Hello everyone. For those of you that have been wondering what was going on with the Learning Fives, we are here to give you guys an update on our progress.

Let’s address the three most common questions right out of the gate:

• All skill ranges, from pre level 30 to Challenger are able to register for the program

• Anyone, from any region can be a part. (Yes, even you guys OCE)

• Within the next three weeks we hope to open up signups for a four week session. Once summer starts, we’ll launch the full eight week program.

Now do a little dance. Go on we’ll wait for you to come back before we dive deeper.

We want this program to be completely community run. What does this mean? Various engaged contributors were chosen as volunteers for the well being of the project. It will not be sponsored by the Moderator team, nor the Subreddit itself.

We’d like thank team member /u/Funky_Ducky for his contributions and welcome our newest active team members: /u/Caiophox, /u/TheMrRipleyz, /u/RoyYourBoyToy, /u/tesselcraig, and /u/Stormwhite. This is a big project with a lot of moving parts and we couldn’t do it without them. If you’re interested in helping contribute to this program, please send /u/VerdeCreed a pm, we’d love to have you on board.

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Description of the Learning Fives Program

Five players and one coach join other teams for eight weeks of team based learning. During that time, teams meet together twice a week to play Riot’s ranked fives ladder.

Additionally, one time per week, two pairs of teams are selected to appear on the Twitch stream and play against one another to see how they measure up, assess progress, and allow coaches to discuss with casters and the audience their techniques and philosophy.

At the end of the time period, teams play a streamed tournament to celebrate their hard work. Individuals will also be publically highlighted for various feats, such as showcasing individual growth or climbing the ladder. After the just-for-fun tournament the whole process is ready to go again!

As per the sign-ups two weeks ago, 10 players were selected to form the teams that would participate in the Pilot Program led by two coaches, /u/VerdeCreed and /u/Chibi_Holy. The duration of said Pilot was set for one month, two practices of ~3 hours per week, for a total of approximately 24 hours, combining various learning experiences such as, but not limited to, lectures, reviewed games and group note taking.

Here are a few interesting stats from the program so far:

• In the 20 hours the NA only pilot signup form was stickied we had more than 160 people register.

• Of the 8 students to fill out a survey, 6 improved at least a division in their rankings and the other 2 stayed at the same level.

• The current leader for growth is Lamter, who has grown 3 of divisions and won his Silver I to Gold V series.

• Team Sparkle Motion has gone 18-2 for Dragon control since discussing it last week.

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Feedback

Asaka:

“After a long discussion about the team's positioning near the pit of the second most powerful neutral monster, Dragon Ramp was created. The team, made of players that all started within the Silver bracket, very quickly developed synergy. Playing to their opponent's mistakes in lane and then utilizing late game team-wide rotations allowed them to win a few games against teams and players of much higher rank. The following weeks will be focused on solidifying what we have, work on the main shotcalling and decision making, as well as everyone's mechanics and individual mistakes.”

Sam:

“/u/VerdeCreed's team, dubbed Sam's Sparkle Motion, is composed of players ranging from Bronze II - Silver V. The team has really bonded together by overcoming a rough start to ladder play. They quickly grasped the concept of playing a ruthlessly objective based game, and we continue to work on proper positioning throughout the game.”

Student Feedback Survey highlights:

• Expectations going forward generally revolve around big picture concepts such as shot-calling with only one person mentioning mechanics.
• People were overall very satisfied with the scheduling, structure, and the feedback from the coaches. The students spoke very highly of both of the coaches.
• Finally and most importantly, every student had fun and would recommend it to a friend.

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Learning Fives is being designed for this community, by the community. So we want to hear your feedback. If you have and comments, questions, or suggestions feel free to leave a comment or send us a PM.

If you’d like to be more involved with this program, we’d love welcome you to the team. You can reply to this post or send a PM to /u/VerdeCreed or /u/Chibi_Holy and we will get you set up.

Also, if you’re reading this and have an idea for a community program or event, I’d encourage you to put pencil to paper and write it out. That’s how this program got started: A few conversations and a massive document later, and here we are. We hope that this program shares the space with other successful programs, and if you need any help brainstorming and have question about the process, the Learning Fives team is happy to help however we can.