Summary of "How To Review Your Games | Broken by Concept 191 | League of Legends Podcast"
How To Review Your Games | Broken by Concept 191 | League of Legends Podcast
Overview
This episode focuses on the importance of reviewing your League of Legends games to improve learning, gameplay, and climbing the ranked ladder. The hosts share deep insights into the learning process, expert development, and practical reviewing techniques drawn from their extensive experience coaching and analyzing thousands of games.
Storyline & Key Concepts
Why Reviewing is Crucial
- League is a competitive game with a professional scene; effective reviewing leads to long-term improvement.
- Reviewing is about learning efficiently and completing the learning cycle.
- Players who review consistently tend to outperform those who don’t, especially at higher ranks.
Stages of Learning Model (Relevant to League)
- Unconscious Incompetence: Don’t know what you don’t know (beginner phase).
- Conscious Incompetence: Aware of what you don’t know.
- Conscious Competence: Can perform skills but requires focus.
- Unconscious Competence: Skills become intuitive, freeing mental resources.
Most players plateau at conscious competence; reaching unconscious competence is key to climbing.
What Makes an Expert (Based on Veritasium’s Chess Experiment)
- Experts recognize patterns (chunking) due to extensive practice.
- Chess masters memorized meaningful game positions quickly, amateurs and beginners could not.
- In League, this translates to pattern recognition and game sense developed through repeated reviewing and experience.
Four Criteria for Expertise
- Many Repeated Attempts with Feedback: Continuous practice with feedback loops.
- Valid Environment: League’s structured environment (one map, set rules) supports learning.
- Timely Feedback: Immediate feedback accelerates learning.
- Deliberate Practice: Constantly pushing beyond comfort zones and challenging oneself to improve.
Learning Cycle / Feedback Loop
- Make a decision → Observe outcome → Reflect → Apply learnings in next attempt.
- League’s complexity and variability make completing the cycle challenging but critical.
Intuition & Muscle Memory
- Reviewing builds intuition/game sense, allowing players to react quickly in-game.
- Even if a situation never repeats exactly, reviewing similar scenarios helps build pattern recognition.
- Natural competitive players often review in-game subconsciously, but explicit reviewing is more efficient.
Evolution of Their Review Process
- Initially focused on big moments (team fights) without context.
- Realized the importance of reviewing early game (first 8 minutes) as it heavily influences the rest of the game.
- Emphasized jungle role’s impact on early game and how early mistakes snowball.
- Developed a process that looks beyond isolated moments to understand the lead-up and root causes.
Practical Review Techniques & Tips
Defining Review
Watching your own game from your point of view (POV) rather than just relying on client stats.
End of Review Moment
Identify the moment where you lose control or can no longer play according to your champion’s identity. Focus on understanding why you failed to execute your champ’s core game plan.
Micro-Macro Framework (Core Technique)
- Micro: Analyze ability usage, positioning, target selection, and fight execution.
- Macro: Zoom out to evaluate if the play was even a good idea strategically (timing, objectives, map state).
Always start with micro; sometimes better micro can salvage a bad macro decision.
Exploratory Reviews
When unsure what to focus on, review confusing or pivotal moments to identify patterns. Useful when plateaued or lacking specific learning objectives.
Feelings-Based Reviews
Use moments where you felt uncomfortable or unsure as a guide for review focus.
ACE Method (Coach Cupcake)
- Acknowledge the best play.
- Communicate the best play.
- Embrace reality (accept what happened and adapt).
Useful both in-game and during reviews to maintain a pragmatic mindset.
Surface Level vs Root Cause
- Avoid only noticing obvious mistakes (e.g., ability misusage).
- Dig deeper into why mistakes happened (e.g., mindset, pressure, wrong decision-making).
- Ask: “If I were in this situation again, what would I do differently?”
Reviewing Deaths
Analyze not only your mistakes but also the enemy’s intentions and kit interactions. Put yourself in the enemy’s shoes to understand their decisions.
The 28-Second Rule (Junglers)
After making a play, consider what happens 28 seconds later (8 seconds recall + 20 seconds back on the map). Helps evaluate efficiency and map presence.
Learning Objectives
- Not mandatory but very helpful to focus your review.
- Helps streamline the process by narrowing down what to look for (e.g., ability usage, early game trades).
- Can be flexible: have a main objective but stay open to other observations.
- Avoid trying to solve everything in one review; focus on manageable chunks.
Common FAQs
How to Start Reviewing? Start simple: review your first two deaths. Pick one ability or aspect to focus on. Keep reviews short (1-5 minutes).
What if I Can’t Find Mistakes? Likely not curious or deep enough. Look beyond deaths: missed objectives, poor positioning, late rotations. Sometimes you just got lucky; don’t over-review wins.
Review Wins or Losses? Both are important. Wins help break false narratives and reinforce good habits. Losses help identify mistakes and areas to improve.
Making Same Mistakes Repeatedly? Could be surface-level reviews, lack of muscle memory, or not addressing root causes. May need external perspective (coach, friends).
Bad Reviews Look Like: - Confirmation bias (only looking for evidence supporting your narrative). - Blaming teammates instead of focusing on personal responsibility. - Ignoring root causes.
Best Time to Review? When you can be objective. Sometimes immediately after a game; other times the next day. Avoid reviewing when emotionally tilted.
Watching High Elo or Pro Games? Useful for ability usage and team fighting. Better to watch players in your own region and rank for macro understanding. Korean or Chinese games can differ significantly in pace and style.
Final Advice
- Reviewing is a skill that requires practice and patience.
- Start small, be curious, and focus on learning rather than results.
- The goal is to complete the learning cycle efficiently and build intuition.
- Consistent reviewing combined with deliberate practice is the key to climbing and improving.
Featured Gamers & Sources
- Veritasium (expertise and chess pattern recognition video)
- Coach Cupcake (ACE method)
- References to professional players like Jojo Pan (ex-Fortnite pro turned top Zed player)
- Personal experiences and coaching insights from the podcast hosts (Salto and MLA)
End of Summary
Category
Gaming
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