In this article I want to focus on giving you some examples of public references and information while trying to identify if league of legends players are smart. I have split the question in three main groups of people: Streamers, Casual players and Professional players. One thing to understand here it’s very difficult to generalize about this but we will try to shed some light on the two main categories that are pretty niche and share characteristics.
More particularly we will focus on the professional league of legend players and the streamers. For the middle category which is the casual players it’s hard to make any assumptions as it has a vast range of people from different backgrounds and levels of intelligence.
Before I jump into it just know that intelligence is a complex trait that can be difficult to measure, and it’s not fair to make assumptions about a person’s intelligence based on their profession or skill level in a specific activity. All the views and opinions below are completely subjective and only my own. Make your own assumptions based on what I write here.
Are League Of Legends Streamers Smart
I’ve been watching a lot of popular streamers play the game and I will try to give you my point of view on some of them and how I think this relates to their intelligence. Just as a note I don’t think there’s any relevance between intelligence and lol player streamers. This changes however as the players reach higher levels in the game like Master level+. Lets go over the list of some of them.
- Boxbox – Known for his strong macro play and ability to lead his team to victory.
- LS – A former professional player and coach, LS is known for his deep understanding of the game and ability to break down complex strategies for his viewers.
- Phreak – A former professional player and current analyst for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), Phreak is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the game and ability to predict player and team movements.
- Sjokz – A prominent esports journalist and host, Sjokz is known for her thorough research and ability to ask incisive questions during interviews with players and coaches.
- Imaqtpie – A former professional player and popular streamer, Imaqtpie is known for his quick decision-making and ability to adapt to changing situations in-game. Hey also he is an entertainer and amusing while he’s playing. This is a very difficult thing to do when streaming at high diamond games and at the same time having a cool head to make jokes. I believe he’s one of the best and most intelligent streamers out there.
- Tyler1 – Tyler1 is a popular League of Legends streamer and has achieved a high level of skill in the game, which suggests that he has a strong understanding of the game and its strategies. I do believe he has some rage issues but the guy overall is a pretty good player and will generally outplay you even if you don’t want to accept that.
Are League Of Legends Professional Players Smart
In this category things change slightly and the reason for this is that to play at a very high level of this game due to how competitive it is you kind of need to have a high level of intelligence. Meaning you need to be patient, avoid getting tilted and generally have a strong personality towards disciplining yourself and recovering from a catastrophic loss.
These attributes above in my opinion suggest a bit higher than usual intelligence level and can definitely give an edge to someone that posses them. Below I have assembled a list on my findings of some professional players that I consider intelligent.
- Faker – A South Korean player who is widely considered to be one of the greatest players of all time. He is known for his deep understanding of the game and ability to make quick, decisive plays. Faker knows when to take risks and when to back off. I think his defining attribute and why I think he’s smart is that he has the insight of understanding the opponent. He will study your patterns and how you respond to certain things. Sometimes he will often try to bait you into a situation and see how you react to it. From this he will learn your weakness and eventually try to exploit it. All of the above are signals of a very smart person and I think faker is indeed pretty intelligent and not just in the game.
- Uzi – A Chinese player known for his aggressive playstyle and excellent positioning in team fights. His defining personality towards provoking the opponents he’s facing is what puts him apart from the crowd. I think he has the ability to understand very well how and when to engage in a team fight which involves 9 other people. This means his brain can think in a macro level pretty well and understand the fast paced fight.
- Bang – Another South Korean player known for his strong macro play and ability to make smart decisions in-game. Since he knows very well how to navigate the map he tends to think two steps ahead and predict what the opponents tend to do. I have been amazed with him and his skill shots literally predicting the every move of the enemy team. That makes Bang in my opinion a fairly smart guy.
- Rekkles – A European player known for his strong mechanical skills and ability to carry games with his marksman play. The guy has consistently performed well for many years. I think his persistence and ability to deal well under pressure and recover even a losing lane shows how smart he is into disciplining himself and coming back to the game.
- Forgiven – He was one of these pros that are not very well known who has played for various teams in the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and the European Challenger Series. He is known for his strong mechanical skills and aggressive playstyle, and has consistently performed well in professional matches. I think what sets him apart for me is how well he does when participating in a team fight. He’s gameplay is basically flawless and he very rarely makes a mistake even at the micro level of the game such as moving and attacking.
Intelligence LOL Elo Relation
Finally I want to talk a bit about a correlation between Elo and intelligence. Essentially I have a graph below which shows the higher your Elo rank is the higher your intelligence is. Do I think this is super accurate? No but there definitely seems to be a pattern there. Offcourse ranking up in the game has a lot of different factors which I go over in my other guide here:
How to climb from Iron to Gold in league of legends
But I think intelligence may play a minor role in all of this. Along with discipline and other factors.
Keep a note here that as you go up in higher elos I think intelligence will come more into play. The difference there is more of a psychological game on outplaying your opponent and finding out their mistakes. Since most players have the same game knowledge in macro and micro more over especially in Challenger and pro play you need to make the different on being smarter! Sure the micro and macro play matters too but what matters most is understanding how to defeat your opponent.