Decision-making in esports: Identifying and understanding heuristics in League of Legends teamfights

As esports continue to professionalise, understanding the cognitive mechanisms underpinning expert performance becomes increasingly important. This study explores how a team of semi-professional League of Legends (LoL) players manage the challenges of Team Fights (TFs) and the heuristics they employ during gameplay. To address this need, the study had to main objectives: (1) to identify the heuristics players use when making decisions in TFs; and (2) to examine whether these heuristics are shared among team members, potentially reflecting a Shared Mental Model (SMM) of gameplay within the team. To gather expert insights, we conducted an Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (ACTA) involving five players from the same semi-professional LoL team. We applied a template analysis to the Knowledge Audit interviews and the final simulation focus group. This analysis revealed a total of 22 heuristics shared by the players, which aligned with five core cognitive demands experienced during a TF. The findings indicate that these players rely on shared heuristics to guide their decision-making through a SMM during TFs. By developing a taxonomy of heuristics and illustrating their relation to key cognitive demands, this study offers novel insights into the performance psychology of esports. It also provides a foundation for creating training interventions aimed at improving real-time decision making in LoL’s TFs.