication (it's our job after all). Showcasing the Starting Five on the Summoner’s Rift, player cards with our respective skills, Tweets with the casters... Nothing was going to rob us of this experience.

So yes, we won’t be at the finals. We'll remain in front of our screens, wearing our colors, and patiently await our turn.

Finally, thank you:

• To our enthusiastic volunteer coaches who helped, kept us laughing, supported, and put up with us. So, thanks to you: Antho and Choco.

• To those in the agency and beyond who supported us!

• To the players of other teams with whom we shared good laughs, and to the overall great atmosphere of the competition.

• Finally, to our unicorn team, we promised not to let go of each other. We wish to keep progressing together and to come back stronger in a few months, who knows!

So, GG team and WP ;)

Armand, Aurélie, Faly, Guillaume, Krystel, Maëva, Thibaut.

*Competition organized by Team Vitality and Riot Games, the first corporate competition on the game League of Legends in Europe. League of Legends accounts for 110 million players worldwide.
** Misclick: Clicking error
*** Troll Picks: Absolutely non-strategic choice of a character
**** Target ban: Banning the champion with which the opposing player has the best skills at the start of the game
***** Invade: Invading the enemy’s jungle
****** Counter Invade: Invading the enemy’s jungle while they invade