League of Legends XL: Season on Hold 'til Morello gets Gold

[Thanatos 51-50]

It's done when people think the game isn't going to be any good and would rather deal with the penalty delay in re-queueing rather than play through a bad experience. Can be done for a variety of reasons, although a lot of them are kind of childish (ranging from 'somebody called the role I wanted to play/champ I wanted to play before I could' to 'somebody picked [champ I think is hopelessly weak], gg I'm gone' to 'oh god all four people I've been queued with just declared "mid or feed", I'm outta here.')

Only the last one is really any justification, in my mind. I don't drop out of queue because somebody decides to roll Evelyn (Evelynn, everybody! She's horrible!).
Of course, since I play a champion traditionally seen as underpowered, I'm going to go over here and cry softly to myself.
It's okay, little Plague Rat. One day, people will recognise that you don't suck.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

It's okay, little Plague Rat. One day, people will recognise that you don't suck.

That day might be very soon. Twitch has seen some play in tournaments lately.

[toasty]

I don't get how Bankplank is "fun." Like, you relegate yourself to being useless for 25 minutes and you buy ****ty items and spend mana on farming with Q so you have zero lane presence. You're like Nasus except for the fact that Nasus has wither.

GP has really strong early and midgame potential and Bankplank throws all of that away in the most boring way possible. Why spend 2400 gold on items that do nothing when i could get Executioner's Calling + Bruta, Ionic Spark, or Tiamat?

"Bankplank" is fun because you will outfarm everyone in the game. Its amusing to see the gold/10 income just skyrocket. Its not actually viable now. One of the reasons "bankplank" was so fun was because when he was super OP you could do this and still have some lane pressure. Very few people are silly enough to build 4 gold/10s, and AFAIK no one ever bothered to run utility gold/10 or gold/10 runes (which would be hilarious btw) in anything but the trollest of games.

Realistically, people buy 1-2 gold/10s, maybe 3 if they are winning their lane (somehow). It also isn't a terrible choice if you are sure you can stay alive and even in farm vs. early-mid game champions like Darius and Udyr. Gangplank's late game is actually pretty strong if played correctly.

Obviously, I think Bankplank is weak right now, and in fact with new items will probably straight-up suck, beyond Avarice blade and MAYBE philo. Besides, with splitpushing be so strong with new Tiamat, and GP already having a global ult and being a kinda okay duelist... why NOT build to be a splitpusher?

[Silverraptor]

Welp.

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Completely impractical, completely awesome.

Still hasn't broken the rammus speed record. (Or the pre-lee sin nerf where he could rush between the 2 bases in 12 seconds.

[TFT]

I've seen a lot more twitches in both my own solo queue games and the featured games too. If he's being used in tourneys as well I'm pretty sure he's more popular then some carries right now(Looking at you, ashe.)

[tyckspoon]

Still hasn't broken the rammus speed record. (Or the pre-lee sin nerf where he could rush between the 2 bases in 12 seconds.

Pretty good for only using stuff you can get from a single champ, tho- it might beat the Rammus record if you piled on the Zilean speedup/Blood Boil/Galio W path/Sivir ult as well ('course, I don't know what Rammus's would be using the Season 3 items either, could be he's still faster. And Powerball lasts longer than Hecarim's charge, so even if Hecarim is faster Rammus will probably cover more ground more quickly.)

[toasty]

I've seen a lot more twitches in both my own solo queue games and the featured games too. If he's being used in tourneys as well I'm pretty sure he's more popular then some carries right now(Looking at you, ashe.)

Aphromoo pretty stubbornly kept to Twitch/Draven at LoneStar Clash, and while Fear isn't a very good team, I feel like Aphromoo has really shown the strength of Twitch, Draven and Varus.

Honestly, Ashe is never played.

[Psyborg]

Aphromoo pretty stubbornly kept to Twitch/Draven at LoneStar Clash, and while Fear isn't a very good team, I feel like Aphromoo has really shown the strength of Twitch, Draven and Varus.

Honestly, Ashe is never played.

TSM, Azubu Blaze, and M5 have all run Ashe in competitive play at some point in Season 2, with varying degrees of success. She's still not a strong pick in general, but with the nerfs to AD carries in general in S3 (attack speed more expensive, high-tier items more expensive and weaker, AD assassins HEAVILY buffed, mobility nerfed HARD), and the presumed viability of carry junglers instead of utility junglers, perhaps we'll see the utility carries making a comeback.

Also, is it just me, or is Draven going to be even stronger than he is now? He's the least-AS-dependent ADC, he has an AS+MS steroid (the gold value of which is now relatively much higher), and stacking AD is already strong on him.

Final thought about the S3 itemization changes: Rengar with Sword of the Divine and Infinity Edge can deal 300 + 1,080% AD more-or-less instantly with his Q+empowered Q+autoattack.

[Godskook]

As it turns out, LoL Wiki appears to be wrong about Malphite's Unstoppable Force, stating that it can only be stopped by lethal damage when a lot of posters seem to be getting CC'd out of it by e.g. Shen taunt. So, y'know, one out of three right there.

To be fair, I really don't think you should fault the wiki when what's really happening is that the game is wrong(Malphite's ult is supposed to be unstoppable via disables, as evidenced by multiple patch notes that say exactly that, notably the Urgot patch).

Pretty good for only using stuff you can get from a single champ, tho- it might beat the Rammus record if you piled on the Zilean speedup/Blood Boil/Galio W path/Sivir ult as well ('course, I don't know what Rammus's would be using the Season 3 items either, could be he's still faster. And Powerball lasts longer than Hecarim's charge, so even if Hecarim is faster Rammus will probably cover more ground more quickly.)

Top speed team is probably Orianna/Zilean/Jayce/Galio. Sivir and Nunu aren't as useful unless you're going for distance, rather than max speed.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Top speed team is probably Orianna/Zilean/Jayce/Galio. Sivir and Nunu aren't as useful unless you're going for distance, rather than max speed.

That is indeed the fastest team currently possible, yes.

[Forrestfire]

Holy crap that skin sounds cool.

[Qwertystop]

The game started with me & cait dying several times, poor-exchange, in laning. I remember I looked and it was 3/15 or something.

Then, this.

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Oddly, although two different people other than me said "teamwork for all" in in-game chat, I only got +1 Teamwork.

[Thanatos 51-50]

You know those pop-ups that show up at the beginning of matches, now? A recent asked: "Who will be the most sportsmanlike player this game?"
It was a practise match.
We all agreed. It was going to be Lux Bot.

(I get lots of "friendly" honours because I joke the entire game. Get lots of teamwork ones, too, but I assume that's the community's "polite" honours when you're on the same team..
Don't many honourable honours, but then I don't PvP a lot. I don't like solo queing and most of my friends are you guys and you're all level 30s.)

[Godskook]

Oddly, although two different people other than me said "teamwork for all" in in-game chat, I only got +1 Teamwork.

1.Your Lux should've capped CDR. 24s ults are just too useful(I love poking with a 'proper' ult), combined with Abyssal's near-useless status on her(I'd rather have Lich Bane, and I'm sure someone will point out that Lich Bane is bad on her, which is kinda my point).

2.You only get notified of honors given before you leave the summary screen. If someone waited till after you left(cause they were chatting) to give honors, that would show up later.

3.Bootsless Caitlyn is....amusing, to say the least.

[ex cathedra]

1.Your Lux should've capped CDR. 24s ults are just too useful(I love poking with a 'proper' ult), combined with Abyssal's near-useless status on her(I'd rather have Lich Bane, and I'm sure someone will point out that Lich Bane is bad on her, which is kinda my point).

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

[Silverraptor]

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

She only had grail, so where else did she cap CDR? Although Lich bane *is* a good item on her.

[LordShotGun]

She only had grail, so where else did she cap CDR? Although Lich bane *is* a good item on her.

Blue buff and blue pot I would imagine, considering that no on else on the team really NEEDED blue (maybe poppy early game, since you know, jungle poppy is best poppy), I would think that lux got all the available blue buffs.

[Eurus]

Possibly elixir + runes and masteries?

[Godskook]

Their Lux did cap CDR, and Lich Bane isn't bad on Lux, so what the **** man.

1.I thought it was, and got argued with last time I said so here, but since I don't play Lux, I really don't care about that one. My point stands either way, cause it had nothing to do with the discussion "how good is Lich Bane on Lux", and everything to do with "Lich is better than Abyssal on her, but I'd rather have CDR".

2.I don't think blue pot + blue buff counts on certain champions, Like Lux and Ryze, who *REALLY* want 39...40% CDR with full uptime. Especially in a game where you're clawing back into the game from behind, and can't rely on getting your own blues, and can't afford to be blue potting.

[ex cathedra]

Athene's + masteries + blue = 39%. Lichbane isn't good, but it's the closest thing to old DFG for the time being. It's solid, neither great nor trash.

[PersonMan]

I don't get how Bankplank is "fun." Like, you relegate yourself to being useless for 25 minutes and you buy ****ty items and spend mana on farming with Q so you have zero lane presence. You're like Nasus except for the fact that Nasus has wither.

GP has really strong early and midgame potential and Bankplank throws all of that away in the most boring way possible. Why spend 2400 gold on items that do nothing when i could get Executioner's Calling + Bruta, Ionic Spark, or Tiamat?

In my experience, gold/10plank is actually pretty good since he benefits from all of them (ok, Kage's doesn't bring that much, but it still helps). I don't know if I've just been going top against fools, but I generally win lane with the gold/10 items and can then just farm (with or without Q, since I can afford to), occasionally bullying the enemy laner with 2-4 Qs at them.

Also, I'm wondering how Philo Stone/Avarice Blade/Kage's/HoG could be seen as 'doing nothing'. Yes, they aren't the most stellar items, but they bring sustain, tankiness, some damage, increase burst healing and ult damage (not by much, I will admit).

It's also just awesomely fun to be winning fights and have absurd gold income, since I do win fights with those items. Executive's Calling and Ionic Spark wouldn't give the same benefits, I feel. Then again, I haven't really tried using them.

[ex cathedra]

They're all purposefully gold-inefficient items that provide stats that don't enhance each other in any way. Most mid- and top-tier items are very efficient in that they give you more stats than you paid for, and many low-tier items aren't particularly efficient at all, Doran's excluded. This creates game states wherein the first champion to finish a "big" offensive item (because that rule of thumb doesn't hold true for defensive items; stats-wise, negatron and chain vest are ridiculous and most of their upgrades mostly provide utility rather than raw and efficient defenses) has more effective gold than other champions. This is one of the several gameplay mechanics responsible for how easily League tends to snowball. S3 changes are, in part, aimed at reducing this.

GP10 aren't "real" items, especially after the Philo/HoG nerfs. Avarice Blade (on average) adds less damage to your auto-attacks than even a simple Doran's Blade up until you get more than 120ish AD. Even on Q, where it actually shines, the bonus damage boost is inconsistent and worth about as much as 10 AD at rank 5.

If you come to lane with Philo or Avarice and your enemy comes to lane with 2x Doran's blade or 1x Doran's Blade + Ninja Tabi they can all-in you and you can't do anything about it. If you are playing against enemies too incompetent to realize this, you're settling yourself into a poor playstyle that won't work nearly as well against the better players that you'll inevitably face.

You're over-paying for stats that don't synergize with one another while your enemies are under-paying for stats that multiply each other. It's just math. 4x GP10 is weak because GP's early game is weak and he can't carry those items with just his base values. His Q costs too much mana and Ninja Tabi reduce too much damage for you to spend any amount of time harassing with zero-item Parrrley's once you've had the chance to spend some gold.

[MCerberus]

So it's 6300 time.

Either:

Jayce, the OP of Tomorrow
Rengar, the manbearlion
Riven, the spam-master

[ChaosOS]

Not riven. Riven is just boring

Jayce if you prefer bruisers and want poke and damage over longer periods of time.

Rengar if you prefer stronger all-ins.

[Silverraptor]

So it's 6300 time.

Either:

Jayce, the OP of Tomorrow
Rengar, the manbearlion
Riven, the spam-master

Have both Jayce and Riven. Both are fun, strong picks. Working on Rengar so I can say "Sloooooow Dooooooown!" on mumble with everyone else.

[ex cathedra]

is it so hard to pick your own champions christing god guys come on
ask yourself "does this interest me" if y: buy if n: skip ggwp

IPL 5 Groupstages, for anyone interested:
Group A:

• Team Dynamic
• Team WE
• Team ALTERNATE
• Azubu Blaze

Group B:

• Team FeaR
• CLG.EU
• CLG.NA
• IceLanD

Group C:

• Meat Playground
• Curse EU
• Singapore Sentinels
• TSM

Group D:

• Curse NA
• Moscow 5
• Taipei Assassins
• Blackbean

Poor Curse NA.

[toasty]

Why does everyone feel so bad about Curse NA? They'll end up in the losers bracket, along with HALF the starting teams.

Like... I dunno, so many other teams out there aren't gonna do any good. Do people think Fear and Dynamic are gonna do good?

[Psyborg]

Why does everyone feel so bad about Curse NA? They'll end up in the losers bracket, along with HALF the starting teams.

Like... I dunno, so many other teams out there aren't gonna do any good. Do people think Fear and Dynamic are gonna do good?

Fear may or may not be a great team, but people love watching Aphromoo do ridiculous things with unconventional and/or uncommon ADCs. I don't expect them to win, but I expect them to have some really enjoyable games to watch.

[Eldariel]

IEM Singapore is the saddest League LAN ever. Five teams announce they can't participate (it manages to be simultaneously with Dreamhack Winter, OLYMPUS Champions' Winter AND Tencent Games Grand Finals), now they're scrapping the bottom of the barrel with some local teams-4-fun that have never even played tournament qualifiers.

[sonofzeal]

Epic TT game!

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Not shown here: every single summoner involved being higher level than me, and a decent early-game that morphed into a mid-game so bad that Darius quit to go back and hang out in spawn. Down two inhibs, with a team kill ratio of something like 15:30, we were getting steamrolled. At one point Amumu was engaging us 2v1 and winning.

But... they didn't put much effort into altars. We controlled both through most of the game, and even when they were back-to-back acing us it was really just a token effort on their part. And with altar control came lower respawn timers, and a gold income that offset their rather staggering advantage.

I think the turning point was either when Rengar picked up a 1v1 kill on Evelynn to prevent our nexus turret from falling... or when I built Abyssal, and could suddenly solo Amumu. I'd honestly totally forgotten to build Void Staff, which is my normal choice, but Abyssal also fit in some more MR and that seemed to fit better here. Being able to take Amumu 1v1 changed the face of the game, because unlike Amumu Rumble has a speed boost and two nice ranged slows, so I could keep pressure in winning situations and back out of poor ones much more easily. That wasn't helpful when almost every situation was losing, but being able to go 1v1 with their best magnified that substantially. Suddenly I could bully, grab altars again to get our death timers down, and push to their base.... and once there, Rengar could smash through towers like nobody's business while I ran interference.

We had one fantastic push up top, Aced, and they did that silly thing where they came out as they respawned - meaning one at a time - right into our teeth. We got a couple extra kills that way and took the inhib before basing. We were still down both of our inhibs, but the morale boost was awesome, Darius apologized openly for his previous behaviour, and a similarly epic push up bottom cinched the game for us.


MORAL OF THE STORY: Optimism! Determination! Altar control! And don't let one-sided kill scores scare you too much, if you have reason to suspect your team has been getting the gold income they need to keep up.