Attn: Don’t Play Ranked for a Couple of Weeks

The soft reset was enough. Everyone who was basement ELO has been bumped to “mediocre” elo and they are now trolling alllllllllllll the way back down.

This has been an important announcement.

A Different Approach to Team Composition (and working with a team)

Wow, it has been a while. I hadn’t really played much due to moving (and life in general) but over the last week I’ve started to get a couple games in and now I do have something to talk about.

And yeah, TheWoebringer will probably get mad at me for this.

And everyone else who writes on this blog…

This is just a general observation, noting how things work even at my sub-par elo (~1100 if anyone was curious, but I’ve been pulled into as high as 1300-1400 and its no different there). Firstly, do NOT take TheWoebringer’s advice. Any player if they want to do a draft should have a good number of different champs under their belt and should be capable of picking for team comp. But past the basic team roles have some and idea of what you should or should not pick. If your team is CC light, don’t take a champ who requires that kind of support. If the enemy team is bruiser heavy or has Tryn, take an extra exhaust.  And for the love of god don’t take clarity because it seldom helps. Usually you can get away with not having certain team roles filled if you have champions that work well together.

If you DC:

Look, I don’t care what the cause is. You may have my sympathy, for your connection, but I still don’t care. If you DC during a ranked game I WILL be mad at you. And if you continue to DC, I will CONTINUE to be mad at you. If you explain that it’s not your fault, I won’t care and will still be mad.

Do you see a pattern here?

I played a string of ranked games last night, three to be exact. One of them went swimmingly well! Combination of good communication and decent team comp. The third… I’m sorry, but when you have two people DCing during the game its pretty much hopeless. To add insult to injury we held out for nearly an hour with the hopes we might catch a lucky break. Imagine how we could have done if we had a true 5 man? Yeah, I’m flatly saying the other team completely sucked but got very lucky. But because it was effectively a 3v5, it wasn’t even close to fair! And personally I think a fair game isn’t an unreasonable request.

Also our Teemo was like 1/11. That never helps.

This is also only part of the story: that third game I didn’t mention? Well, 25 minutes in their Mordekaiser DCed. We were probably going to win, but that effectively sealed the deal. And you know what? I don’t want free ELO, I want to play the god damn game.

Here’s the point of me writing this: if you know you have connection problems don’t fucking play ranked. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp. Don’t. Play. Ranked. Hell, I get mad in a

Revisiting the New Meta

So last time I wrote about the meta as a whole, that was back in May. Things have changed… a lot. For a while I was fairly close to what I suggested: two true solo carries in top and mid, DPS carry sharing bot w/ a dedicated support. I was somewhat wrong assuming that a DPS would top lane, in fact for a while an AP usually took the role of solo top. Essentially (before I understood) I described EU style of play.

Whats happening now? The game has drifted more toward champions that win a lane by… well, never leaving it. Sustainability seems to be key. As a result, “soft carries” and bruisers are what now truly dominate most of the game. This is just by design: the most sustainable champions tend to be bruisers. As a result the best top and mid lanes are now champs like Udyr, Warwick, Irelia, Gragas, Cho’Gath and Rumble. Most shockingly, Mordekaiser is now a completely viable champ. Standard mid is, however, still an AP (the three champs to beat being Annie, Brand, and (ugh…) Orianna).

How does this work? Why are these champions the best picks? Two really obvious reasons: First of all, they are all able to sustain a lane. This is because they have a heal, are very mana independent (or don’t use it all) and, because of their natural bulk, can prove challenging to kill. Secondly, they are all “soft carries.” When I say this, I refer to that these champions can, due to excellent base stats and ability damage (not AP), carry for a large portion of game if they get a slight level advantage. Many of them, to boot, bring a fair bit of utility.

These champs, as explained, excel at one thing: never. Leaving. Lane. Ever. Seriously, that’s how they win: out farm, gain a level advantage, wait for the jungler to gank or for the other player to be stupid. I hate to put it like this, but this is a bitch tactic: it’s essentially attrition warfare. Many times it comes down to “who leaves the lane open first.” It also puts even more power in the jungler… and requires they be really REALLY alert of what is going on.

My solution to this? Well… I have no idea. The only champ I can call a viable counter pick to these bruisers is Singed. Singed pretty effectively counters many of the champs I named above and his ability to farm and harass indirectly is pretty strong. If anything, oddball picks will probably become more prevalent. I dunno… consider this just a “state of the meta” sort of article. And I can’t provide and solutions or theory here.

League of Legends Housing Guide

Assuming you were randomly transported to the world of Runeterra there are a couple basic questions that Riot has yet to answer, many of which would be relevant and applicable to daily survival. Where to get a good meal? Which parts of town are you more likely to get stabbed in? Finding a doctor whose complexion is not purple? Most important, which champions would be good to live with… and which would send you to Craigslist and student housing within a week. This information is vital; it could (hypothetically speaking) save your life!

More “If You Suck” Advice

I feel, at least recently, I’ve probably become an expert on this subject. To shed light on my most recent “scam,” I’ve been queuing up with a friend of mine who is about 300 ELO points higher than me. The result: He’s usually 100 points above the average and I’m 100 points below the average. He’s able to carry effectively, I get to play with less incompetent people, and we both get free ELO. Its a win win… but really a lose lose for the other team. The real benefit of this set up is that we are guaranteed the two most important spots in the draft: first and last (and ban picks for that matter). He’s always able to pick an AD carry (Vayne) and I fill the final team slot: usually support, sometimes jungler. Most of all, I’m frequently playing with people that I will happily acknowledge are better than me.

This leads me to the most important advice I can give anyone who is looking to suck less or still be useful when your overall team is better than you: be good at utility. Rather then always playing your specialty champ (everyone should have one anyway)  or a carry be able to pick up and use competently a range of team roles. The two best to have under your belt are support and jungle. Both of those are the most beneficial roles to the team and relatively poor mechanical play can be circumvented by sheer map awareness and “macro strategy.”

STOP PLAYING WUKONG

Seriously, stop. Nobody knows how to play him yet. And don’t jungle with him, it doesn’t FUCKING work.

What do do when you are the feeder

Unlike some of the authors on this website I won’t even pretend to be an expert. That and I hate doing true statistical analysis. To give you an explanation of how I play: for every five games I will play one brilliantly, three I will play mediocre to average, and one game I will fuck up in every inconceivable way. If you are playing a game brilliantly to average then there is no point in changing anything since you are pulling your weight. Its when we play those absolutely terrible games that we need to sit there and say “I just fed four kills to Malzahar before the fifteen minute mark… what the hell do I do?”

The Soft Reset and You!

Okay, to get this out of the way: technically Riot should do a hard reset. Its been pointed out all over the place that always, between seasons, an elo rating usually reset. That is correct… in theory. In reality, we should be grateful that we are being given a soft reset.

Firstly, I am someone who is an Elo Atheist. I don’t believe or subscribe to ELO hell. Its been proven time and time again that the best players will be able to pull themselves out of the dreaded 1000-1400 range and stop themselves from falling bellow it. Since I believe everyone ends up in the ELO the belong in, why would I want people who are way below my rating and–frankly, even worse–people who are waaay above me playing in the same game? Those that have fallen victim to “ELO Hell” will, of course, scream foul play since they are not responsible for their rating… in their mind, why not have a hard reset? Those people are wrong and should be ignored: they want a hard reset for the wrong reasons.

Awesome (or terrible) Skin Idea No. 1:

Tristana…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hobo with shotgun:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…eh? Eh? Come on, don’t even pretend a hobo skin for Tristana wouldn’t be funny. Or maybe this is why I’m not allowed to design skins…