User blog comment:TheTobarMethod/Mindset Theory: Solo vs Duo Que/@comment-5266525-20130408040804

This is something that's not really exclusive to ranked, so I think I can talk about this despite still being a couple of games away from actually having a league placement.

I actually notice the opposite of what you're describing - me and my duo queue friend both tend to do subpar or average on our own but when you put us in a game together shit tends to get blown up a lot simply because we're well aware of what our capabilities are and snowball off each other's successes.

Typically I will take a very CC-heavy jungler (eg., , ) while he takes mid lane (pretty much exclusively :/ ). My number one priority when it comes to a teamwide strategy is to get my friend fed up the ass. I'll safeguard him when the enemy ganks, give him blue buff at every opportunity, ward his lane for him and gank until he's farmed enough to be able to freely shove the lane and roam with me, and between the both of us providing massive amounts of CC and burst it's really hard to stop us by that point. Our scores in recent games seem to demonstrate that pretty well, though a lot of the much more successful games have already been pushed off by now.

That being said, it is true I often feel a greater need to personally do well as I cannot trust my teammates to carry. I don't think this necessarily means I'm going to do better than before, though, as I might not react the same under pressure as someone else. Hell, I might even do WORSE if I become to stressed out about it. With a duo queue partner, we know what works in the long run so we can think much more clearly about the now and how to get there.