Honorbound156

My coaching style is relaxed, informal, and individually focused on what each student needs. For some students, they need broad changes to mindset, others just need 3-5 small points to improve and optimize to tighten their gameplay up and climb. Many students just need affirmation that they are doing the right things and need to commit to repetitions and confidence in making plays.

I look for opportunities to find the students biggest weaknesses, and guide the student patiently through a path to improvement and growth.

I spend a lot of time playing in different ELOs in the ranked ladder. I play 1k+ games per season, as well as keep track of patch notes and strategies from both smurves on the ladder as well as higher ELO patterns. I also play in customs servers with other better players, to keep an ear to changes in the game in their experiences.

I can work with accounts in the Iron-Emerald range on most champs Toplane, and select champs in other the other roles. For the most part, "boosting" isn't usually worth the time, because the amount you can earn on it isn't proportional to the time you have to spend.

When I do a work with someone, it's usually for a student that genuinely has improved a ton or has an alt that they have gotten much higher on, but their main account is mired in iron or bronze or some such.

Every player needs something different to grow and improve. Many need a shift in their mindset about how to approach the game and think about it, many others are just missing a lot of game knowledge that they need to be able to make better opportunity-cost decisions. Some are really hung up on trading, micro mistakes, key binds, and other issues. During sessions I work to identify which
of these is holding the student back, and focus on helping them realize what the issue is and how they can grow and overcome these.

Mindset often takes helping a student see the benefit of focusing and staying locked in a better mindset during games.

Game knowledge is easily fixable by showing students aspects of the game, such as gold value of plays, roam timers, jungle tracking, wave control, itemization, champion archetypes, etc.

Micro is the hardest to teach since it has to be practiced into muscle memory, but giving the student 3-5 important micro aspects to focus on and improve is helpful.

To analyze gameplay, I focus on the intention of the player in the moment, what they are aware of and trying to accomplish with their play, and then compare that with what is the ideal play for the moment based on the info that is available to them in that moment. Often they won't gather all the relevant information, such as missing the jungler pathing up to them, which is negative and can ruin the play, but they could be focusing on the wave and the dive and reset timers correctly, which are all perfect. Looking at this play as wrong because the result was wrong isn't usually helpful.

Instead, calling out all of the correct aspects of the play, and then adding in the need to track and learn the piece that was missed to improve, is the best way to analyze and improve. This is especially true because it helps the player feel confident and seen, while also showing them what is usually a consistent flaw in their gameplay and game sense, that when they fix it, will give them 3-5%+ WR.

For the most part, the strategy that I work to impart most to students is a strategic, macro oriented style to approach the game. Usually I emphasize aspects of the game like rotations, wave control, reset timings, itemization, efficiency, drafting selection, team-fighting, game planning, and the mental side of the game. I don't tend to focus on mechanical or micro-oriented part of the game, such as trading, combo's, or team-fighting.

I offer 4 different sessions, or ways to help players improve. The most common coaching I do is called earpiece coaching, in which I watch the player in a game live in discord and give direction, ask them questions about what they are seeing and thinking, and note issues with everything from key binds and camera control to decision making and strategy.

There are pros and cons to live coaching, so in some situations, I'll instead opt for the second type of session, which is VOD review. When reviewing a VOD of the client's gameplay, the main issue is that you can't see the players camera control usually, or their reasoning in the moment. However, you can give the student a more direct lesson, at their own pace, answer their questions while they can see the plays, and give them example based learning.

The other, less common options are 1) playing the student's champion in their ELO and showing them how to execute to win or to 1 vs. 1 spar with the student on their difficult matchups.

I've only coached two teams, for a total of about 1 year. One high-school team, and one international. Coaching a team is interesting, but usually very difficult, because not only do you have to positionally improve each player, but also holistically improve the coordination and often communication of a set of players, who've often brought bad habits in from solo-queue, whether it be ego, frustration, or just individualistic gameplay.

The most important aspect to working with a team, to me, is getting them on the same page in terms of comms, and get each player empathizing with the decisions and situations of other players on the team and their roles. Secondarily, helping the team to get into a growth mindset.

I work with clients through discord primarily. We can call directly or they can join the community discord server. After the session, they can also message me directly with questions and situational issues.

There are tons of reviews on Fiverr from my clients who have improved by working with me and felt the immediate impact of focusing on improving and learning how to correct their mistakes.

I've also had quite a few really good success stories from my time coaching. On two different occasions I had the opportunity to coach players who were new to the game and had only been playing for 3-6 months. One player was a jungler who was in high Silver we worked together. He came to my stream around a year later, and he had just cracked master. Another student was completely new, and 2 years later was Grandmaster.

Both of these were students that put in a ton of time, effort, focus, and were really gifted players of course, but to have an opportunity to work with them and speed up the beginning of their journey, to prevent them from building bad habits to later unlearn, and to focus on fundamentals and a good mindset and focus, has been an especially bright point in my time as a coach.

For hiring a coach, make sure that you find someone who is a good and focused coach, rather than a player. Being high ELO as a player doesn't always correlate to being a strong mentor and being able to break down concepts and ideas in a way that you can learn from them. Your personalities and goals have to line up.

The other most important thing, is that you will get out of coaching as much as you put into it. You need to listen closely, check your ego, open your mind to new ways of thinking about the game and plays, and put in a lot of practice and repetitions with the advice and wisdom given.