Ever wondered how a modern day player would fare if they could travel back in time and play competitively in an older version of the game they love?
For big online games like League of Legends, which have been around long enough to evolve over time, it might be a question worth asking.
This is seemingly what has prompted a League player on Reddit to propose a little thought experiment. If we could drop one of today’s average master tier players into the 2011 version of the game, how would they do?
League of Legends Redditors Speculate About Sending a Current Player Back In Time
Posting to begin the thread, user Hababa81 set up the scenario, dictating that the player from today would have all of their skills intact and, crucially, knowledge of all of the upcoming content set to hit the game over the next few years.
They’d be faced with the 2011 League landscape, at which point the game’s competitive elements were early in development, but beginning to forge momentum, with Hababa81 pointing out: “Season 1 championship was in June 2011 and there were plenty of online and offline tournaments already. There were already established teams and household names.”
Hababa81 ended the post by asking the community if they thought the player would have a chance at being the best in the world or whether they’d quickly be sent back to the level they’re at in 2022 League.
The top responses to this metaphysical query referenced the infamous butterfly effect, which notoriously suggests that changes to the past will affect the present.
User dahyunxsana pointed out that the player could make serious money betting on the results of League tournaments, while imperialleon mused: “if they become good enough to go pro that might affect the timeline”.
Another user, sznfrk, suggested the result could vary based on the champion pool the player encountered, but added that regardless of this: “their meta knowledge would mean that whatever team they were playing on would be 10000x better”.
An additional factor to consider would be the differences between gameplay in today’s version of the game and that of 2011, with chameleonTOWL describing that 2011 League was “slower, more clunky, and with different runes and skills and ratios”.
Other users disagreed over how well equipped the 2011 players would be to fight against their modern invader, with cortseam suggesting that while the modern player might shoot to the top initially, the rest of the players would improve and eventually catch up by picking up the new techniques the modern player would be using.
On the other hand, waytooeffay believed that people were overestimating how advanced the 2011 League environment was, saying: “To put it into perspective, basic wave management concepts didn't exist at all for at least a few more years, even at the absolute highest level of play.
Regardless of whether the player would sink or swim, it’s probably best that we don’t muck around with our timeline.
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