Created at the end of 2016 as Friends Forever QTV Gaming (FFQ), its founder was no one else than QTV, one of the most popular Vietnamese pro players ever, who had been the toplaner for teams as the Saigon Jokers and the Boba Marines (who later turned into GAM), even winning a game at the World Championship 2012. He also managed to beat sOAZ in a Lee Sin 1v1 at All-Stars 2017 despite being 28 years old at the time. Similar to Origen, this was a team built around veteran players including QTV himself, Minas (GAM Zeros’s brother) and Warzone (who would later attend MSI 2018 with EVOS Esports) – but unlike xPeke’s passion project, results were ordinary, culminating in a chaotic Spring Split 2018 when FFQ tried out innumerable line-up combinations and was nearly relegated. The team was then rebuilt with two veterans remaining at its core: Toplaner KingJ and ADC Celebrity. Spearheaded by a dynamic duo of rookie jungler DNK and rising star midlaner Artifact, FFQ instantly became one of the best teams in VCS, finishing the regular season of Summer 2018 in second place but then losing their semifinal match in playoffs. After starting strong in Spring 2019 but then slowly deteriorating throughout the split only to lose their first postseason match once again, most people expected the team to break up. Rumours about internal conflict began to surface, with QTV already having left the team and founding a new organization (which competed in VCS this Summer and showed great promise). To the surprise of everyone, not only did the line-up stick together, the team was also acquired by an American organization: Lowkey Esports (LK). Competing without KingJ who is suffering from a wrist injury and looks to be headed for retirement, LK finished in third place in the Regular Season but managed to beat out Team Flash (captained by veteran midlaner Optimus) and Dashing Buffalo (formerly PVB) in playoffs, both favoured above them. Having gained a reputation for performing poorly in deciding matches, their two victories were actually the first Bo5 wins in the team’s three-year history. Now going to an international tournament for the first time, expectations are low, but with four of its five players debuting on Worlds stage, this is a hungry squad, eager to prove itself against the best of the best.
Career Recap: Hani started his career last year with Vikings Gaming who earned themselves a place in Vietnamese esports history by only winning one series throughout the entire Summer, finishing with a legendary game record of 4-27. They were promptly relegated with Hani making one appearance in the Promotion Tournament, going 0/10/2 on Irelia. Far from being a shining light, he was picked up by FFQ/LK as a substitute, but suddenly found himself as the only remaining toplaner following the injury of original starter KingJ. Champion Pool: Having already tried out 29 champions in just 85 career games without showing great mastery on hardly any of them, Hani has always valued quantity over quality. Despite being put on dog champs frequently, he is actually not very strong on tanks, but is more effective on champions with high laning and/or splitpush agency such as Renekton or Aatrox. He has also become a dangerous Camille player (most likely his best pick) and has continued to expand his effective champion pool in the past weeks, showing great performances on Kled and Gangplank. Player Profile: Statistically the worst top in the league by nearly every numeric metric, Hani is a truly terrible laner and got routinely clapped by better players. Despite being an extremely noticeable weak link when it comes to individual skill, putting him on utility duty has not worked out very well for Lowkey Esports. Instead, he demands strong jungle attention to stabilize his lane and keep him relevant in later stages of the game. To his credit, he is serviceable teamfighter who is willing to function on low income and also very eager to leave his lane and make early TP plays in the botlane if needed. Starting the split as an unexperienced sophomore player, Hani has also continuously improved his play and has performed on an admirably decent level in the postseason, even beating an admittedly grossly underachieving veteran player in Stark. It is no hyperbole to claim that his sudden and unexpected growth was a deciding factor in getting his team to Worlds, and if he can follow this trajectory, LK could reach a new level.
Career Recap: Heralded as the next great Vietnamese jungler after reaching Rank 1 on the regional ladder at the age of 17, DNK’s acquisition by FFQ/LK was met with decent hype. Seeing the rift only twice in Spring 2018, he cemented his role as a starting jungler next Summer, playing a major role in transforming his squad into a perennial playoff team. Making another leap this split, he has become a force to be reckoned with, finishing VCS Summer 2019 with the third most MVP points. A strong playoff performer, he is ready for the big stage and strives to become the next jungler out of his region to leave his mark on an international level. Champion Pool: DNK has a very wide champion pool, favouring picks with high early gank potential. Boasting an 8-0 career winrate on Elise, he is also known for his Gragas and was the first player ever to pick up a pentakill on this champion. On top of that, Sylas and Rek’sai have emerged as new personal power picks. Despite being Vietnamese, he is actually not an outstanding Lee Sin player (which has not prevented him from playing the blind monk a lot), and while being mechanically proficient on her, he is also overly fond of Nidalee whose powerfarming style fits neither the meta nor his team. Player Profile: Although he is no slouch in teamfights either, DNK’s main strength is indubitably his early game proactivity where he serves as a consistent facilitator for his team. With an extremely keen sense for gank opportunities, he is VCS’s most active ganker while rarely falling behind in farm due to his efficient pathing. Enabled by mid pressure to execute his aggressive playstyle, he has increasingly shown a preference to visit his sidelanes, especially top, but despite not ganking mid a lot per se, they often team up for 2v2 skirmishes or coordinated map plays in which they show great synergy. On the other hand, it has to be noted that his impact diminishes in the more advanced stages of the game. He is a solid mechanical player but can be inconsistent in finding the right engage and could improve his skillshot accuracy in general. Also, not a great smiter.
Career Recap: Debuting right after turning 17, he started his career under the name of Empty, featuring first on e.Hub United and later on Cherry Esports, both mediocre teams. Already an individual standout before, he has been the undisputed star player of FFQ/LK since Summer 2018. Arguably the best Vietnamese midlaner and still only 19 years of age, he is one of the best players from an emerging region at this tournament. Champion Pool: Artifact has played every meta champion while also being able to pull out unique situational picks such as Lucian or Swain. It is advisable to ban Syndra against him, and he particularly excels on assassins and skirmishing bruisers such as Irelia, Akali, LeBlanc and especially Yasuo. While he is capable on some control mages (e.g. Ryze, Cassiopeia), his performance does take a significant dip on passive champions which cannot influence the map. His Azir is far from inspiring, and his play on utility champions such as Karma leaves a lot to be desired. He also has not shown a lot of Qiyana and Sylas yet, both expected to be crucial meta picks, although they should fit him well in theory. Player Profile: Mechanically gifted and equipped with an explosive playstyle, Artifact could gain a lot of new fans this tournament. He is a solid laner who recognizes kill opportunities well and looks to punish his opponent for mistakes, but shines the most outside of his own lane, regularly searching for windows to turn his mid priority into game-changing plays. Great in skirmishes and teamfights, he always plays on the edge which can backfire against better opposition, but should make for an exciting ride nonetheless. Artifact is a flexible carry who truly serves as the anchor of his team without needing lots of jungle attention – with the snoozefest Corki-Azir era coming to an end, the meta is in an ideal spot for him.
Career Recap: At the age of 22, Celebrity is the second-oldest player in the VCS (Optimus was born ten days earlier). One of the few veteran players in the youngest league in the world, he has already been active since 2014 and won both GPL splits in 2016 as a member of the Saigon Jokers, but never made it to the global stage before. Celebrity has been widely recognized as one of the best ADCs in his region since his debut, and while newer talent such as DBL BigKoro and FL Slayder has overtaken him, he is still a player who can perform at a high level. Champion Pool: Celebrity is an old-school player who has mostly shied away from non-standard botlane picks. While he can play basically every marksman and is decent on modern champions (Kai’sa, Xayah), he is most comfortable on older ADCs such as Caitlyn, Lucian and Tristana. Celebrity is also known for his Vayne – don’t count him out to show her in a crucial match. Player Profile: An okay-ish albeit maybe somewhat passive laner, Celebrity is willing to commit if his support goes for all-ins, but normally prefers sieging or scaling setups. His style has not changed a lot throughout the years, so don’t except an Uma Jan type of player. Celebrity wants to shine in teamfights where he has become increasingly prone to an occasional positional mishap but is still a good late-game carry overall. A lot will depend on temporary form, and although he is not as reliable as he used to be, he can still hit a very high skill ceiling if he were to hit a hot streak.
Career Recap: The only LK player to have participated at Worlds before, Venus went to Play-Ins in 2017 as the jungler of Young Generation who would later rename to Phong Vũ Buffalo, taking a game off Fnatic before getting eliminated by Team WE. As many pro players, he had intensely quarrelled with his family due to his time investment into gaming, but later managed to reconcile and make them proud after finding success in his career. A former Saigon Jokers trainee, Venus roleswapped in Summer 2018 after being mediocre in his original position and has now developed into a solid support who is still continuously improving. Champion Pool: Venus is most known for his Thresh and excels on skillshot champions in general while displaying an unmistakable penchant for picks with hook abilities. Nautilus, Morgana, Pyke and Lux will be other champions to look out for. He is also serviceable on more defensive picks such as Braum and especially Tahm Kench, but their place within the meta is questionable. In spite of his improvements in this regard, his overall champion pool is still a bit shallow. Venus is not a great Rakan player; on top of that, he has zero career games on Yuumi. Player Profile: When he started in the support role, Venus would show a high mechanical ceiling on selected champions, but also a lacking understanding of the role, frequently mispositioning and giving up unnecessary deaths. Since then, he has mostly cleaned up his mistakes and become much more stable. Venus is not an extensive roamer but will show up in the midlane from time to time when Artifact needs support. Once the early game is finished, he aggressively and sometimes overaggressively looks for picks. He and Celebrity had no great problems holding their lane within their region (especially as LK’s style often pulls the centre of attention to other parts of the map) but are probably exploitable against international competition.
COACH – Nixwater & Aci
Both coaches joined FFQ/LK for Spring 2019, having been prominent figures in the Vietnamese scene before. A caster for four years, this is Aci’s first coaching stint. In contrast to Aci who had a short pro career and competed in GPL 2013, Nixwater is not only a former DotA player, but also one of the most accomplished League players in early SEA history. A midlaner for the Saigon Jokers, he was known for his unconventional picks – a flavour he has maintained throughout his coaching career which started in 2016. Nixwater is a genuine veteran figure who will represent Lowkey as the on-stage coach.
The team
30:19 Game Time, 0.89 CKPM, 1.19 K:D ratio (2nd), 46.9 FB% (6th), 62.5 FT% (2nd), 59.4 HER% (3rd), 50.7 DRA% (6th), 64.3 NASH% (1st), 1782 DPM (3rd) Lowkey Esports is a mid-jungle focused team which revolves around its strong 2v2 with Artifact and DNK, ideally looking to transition this advantage into the botlane but increasingly being forced to alter their style and commit plenty of attention to the other side of the map to cover for the individual weaknesses of toplaner Hani. While Artifact is probably the best player on the team, DNK might be the most important one: Reliant on his ability to create leads for his sidelanes, Lowkey can steamroll ahead on his back, but might also find themselves out of options to build a significant advantage when he doesn’t have a successful early game. Their system is held in place by the self-sustaining Artifact but will most likely crumble if enemies manage to break through LK’s core. Hani is Lowkey’s big exploitable weakness, greatly outmatched by every capable opponent and regularly falling behind dozens of CS when left alone. Throughout the split, DNK has catered more and more towards him; while it may seem counterintuitive to commit so much time to your perceived weakness, this has actually worked pretty well for Lowkey as it allows their botlane to safely scale into the midgame with the flow of the game shifting away from them. At the same time, it will be indeed a problem if DNK or even Artifact have to play massively around top when the intention is not necessarily to create a win condition for yourself but to prevent the enemy from having a win condition on their own. That said, it has to be recognized that Hani has shown big improvements throughout the playoffs, and if he magically transcends to another level, this could elevate Lowkey enough to see them advancing to Group Stage. Nevertheless, expect Hani’s lane to be an unbridgeable sieve against stronger tops. Fluid yet chaotic, Lowkey Esports is a skirmish/teamfight-oriented line-up. As is tradition for a Vietnamese team, not all those fights are exactly widely chosen, but while not being overly mechanically strong, LK is a coherent and decisive unit which is willing to fully commit for a call, no matter if it makes sense or not. Notorious for low warding stats, they can be prone to be picked off at random spots of the map, but although they tended to ignore sidelanes in the past, they have now developed a somewhat decent level of macro understanding. LK does not put high emphasis on dragon, but is aggressively pushing for objectives otherwise, especially around Baron although many of their setups can be sloppy and risky. Lowkey is known for their unconventional champion pools, compositions and strategies, e.g. surprising GAM in the playoffs with an interesting (albeit a bit awkwardly executed) laneswap, also being one of the few teams to prefer red side in order to secure unique counterpicks. As probably only Artifact and DNK are beyond Wild Card level individually, Lowkey will hope to rely on their coordination to find success. Having the easiest group draw possible, they should have no problems against MEGA and are expected to meet HKA on even footing, a Liquid-ish team whose strong botside of Unified and Kaiwing could mean trouble for Lowkey, but whose passiveness may also be punished by LK’s explosive fiesta style.
The GAM feud: a look beyond the rift
When two Vietnamese organizations made it to Worlds for the first time in 2017 (Gigabyte Marines and Young Generations), both squads were known to be very close and often scrimmaged with each other. As they were frequently receiving advice by GAM coach Tinikun, the more inexperienced YG team was even called GAM’s sister team by some. Two years later, as once again two VCS teams attend a World Championship, the circumstances could not be more different. Lowkey and GAM Esports are in the middle of a fierce rivalry, and them scrimming each other doesn’t seem realistic at all. The roots of this feud are hard to determine but can be most likely traced back to the end of 2016 when QTV (founder of FFQ/LK) was kicked from GAM-predecessor Boba Marines who were coached by Tinikun himself. While fans had been already enjoying a healthy rivalry, the relationship between LK and GAM ignited last month: Going into the last week of VCS Summer, Lowkey was already locked in for playoffs but could theoretically still reach first place. Four teams qualify for the postseason, but as the #1 seed gets to choose their opponent between the #3 and #4 seed, topping the regular season is actually of considerable significance. Not believing in their chances to attain this spot as GAM themselves looked utterly dominant, Lowkey decided to troll when facing Team Flash (who had the same record as LK), picking TFT-inspired compositions in all of their three games: After somehow stomping the first match with an all-demon comp (Aatrox, Elise, Swain, Varus, Brand), Lowkey would lose the next two matches with an all-glacial line-up (Sejuani, Trundle, Anivia, Ashe, Braum) as well as a team of five yordles (Gnar, Poppy, Corki, Tristana, Lulu). GAM Tinikun vehemently criticized this decision on Facebook (yes, VCS drama happens there), accusing Lowkey of poor sportsmanship. As a reaction, all five of LK’s players immediately changed their Facebook profile pictures to various versions of a toad – a pejorative nickname within the Vietnamese scene for Tinikun which had been established by no one else but Lowkey’s head coach Nixwater. After winning the regular split, GAM continued the feud by picking LK as their playoff opponent out of spite, a move Lowkey’s players had actually been vocally demanding on Facebook before. Going into a fiery semifinal, LK had no intentions of backing down but instead started to trashtalk in a manner some considered rude, loudly calling for their victory and personally attacking Tinikun with jungler DNK even proclaiming he would play Lee Sin and start his jungle route by kicking “the toad” in the head. GAM went on to win 3-0. DNK did not pick Lee Sin. Bad boys or just exuberant youngsters? Infamous for their explosive team atmosphere and hence often called the “circus”, LK was already known for their brash and humorous public persona, always willing to spice things up. After being in the centre of another chapter in the long history book of VCS drama, Lowkey have made sure to create a distinct identity for themselves. No matter how they will be judged in the end, at least their TFT comps will not be forgotten too soon.
The Expert Panel
The experts
Jensen Goh (@thejupiterstorm) is currently part of Splyce’s coaching staff. In the past, he has been coaching EVOS Esports who represented Vietnam at MSI 2018. Apart from stints in the LMS and LDL, he has also been a GPL caster for several years.
Jonathan Yee (@amigrainelol) is an esports writer who has worked for platforms such as Esportsheaven. A true connoisseur of minor leagues, he is focusing on VCS and other emerging regions.
Noah Schaar (@yulweilol) has been part of the Unofficial English VCS cast, commentating every game this Summer.
How would you describe LK’s playstyle to somebody who has never seen them play? Jensen: This is an FPX-style team where they try to play mid into bot, with bot playing poke type setups and them using Artifact's wide champion pool to get unique counterpicks to get the priority necessary to facilitate the botlane matchup. Jonathan: Wide champion pools across the team. Renowned for their TFT-inspired comps (5 demons, 5 glacial), jungler DNK has his Elise frequently banned. Artifact has two favourites in LeBlanc and Syndra but is just as home on assassins such as Yasuo and Qiyana; often roams with DNK. Noah: Lowkey is the epitome of the “the sum is better than its parts” team. Artifact likes playmaking champs in the midlane, being the focal point of LK's early game. Together with his jungler DNK, he is the strongest point on the map in the laning phase for LK. LK looks best when they get strong lanes in mid and top and are able to play through those with DNK's help. In many ways they are the complete opposite of GAM when it comes to playstyle. LK plays a very solid mid and late-game with very good communication and coordination. From behind, they try to get advantages whenever they can, e.g. get a man-advantage anywhere on the map to claw back their way into the game. Lastly, LK also is a creative team with good preparation. They try unique strategies like lane-swapping against GAM to avoid the Hani-Zeros matchup and come up with solid plans to upset the usual flow of the game. What is LK’s biggest strength? What is their biggest weakness? Jensen: Artifact / Hani. Jonathan: Strengths: Unpredictable champ pool and thus difficult to prepare for. Weaknesses: Very inconsistent. Noah: Teamplay, communication and preparation. Weaknesses: Laning and mechanics (especially for Hani and Celebrity). Why should a neutral viewer tune into LK’s games? Jensen: To make Reddit threads about how bad an idea it is to laneswap in 2019 without taking time to think more about it. Jonathan: They epitomize the fiesta. Not all plays will make sense, but damn will you be entertained. Noah: Interesting strategies, a team full of international rookies. Who is the player to watch? Jensen: Hani feeding. Jonathan: Artifact. Noah: Artifact (and Hani negatively – can he avoid the int…?) What is your 90%/50%/10% prediction for the team? Jensen: 90%: Celebrity ints a teamfight. 50%: Artifact gets a solo kill against the Pool 1 mid. 10% LK finishes 1st in their Play-In group but then loses the Bo5 to another wildcard team. Jonathan: 90%: LK goes 2-0 against MEGA. 50%: LK pick at least 3 TFT-synergistic champions (e.g. Aatrox, Elise, Morgana) in the same game. 10%: LK finishes top in their Play-in group. Noah: 90%: (At least) second place in Play-Ins. 50%: They advance to the Group Stage. 10%: They compete for the second place in Groups.
Amateurish 5v5 Theorycraft: unorthodox lane assignment
Hello guys, I'm Calangalado, lurker of this sub for a while and lover of strategy games. I am not a very mechanically gifted player (Gold IV scrub), but I believe that mechanics can only brute force you so far, while a solid strategy and execution can improve your overall chances of winning a game. This is probably gonna be a long post. I will do a small summary, so you can navigate it freely without the need of reading everything, if wanted be. I hope that this, if anything, at least entertains you guys! Feedbacks are appreciated :)
Introduction: a short overview of the current meta
Toplane
Jungle
Midlane
Botlane
Support
Observation
Theorycraft: unorthodox lane assignment
Why would I play it instead of standard league?
How to draft
How to execute
TL;DR
1. Introduction: a short overview of the current meta
The current state of our beloved League of Legends meta states the following: Toplane: Usually isolated to the rest of the map, champions that are suited to this lane are the ones who either thrive in a 1v1 situation or can offer a lot of utility to the team past lane phase. This entails a variety of champions, from tanks, duelists, bruisers to assassins, control mages and even the occasional enchanter. Jungle: Both decent clear speed and healthy clears are desirable to the role. Its main goals are to control and execute neutral objectives and dictate the pace of the game, being on the right place at the right time, being it counter-jungling, ganking, counter-ganking, breaking a frozen wave and the likes. Midlane: Together with the jungler, the midlaner can dictate the pace of the game, since the middle lane is a short way away from any neutral objetive and side lane. The ability to both answer or proactively make plays around the map doesn't come for free: holding the outer mid tower up is of massive importance (since it is arguably the most important outer tower of the game, protecting the transition between sides of the jungle against enemy champions). Being punished for leaving lane and not actually getting anything for rotating the map is a terrible loss, while sitting the entirety of the game on the midlane can often lead to a loss for not impacting the map. Botlane: Once completely inhabited by marksmen (so to as people still refer to the role as Attack Damage Carry (ADC) even when its a mage), now the role is a bit more diverse (but still far away to be as diverse as the other four roles). The traditional goal of botlaners is to offer sustained damage to the team. Oftentimes its playstyle is of a glasscannon: capable of dealing a lot of damage, but being easily destroyed. Support: Usually coupled to the botlaner, the support role doesn't have priority when it comes to farming, and under normal circumstances avoid getting the last hit on enemy champions, saving it for its carry. This forces champions that are willing to fill the position to succeed under a low economy scenerio. That's why supports normally bring the most utility for its team, in the shape of heals, shields, slows, stuns, initiations, disengages, and whatnots. Observation: The standard lane assignment usually happens because the first neutral objective (dragon) spawns bot side, and having two member on the nearest side lane to the objective commonly guarantees more fighting potential than a solo laner. Note that it's also normally optimal to rotate the duo lane topwards after the dragon is taken to guarantee the same kind of pressure towards the Rift Herald. This only goes to prove the importance of being able to survive alone for long periods without jungle-mid attention for the toplaner.
2. Theorycraft: unorthodox lane assignment
My whole concept is probably only appliable to premades and/or amateurish championships. The pro scene lives, eats and sleeps the game, so pretty sure they would be able to adapt to (and more importantly, punish!) this on the go. While the pros are great to follow and watch, it also is very thrilling to take part on tournaments ourselves. With Crash Clash improving with each open beta test, eventually we will finally be able to get together with our friends and put our combined skills to a test. Since we don't have as much time to spend on improving our game and neither have such an amazing coaching/supporting staff with us, we might be able to sneak some wins through cheesing our opponents. What I propose is anything but new: swap the duolane with top. It might be simple on the paper, but can get tricky on the execution if you try to play the standard league that is so ingrained within us. Why would I play it instead of standard league?
Your opponents will definetely not be expecting it, which means that they neither will draft to punish it nor will they know how to react in-game.
Even though its a different early game paradigm, if you are able to stick to the game plan, it is a team playstyle that should be easy to pick up, even with little to no practice.
If played correctly, the gold/kill advantage should make up for the lower pressure on the drake early on. Specially with the platting system.
How to draft The solo sidelaner typically needs to thrive in a 1v1 situation, as we already know. We are going to up the game and make it viable to avoid falling behind in a 1v2 situation. For that, we need the following 3 keypoints:
Clear wave: AoE spells that do massive damage to the minions is high in our priorities. We want to avoid the enemy duolaners the most, while still profiting from farm.
Range: in order to avoid both the enemy's damage and having the lane frozen against you, you need to have enough range to farm and not get in deadly danger.
A reliable safety/spacing spell: the effect of the spell can vary extensively: spell shields, dashes, jumps, blinks, roots, stuns... You name it. It should only be used as an emergency tool, since having it on CD and walking up to CS can mean facing a gray screen for the next seconds.
An example list of champions that fit these three points is: Morgana: W can clean up waves from a distance, Q, E and R can all be used as a disengage tool. Xerath: Q and W can clear the wave safely. If E lands, it can be used to disengage. Viktor: E has amazing damage and range. W can situationally keep you safe. Karma: Q can be short ranged, but having access to your R from the get go helps her a lot. E both shields and gives MS steroids. There are some other champions and unorthodox builds that can be equally successful here (including a favourite of mine, AP Nasus :P), but there is a pretty clear trend here: the lane plays out pretty uninteractive. You walk up, you farm and you leave. Your goal is to not fall behind, while protecting your tower and not conceding any kill. Other than that, AP choices seem to fit it better. One could talk about Sivir making it to this list, but I'd argue that she is prone to easily get frozen, and she would have a harder time unfreezing the wave in comparison to the picks I mentioned, I believe. While your solo lane is settled, what should you pick on your duo lane? Well, there are two different approaches (that can even be mixed) to get to the same goal: negate gold and exp from your opponent by bullying them out of lane or freezing.
Engage and tons of damage: Picture this yourself. You are a Renekton running TP, you scort the minions to the lane and when less suspecting one wild Leona walks out of the bush and Qs you, followed by some Draven's Axes. You did not signin for this. You were expecting to fight a Karma. How do you play against the duo when they are zoning you from the wave and you are already half HP even before the lane started? Yup, that's disgusting. Some good combinations are: Draven, Lucian, Renekton, Morgana, Cassio, and Caitlyn coupled with Leona, Morgana (again xD), Braum, Thresh, Pyke, Zyra, etc.
Poke: In a poke duo you focus your efforts on lowering enemy's healthbar so he/she doesn't dare walking up to CS. Because the trading pattern is very telegraphed and long skirmishes are on the weaker side, the opposing team can try and punish you with decisive engages (with the help of the jungler). Always consider some form of sustain or disengage when drafting this option to keep yourselves safe. The usual ones are: Ezreal, Caitlyn, Jayce, artillary mages, and Varus, coupled with Janna, Sona, Soraka, Lulu, Nami, etc.
The trend here is strong early game, specially level 1 and 2. If the solo laner manages to soak up exp he/she will always be up in level against you, and you need to respect that, in case it happens. How to execute The whole idea is to dry the enemy team's solo laner's economy while they have no idea how to answer it in the very beginning. Force your number advantage with your duo lane while avoiding theirs against your solo lane. There are some kind of answers to be expected, though. What will mostly determine if they are successful or not is the timing and how they do it or not (and that's why this strategy is more prone to thrive with us than with pros):
Rotating the support/duolane: While its an simple idea, it will always be a late answer (which plays in our favor). There are two always that we can see it happening, the bad one (good for us) or the good one (neutral to us). The bad one is more likely to happen. They don't time together pushing waves and recalling, so they will lose minions on the map while trying to rotate. Good one is when they don't lose any additional minions in the process.
Pressing numbers advatage to stack dragons: the biggest downside of this strategy, to my mind, is this exploitability. Pros would take a free drake 24/7. But we are no pros. I expect most teams to not recognize this window of opportunity, but if they do you will need to adapt to it in game.
This strategy should remain true for the entirety of the lane phase and probably during the transition to mid game. After that the game returns to the standard league we all know and love.
TL;DR
Forcing unusual 1v2 2v1 lane assignments with a careful draft and execution can get your enemy off guard and win you more games by suffocating their economy.
Yesterday we got to watch the relative parity of the Japanese teams when compared to the other regions pay dividends, as DFM (who are every bit as good and some would argue stronger than Rampage right now) managed to take both of their games against the other second seeds, and a stand-out performance by Unsold Stuff Gaming showed a team we didn't have any right to expect. Coming into Day 2, the LJL was in a fantastic position to take the first seed for the next stage of the event, needing to only win 1 of the 2 games to jump directly to the finals. Unfortunately, this was definitely not something that was a foregone conclusion. We had two games last night, and analysts around the world said that most of the hopes of Japan rested on Unsold Stuff Gaming's shoulders. This is a very scary composition. USG has had some fantastic games as we saw on Day 1, but we've seen them build leads against teams like Rampage and DFM, and then throw them away by not making any aggressive moves. REMIND is normally the carry, and if he runs into players stronger than he is, the team struggles, and Neo is always a coin flip. The other possible win was Rampage vs Gigabyte Marines, and if you had told me that you had Rampage to win this game, I would have laughed at you. Yes, Rampage has looked better this split than they did in spring. Yes, the Marines have had significant roster changes, but the core is in many ways still intact. Japan only needed one win last night, and they found two. Let's take a look at how they managed to definitively take the first seed.
Match Breakdown
Quick disclaimer again, this is once again going to be focusing on things from the Japanese side.
We talked a little bit yesterday about how we did not like Rampage's draft phase, but overall we saw a much more solid version today. It was very interesting that GAM chose to give Evi the counterpick, choosing to hide the Graves. Not a huge deal and the two teams end up going pretty even going into the start of the game. The Camille pick raised a lot of questions for viewers, as yesterday we saw him play against Chippys' Jax and get incredibly outscaled. The mentality he brought to the team on the character means he tries to make plays, but if he falls behind, he'll end up falling very behind, and we've seen both versions of Evi's Camille. Once again, we saw a Japanese team skip the large raptor, showing that yesterday it was definitely intentional. "If you make the first gank work", it pays off, and Tussle makes it work. Prior to this game even starting, many people looked at these teams and thought, Yutori and Dara need to get ahead. The bottom lane of GAM is not as strong as the top half, as Levi and Optimus have clearly shown some real strength. Tussle is good, but not considered Levi levels and Ramune has been the largest weak point on the team. By no means is he a bad player, but when every other role on the team is either best or second best in the region, Ramune falls a little short. This is exactly what happens for Rampage. RPG jumps off to a great start in the bot lane as Dara picks up his first of many kills. We got to see a couple important things. Firstly, don't take turret shots at early levels. Secondly, ignite exerts more kill pressure than exhaust, and it's a little interesting that Sya opted into exhaust in this game, seeing as the nerf that went through a while ago regarding attack speed is still in effect, and the people who will be diving into the back line are Camille and Rek'sai. They both can go untargetable. Overall, Rampage did a great job of setting themselves up pre-10. Even with GAM making moves and getting a kill back onto Evi, they set Evi up for success by making Archie's life very difficult and making his scaling take a lot longer than it would otherwise. By the 10 minute mark, Rampage has set themselves up for success. Top is winning because of how far behind Archie is. Bot lane is winning, even if Dara decides he's the carry now. Rampage's composition comes online very soon, but we see why GAM are considered one of the best wild cards. Despite the deficit, some odd plays (Dara and Tussle getting caught) and good objective control later, GAM comes back to even up the gold totals and even the infernal drake. A poor dive by Evi and Tussle gives the Marines the lead for the first time in the game. Both teams remain pretty even, and by that I mean sloppy, Getting caught out, picking odd targets in fights, and Dara picking up kills. We eventually see the fact that Archie's Kennen is put really far behind pay massive dividends. While Camille is not necessarily at the strongest part of the game, he is definitely stronger than Kennen, and with the 40 second death timer, Rampage is put into a position to start the Baron 5v4. A split decision from the Marines gets them wiped, and a game that was even in gold immediately jumps to Rampage having a 7k gold lead, an open base, and the Baron buff still on all 5 members. The way that Evi plays Camille also becomes very clear. Confident in his ability to win in duels, he finds his way onto Archie, onto Optimus, and between the Guardian's Angel and Gargoyle Stoneplate, is able to keep himself alive long enough for the rest of the team to arrive and save him when it's not actually a duel. This exact situation ends up getting Rampage the game, completing the sweep of the GPL teams by Japan. At this point, the only possible way for Japan to not take first seed is for OCE to win both of their games. LJL 4-1.
Having only seen these teams play against Mineski coming into this match, USG was looking stronger. They beat Mineski faster, they had a larger gold lead, and a better kill spread. If USG brought the same level of play to this match, they should take it easily and give Japan the fast track to the finals. Nothing particularly surprising coming out of the draft for either side, apaMEN having begun playing Gnar last week against 7th heaven and the Warwick something that Neo is starting to put more andm ore games on. Sin has a strong composition that is more focused on winning fights at the beginning, with strong burst and only a Caitlyn to continue the fight, where USG strongly prefers longer fights. Sin looked to start the game incredibly well, weathering a gank on the bottom side of the map and prepping a devastating countergank as Neo moved to the top side of the map at 4:30. Unfortunately for Sin though, Warwick's damage reduction and sustain is monstrous at this point in the game and the level advantage Juves has over Neo isn't enough to bring the puppy down. 35% reduction matched with a 1 second fear left Dhokla and Juves with no options and apaMEN picked up a double kill. Beyond the gold, this is an absolute disaster for the top half of Sin's map, as Renekton doesn't scale anywhere near as well as Gnar does once they both have a few items, and the back line threat Dhokla would normally provide is severely mitigated. It is quickly equalized as ry0ma (who had a great performance against Mineski) grabs two kills onto REMIND and Neo. The game is looking good for Sin, as REMIND is behind and apaMEN hasn't been the strongest carry threat for USG. They take another turret and the Rift Herald, and it looks like we got the other version of USG at this point of the game. Then the switch flips. Whoever is shotcalling for USG now is not afraid to fight, and they find their way onto ry0ma, who doesn't even manage to get his ultimate off. We once again see how incredibly powerful Warwick's damage reduction paired with Tahm Kench's Devour, and the hugely powerful front line created by these champions allows USG to find the longer fight and the consistent damage output of Varus and Cassiopeia is too much for Sin to handle. A bizarre set of almost-picks shows a lack of willingness to fight for Sin, which isn't what you expect from this team. The only ultimates available for either team were Gnar's and Renekton's, and choosing not to commit for the Baron also gave up the gold lead. They take it back pretty quick though through a strong pick and teamfight onto Neo, grabbing them the Baron and eventually cracking the base. Despite the early game from Neo, it looks like we rolled a tails this game as his aggressive positioning means that he got repeatedly picked, which put USG in a terrible position. It looks like Sin have no idea how to do the Baron if there's even the possibility of a contest though, like seriously. Why is Juves at a quarter health every time? You have a Thresh and Renekton to tank who don't do the same kind of damage to monsters, and neither of them have smite available. Juves being low, combined with USG being able to set up the firing line of Varus and Cassiopeia with no threat presented by Sin, leaves USG in a position to win teamfights and take objectives. Sin had good map control this game, though they gave up all of the dragons. The gold totals were incredibly close, but the gold matters less as the teams approached late game and the incredibly strong 3-2 front line/back line composition that USG put together, combined with the fact that Dhokla's Renekton actually just did nothing and couldn't do anything to USG's carries, meant that Sin had an uphill battle whenever they teamfought. When you're fighting up hill, it means that the USG death ball can just roll down it, and that's exactly what we saw at 38 minutes. USG didn't do anything particularly well in this fight other than just play their composition correctly (and an above average Gnar ultimate), and it let them push for game. With this victory, LJL ends the group stage 5-1, taking the first seed uncontested.
Standings
Region
Score
LJL
5-1
GPL
2-4
OPL
1-5
We've talked and talked and talked about how DFM and RPG ensure that Japan came into this event with 2 first seeds. Many people expected GAM and ASC to be the #1 and #2 teams, but Japan beat both of them. We got a little lucky with the version of USG we saw, but LJL is looking much stronger than we would have predicted.
Outro
To all of my American readers, happy independence day! Go blow some things up, just make sure you're only lighting things on fire that you mean to light on fire! The USG we're seeing at this event is actually very exciting. We've talked over and over about how much of a carry REMIND is for this team, and that's because prior to this event, it was incredibly true. apaMEN was struggling to stay relevant in the top lane, Neo has great games, but he's just as likely to feed really hard, and the bot lane usually isn't strong after the 20 minute mark. It looks like Enty is stepping up in communications and shotcalling, and it's been effective at this event. We knew DFM was looking good coming into this event, if a little inconsistent. They've dropped game 1 to both USG and RPG this season, so against the better teams, there was some worry there, but they've shown to be more than a match for either Legacy or Ascension. There are still some question marks in my mind for how the event will end, which version of USG will we see? Is Rampage actually better than Gigabyte Marines and will they be able to take down Dire Wolves if they get a rematch? What we do know is that for the first time, Japan is on the map for international events. We'll be back soon to break down the finals, but until then, be safe, be smart, and have a great day!
What's "Wrong" with League of Legends - Insight from a Grizzled Season 2 Veteran
I want to start off by saying there is no easy fix here. If you're looking for a quick fix, a singular smart ass comment, or are yourself intending to respond with one, you're not helping. It is the nature of people to oversimply issues as being singularly-dimensional when in actuality there are a number of facets that contribute to the weakening of something once strong(er). That said, this is also not a doom-and-gloom post. This is a legitimate criticism for a game that this player wishes to see maintain popularity in the longrun. I've a large amount of time invested and a real interest in seeing it return to a positive reputation amongst its playerbase. While not comprehensive or universally agreed upon, I have have tried to create a list of topics/issues that have offended the playerbase. These aren't micro issues like Ardent meta, they're overarching philisophical issues with game design. I believe sincerely that if Riot takes this list to heart, their brand can move forward in a positive direction. It is very important to reiterate that no one thing is the cause of League's player growth depreciation over the last few seasons. If it were that simple, it would be fixed. We as the playerbase, the streamers, the pros, and the Reddit community all need to remember that. That said, here is the list of problems that this player feels are wronging the game experience.
Balanced for pro play.
If you balance it around pro and team play, it is natural that some champions like Ornn, Maokai, and Rek'sai will be weaker in solo queue. If you balance around solo queue, these same champions would dominate in professional play. If you create two seperate metas, the pro scene will die due to irrelevance. Potential Solution: Balance around solo queue, give more bans in professional matches. This will keep the professionally busted (but solo queue balanced) champions from warping the meta, while also forcing pro players to increase their champion pool and increasing diversity in professional matches. You could even go so far as to say in pro matches, "Once a champion has been banned or played once in a best of 3, it cannot be played or banned again in that best of 3".
LCS is boring.
This is going to irritate a lot of people. I watch literally every LCS game. Every weekend, all 10 games. I watch around 40% of the LCK and EULCS, and on occasion, I watch LPL. I watch Rift Rivals, MSI, and Worlds. But the viewerbase that isn't tapped into - the average casual solo queue player - doesn't care about map rotations and macro, they (would) want to watch people fight. That's exciting. That's what drew people to watch League "Back in the day". No one cares about lane swaps and back timers. They want to watch people fight. It doesn't have to be a clown fiesta every game, as I understand that that's not great for analysis or shoutcasting. But there's a reason people initially were interested in the Funnel Comps and Non-ADC comps, novelty. Not that the more nuanced and highly analytical stuff isn't awesome in its own right, I'm sure many of us could sit and listen to u/PapaSmithy all day, but the average player that watches the LCS isn't a new viewer. They already know a load about League. New players - and even many experienced players - aren't going to watch pro players because it's so alien to their own experiences in the game. Which brings us to the next issue...
No incentive for fighting.
Players like fighting and teamfighting. They like to watch players fighting and teamfighting. It relates to their own in game experiences. When a game of League lasts 30 minutes and there isn't a kill in the first 20 minutes of the game, the average player is bored out of their god damned mind. Average players don't want to farm for 20 minutes every game. The certainly don't want to watch pros do it. It's boring. Recently, a pro player had an interview in the LCS (I think it was Aphromoo, but I consume a lot of LoL content, so you'll forgive me) and was asked about fighting in the game. He said he would "...rather not fight, but instead out macro his opponents, because fighting was too high variance". Now, we're not talking about whether he is right or not. He is. Why would you fight when the game incentivizes avoiding it. We're talking about if that's fun. This is a game. Could you imagine if the first 2 minutes of a 5 minute Tekken fight was players just airpunching the most sophisticated combos they could, and after those 2 minutes, your starting life total for the remainder of the fight was a function of how successfully executed your confrontation-less combo was? I can, it's called pro League of Legends. Farming for 20 minutes with 10 minutes of game that actually matters. Admittedly, it's getting better, but I'm a diehard fan of League, and I find myself fast-forwarding LCS games nowadays until I see first blood, because there are games where that might not happen for 18 minutes and I value my life. Potential Solution: Lower the farm bounty of minions and turrets so that players want to fight due to their having relatively higher bounties. It's opportunity cost. Increase the defense and power level of each tier of turret so that players siege longer and have to kill each other to safely move on. Make kills worth more money as the game presses onward (possibly a bad idea on this one, but it came to mind, so I said it).
Stop trying to speed the games up.
This one will likely be a conversation. It's pretty clear the game is being sped up, for many reasons. LCS matches are too long to watch, games are too long to play (note the popularity of the faster ARAM), and shorter games like Fortnite appear to be increasingly popular. Players simply "don't have the time to play such a long game". Really, what happened to the world in the passed 5 years that changed this? The answer is, the game became less fun. You can bet your ass I'd play Summoner's Rift like I used to more often if it was actually fun. Solution: We don't need to be another game. This is League, the Most popular game in the world. We should focus on what makes the game awesome. Make the games that have always lasted 30-50 minutes long more fun to play and watch. Stop trying to be fast food. Be a good meal. I'd rather play one 50 minute fun match than two 20 minute one way stomps with zero chance to impact the game.
Riot doesn't react fast enough.
Ardent Sensor, Feral Flare, 9 Pot Start, League of Cleavers, 3 Gold-per-5-item Junglers, Banner of Command, Team-wide Homeguards, Team-wide Stopwatch, Funnel Comp. These strategies were known to be unhealthy for professional play, and many were terrible for solo queue, but Riot took half a season to correct many of these. That's an eternity in online gaming. Solution: Leave changes on the PBE twice as long. Don't have the audacity to think you don't have to ever play the game to be able to balance it. THAT attitude is idiotic and disrespectful to your playerbase. It may very well be the stupidest thing I've ever read a game designer say, and that's with EA firm in mind. Alternate Potential Solution: Look at Professional game viewership, see if it's going up or down. If players don't watch, it's a shit meta.
The game changes too often.
If they were minor changes, it wouldn't matter. But this season, there were times when I had logged onto a different game and it felt like a different game. Season 8 had so many patch notes that players who play the game for a living were commenting on it. We want more bot lane diversity. Whoa, Doublelift made a video that made front page? We have to go back! Relax. Slow down. The game has been out for almost a decade, and that's literally the first time the ADC role was challenged since before it was decided as the norm back in the NA vs EU tournaments. Bot lane diversity was a healthy choice. Solution: Stop patching the game just to patch it. Let it sit. We don't know what's wrong with the game, because the player base hasn't caught up to everything you've changed in the past 6 months.
Constant champion reworks.
It's a dead horse. But, some are great (Warwick), some are not (Ryze 1-6), some are polarizing (Zac), and some are solid but also fundamentally change the champion so that players who used to like champions don't even want to play their main champion again (Aatrox, Graves), because those champions are literally gone. Solution: While it's important to rework champions that have no place in the current iteration of League of Legends, it's also important to remember that once you release a champion, players connect to those champions. A successful rework retains some semblance of it's original form, else make an entirely different champion should manifest out of the new idea.
(Current issue with today's meta) Champions do too much damage.
We all know this one too, at this point there has been at least 2 different youtube streaming personalities I've seen tackle this, u/hashinshin and u/scarra. Right now, I have very little opportunity to outplay a person if I'm caught off guard, as a tank. If you watch the LCS right now, the biggest picks are things like: Zoe, Mundo, Kindred, Gragas, Zilean, Ashe, Trundle, Tahm Kench, Varus, and Alistar (some more meritable in their mentioning than others). All of these champions have an insane amount of utility or best in class tank stats. Because everything kills instantly. I think I remember a streamer once saying something like, "You know there's something wrong with the ADC role when Ashe is the best one". Solution: At the beginning of the season, you took it away Runes, so now there's too much damage... So give a flat armor and magic resistance buff across the board. Solution 2: Nerf Everything. Functionally, this is the same thing, but admittedly, would take more time.
Items created for specific roles.
The beginning of the end of the "Wild West" era of League was when Wriggle's Lantern was shelved for actual jungle items and support gold per 5 items were exchanged for tailored, role specific items. With this efficiency increase, something died in the community. Creative champion builds. Nowadays, the most interesting things you do as a jungler is skip finishing your jungle item and go straight for Duskblade or Tiamat. Players stopped being able to build unorthodox builds. There was no choice on jungle starts. No choice on support starts. Because items were literally being taken out of the game due to a lack of players building them, rather than just letting them find homes. Items like Madred's Bloodrazer, Atma's Impailer, Will of the Ancients, and Force of Nature were very weird items, that did very niche and sometimes (un)popular things, but were nontheless, interesting. Solution: Put more items into the game that have unorthodox stat combinations on them, so that players can have fun. It's also worth noting that due to the constant streamlining of items, newer players can't experiment and learn, as there are correct items to build and what the fck are you building?* There's no inbetween. What happened to stupid shit like Mage-Fortune and AP Shaco (paging u/Pinkwardlol). We want players to be creative. It breathes life into this game.
League used to feel more like a community.
I don't expect to see Dyrus hugging a pillow on stage wearing a suit of armor, but... Nikasaur's summoner showcase made League feel more like "home". Nothing feels that way about League anymore. Solution: We could have client sponsored contests for art or music (thanks for your contribution Badministrator u/vsx). We could bring back those corny "Pocketpick" videos that I hear people reference to this day, despite how shortlived they were and dated they are. Return us to the Big Worlds hype. Dope login music like Diana and Vi. We'd love a game that we want to come play, not that we've trained ourselves to play. At this point, playing the game is routine, not genuine interest for many.
Stop Dumbing the descriptions down...
I want and need to know what my abilities do. Like exactly what they do, not an oversimplified explanation that leaves off otherwise important details you've determined to be minutia for the user but still... somehow important enough to leave on the ability under the hood? What? I don't want to have to leave the game itself to open an external website to gain the information. Of all the things on this list, this one is the most idiotic.
Why does everything have CDR?
I already know the answer to this one, because I'm certain I read it somewhere once. It went something like, "Our research indicates that players like to cast abilities, and more CDR allows for that." Yes, it does. It also makes it so that champions no longer have to make actual decisions when purchasing items. If everything has CDR, then there's more abilities being thrown around, and less incentive to fight, because there's so much chaos in teamfights and exchanges. There's also less bare-bones exchanges happening, with auto attacks mattering. Which, in turn makes ADCs weaker, as abilities are constantly ready to launch, therefore prompting more ADC buffs to compensate, increasing the damage that everyone does... It's a circle. Solution: Cool it on the cooldown reduction. Take it down a notch. Make cooldowns matter again. Make players have to make tough and rewarding choices. If your ability fails, you should learn from it, not just spam that shit again. Summoner's Rift isn't URF.
Why does everything have to have 16 effects?
Read Kled's passive, and then read Wukong's. Read Akali's, and then read Lissandra's. Read Zoe's W, and then realize that that's enough text to be an entire champion in the earlier days of the game. To quote a great theologian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY-pUxKQMUE Also, items. It used to be that players had to make tough choices between which resources they purchased. Now I buy a Seraph's Embrace as Ryze and I get mana, 20% CDR (why?), AP from the item, AP from the extra mana on the item, AP from Ryze's passive stacking with that extra mana, and a giant shield. Folks, that's a lot. That's like, two items worth of stats. New players aren't going to have a clue as to what's going on.
Many strats have been removed, with nothing to replace them.
In an effort to turn League into a sport, we've had to streamline some things in the game. However, this came at a cost. We've already talked about Jungle and Support items. But let's talk about old strategies that are gone now. Mobility Creep, which I'm certain could be it's own point on this list, has all but destroyed the ability to effectively splitpush. Unless of course, your champion itself has the ability to run away as well. The old CLGEU strat of bunkering up and playing turtle until you find the fight you want, gone because turrets die in seconds. You just neutered funnel compositions (yes, if it's THE meta it's bad, but its existence is good). Counterjungling as a win condition. The old days of u/ClgSaint (Saintvicious) tearing the opposing jungler a new asshole by living in his jungle as Shyvanna. There was this old match, I wish I had the vod... It was a 4 and 1 strat, with an Olaf that rotated to bot and top and cleared while his team pushed as 4 in the mid lane from the start to finish of the game. That isn't what I want to see every game, but that would never happen today, not because it's wierd, but because it's straight unviable. Solution: Nerf the uniform stuff that everyone uses. Consider removing flash from the game (yes, this would be the biggest change in the history of the game). Add in new summoner spells, items, and - again - unorthodox items with strangely paired stats like +15% attack speed and +15% magic pool. I don't know who'd use it, but putting it into the game give more choices and would even allow you to make new champs to utilize these items. That's more than enough for now. I sincerely hope this generates real discussion and not personal attacks on me for being "afraid to change" or something silly. I love League. But man has this game become a chore to play, and that's after taking a year hiatus. Edit: I broke a few rules I wasn't aware of, so I gladly changed a few sections and will change them again at the behest of the mods, thanks!
I don't think his lore will be new. They are building on his old one. The qoutes are conected to Ezreals original findings about the hidden history of Aatrox and Rhunatera. I will paste parts of it beacuse he actually talks about all of this and explain everything later. Ezreal: The important thing is that these relics were found all over Runeterra, and they date from different and completely unconnected eras. The thing is... they all share one similarity... What do you think? Who is this figure, and what role has he played in Runeterra's history? Demacia: Take a look at this. It's a stained glass window from Demacia. This is the first artifact that really got me thinking. It's not that old, and it can't really go back more than a few generations at most. Noxus: This statuette is from Noxus. Noxus is full of these kinds of statuettes. Usually, they're made as tributes to the nation's greatest heroes, but this one doesn't look like any Noxian war hero I've ever heard of. Pilltover: When I noticed the similarities between the Demacian stained glass and the Noxian statue, I had to know more. I pulled as many books as I could out of the library at Piltover's academy. I got lucky with this one. I found it stuck between the pages of that huge book. It's not the same paper, and it's pretty damaged. In the image, it looks like these men are revering a statue of the dark figure. The statue itself looks like it's half-unearthed. It might not even be something they built, but something they found. What is it about this figure that drove these people to be so devoted to him? The smaller one is a book of Noxian war poems. Most of what's inside is standard Noxian military fare, but the blade on the cover captured my attention. Shurima Shurima's been gone for centuries. It's hardly anything but dust now, but the ruins that remain show a massive civilization that once thrived in the desert. I have no idea what happened to the empire. It seems like it vanished without a trace... but that's a whole different mystery. I found this urn in a tomb there. From the look of the place and some of the carvings on the walls, it was the final resting place of a great Shuriman warlord who led a battle against impossible odds. He and his men should have gone out in a blaze of glory but, somehow, they won. Just a handful of warriors defeated thousands of enemies who rose against them. It's no wonder they'd immortalize that kind of victory on the walls of a tomb, but what is this dark figure doing on the urn? What part did he play in this battle? I just don't get it. Freiljord You can carve plenty of interesting things out of the Freljord's ice. That place has always been a battleground, so I wouldn't have thought twice about digging up a dagger like this one if it weren't for two things. One: check out the etching in the metal. Look closely enough and you'll see the same serrated design found in the rest of these relics. Two, well... the dagger's hilt is carved from human bone. Here's where it gets more interesting. The tribesmen of that region say the figure on the blade is a legend, a 'warrior-savior' who appeared during a battle against a hated rival tribe several years ago. They'd almost lost the battle, but the warrior appeared and led them to a crushing victory over their enemies. They left no one alive, but when the tribesmen went to celebrate with their champion, he'd already vanished. They say that - in his memory - they took the bones of their enemies as trophies. It sounds like a similar story to the one from the Shuriman tomb. Both tell of a warrior who appeared and turned the tide of a great battle... but at a gruesome cost. Ionia This Ionian woodblock was carved long before the war with Noxus. They're rare nowadays, but they're always more or less the same. They all depict things of beauty: landscapes, monks in meditation, the stars and the night sky, all of that 'enlightenment' stuff they're always on about. All of them... except this one. I've never seen anything like it. It's that same dark figure with that same blade - and the worst thing - I don't think those red stains are ink... Bilgewater I won these coins off a certain Card Master whose name I won't say... and whose real name I don't even know. Of course he'd bet completely useless old coins. I can't spend them anywhere in Valoran. It took me a while to realize it, but that's the same jagged blade on these old coins. Finally, there's this pendant to the right. It's very, very old, and I have no idea where it originally came from. That's the dark figure's face right there in the metal. Whoever he is, he's been around for a really long time. Darkin are probably a race similiar but not the same as Targonians. This is 99% true because Varus speaks of a Darkin world and of Darkin armies in the Darkin war.. Like Targoinians they meddled in human affairs. As his old description says Aatrox, the Darkin Blade emerges from the shadows of history to slake his thirst for blood and battle. This makes him a kin to Pantheon as the Aspect of war. Which is why he goads Pantheon to cry of friendship and brotherhood. The first thing to rule out is that Darkin are from the Void. Because the rulers of the Void are the Watchers and they are imprisoned in Freiljord or their portal is sealed or whatever. So the first thing to happen was the Iceborn and the Freiljordians rising up against the Watchers. No Darkin yet though the Targoinians were already there and using Aurelion Sol to close the rifts to the Void. Next came the conquest of Icathia by Shurima. After which Icathians opened another rift to the Void using Wild magic and annihilating both Icathia and almost whole of Shurima. This event attracted the Darkin. The first Darkin to come were lead by Aatrox. I speculate that the Void was beaten back this time by the combined forces of Humans, Shurimans, Targoinans and the Darkin. The Darkin chose to enslave Humans. Then came the second wave of Darkin with Varus leading to the Darkin war. The Targoinians interfered which was the betrayal Aatrox speaks of. The queen Varus speaks of that imprisoned them is either Setaka Queen of Shurima or an aspect of the Sun like Leona. Aatrox mentions the Void because he most likely was somehow at some point in time trapped in the Void, so he fears its corrupting nature has changed him. He was the first to find a host and has for centuries roamed Rhunaterra feedng on war, chaos and destruction. On his travels he met Fiora, Tryndamere and the others. Morgana and Kayle are definatelly not from Targon as Targoinans are not the only Demi-gods (Demi gods as Aurellion Sol calls them that) in LoL.
Hello everybody and welcome back as we delve into what's happening with Japan! Japan just finished up the most interesting week we've seen this split, and immediately afterwards the top 3 teams are headed to Rift Rivals (which will probably start by the time I've finished this article!). We'll be getting up a more thorough breakdown of what happened sometime today/tomorrow (midnight and all that). With that out of the way, a quick disclaimer: I don't follow the other regions that the LJL will be playing this weekend anywhere near as closely. The last time we saw any teams from these regions compete was at the Mid Season Invitational Play-In, in which the LJL had an opportunity to play against the Dire Wolves, who they traded games with. We're instead going to be focusing much more heavily on what we can expect from the Japanese teams and who to watch going into the event. Cool!
How Does Rift Rivals Work?
It's no secret that Rift Rivals is a bit of an unusual event, so let's just break it down real quick. GPL, OPL, and LJL will each be sending their top 3 teams as of Spring Split Playoffs to the event. The first seed will play the first seed from each of the other regions, second seed and third seeds will do the same. The region with the most game wins moves directly to the finals, while the other regions will play each other in a Best of 5. #3 vs #3, #2 vs #2, #1 vs #1, then #1 vs #1 again, and #2 vs #2 again as necessary. Day 1 we'll see the following matches played by LJL teams:
Legacy Esports (OPL) vs DetonatioN FocusMe (#2 seeds)
Team Mineski (GPL) vs Unsold Stuff Gaming (#3 seeds)
Dire Wolves (OPL) vs Rampage (#1 seeds)
Ascension Gaming (GPL) vs DetonatioN FocusMe (#2 seeds)
Day 2 will round out the round robin with:
Gigabyte Marines (GPL) vs Rampage (#1 seeds)
Sin Gaming (OPL) vs Unsold Stuff Gaming (#3 seeds)
The only matchup we've seen before between these teams has been Rampage vs Dire Wolves, who traded games. While I can't speak for the Dire Wolves, Rampage has been looking quite good since they last played, and we'll take a look at some of the reasons for that below.
First Seed: Rampage
Rampage took the playoffs against DFM and USG in Spring rather convincingly, defeating USG 3-2 and DFM 3-0, but unfortunately found that international competition was much tougher than what they played domestically. RPG would only take a single game at MSI, despite having some strong performances. Let's take a look at the lineup.
Top: Evi
Evi is looking even more alive this split than he did last split, now that he has the opportunity to play more carry oriented top laners. At MSI he was ok, but the man showed just how strong of a player he can be now that he isn't required to play tanks any more. He's still comfortable playing the Galio and the Gragas, but against Unsold Stuff Gaming we got to what Rampage can do if they let Evi take the wheel. Like many top laners, the Jarvan, Kennen, and Kled are becoming mainstays of the champion pool, but he supplements it with the wildcard champions like Pantheon and Camille. Of notable absence from his pool thus far has been Renekton and Fiora, being forced to ban the latter out all 3 games against rivals DFM. Evi finds effective flanks all the time, and is more than comfortable in the split push role. Champions to expect: , , ,
Jungle: Tussle
Tussle looked like the star of Rampage during the playoffs and at MSI, and for good reason. His aggressive play and high ganking style kept Rampage in many of the games they should have lost, and was instrumental in many of the plays throughout the event. He stood tall in standings where the rest of the team had fallen, earning the highest kill participation not only for his team, but highest among junglers and 3rd overall, while only falling behind Levi for jungler kills and Kreox in terms of farm. Since then, Tussle has expanded his champion pool beyond carries, picking up the Ivern that the team so desperately needed at that event. While still heavily favoring Lee Sin and Elise like damn near every other jungler professionally, he also boasts a 15.0 KDA on Ivern, dismantling many of his opponents in the league. He also provides an important clutch factor to RPG, having shown an ability to win 50/50 smite battles and being impactful in games even if his scores don't show the same. Champions to expect: , , ,
Mid: Ramune
Ramune looked like the weakest link of this team at MSI, boasting a champion pool of... 4. Having played Syndra in more than half of their games in Spring, and Orianna on nearly as many, he was easily banned out and manipulated. While we saw a little more branching out at MSI, bringing out the Le Blanc, he has since improved his range. With Galio and Karma now added to his champion pool, he offers a much needed flexibility to the team's draft phases. While he has opted for more comfort picks against the stronger teams in LJL of Orianna and Syndra, he's no longer locked into that role. Perhaps still the weakest link of the team, it is no longer the gap it once was, and he has a chance to further change international perception this week. Champions to expect: , , ,
ADC: YutoriMoyasi
YutoriMoyasi has not been shining quite as bright this split as he has previously, but it might be because of his proximity to the rest of the players on his team. Yutori currently boasts the fewest deaths in the LJL, averaging 0.9 per game, while still averaging the second highest number of kills (4.0). In fact, the man is shining in every metric we have available as either the best or second best for ADCs in Japan. Yutori is no slouch, but has perhaps been playing too much Varus. We haven't yet seen the Jhin, the Tristana, the Kalista, that are seeing more play around the world and even in Japan, and Jhin was his second most played champion in spring. His stats on champions other than Varus are not bad (26.0 KDA on Xayah wtf), but we'll have to see what he has available to him if this ends up being taken away from him. Champions to expect: . Yeah that's about it. Xayah's not great on this patch, so I guess Caitlyn is next?
Support: Dara
If we talked about how good Yutori's stats are, it's important to note that they wouldn't be possible without Dara. Dara is nuts. Quite possibly the most successful Korean import in Japan, he boasts the highest KDA, highest assists and highest kill participation of all players in the league, and is beaten only by Yutori in lowest deaths, partly because he sacrifices himself to preserve his ADC. While he has proven himself to be comfortable on a wide variety of supports, he has recently been showing a strong preference for Braum. His Lulu and Thresh are as competent as ever, and while he hasn't been as loud this split in playmaking, he is nonetheless an incredibly valuable member of the team. Champions to expect: , ,
Overall
Rampage is a well rounded team, with carry potential offered by everyone on the team. If Tussle can be reined in a little bit from his sometimes overaggressive early game movements, their map movements and strong lanes should set them up to be successful.
Second Seed: DetonatioN FocusMe
Despite having just come off of a win against Rampage just a few days ago in an incredibly close best of 3, DFM is currently sitting at the second seed for Japan in this event. DFM shook up their roster a good deal in the off season, with 3 members of the team changing. Yutapon went back to ADC (again), Paz went back to the top lane (again), and they brought in Steal from a stint in the European Challenger Series. It's been quite successful, but there are still plenty of chinks in the armor. We haven't seen them internationally since the International Wild Card Invitational for MSI 2016, where they placed 5th.
Top: Paz
Paz is definitively my favorite player in the LJL, partly because he's very expressive in player cams, and partly because he's GOOD. If Evi came alive with the change in the meta, then Paz ascended. Paz uh, splitpushes. It's kind of what he does, and he's unmatched in Japan for doing so. Time and time again, we see him pushing the bot lane inhibitor turret while the rest of the team sets up for Baron. He's also not averse to the unusual pick, bringing out Urgot vs apaMEN's Kennen a few weeks ago, even drawing a ban towards it in Game 3 of their set with Rampage. While preferring strong carry/damage split pushers, he's not averse to playing tankier versions, and we saw his Shen come out to great affect this last week, and his Renekton gives him plenty of options to fall back upon. Champions to expect: , ,
Jungle: Steal
Steal's joining of DFM brought a lot of questions as to whether DFM would be looking strong this split, but he's quickly silenced many of his critics with a fairly unusual style in the current meta of jungling. Much more fond of Elise than Lee Sin, he's generally opted for a utility focused line-up, including Sejuani and Ivern, and Zac whenever he can grab it. He doesn't earn nearly as high of a KDA as Tussle, this is because he dies more often serving as the first one in and last one out of most fights. This makes him instrumental for his team, boasting the highest kill participation for DFM and soaking massive damage, either with his body or with his shields. Champions to expect: , ,
Mid: Ceros
Ceros was considered one of the best players in Japan for a long while, and he's still putting out strong performances. With one of the widest champion pools of players in Japan (at what point does it become a lake?), we've seen him comfortably play champions like Vel'koz and Ziggs in high stakes games against teams like USG and RPG. Since Paz doesn't bring true tanks to the top lane very often, it also falls to Ceros to bring out the Galio. This is somewhat impressive, considering how much attention he receives by opposing junglers, being ganked and camped by his opponents more often than almost any other player I've seen, Dyrus excepted. Ceros, more than anything else, does his job. While Paz faffs about on the opposite side of the map, Ceros provides an anchor for the 4v4. His numbers aren't the greatest, he isn't the flashiest player, but can be counted on to consistently perform, no matter what. Champions to expect: ,
ADC: Yutapon
Yutapon is also one of the longest lasting Japanese players, having been part of DetonatioN Gaming since inception. He brings aggressive play and incredible carry potential to the newest line up as well. Able to play pretty much all of the meta champions, even being I believe one of two players in Japan to bring out Twitch, Yutapon is back in form. We said that Yutori was either the number one or number two in all stats for ADCs we have, it's because Yutapon takes that spot in everything else. He's flexible, he's aggressive, he's one of the longest lasting veterans in Japan, and provides a great foundation for the bot lane of DFM. Champions to expect: ,
Support: viviD
Just like Dara, viviD is an incredibly successful Korean import. Thus far though, his somewhat small champion pool hasn't been attacked. Over 13 games, he currently has 7 of them on Thresh, and is one of the best defensive playmakers in Japan, with his flays denying more Elastic Slingshots and Flag & Drags than anybody else. With his Tahm Kench serving as a strong second option, he does falter somewhat when forced to play the more mage-y supports. His Karma has been exploited by both USG and RPG, and we've only seen his Lulu and Zyra against 7th heaven thus far. That said, Thresh and Tahm Kench have been getting through against almost all teams, as players like Paz are drawing all the bans, and viviD should provide Yutapon and the rest of the team great peeling. Champions to expect: ,
Overall
DFM is a 4-1 team. Paz does his thing, the 4 control Baron with a pseudo death-ball, dangerous to engage upon with things like Dark Passage, Command: Shockwave, and Cocoons from fog of war. If Paz can stand up to international top laners, DFM should be able to play the rest of their game and do very well against the other 2nd seeds.
Third Seed: Unsold Stuff Gaming
USG looked quite strong towards the end of Spring, taking RPG to Game 5 in the Semi Finals, and with no changes to their roster, they should be good this season too, right? Eh, the team has been struggling quite a bit, and probably are rightly the third seed coming into this event. They also have not played internationally before, so it will be a great opportunity to see how their style stacks up against the rest of the world.
Top: apaMEN
apaMEN is currently sitting in a tier by himself in Japan, not quite on the level of Paz and Evi, but definitely above the rest of the league. The transition to the meta of more carry top laners has not suited him as well as the others, and he's suffered because of it. We saw, early in the season, he even fell back to the Nautilus after having Gragas, Galio, and Shen became unavailable. He's seen mixed success on all of the champions he's played otherwise (J4, Kennen, Kled), but again, is nowhere near as comfortable and has been opting towards somewhat tankier builds than many of his compatriots, building the health components first. This is likely going to be a problem for the squad. Champions to expect: , ,
Jungle: Neo
Neo has been a rather polarizing player for USG this season. While he has incredible games where he goes deathless (3/13), he's just as likely to die. A lot. He has as many games with 0 deaths as he has games with a KDA of less than 1.0. We'll have to coin flip to see which Neo we get every game. His champion pool is also far from meta. Neo has brought out Warwick and Nidalee twice each, as well as Evelynn and Olaf. He's won 1/6 of these games. When he plays meta and gets Lee Sin or Ivern (being the first adopter of Ivern in Japan), he does well, but that's a very small range of champions to be able to bring out at this level of play. Champions to expect: ,
Mid: REMIND
REMIND is the star of USG. No two-ways about it. Boasting an 11.5 KDA as Orianna, he also brings a feared pair of Cassiopeia and Syndra to the fore. REMIND rarely has bad games, though they do happen, and can completely take over a game if he gets ahead. He teamfights well, he lanes well, he boasts the highest CSM and Kills of all players in Japan, but unfortunately the mentality of being required to carry the team can lead him to some awkward situations. Champions to expect: , ,
ADC: Haretti
Haretti is one of the unsung heroes of USG. While he doesn't put out the same amount of damage as REMIND, nor pick up nearly as many kills, he lanes well, and is the only ADC that can go toe to toe with Yutapon and YutoriMoyasi. The fact that he plays so much Ashe is also very related to the above numbers, as he provides great utility to his team through the use of Hawkshot and Enchanted Crystal Arrow, without providing some of the things you would otherwise expect from the ADC role. While not the best player in his role, he can still hang with the top dogs, and hopefully paired with Enty they can provide a second place from which USG can find success. Champions to expect: ,
Support: Enty
Enty on Tahm Kench is one of the coolest things to watch in Japan, as he repeatedly finds great uses for Abyssal Voyage, often giving USG good leads in the early and mid game. Unfortunately, once this stops (and it inevitably stops), the team struggles to continue to do, well, anything. Enty brings a fresh set of champions to Japan, continuing a little bit with the unusual champions played by this team. The only support to really find success on Rakan, we also saw him bring out Alistar a few days ago against 7th heaven in a deciding game. He makes strong early plays, but often falls off later in the game. Champions to expect: ,
Overall
USG is looking to be like the P1 of Japan this split. Little to no changes in terms of their roster, but unable to perform. They've dropped games to everyone except for the current bottom team of the league and are incredibly inconsistent. They often have early game leads, but fail to capitalize on them in the mid game as their shotcalling falls apart and they look too timid to push when they're ahead. If we get the good USG, they should blow through the event against the other 3rd seeds as REMIND reminds us how strong he is. If we don't, well, they'll be lucky to pick up a game.
Quick Note about Pronunciations
Hopefully if some of the casters read this: YutoriMoyasi: the s is pronounced with an sh sound. YutoriMoyashi Haretti: the t's are pronounced with a ch sound. Harechi Otherwise, the rest of the names are as you would expect using normal English pronunciation.
Closing
Got this out before DFM played! Great success! DFM and RPG are looking good going into this event, but unfortunately, the same can't really be said for USG thus far into the season. While we they'll prove us wrong, they are definitely facing an uphill battle as their inconsistency is likely going to be their downfall. We'll be back tomorrow with a breakdown of the games tonight! Good night, good luck, and enjoy the event!
Hello everybody and welcome back as we delve into what's happening with Japan! Japan just finished up the most interesting week we've seen this split, and immediately afterwards the top 3 teams are headed to Rift Rivals (which will probably start by the time I've finished this article!). We'll be getting up a more thorough breakdown of what happened sometime today/tomorrow (midnight and all that). With that out of the way, a quick disclaimer: I don't follow the other regions that the LJL will be playing this weekend anywhere near as closely. The last time we saw any teams from these regions compete was at the Mid Season Invitational Play-In, in which the LJL had an opportunity to play against the Dire Wolves, who they traded games with. We're instead going to be focusing much more heavily on what we can expect from the Japanese teams and who to watch going into the event. Cool!
How Does Rift Rivals Work?
It's no secret that Rift Rivals is a bit of an unusual event, so let's just break it down real quick. GPL, OPL, and LJL will each be sending their top 3 teams as of Spring Split Playoffs to the event. The first seed will play the first seed from each of the other regions, second seed and third seeds will do the same. The region with the most game wins moves directly to the finals, while the other regions will play each other in a Best of 5. #3 vs #3, #2 vs #2, #1 vs #1, then #1 vs #1 again, and #2 vs #2 again as necessary. Day 1 we'll see the following matches played by LJL teams:
Legacy Esports (OPL) vs DetonatioN FocusMe (#2 seeds)
Team Mineski (GPL) vs Unsold Stuff Gaming (#3 seeds)
Dire Wolves (OPL) vs Rampage (#1 seeds)
Ascension Gaming (GPL) vs DetonatioN FocusMe (#2 seeds)
Day 2 will round out the round robin with:
Gigabyte Marines (GPL) vs Rampage (#1 seeds)
Sin Gaming (OPL) vs Unsold Stuff Gaming (#3 seeds)
The only matchup we've seen before between these teams has been Rampage vs Dire Wolves, who traded games. While I can't speak for the Dire Wolves, Rampage has been looking quite good since they last played, and we'll take a look at some of the reasons for that below.
First Seed: Rampage
Rampage took the playoffs against DFM and USG in Spring rather convincingly, defeating USG 3-2 and DFM 3-0, but unfortunately found that international competition was much tougher than what they played domestically. RPG would only take a single game at MSI, despite having some strong performances. Let's take a look at the lineup.
Top: Evi
Evi is looking even more alive this split than he did last split, now that he has the opportunity to play more carry oriented top laners. At MSI he was ok, but the man showed just how strong of a player he can be now that he isn't required to play tanks any more. He's still comfortable playing the Galio and the Gragas, but against Unsold Stuff Gaming we got to what Rampage can do if they let Evi take the wheel. Like many top laners, the Jarvan, Kennen, and Kled are becoming mainstays of the champion pool, but he supplements it with the wildcard champions like Pantheon and Camille. Of notable absence from his pool thus far has been Renekton and Fiora, being forced to ban the latter out all 3 games against rivals DFM. Evi finds effective flanks all the time, and is more than comfortable in the split push role. Champions to expect: , , ,
Jungle: Tussle
Tussle looked like the star of Rampage during the playoffs and at MSI, and for good reason. His aggressive play and high ganking style kept Rampage in many of the games they should have lost, and was instrumental in many of the plays throughout the event. He stood tall in standings where the rest of the team had fallen, earning the highest kill participation not only for his team, but highest among junglers and 3rd overall, while only falling behind Levi for jungler kills and Kreox in terms of farm. Since then, Tussle has expanded his champion pool beyond carries, picking up the Ivern that the team so desperately needed at that event. While still heavily favoring Lee Sin and Elise like damn near every other jungler professionally, he also boasts a 15.0 KDA on Ivern, dismantling many of his opponents in the league. He also provides an important clutch factor to RPG, having shown an ability to win 50/50 smite battles and being impactful in games even if his scores don't show the same. Champions to expect: , , ,
Mid: Ramune
Ramune looked like the weakest link of this team at MSI, boasting a champion pool of... 4. Having played Syndra in more than half of their games in Spring, and Orianna on nearly as many, he was easily banned out and manipulated. While we saw a little more branching out at MSI, bringing out the Le Blanc, he has since improved his range. With Galio and Karma now added to his champion pool, he offers a much needed flexibility to the team's draft phases. While he has opted for more comfort picks against the stronger teams in LJL of Orianna and Syndra, he's no longer locked into that role. Perhaps still the weakest link of the team, it is no longer the gap it once was, and he has a chance to further change international perception this week. Champions to expect: , , ,
ADC: YutoriMoyasi
YutoriMoyasi has not been shining quite as bright this split as he has previously, but it might be because of his proximity to the rest of the players on his team. Yutori currently boasts the fewest deaths in the LJL, averaging 0.9 per game, while still averaging the second highest number of kills (4.0). In fact, the man is shining in every metric we have available as either the best or second best for ADCs in Japan. Yutori is no slouch, but has perhaps been playing too much Varus. We haven't yet seen the Jhin, the Tristana, the Kalista, that are seeing more play around the world and even in Japan, and Jhin was his second most played champion in spring. His stats on champions other than Varus are not bad (26.0 KDA on Xayah wtf), but we'll have to see what he has available to him if this ends up being taken away from him. Champions to expect: . Yeah that's about it. Xayah's not great on this patch, so I guess Caitlyn is next?
Support: Dara
If we talked about how good Yutori's stats are, it's important to note that they wouldn't be possible without Dara. Dara is nuts. Quite possibly the most successful Korean import in Japan, he boasts the highest KDA, highest assists and highest kill participation of all players in the league, and is beaten only by Yutori in lowest deaths, partly because he sacrifices himself to preserve his ADC. While he has proven himself to be comfortable on a wide variety of supports, he has recently been showing a strong preference for Braum. His Lulu and Thresh are as competent as ever, and while he hasn't been as loud this split in playmaking, he is nonetheless an incredibly valuable member of the team. Champions to expect: , ,
Overall
Rampage is a well rounded team, with carry potential offered by everyone on the team. If Tussle can be reined in a little bit from his sometimes overaggressive early game movements, their map movements and strong lanes should set them up to be successful.
Second Seed: DetonatioN FocusMe
Despite having just come off of a win against Rampage just a few days ago in an incredibly close best of 3, DFM is currently sitting at the second seed for Japan in this event. DFM shook up their roster a good deal in the off season, with 3 members of the team changing. Yutapon went back to ADC (again), Paz went back to the top lane (again), and they brought in Steal from a stint in the European Challenger Series. It's been quite successful, but there are still plenty of chinks in the armor. We haven't seen them internationally since the International Wild Card Invitational for MSI 2016, where they placed 5th.
Top: Paz
Paz is definitively my favorite player in the LJL, partly because he's very expressive in player cams, and partly because he's GOOD. If Evi came alive with the change in the meta, then Paz ascended. Paz uh, splitpushes. It's kind of what he does, and he's unmatched in Japan for doing so. Time and time again, we see him pushing the bot lane inhibitor turret while the rest of the team sets up for Baron. He's also not averse to the unusual pick, bringing out Urgot vs apaMEN's Kennen a few weeks ago, even drawing a ban towards it in Game 3 of their set with Rampage. While preferring strong carry/damage split pushers, he's not averse to playing tankier versions, and we saw his Shen come out to great affect this last week, and his Renekton gives him plenty of options to fall back upon. Champions to expect: , ,
Jungle: Steal
Steal's joining of DFM brought a lot of questions as to whether DFM would be looking strong this split, but he's quickly silenced many of his critics with a fairly unusual style in the current meta of jungling. Much more fond of Elise than Lee Sin, he's generally opted for a utility focused line-up, including Sejuani and Ivern, and Zac whenever he can grab it. He doesn't earn nearly as high of a KDA as Tussle, this is because he dies more often serving as the first one in and last one out of most fights. This makes him instrumental for his team, boasting the highest kill participation for DFM and soaking massive damage, either with his body or with his shields. Champions to expect: , ,
Mid: Ceros
Ceros was considered one of the best players in Japan for a long while, and he's still putting out strong performances. With one of the widest champion pools of players in Japan (at what point does it become a lake?), we've seen him comfortably play champions like Vel'koz and Ziggs in high stakes games against teams like USG and RPG. Since Paz doesn't bring true tanks to the top lane very often, it also falls to Ceros to bring out the Galio. This is somewhat impressive, considering how much attention he receives by opposing junglers, being ganked and camped by his opponents more often than almost any other player I've seen, Dyrus excepted. Ceros, more than anything else, does his job. While Paz faffs about on the opposite side of the map, Ceros provides an anchor for the 4v4. His numbers aren't the greatest, he isn't the flashiest player, but can be counted on to consistently perform, no matter what. Champions to expect: ,
ADC: Yutapon
Yutapon is also one of the longest lasting Japanese players, having been part of DetonatioN Gaming since inception. He brings aggressive play and incredible carry potential to the newest line up as well. Able to play pretty much all of the meta champions, even being I believe one of two players in Japan to bring out Twitch, Yutapon is back in form. We said that Yutori was either the number one or number two in all stats for ADCs we have, it's because Yutapon takes that spot in everything else. He's flexible, he's aggressive, he's one of the longest lasting veterans in Japan, and provides a great foundation for the bot lane of DFM. Champions to expect: ,
Support: viviD
Just like Dara, viviD is an incredibly successful Korean import. Thus far though, his somewhat small champion pool hasn't been attacked. Over 13 games, he currently has 7 of them on Thresh, and is one of the best defensive playmakers in Japan, with his flays denying more Elastic Slingshots and Flag & Drags than anybody else. With his Tahm Kench serving as a strong second option, he does falter somewhat when forced to play the more mage-y supports. His Karma has been exploited by both USG and RPG, and we've only seen his Lulu and Zyra against 7th heaven thus far. That said, Thresh and Tahm Kench have been getting through against almost all teams, as players like Paz are drawing all the bans, and viviD should provide Yutapon and the rest of the team great peeling. Champions to expect: ,
Overall
DFM is a 4-1 team. Paz does his thing, the 4 control Baron with a pseudo death-ball, dangerous to engage upon with things like Dark Passage, Command: Shockwave, and Cocoons from fog of war. If Paz can stand up to international top laners, DFM should be able to play the rest of their game and do very well against the other 2nd seeds.
Third Seed: Unsold Stuff Gaming
USG looked quite strong towards the end of Spring, taking RPG to Game 5 in the Semi Finals, and with no changes to their roster, they should be good this season too, right? Eh, the team has been struggling quite a bit, and probably are rightly the third seed coming into this event. They also have not played internationally before, so it will be a great opportunity to see how their style stacks up against the rest of the world.
Top: apaMEN
apaMEN is currently sitting in a tier by himself in Japan, not quite on the level of Paz and Evi, but definitely above the rest of the league. The transition to the meta of more carry top laners has not suited him as well as the others, and he's suffered because of it. We saw, early in the season, he even fell back to the Nautilus after having Gragas, Galio, and Shen became unavailable. He's seen mixed success on all of the champions he's played otherwise (J4, Kennen, Kled), but again, is nowhere near as comfortable and has been opting towards somewhat tankier builds than many of his compatriots, building the health components first. This is likely going to be a problem for the squad. Champions to expect: , ,
Jungle: Neo
Neo has been a rather polarizing player for USG this season. While he has incredible games where he goes deathless (3/13), he's just as likely to die. A lot. He has as many games with 0 deaths as he has games with a KDA of less than 1.0. We'll have to coin flip to see which Neo we get every game. His champion pool is also far from meta. Neo has brought out Warwick and Nidalee twice each, as well as Evelynn and Olaf. He's won 1/6 of these games. When he plays meta and gets Lee Sin or Ivern (being the first adopter of Ivern in Japan), he does well, but that's a very small range of champions to be able to bring out at this level of play. Champions to expect: ,
Mid: REMIND
REMIND is the star of USG. No two-ways about it. Boasting an 11.5 KDA as Orianna, he also brings a feared pair of Cassiopeia and Syndra to the fore. REMIND rarely has bad games, though they do happen, and can completely take over a game if he gets ahead. He teamfights well, he lanes well, he boasts the highest CSM and Kills of all players in Japan, but unfortunately the mentality of being required to carry the team can lead him to some awkward situations. Champions to expect: , ,
ADC: Haretti
Haretti is one of the unsung heroes of USG. While he doesn't put out the same amount of damage as REMIND, nor pick up nearly as many kills, he lanes well, and is the only ADC that can go toe to toe with Yutapon and YutoriMoyasi. The fact that he plays so much Ashe is also very related to the above numbers, as he provides great utility to his team through the use of Hawkshot and Enchanted Crystal Arrow, without providing some of the things you would otherwise expect from the ADC role. While not the best player in his role, he can still hang with the top dogs, and hopefully paired with Enty they can provide a second place from which USG can find success. Champions to expect: ,
Support: Enty
Enty on Tahm Kench is one of the coolest things to watch in Japan, as he repeatedly finds great uses for Abyssal Voyage, often giving USG good leads in the early and mid game. Unfortunately, once this stops (and it inevitably stops), the team struggles to continue to do, well, anything. Enty brings a fresh set of champions to Japan, continuing a little bit with the unusual champions played by this team. The only support to really find success on Rakan, we also saw him bring out Alistar a few days ago against 7th heaven in a deciding game. He makes strong early plays, but often falls off later in the game. Champions to expect: ,
Overall
USG is looking to be like the P1 of Japan this split. Little to no changes in terms of their roster, but unable to perform. They've dropped games to everyone except for the current bottom team of the league and are incredibly inconsistent. They often have early game leads, but fail to capitalize on them in the mid game as their shotcalling falls apart and they look too timid to push when they're ahead. If we get the good USG, they should blow through the event against the other 3rd seeds as REMIND reminds us how strong he is. If we don't, well, they'll be lucky to pick up a game.
Quick Note about Pronunciations
Hopefully if some of the casters read this: YutoriMoyasi: the s is pronounced with an sh sound. YutoriMoyashi Haretti: the t's are pronounced with a ch sound. Harechi Otherwise, the rest of the names are as you would expect using normal English pronunciation.
Closing
Got this out before DFM played! Great success! (Other account got shadowbanned p sure, no success :( ) DFM and RPG are looking good going into this event, but unfortunately, the same can't really be said for USG thus far into the season. While we they'll prove us wrong, they are definitely facing an uphill battle as their inconsistency is likely going to be their downfall. We'll be back tomorrow with a breakdown of the games tonight! Good night, good luck, and enjoy the event!
02/06/2014 Leagues Patch(My apologies for the last thread, rid of it.)
We noticed a stale change in gameplay with a lot of picks consisting of damage/bruiser champions when we made changes for the 2014 season. We also noticed stealth gameplay had very little counterplay, especially early game, so we made some changes to that. This patch focuses on enhancing the viability of other champions that aren't as strong as the bruisers that only have to build tanky. The high risk-high reward type champions seems way too underpowered against the tanky-bruiser type champions that deal too much damage for what they are, especially for not building any damage items. With a lot of those bruisers being AD, we made some changes for Mages/Casters being too weak against a lot of the Physical Damage bruisers particularly going mid; Zed, Kha'Zix Yasuo, etc. Champions Akali W - Twilight Shroud -Removed slow -Now gives 50% movement speed to Akali when in her shroud Anivia Passive - Rebirth -Now slows the movement speed of enemies by 10% to enemies around the egg W - Crystallize -If enemies stay next to the wall of ice for 2.5 seconds they will freeze and be stunned for 1 second Annie E - Molten Shield -If Annie has Pyromania(Passive) available, her Molten Shield can now stun any enemies around her. R - Summon: Tibbers -Mana cost increased from 100 to 160 -Cooldown increased from 120/100/80 seconds to 140/120/100 seconds Ashe E - Hawkshot -Allies hit in the radius of Hawkshot will now give a short movement speed boost of 33% for 3.5 seconds Cho'Gath Q - Rupture -During the delay after casting Rupture, Cho'Gath can activate Q again to cancel it refunding the mana cost and cutting the cool down by 75% Darius W - Crippling Stike -Movement speed slow reduced from 20/25/30/35% to 10% on all levels. Attack speed slow remains the same E - Apprehend -Pulled enemies are now slowed for 25/30/35/40/45% for 2 seconds Dr.Mundo Q - Infected Cleaver -Cooldown increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds Elise Passive - Spider Swarm -Now has a cooldown (25 seconds) on when she can bring back her spiderlings if they are dead W - Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy -Removed the heal effect on spider form Evelynn Q - Hate Spike -Hitting the same monsteminion 4 times with Hate Spike will give Evelynn a bonus of 12/18/24/30 armor for 3 seconds. Armor bonus does not stack Fiddlesticks Q - Terrify -Feared enemies now have 80% increased movement speed during the duration of fear -Fear duration reduced from 1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25 seconds to 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds -Terrify can now spread onto other enemies - To activate this, you must use your Dark Wind(W) on the feared enemy and on each bounce afterwards, evey enemy hit will be feared the same duration. Fear cannot be applied multiple times in 1 Dark Wind but the damage will still do E - Dark Wind -Has a spreading effect as stated above Fiora R - Blade Waltz -On-hit effects during Bade Waltz has been removed -Cooldown decreased from 130/120/110 seconds to 115/105/95 Fizz Q - Urchin Strike -Killing an enemy with Urchin Strike will refund 35% of the mana cost Galio W - Bulwark -The heal effect will only apply to the champion with the shield, not just Galio. i.e. If an ally has a shield, that ally will get the heal effect, not Galio. Only Galio will get the heal effect if he shields himself Gangplank W - Remove Scurvy -In a small radius, any ally around Gangplank when he uses this ability will also remove any crowd control effects on them but does not heal R - Cannon Barrage -AP Ratio increased from +0.2AP to +0.3AP Graves Q - Buckshot -The middle bullet now deals a bonus of 30/50/70/85/100 Physical Damage W - Smoke Screen -On the intial hit of Smoke Screen, enemies are blinded for 2 seconds. Any enemies walking into a Smoke Screen after it is laid down will not be blinded Heimerdinger Q - H-28G Evolution Turret/ H-28Q Apex Turret -Upraded turret can now move slowly on command while attacking. Use Alt+Clicks to move the turret E - CH-1 Electron Storm Grenade / CH-3X Lightning Grenade -Stun duration increased from 1.25 seconds to 1.75 seconds Irelia Passive - Ionian Fervor -Tenacity reduced from 1 Champion: 10% / 2 Champions: 25% / 3 Champions: 40% to 1 Champion: 7% / 2 Champions: 18% / 3 Champions: 27% Jax W - Empower -Jax can now use Empower to charge Counter Strike(E) -Using Counter Strike right after Empower will increase the stun duration from 1 to 2 and deal a bonus of +25/50/75/100/125 phsyical damage Jinx E - Flame Chompers! -Enemies are now slowed for 20/30/40/50/60 when stepping on ONE chomper. When the same enemy steps on a second chomper, they will be rooted for 1.5 seconds. Enemies cannot step on more than 2 chompers Karthus E - Defile -Killing a unit with Defile will now give Karthus 6% bonus movement speed which stacks up to 5 times R - Requiem -Karthus can now channel Requiem up to 10 seconds. With a required minimum of 3 seconds to charnnel, Requiem can be casted again within the next 7 seconds to deal damage Kassadin Q - Null Sphere -Now changed to a small aoe skill shot with a fast projectile -Every third Null Sphere has a larger aoe and slows enemies for 25% R - Rift Walk -Range decreased from 700 to 625 Kayle Q - Reckoning -Slow effect removed -Now gives Kayle increased movement speed when walking towards the target marked by Reckoning E - Righteous Fury -Now gives bonus attack speed of 5% that stacks up to 2/3/4/5/6 when attacking the same target. The effect is lost when changing targets Kha'Zix Q - Taste Their Fear -AD ratio reduced from 1.5AD to 1.2AD E - Leap -Cooldown increased from 22/20/18/16/14 seconds to 26/24/22/20/18 Lissandra E - Glacial Path -Claw projectile speed increased R - Frozen Tomb -Stun duration on enemy cast increased from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds Malphite W - Brutal Strikes -Armor and Attack damage bonus increased from 20/25/30/35/40 to 25/30/35/40/45% E - Ground Slam -Enemies hit by Ground Slam are now silenced for 1.25/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds Malzahar W - Null Zone -Duration now scales at levels from 5 seconds to 5/5.5/6/6.5/7 -Now gives Malzahar a shield that lasts for 3 seconds when he steps on his Null Zone Maokai R - Vengeful Maelstrom -Maokai's abilities now do increased damage to enemies in the vortex Master Yi W - Meditate -Now does a short knockback to nearby enemies on use Miss Fortune Q - Double Up -Target hit behind is now slowed by 23% for 1.5/2/2.5/3/3.5 Morgana E - Black Shield -Now resets Morgana's attack animation on use Nasus W - Wither -Now changed to a toggled passive abilitiy that applies on-hit now -Cooldowns reduced from 15/14/13/12/11 to 14/13/11/10/9 -Drains 75 mana each hit Nautilus Q - Dredge Line -Range now scales by ability level from 1110 at all levels to 800/950/1100/1225/1270 E - Riptide -Riptide can now activate again right after the other with no cost when Nautilus has his Titan's Wrath(W) Shield on. This effect can only happen one time per shield Nocturne R - Paranoia -Nocturne can activate this ability again to launch to a 2nd target -2nd Paranoia has half the cast range, costs 160 mana, and you cannot use it on the same target Nunu Passive - Visionary -Does an upgraded version of Nunu's spells -Free cast remains Q - Consume -When used with Visionary, does increased True Damage to the minion or monster W - Blood Boil -When used with Visionary, increases range by up to 1500 range E - Ice Blast -When used with Visionary, adds an aoe effect that will apply Ice Blast to nearby enemies around the target R - Absolute Zero -When used with Vionsary, adds a longer channeling time from 3 seconds to 5 seconds increasing the maximum amount of magic damage by 30% Olaf Q - Undertow -Slow decreased from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds Orianna W - Command: Dissonance -Every cast reduces the cooldown of Command: Shockwave(R) by 1 second E - Command: Protect -Cooldown decreased from 9 seconds to 8 seconds Pantheon Passive - Aegis Protection -Passive proc changed from 4 spell casts to 5 spell casts E - Heartseeker Strike -Cannot be casted if Spear Shot is on cooldown Poppy W - Paragon of Demacia -On cast, makes Poppy dash a short distance towards the cursor E - Heroic Charge -If Poppy successfully collides an enemy with terrain, she will get a speed bonus for 3 seconds Rammus Q - Powerball Cancelling Powerball early by pressing Q again will make Rammus do a small Powerball Dash towards the cursor R - Tremors -At the end of Tremors, any enemy in the radius of the tremor will get knocked up for 1 second Renekton R - Dominus -Health gain reduced from 300/450/600 to 200/350/420 -Duration decreased from 15 seconds to 10 seconds Sejuani Q - Arctic Assault -Cooldown reduced from 15/14/13/12/11 seconds to 13/12/11/10/9 E - Permafrost -Now applies a .5 second stun Shaco E - Two-Shiv Poison -When thrown, adds a miss chance to enemy champions for 3 seconds Shyvana Q - Twin Bite -Now heals Shyvana for half of the second attack W - Burnout -Now has a health cost on use -Health cost of 50/60/70/80/90 Health E - Flame Breath -Now has a health cost on use -Health cost of 25/35/45/55/65 Teemo R - Noxious Trap -Now takes 2 seconds before going into stealth Trundle Passive - King's Tribute -Now gives bonus armor and magic resist on a nearby enemy unit death for 3 seconds Tryndamere R - Undying Rage -True damage will now go through Tryndamere's Undying Rage -If Tryndamere is at 1HP with Undying Rage on and is hit by true damage, he will die. Tryndamere cannot die from ignite's damage in a case where he would die from it Twisted Fate R - Destiny -Upon arriving from Destiny, Twisted Fate hurls 6 cards all around him that deal damage to enemy units they pass through based on the level of Wild Cards(Q) Urgot R - Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser -Range now increases by level from 600 to all levels to 500/650/750 -Now gives Urgot a shield after switching. Shield is based on the level of Terror Capacitor (W) which lasts for 3 seconds. The shields may stack Varus Q - Piercing Arrow -Shooting an arrow through Desecrated Grounds(E) will curve the arrow after reaching exiting the Desecrated Grounds. The arrow curves and arcs depending on which side of desecrated grounds you shoot at Veigar W - Dark Matter -Using Dark Matter inside Event Horizon will knock back enemies around the Dark Matter after it lands Vi R - Assault and Battery -Cooldown increased from 130/105/80 seconds to 150/125/100 -Mana adjusted from 100/125/150 to 175 at all levels Warwick R - Infinite Duress -Warwick can now use this ability 2 times after using it the first time (A total of 3 supresses). Warwick has 3 seconds inbetween each supress -Now gains 80% movement speed for the duration -Supress duration lasts .75 seconds each and can be used on the same target multiple times Wukong W - Decoy -On cast, the Decoy now moves toward the direction of the mouse E - Nimbus Strike -Wukong can now fight on a nimbus giving bonus movement speed for 3.5 seconds after casting Yasuo W - Wind Wall -Now has an amount of "health" and can be destroyed -Wind Wall is still untargettable so it takes a certain amount of projectiles to destroy it -Wind Wall now takes 3/3/4/4/5 projectiles to break E - Sweeping Blade -Mark now spreads to a second enemy close to the one that was dashed to, only within a small radius -Cooldown increased from 0.5/0.4/0.3/0.2/0.1 seconds to 3/2.5/2/1.75/1.25 seconds Zac R - Let's Bounce -While Let's Bounce is on cooldown, any chunks that Zac absorbs will give a short movement speed boost for 1 second Zed W - Living Shadow -If the shadow is hit 5 times by any projectile, the shadow will dissappear -Shadow cannot be targetted though Items Sweeping Lens and Greater Lens (Trinket) -Any stealth enemies hit by the lens will now be revealed for 3 seconds Oracle's Lens (Trinket) -Any stealth enemies hit by the lens will now be revealed for 5 seconds Scrying Orb, Greater Orb, and Farsight Orb (Trinket) -Now reveals the area from 1 second to 2 seconds Vision Ward -The owner of the placed ward can now move the Vision Ward with Alt+Click -Vision Ward has extremely slow movement speed -Takes 3 hits to kill while moving and goes back to 5 if untouched for 10 seconds Zeke's Herald -Now reveals stealth units under 40% health in a radius around the owner Banner of Command -Now reveals stealth units under 40% health in a radius around the owner Summoner's Rift Turrets -Turrets have been reverted away from the 2v1 change and all turrets have been equalized Back to top
Rift Sniper (updating) Build by Mysterlool updated February 8, 2021. 11.3 Votes: 11. Views: 34,929 [11.2] S TIER - VARUS SUPPORT Build by shrimptitties updated February 6, 2021. 11.3 Off-Meta ; Rating Pending. Views: 3,637. Varus Cannabis Build by The Trotter updated January 28, 2021. 11.2 New Build. Views: 405 "Guilty with no Agony" Build by Shouryuu Reppa updated January 13, 2021. 11.1 Wild Rift Guides was created under Riot Games' "Legal Jibber Jabber" policy using assets owned by Riot Games. Riot Games does not endorse or sponsor this project. Wild Rift Guides isn't endorsed by Riot Games and doesn't reflect the views or opinions of Riot Games or anyone officially involved in producing or managing Riot Games properties. Riot Games, and all associated properties are Mortal Reminder. In Wild Rift Varus build items that increase Physical damage, Attack speed, and Critical rate so he can be the main attack damage carry (ADC) of the team. Enchantment: Quicksilver is an item that Varus should build. LoL Wild Rift Varus Build Guide | Runes, Items and Combo. Written by. admin. League of Legends: Wild Rift Varus Build Guide| Runes, Item Builds. Get to know how his abilities and ability Order for Varus. Contents hide. 1 ABILITIES. 2 Wild Rift Varus Spells. 3 Wild Rift Varus Runes. 4 Wild Rift Varus Items. 5 Ability Order Varus Wild Rift. 6 Combo Varus Wild Rift. 7 Video guide. 8 Counter to In Wild Rift mid-patch 1.1, Varus has been buffed including increasing base movement speed and his 2nd ability, Blighted Quiver. However, many players who choose the traditional build will find Varus is not strong enough. As for the PC version, the AP Varus time was proved to be extremely powerful in gameplay. As well as for the mobile version, this playstyle becomes very effective in which it grants him a place in the current meta. Varus is picked very rarely in Wild Rift due to the immobile nature but the character is an S Tier pick. When the skills and attributes are used perfectly, Varus does some serious damage. With the recent patch updates, Varus has got a boost in the movement speed, so the major drawback has been addressed. Varus can provide us with few combos, but maximum damage is from physical attacks. The Best Items to build on Varus in Wild Rift are all attack damage, Marksmen are almost always built with full damage items. The first item to build should be Blade of the Ruined King, and then second, you will want to complete your Gluttonous Greaves with a Quicksilver Enchant and to finish up your Core Item Build will be a Runaan's Hurricane. Welcome to Lol Wild Rift Build. Welcome to LoLWildRiftBuild.com! This guide caters to beginners in League of Legends: Wild Rift who wants to know the optimal item and rune build for their favorite champions. There are thousands of possible item and rune combinations in Wild Rift and LoLWildRiftBuild is here to show you the optimal item build for all situations! We are going to show you two LoL Wild Rift Varus Build - Items, Runes , Counter Guide Varus. A Tier Class: Marksman Recommended Lane: Dragon Lane. Stats DAMAGE (100%) TOUGHNESS (33%) UTILITY (33%) DIFFICULTY (66%) Recommended Builds or Recommended Runes or Quick Menu For Varus Guide Ability Analysis Build Runes Spells Skill Progression Synergies Counter Pros & Cons. Varus is a deadly killer who loves to torment his foes The best items for Varus to build in Wild Rift are Blade of the Ruined King, Runaan's Hurricane, Gluttonous Greaves, Infinity Edge, Rapid Firecannon, and Mortal Reminder. Blade of the Ruined King Runaans Hurricane
Deadly AP Varus Build -Shikiboi Wild Rift - YouTube
Subscribe En este video me hago una partida muy buena con varus y queria compartirlo con ustedes We're back at it again with another League of Legends: Wild Rift video! Watch it in High Definition for better quality! Please help me by watching the whole ... I'm not a pro player just enjoying the game. I'm using varus ap build enjo The new update made wild rift Varus insanely strong for wild rift adc. I show the wild rift varus build and guide that you need to know for all your ranked g... Hello friends, this time Rama is playing the Moba game, namely League Of Legends: Wild Rift. For friends who want to play too, you can click the link here.ht... If you enjoy, give this video a like and don’t forget to subscribe and turn on bell notifications so you won’t miss an upload.Facebook: @shikiboihttps://www....
