Surviving 3k: Just Arriving

You've just made it to 3k MMR. Either you got your grind on and raised your MMR or this is where you, like me, were placed. The 3k MMR landscape is diverse in terms of talent, hero selection, and individual player strategy. It's not uncommon to have an ancients farming medusa go for midas and treads into rapier and carry the game. Don't fall into this trap, however. Here are some survival tips you can employ as soon as you start trying to climb the ladder to 4k.

• Don't jungle, unless it's a hero I highlighted here.
• If your team needs a support, pick it.
• If you're the hard support, I suggest getting courier, sentries, tangos, and a clarity (as per fluff)
• Always, and I mean always, play to win. Don't give up if you're behind 10 or even 20 kills. Games are swingy.
• Identify the best player on your team and ensure they have a good game.
• Don't ever farm ancients.
• Midas isn't a very good item this patch unless you get it before 6 minutes.
• When you get crushed by a single player, go back and watch how they crushed you.
• When you crush a team, go back and watch what enabled you to crush them.
• Help your supports with wards and sentries.
• Buy smokes and set up kills.
• Help zone the offlaner whether you're support or carry.

These are just a few general things to help improve your play so you can continue your progress in the 3k bracket. It's important to keep focusing on the basics of surviving 3k MMR because once you get them down, you can start focusing on playing like a 4k player. 

Developing the mindset of a winner

Every once and a while, I find myself sliding from 3.6k to 3.4k MMR or lower with a series of games, most of which I couldn’t have done anything to change the outcome. When this happens, I need to refresh my mindset because it’s draining. I don’t want to get caught up in the negative aspect of the game I just played. To avoid this, I take advantage of two powerful feedback mechanisms that everyone has: reframing and perspective. The reframe changes your mind set from your current state to a desired state. Perspective gives you a reference point for progress in your game. With these two strategies, I perpetuate the mindset of a winner.

I am a senior electrical/computer engineering (EE or ECE) student at a small private college. The EE curriculum is a mix of required classes and technical electives.  The one technical elective that all EEs should take is control systems. In controls, the idea is to keep a system stable, i.e. keep the system from tilting, using a certain type of controller.  You mind operates on some of the same principles which means it’s up to you to control your attitude. A very easy way to do this is called the reframe. The idea is that every time you feel yourself descending into a mindset that you don’t want to identify with, you physically and mentally change that mindset. There are a few simple strategies you can employ to do this:

-          Tell yourself something out loud. Phrases like “I’m still the best”, “even good players have bad games”, and “I’ll get them next time” can go a long way to improving your attitude.

-          Watch a replay of yourself playing well, a highlight reel (like DOTA Cinema’s Symphony of Skills) or favorite player. These will help get your head back into a winning mindset

-          Develop a pre- and post-game routine. There’s a reason sports teams huddle together to pump each other up before and shake hands after a game – it works! This doesn’t have to be some super in depth ritual. I always begin my DOTA session by watching some live games to get myself in the right mind set and get some water after each game to walk around.

In controls, the reframe would be called a feedback approach and the perspective a feedforward approach. Basically, you use the game you’re playing today to influence the game you will play tomorrow.  While you’re playing the game, the only moment that exists is the current one. After the game is over, you can look at the whole game, noticing how certain events shaped each team’s play. This information translates into a greater understanding of how to play in those situations the next time they come around. If you watch professional players, they do this as they play because their reference experience is so large that they see minute details and courses of action that the average doesn’t. They then translate this into an advantage and that advantage into a win.

When you combine these two ideas, you create a potent control system for your game. It helps you stay positive, get more enjoyment out of the game and progress as a player. In order to really embrace these ideas, you need to do them constantly so that they become part of your normal thought patterns. Remember, however, to only focus on improving one thing at a time. I would recommend starting with learning to reframe because the time investment is smaller and you will see results from it sooner.