Sometimes the reason you lose isn't the game, but the person staring back at you in the mirror

hu·bris

/ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/

noun

1. excessive pride or self-confidence.

So I went up against a fellow Twitch streamer in a match last night -- I was playing Demo and running my standard build for him these days (Corrupt, Pain Resonance, and STBFL -- with the new Dead Man's Switch added in over BBQ to see how it worked on him), We ended up on Gas Heaven, not a great map for killer but certainly not the worst.

The match ended up a slaughter -- I two-hooked everyone before killing the Twitch person first (he was simply the unlucky one I found at that point). The team got one gen done (right at the end of the match), and I gave a Nea who begged for her life the hatch. I was literally ending chases immediately (the Twitch guy couldn't go more than 15-20 seconds in chase without going down).

I'm a Rank 1 killer -- but I know Rank doesn't mean everything, and I know that doesn't mean I'm actually THAT good, and I'm well aware of it, I know I need a LOT of work on a lot of my killers, on my gameplay in general, and I have no illusions about my skill -- or lack of it -- at times. When I lose, I try not to blame the usual suspects -- SWF, busted maps, RNG, busted perks, etc. -- even if they do play a part. I try to tell myself I need to get better, and I look for areas where I need to improve. Overall, I thought I played a really solid match, but the survivors weren't the best I'd normally go against (SBMM prioritizing queue times would be my guess for the lobby I got).

Normally, I'll drop in to say GG to the Twitch streamer if they're live, drop them a follow (and hope for one in return), and wish them good luck. When I went to their stream, they seemed a bit -- salty -- for lack of a better term, so in this case, I did none of the above. Instead, I decided I'd watch their VOD later on, after I was done with my own gameplay.

The Twitch guy was a Rank 1 survivor (again, for whatever that's actually worth). When I watched his VOD, over the course of the match, he did all of the following:

-- Went down almost instantly in chase, each time essentially running in a straight line and not looking behind him.

-- Had no idea what the perk Dead Man's Switch even was, or that it had been buffed recently.

-- Had no idea (from what he said when he tried to bodyblock a hook) that I was running STBFL, a VERY common perk on Demo (and that I had a lot of stacks) or possibly how that perk worked either (indicating, possibly, that he's someone who never plays killer).

-- Wasted time cleansing portals and setting up a COH boon in the same place multiple times, alerting me to where he was -- and then made the comment "Are you streamsniping?' (or something to that affect)

-- Claimed that the new Wiggle mechanic puts survivors at a disadvantage, and that the wiggle time is slower (even when hitting the skillchecks).

-- Blamed his teammates numerous times (he was playing as a solo) for how the match was going, even though he was going down as quickly (or quicker) as they were. He blamed his teammates for leading me back to him at one point where he was self-caring with a Boon, even though they had no way of knowing where he was since they weren't on comms and no one was running Bond or a similar perk (and it didn't matter, since I never left a chase to go after him when I found people grouped up).

-- Blamed his teammates skill level (or his perception of it) on MMR being messed up since he "hadn't played in a few days", which, for all of the problems with SBMM, also illustrated to me that he doesn't understand how the system is even supposed to work, if it were functioning correctly. (And considering how poorly he seemingly played, the argument could have been made that he DID have teammates that were at his skill level).

-- Claimed as killer, that I was essentially terrible (despite my having everyone pretty much dead at 5 gens). He exited the match and didn't spectate it to the end. I assume he would have been furious that I gave the Nea the hatch. I wasn't sure, but I think the Nea had followed him on his stream, said hello in his chat, and wished him "good luck" beforehand, only for him to rail on her for her poor gameplay throughout the match (when she played no worse than he did).

All in all, I was glad I hadn't given the guy a follow --and it was a little funny listening to him get increasingly agitated as the match went south for his team, but it made me wonder: Did he really actually believe half of what he was saying? Did he really think HE was that good, that I was that terrible, or that his teammates or perks he didn't even understand or know were the reason he was getting trounced? His lack of basic game knowledge for a "Rank 1" player -- not knowing perks, or the new Wiggle mechanics, or how SBMM is "supposed" to work (or how it actually is functioning) -- all suggest that, much like I need to improve my gameplay, there's a lot of room to improve on their end. But will they actually figure that out, or will they only blame everything and anything else for whenever they lose (when I started viewing the match they went against me, they were railing on their teammates in their previous match they'd lost in for running "newb" perks, which I found ironic based on everything above).

TL:DR -- It's really easy, if you suffer from hubris, to blame other things for when a match goes poorly for you, whether it's as survivor or killer. It's a lot harder, though, to realize that it might actually be you that's the reason why things went the way they did -- and if you can't recognize those times, then you're probably never going to get better.