I often see "autopilot" talked about as a bad habit, which you should avoid, but I think it's a good habit, which you should cultivate. Improving at League means building good habits to autopilot in fast, context heavy situations.

Kahneman distinguishes between deliberate, effortful vs automatic, instinctive decision making respectively as "System 2" vs "System 1”. When you sing the ABCs — a b c ? — you easily say the next letter without thinking about it using System 1. Whereas if you recite the ABCs backwards — z y x ? — you have to consciously figure out the next letter using System 2. In the second case the task itself is not inherently harder, but it’s harder for us humans who have trained our System 1 to automatically follow “C” with “D”. Similarly in League we improve by training our System 1 to automatically react appropriately to situations.

I don’t claim to ground this in science; I just like the System 2 vs System 1 distinction as the right way to talk about the sort of decisions you make in League. People give System 2 too much credit in general and specifically in League, and should recognize the importance of System 1. (Also on *science* at least some of the studies Kahneman cites did not replicate, which is ironic because his original work with Tversky was on how people/psychologists are bad at statistics.)

League requires processing a barrage of information to constantly make decisions, which is exactly the sort of judgement you need system 1 for. Have you ever seen fan comments like "even my gold ass can tell it's wrong to walk up and die like [pro] did there"? Technically, they're true: the gold player really could pause before the death and assess that it's wrong to walk up. Either a) gold players are better than pros (unlikely) or b) the comment conflates System 1 and System 2, eliding the actual System 1 challenge League requires. The player in the actual game doesn't have the luxury of pausing, picking out relevant factors, and making a step by step decision through System 2; if the pro could spend the time and effort stepping through the decision logically, they'd certainly see whatever mistake the gold player sees! The pro has the ability to see the mistake through System 2, but makes it anyways, because playing requires System 1 decisions.

The difference between a good and bad League player is not that the good player makes more decisions deliberately, but that they have better habits. Imagine a really good player putting the bare minimum into their game, like a streamer reading chat, talking to someone, ordering food, doing their taxes, etc. while playing. If it's Faker doing this stuff, he'll still play so much better than a bronze player putting 100% of their attention and effort into the game. So the gap between the bronze player and Faker is mostly not focus but habit quality.

You might object League only seems automatic to me because I pick Janna to drool on my keyboard and hope enough drool weighs down the E key, whereas if I played a hard champ like Riven or Akali I'd have to acknowledge the effort League requires. These champions actually require more intuition though, in terms of executing their ability combos or judging which fights you can or can't take or whatever. Climbing a steep mastery curve for a champ like Qiyana actually means taking less deliberation on when or how to kill someone. If you see a Qiyana player saying out loud "ok well I could flash in, and then in the river my R is a cc, and what do I do after that? I guess another Q, could I get an auto in before?” they already missed their chance! Meanwhile the good player, acting on habit, already won their team dragon, because as the game gets faster and more complicated you need System 1 more.

It is possible to put less attention or effort into a game and play worse as a result, but in this case rather than say "I was on autopilot" we should say "I wasn't paying attention", to emphasize autopilot's necessary and beneficial role. From a British guy:

"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."

Thought is a scarce resource in League. So it's true getting distracted during the game is bad because it depletes already scarce attention. And putting effort into League is not bad, but the pile of decisions and context is way bigger and faster than you can deal with manually. Which is exactly why automating more and more is better — it frees up your limited attention.

System 2 does have a role in League, but as the coach, not the player. In this sense System 1 is the one actually playing, while System 2 helps to teach and direct System 1. I've been harping on how important System 1 is, and League absolutely is a great environment for System 1: complicated situations, but essentially the same situation which you can practice repeatedly until you pattern match correctly. But System 2 plays a role too.

Training yourself on these patterns is where System 2 comes in. If you watch your replay and reflect, step by step, on a crucial death, you might see that their mid pushed and recalled, then your mid pushed and recalled, so their mid got back to lane first and pushed the wave, so your mid was stuck under tower while their mid had a chance to move, and then you died to their move. Reflecting on that sequence takes System 2, until you've sufficiently internalized it to automatically check the map and recognize from their mid’s recall, with maximum speed and minimum thought, that their mid will have a roam timing. It’s not such a crazy complex sequence that it’s hard to figure it out with System 2, but it’s complex enough that your System 1 will more quickly and easily see it if you’ve figured it out ahead of time with System 2.

Spending time thinking through sequences with System 2 alleviates the burden of thinking through them in the moment in game. League overwhelms new players who haven’t built up their System 1 because they take too long on each decision and don’t know what important context to grab from everything going on in the game.

This stuff seems basic, why the wall of text? So people put (un)conscious thought in its proper place for improving at League. A skill goes unconscious incompetence -> conscious incompetence -> conscious competence -> unconscious competence. At the first stage you're merely unaware, in the second and third stages you use System 2 to learn, and by the fourth and final stage you can instantly and effortlessly rely on System 1, the real hero, whose name is autopilot.