League of Legends XXXII: Cupcakes and Kittens and Squirrels. Oh my!

[Math_Mage]

This is pretty interesting, considering that both teams are playing the "champions we like" comp.

The Vlad/Karthus comp was super obvious, too, and they're both so good against Vayne. Which is likely a problem, since Anivia isn't a DPS mage lategame and Vayne can't safely fight against Kog'Maw, Karthus, or Vladimir. Like, unless some massive tumbling goes down I don't know how CLG is going to handle the absurd teamfighting strength coming from TSM's comp.

They're gonna feed off Regi, that's how.

[Eldariel]

The Vlad/Karthus comp was super obvious, too, and they're both so good against Vayne. Which is likely a problem, since Anivia isn't a DPS mage lategame and Vayne can't safely fight against Kog'Maw, Karthus, or Vladimir. Like, unless some massive tumbling goes down I don't know how CLG is going to handle the absurd teamfighting strength coming from TSM's comp.

Anivia does have very reasonable lategame DPS though; she outdoes burstmages by a ton in terms of DPS and her burst is absurd compared to AP carries. She falls somewhere between the two at ~360+0.82/AP DPS with ~245+0,49/AP of that being AOE. When we're talking ~700-800 AP, she's easily at 1000 DPS with significant AOE multipliers and a 2.0 AP + 710 base burst combined with 2-3 ticks of 160 + 0.25AP.

Also, Anivia isn't Jiji's champ; Jiji is much more Ahri or Ryze than Anivia but thing is, Anivia is so ridiculous that even mediocre Anivia-players can trash people.

[Lix Lorn]

Also, Anivia isn't Jiji's champ; Jiji is much more Ahri or Ryze than Anivia but thing is, Anivia is so ridiculous that even mediocre Anivia-players can trash people.

...
(suddenly worries that she's mediocre)
;_;

[Boowells]

...
(suddenly worries that she's mediocre)
;_;

Same here. I learned not to focus Flash Frost from this tournament.

[Math_Mage]

Same here. I learned not to focus Flash Frost from this tournament.

I read the wiki. ._.

CLG is just winning early game and imposing their strategy on the map. TSM purely reactive so far. And bigfatlp is doing work on Regi.

EDIT: Oh btw, aethernox, what happened to "Shyvana is just a worse Mundo and Saintvicious says so too"?

[toasty]

EDIT: Oh btw, aethernox, what happened to "Shyvana is just a worse Mundo and Saintvicious says so too"?

I'm confused as well. I wanted to say it was a mind game they were playing on Oddbro, but now... I'm not so sure.

On the other hand: Yeah, CLG is showing themselves to be superior laners and then playing very aggressive before TSM can really recover. They're also playing a very safe laning team. Anivia, Chogath, Alistair, and Shvy are very hard to shut down. Removing the only real ganking jungler that Oddbro has/will play this tourney (Nocturne) means that getting ganks out is difficult.

Another thing: Dyrus can't win 1v1 against HSGG. That is perhaps the greatest weakness of TSM right now. If Dyrus can't win, then Regi gets camped. if Regi gets camped he WILL LOSE (see: Scarra interview about Regi's playstyle; he is always aggressive, even when he knows the jungler is around. He gets baited hardcore). If Top and Middle Lose and the game ends before Chaox can get Fed then thats GG.

I wanted to see TSM win again, but nope, after all this time and practice CLG appears to be the better team. Oh well, there are still games left. GO TSM! BAYLIFE MANG!

[Math_Mage]

Huh. TSM has been purple side every game so far. Well, they pick up another first blood at least.

[toasty]

Huh. TSM has been purple side every game so far. Well, they pick up another first blood at least.

That is... odd actually. I thought people were supposed to rotate.

Also: TSM up 0-2, they suddenly appear a completely different team. Maybe they really did need to warm up a little?

[ex cathedra]

EDIT: Oh btw, aethernox, what happened to "Shyvana is just a worse Mundo and Saintvicious says so too"?

There was always a single caveat, which was that Shyvana has more mobility. That's apparently relevant because CLG is doing nothing but pushing towers and Shyvana is a much better splitpusher than Mundo.

everything else is probably still true though.

Edit:

SUPER happy that TheOddBro actually picked up an early Oracle's in this match. CLG had so much free vision in the last two games and no one on TSM could handle those wards. Denying CLG vision is exactly the difference that allowed TSM to win teamfights, in my opinion.

[Eldariel]

I'm confused as well. I wanted to say it was a mind game they were playing on Oddbro, but now... I'm not so sure.

As you've said before, SV tends to exaggerate and him saying "X IS STRICTLY BETTER THAN Y" actually means "X is really good and so is Y; they both have things going on for them but I happen to like X more right now so I'm telling everyone X is so so much better."

[toasty]

HSGG builds Shurelias, isn't tanky enough. He needed to rush Frozen Heart and then get a FoN. He's getting destroyed by Chaox, sadly. He can let Saint get the Omen.

[Lix Lorn]

Unrelated to tournament...

Fun thing I've done a couple of times, make a custom game with just you, and five bots. Try to slaughter them and win.

It's... surprisingly hard! Even at level 18 to 9, with a fully stacked snowball and a bloodthirster, you cannot win a 1v5. and if they kill you, they will push down your inhib. @_@

I did win once though!

[Joran]

Someone created a IPL4 Spreadsheet of picks and bans:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...211SGRRY1FCWUE

[Eldariel]

Unrelated to tournament...

Fun thing I've done a couple of times, make a custom game with just you, and five bots. Try to slaughter them and win.

It's... surprisingly hard! Even at level 18 to 9, with a fully stacked snowball and a bloodthirster, you cannot win a 1v5. and if they kill you, they will push down your inhib. @_@

I did win once though!

Depends on who you play, certainly. If you want it easy, play e.g. Anivia or Singed. Hardmode, try something like Nautilus.

[fred dref]

Unrelated to tournament...

Fun thing I've done a couple of times, make a custom game with just you, and five bots. Try to slaughter them and win.

It's... surprisingly hard! Even at level 18 to 9, with a fully stacked snowball and a bloodthirster, you cannot win a 1v5. and if they kill you, they will push down your inhib. @_@

I did win once though!

As an AD carry like Caitlyn or Trist, I find it fairly easy. Range>low level bots.

[Lix Lorn]

Depends on who you play, certainly. If you want it easy, play e.g. Anivia or Singed. Hardmode, try something like Nautilus.

My first win was with Akali, with both snowball items. xD I've been trying Vayne, and I woulda won, but I was showing off. I wish I'd had the chance to try and solo baron.

I'd win so much as Anivia. It seems too easy, considering she's my best character.

[fred dref]

Great birthday present for Dyrus.

[littlebottom]

its a difficult career to follow i imagine, $5000 each to last them till their next win? what if they lose? they will have to get jobs, thats what, then they cant practice 12 hours a day 6 days a week...

although its one career i wouldnt mind, getting into it requires just as much practice, and i need money thus dont have time to practice that much, its a never ending circle of dissapointment

welldone to them though, i thought that they may have messed up once or twice, but they pulled through on the long haul.

[ex cathedra]

its a difficult career to follow i imagine, $5000 each to last them till their next win? what if they lose? they will have to get jobs, thats what, then they cant practice 12 hours a day 6 days a week.

Their primary income is streaming. In many tournaments they make less money than they would if they were streaming throughout the weekend instead, regardless of whether they win or lose. They participate in tournaments for circuit points and recognition, not for the money. SoloMid.net is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and high-profile streamers like Dyrus, TheOddOne, and Reginald can regularly pull in >12k concurrent viewers.

[Joran]

its a difficult career to follow i imagine, $5000 each to last them till their next win? what if they lose? they will have to get jobs, thats what, then they cant practice 12 hours a day 6 days a week...

although its one career i wouldnt mind, getting into it requires just as much practice, and i need money thus dont have time to practice that much, its a never ending circle of dissapointment

welldone to them though, i thought that they may have messed up once or twice, but they pulled through on the long haul.

Definitely tough, but tournament winning's aren't their own income streams. Just thinking of TSM, they probably have incomes from their streams, their website, and sponsorship deals. In addition, they cut costs by shacking up together in a game house. It's probably not enough money to support a family, but for dudes getting to paid to play video games, it's not bad money at all, but they aren't getting rich either.

[Tesla_pasta]

So after seeing those tourney games, I realize I know nothing ab out AD carries. I knew Vayne was a lategame beast, but haven't seen Ashe in a game since i like level 8.

Can anyone just give a general rule of thumb for what carries do what? who is good at which point in the game, etc. That is a role I'm trying to learn right now, despite the fact I never get to. at my level, I'm always either jungling or support, because NO ONE ELSE WILL

[Litewarior]

Ashe is Utility Carry
Trist is early game burst mage late game huge range Carry
Corki is Burst and Poke and armor shred Carry
Graves is Tanky Dps Carry
Vayne is Lategame Carry
MF is Aoe Carry
Kog is Vulnerable Hypercarry
Ezreal is Skillshot Poke Carry
Sivir is Spellshield Aoe speed boost Carry
Kennen is Stuns Carry
Caitlyn is Lane Carry
Kayle is Invulnerable Carry

[Eldariel]

So after seeing those tourney games, I realize I know nothing ab out AD carries. I knew Vayne was a lategame beast, but haven't seen Ashe in a game since i like level 8.

Can anyone just give a general rule of thumb for what carries do what? who is good at which point in the game, etc. That is a role I'm trying to learn right now, despite the fact I never get to. at my level, I'm always either jungling or support, because NO ONE ELSE WILL

Ashe: Decent early game, lowest scaling out of all carries. Has a kit that offers massive amounts of utility mid- to lategame though with the best initiation in the game in Enchanted Crystal Arrow and great kiting tools in Volley + Frost Shot and scouting in Hawkshot. Starts off weak and doesn't have all that much damage but the initiation ability wins games alone. Also, it serves as a nice CC ability.

Kog'Maw: Decent early game, top level scaling. Early game Kog'Maw is painful though only when his Bio-Arcane Barrage is up, lategame Kog'Maw is quite possibly the most devastating thing in the game with nutty poke in his ultimate, great CC in E, massive range and massive damage thanks to his W and yeah. Q passive doesn't hurt either; free stats are nice. Lategame Kog'Maw is the best choice for melting teams.

Vayne: Mediocre early game, top level scaling. If anyone can challenge a lategame Kog, it's Vayne. Significantly, she does true damage instead of magic damage so lategame her W outpaces Kog's W far as damage goes (though Kog values are so much higher that vast majority of the time he'll still deal more damage per hit). Vayne also brings stronger other steroids in play and has a stun and while suffering of a short range, when played well is extremely hard to catch due to Tumble, Condemn and Final Hour (and her passive). Her whole kit is based around staying quite close without letting melees hit you.

Sivir: Good early game, good lategame. Sivir is a decent all-rounder pick. She has some of the higher early game physical burst if you're good with Boomerang Blades, she has no actual escapes but speedbuff + spell shield + passive make her a rather difficult target anyways. Her ultimate and W scale well into the lategame and the fact that her ult is an AOE means she really empowers teams with other autoattackers. She offers less single-target damage than Kog or Vayne but she has decent AOE damage in Boomerang Blade and Ricochet while still melting single targets quite efficiently.

Corki: Good early game, decent lategame. Corki is definitely slightly more early game focused. He plays out almost as a caster early on with his Q making it hard to escape him and E shredding armor for very unfair trades and massive damage bonus, especially combined with his passive which is also a damage bonus. His ult also caps him out pretty nicely on level 6 where he has the highest burst out of all AD carries with Phosphorous Bomb + Big One Missile + Gatling Gun + Auto-Attack. Later on, his poor scaling on his ult and inexistent on his Q means his burst kinda falls off but it still remains relevant and having a built-in damage enhancer and armor shred keeps him very competitive damage-wise. His W is also one of the best escape/gap closer skills in the game with a long range, somewhat chase-discouraging side-effect and a very reasonable cooldown.

Graves: Great early game, decent lategame. Graves is much like Corki really except he lacks the Armor Shred early but is a bit tankier in exchange. His Q and ult scale with AD though they still lack critical scaling which is the primary damage source on lategame AD carries. His Quick Draw doubles as an ASpd steroid and an approach but is a worse escape than Valkyrie due to low range and high cooldown unless you're attacking. His Smoke Screen is an amazing ability though; you won't realize how much lacking vision messes you up until you experience it. It's the most unique CC in the game currently and a very powerful one. Still, his lategame is nothing to write home about and he falls off sharply compared to Kog'Maw or Vayne but he has some steroids so his lategame isn't bad.

Ezreal: Good early game, decent lategame. Ezreal lacks the burst Graves or Corki bring to the table but in exchange has the best poking and mobility out of all the AD carries. Mystic Shot is an AD that carries on-hits so aside from crit, it scales fully with all your builds and it has awesome 1000 range. It also reduces all your cooldowns by 1 on hit making Arcane Shift and Ult cooldowns significantly lower than they seem. His W is a great dueling skill though it doesn't do meaningful amounts of damage. Ezreal's damage falls off a tad later on and more so if built for poking but he does still have a 50% ASpd steroid so his lategame isn't garbage provided you build him normally for Crit too. And poking gets incredibly strong in right teams come lategame so he excels there.

Miss Fortune: Great early game, passable lategame. MF has one big problem in her kit; all but one of her abilities do magic damage and scale by AP. This leads to them falling off quite a bit. She does have decent steroids though and her passive is vexing to deal with and Double Up acts as an auto-attack reset which can be incredibly strong early burst. She has some of the best laning out of all AD carries with healing debuff, massive lane burst, good mobility to force fights and a slow. Her ultimate also hurts like a truck when you first get it. Later on though, only good things about her remain Double Up (which loses power as you gain more ASpd) and Impure Shots (which matters less the stronger you get aside from the ASpd buff). Her lategame isn't bad by any means but her scaling is worse than that of e.g. Graves or Corki.

Caitlyn: Great early game, mediocre lategame. She's the first truly early game focused carry I've listed. Her kit is great for laning, she has some AD scaling and all but her only steroid is her passive, which applies incredibly rarely. She has an escape and her range is the highest base range in the game which makes her very safe and quite the bully on the lane but lategame she just doesn't hold the candle to any other AD carry (though she obviously still destroys anything but AD carries).

Tristana: Mediocre early game, good lategame. Much like Corki with healing debuff; early game mage lanekiller, lategame carry. Her steroids are surprisingly good considering only one of her abilities scales. She has an escape and her passive makes her range almost as high as a Bio-Arcane Barrage'd Kog's. She brings CC in form of her knockback ultimate to the table. She is kind of tricky to make work since her laning involves essentially jumping on people and bursting them down, but she's insanely hard to deal with later on due to Rocket Jump, Buster Shot and her passive.

Kennen: Great early game, mediocre lategame. His scaling is bad, his base ASpd is awesome, he's supersafe. The reason you pick him is 'cause he can stun people a lot and it's incredibly hard to shut down a Kennen. As such, if all you need to win is a farmed carry, you can run him. His only scaling is his W which applies once every 4th hit so his steroids are mediocre at best but having an AOE stunning ultimate, speedboost/defensive steroid and a kitful of stuns combined with good base stats gives him a very obvious niché.


Then there's like Twitch, Kayle, Twisted Fate, etc. but I'll stop here as it just gets progressively weirder from here.

[ex cathedra]

That's a pretty swell summary, Eld. Good job. There are innumerable intricacies in bottom lane matchups once you include supports, so it's actually fairly hard to learn them all. Bottom lane actually involves a relatively huge burden of knowledge, simply because there are so many more dynamics and there are twice as many champions in the lane.

Can anyone just give a general rule of thumb for what carries do what? who is good at which point in the game, etc. That is a role I'm trying to learn right now, despite the fact I never get to. at my level, I'm always either jungling or support, because NO ONE ELSE WILL

Oh, you lucky thing. Everyone I play with, myself included, plays nothing but top/mid/jungle. Finding bottom laners is a serious pain.

[toasty]

That's a pretty swell summary, Eld. Good job. There are innumerable intricacies in bottom lane matchups once you include supports, so it's actually fairly hard to learn them all. Bottom lane actually involves a relatively huge burden of knowledge, simply because there are so many more dynamics and there are twice as many champions in the lane.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Top is also a very hard lane. But I suppose that that doesn't really matter too much in context. Bottom lane is ... hard, but I feel that mostly there are a sum total of less matchups than there are top. And bottom is less snowbally, IMO. Mostly, at least.

[Dogmantra]

I'm kinda glad that Eld got to do a summary before me since I feel like my AD carry summary would have just been lists of all the carries I maintain are the same character (see: Caitlyn/Graves and Ezreal/Corki).


The way I've always simplified it is that Ashe is the best carry, Corki is the best carry and I guess I should add that Kog/Vayne are the best carries.

Inasmuch as Ashe brings the most to a team and happens to be a carry, Corki is a fantastic all rounder who probably basically is the best and then Kog/Vayne have obscene damage outputs.


(although I'm slightly amused by how AD Kennen is common enough to put into Eld's list but Twitch counts as weird)

[Mirrinus]

Urgot might also be considered for the list, not because he's a carry necessarily, but because he often fills the same role in teams for a specific purpose in bot lane.

[LordShotGun]

For anyone wanting to watch the IPL4 games WITHOUT having to watch so much KPOP and other silly stuff, go to

http://www.youtube.com/user/GeneralWiser

He has all the games and commentary without the extra stuff.

[Winthur]

K-pop was the best thing about the tournament by far

[Zen Master]

For anyone wanting to watch the IPL4 games WITHOUT having to watch so much KPOP and other silly stuff, go to

http://www.youtube.com/user/GeneralWiser

He has all the games and commentary without the extra stuff.

I've been looking for something like this. Any games in particular that are worth watching? Otherwise, I'll just pick entirely at random =)