I want to start this post by saying thank you to anyone that reads this all the way through - it was hard to post, but it was time to admit it to myself.

I am toxic, and I need to work on it.

During my first game of the day, I had the pleasure of playing with a 3 stack Reyna, Brimstone and Sova, and a soloq'ing Sage. From round 1, everything was Sage's fault, in my eyes and in the 3 stack's. She was having a rough game for the first 4-5 rounds and misplayed a couple 1v1 clutches. I was aware we were being harsh, but admittedly didn't say anything about it, as I wanted to keep deflecting and avoid taking heat myself (I was 2nd to bottom frag at the start of the game).

Then I fucked up a round, pretty badly.

The next round I started to get really defensive over the flaming to myself and Sage, mainly from the Brimstone on our team. Admittedly, it got to my head and I started to be toxic back to all of Brim's comments, and even harassed him on a round he was trying to 1v1 clutch. They were clearly playing better than myself and my Sage (aside from the Sova), and I know how frustrating it can be to have someone doing bad on your team. But the toxicity was really not helping and I felt the need to defend myself.

The start of the next round and your Sova starts shockdarting me. After this, I quit wanting to play. I became extremely toxic, and spent most of the last 5 rounds of the game smoking my team, knife out and wanting to lose. I care about my rank and I care about my games, but I was happy to intentionally throw a game since I felt so bullied and belittled.

I half wanted to write this as a public moment of self-reflection and self-improvement - and to admit I have a problem with my mental. The other half was to offer you the opportunity for us all to apologise and admit that the game not only got out of hand but that we can be better in the future.

So, I apologise. I am not proud of my actions. I inflamed the situation by being defensive, toxic, by not admitting my in-game mistakes, and in general by being an arse of a teammate. I'm not making this post to say 'I'm sorry for flaming in response to your flame' - I was doing this before your flaming was directed at me, too. This is a habit with me on my first game of each day - I can be pretty emotional, have ambitions to hit high ranks in this game and put a lot of pressure on myself to consistently play well. When I don't, which is typically the first game, I struggle to look inward at my own misplays and will often deflect on to my teammates. This is a bad habit and a horrible mental. Today was a harsh lesson that I can completely derail games from my mental alone.

I'm hoping I can look back on this in the future as a better player - but more importantly - as a clean, better teammate.

Thanks for reading. GL HF in your next games.