[PC] League of Legends

[Last Sinner]

New champ announced - Kled.

Aside from having the most bizarre promo vid I've ever seen and seeming like a bloodthirsty yordle, I have no idea what this guy will be like. I'm guessing top or jungle since he looks to be melee?

But seriously....I'm really weirded out by that vid....yet very curious....

[Kafriel]

Most likely a top laner, he can have "cute" trades with Gnar.

[Eisdrache]

Kled the Cantankerous Cavalier.

Actually had to look that word up ._. The sound effects he makes are amazing though and his abilities seem pretty fun. The speed up on his ult actually sticks for a while and seems huuuuuge.

[Kafriel]

Runs well with R, but being unable to ult without the lizard and being forcibly dismounted (via pokes) should completely ruin his TF ability...and the hook's a mounted skill, too.

[Last Sinner]

[Eisdrache]

Tomorrow means the series against NRG.

[DragoonKain3]

Alright, split in review for TSM.

Overall? Yeah, it is a shame that TSM lost to P1 and didn't go undefeated, but honestly I wanted them to lose more games... or at the very least be able to win from behind. A lot of times they would win by just straight up dicking the other team during laning phase, which while may be enough to win the playoffs, won't help them during worlds.

Pick and ban needs work though. Sure for the most part they're fine, but how the hell did they not know how to counter Malzahar? ie. the guy who had the highest win rate for quite some time before his recent nerfs? Sure a few weeks later they learned the counter, but Zilean has been staring at them the entire time. I'm really worried come playoffs that they're going to pull an IMT, and unluckily it seems its going to be against CLG (as TL will never get far with fabbyyy IMO). C'mon Parth, do your job. xD

Glad they're starting to try Taric, especially in conjunction with Shen and another diver. Like I've said in a post before, I think Taric is broken in solo q, but in competitive I think it's even more disgusting. Tower dives are ez pz, 1400+ range engage in conjunction with a diver, easy source to get windspeaker buff, and anti-engage with ult + shield items. Sure it looks like Karma's mass speed is still the best, but I wonder if she'll start to fall out of favour once Riot starts nerfing her to the ground.

As for the players:

Hauntzer - Hmm... I'm not liking they're starting to set him up as Dyrus 2.0. Sure he's on point with his TPs and what not, but him playing primarily tanks looks pretty good, but with the upcoming changes to turret 'first blood', I'd like to see him on more champs that win lane, but with carry priority given over to DLift/Bjerg and even Sven over him, it's probably not going to happen.

Sven - Oh boy. IMO the weak link of the team. Looks strong on Nidalee and Rek'sai, but I still think he sucks on other tank junglers. His Hecarim is strong, but honestly Hecarim is strong if he's ahead; if he can get wins on Hec when behind, then he's found another ban/take away worthy champ. If meta shifts into tank/ganking junglers (which I can see since Riot is forcing out laneswaps), TSM is gonna be in a whole world of pain.

Bjerg - Can't say much, since it's the lane I know least about. At the very least there's nothing exceptionally bad I've seen.

Doublelift - still gets caught out farming a side lane too many times. Yeah yeah, he's the shotcaller, and I can see in how well TSM rotates. Very reminiscent of CLG rotations and macro play during Summer 2015. Still, I hate how when TSM falls behind, their strategy comes to DL farming sidelane to catch up, and this becomes predictable and better teams will punish it more often.

Biofrost - has improved a lot on bard, exceptional on Karma, and lots of lane presence. Which of course is needed since DL needs to have his farm. Needs MUCH more wards though.

[Kafriel]

Which champions do you think are best for Baron lockdowns? While champs like Amumu and Malphite have the proper CC to initiate, I've only found Nasus and Illaoi tanky enough to survive an actual 1v5 for more than 5 seconds.

Also, I haven't watched a single game this season. Any recommendations?

[Eisdrache]

What do you mean by lockdown? Going in ahead of your allies trying to stall for time while the enemy team is at baron?

Short answer: Why would you do that? It's still 4v5 afterwards in favour of the enemy team.
Disregarding that, Maokai would be the first answer, then Gnar and not-so-meta Rammus and Zac. Alistar if you're looking for a different role.

As for games, if you want to have some fun you can try W9 G2 CLG vs NRG or W9 G1 P1 vs IMT. W9 G1 CLG vs APX is a giant brawl fest for 50 minutes. W8 P1 vs TSM was also pretty entertaining.

There was a Sion game somewhere in week 9 but I can't be bothered to click through all the games to find it.

[Kafriel]

What do you mean by lockdown? Going in ahead of your allies trying to stall for time while the enemy team is at baron?

Baron is where the end game is settled and I've lost a few games due to people being all over the map; not anywhere too deep, but far enough to miss the fight if I don't initiate a bit early. Of course, that ends up with me dashing/flashing out as soon as they come and then just lurk for pick-offs, and although the 4v5 mostly turns out favorable, since the enemy team usually suffers heavy baron damage, turnarounds are catastrophic without proper team management (a job that falls to me as a jungler, and I'm no fan of jungle TP). Alistar would be pretty good for the job actually, I'll see what I can do with him.

As for games, if you want to have some fun you can try W9 G2 CLG vs NRG or W9 G1 P1 vs IMT. W9 G1 CLG vs APX is a giant brawl fest for 50 minutes. W8 P1 vs TSM was also pretty entertaining.

There was a Sion game somewhere in week 9 but I can't be bothered to click through all the games to find it.

Thanks for that.

EDIT: Looks like the PROJECT is expanding even further with Ashe, Kata and Ekko joining in the next few months. While the skin prices have increased, I really can't say anything, they look bloody awesome.

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Also, I haven't watched a single game this season. Any recommendations?

This from just a couple of days ago was an utter epic. You just never knew who was going to win until it actually happened. Things twisted and turned so damn much.

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by Semblance_of_Power

There's a Sona mid being played right now in Millenium vs. Roccat and it's going exactly as one would expect.

Sona got nerfed a bit in the recent patch but she was really strong in the one before. While Braum/Karma are still the go-to supports, she is slowly seeing more play.

[Kafriel]

Personally, I think Karma is the best utility support (mass shield/haste, enough dmg to be a viable AP carry and a very strong sustain in R+W...well, and the CC) and Taric is the best tank support (simply becomes unkillable after building up).

While Sona isn't bad, she has seen much better days...and the direction LoL is taking seems to be one far away from champions with radial range skills. As such, linear skillshot champions have a pretty big advantage over them, not to mention the ADC mobility that keeps up with Sona's E buff (MF's strut, Vayne's passive, Sivir's passive, Lucian dash, Cait dash, etc.) makes her a very risky pick.

This from just a couple of days ago was an utter epic. You just never knew who was going to win until it actually happened. Things twisted and turned so damn much.

Currently watching~

[Kotohono]

Spoiler for KT vs SKT semi-finals of LCK:

What a series, this was the best series I've seen in awhile it was really enjoyable to watch it to especially was glad it went to game 5 even. I loved Fly's Aurelion Sol play & KT's use of global on a team level was excellent.

Spoiler for Result:

I couldn't believe that KT actually pulled it off a reverse sweep upsetting SKT 3-2, this was 3 years worth of revenge for KT for the defeat they suffered in the blind pick with the infamous faker outplaying ryu in the zed vs zed match up. Personally I am not SKT's biggest fan, so for me to finally see them be upset in LCK after their domination post-samung white/blue disbanding especially by KT made this even more satisfy to watch for me .

And hyped for the Tigers vs KT finals next week .

[Awrya]

Spoiler for H2K vs FNC:

H2K stomped Fnatic pretty hard, I expexting it to go 3-1 or even 3-2 in H2K's favour.

That aside, the bot lane stream was extremely entertaining and informative thanks to Mithy and Zven, I hope Riot will have more such streams.

[Eisdrache]

Eh you can pick other champions not named Vladimir. He's not the only tier1 pick at the moment. They wanted to play something else and you can't really blame them for that.

GP just flat out loses the lane against Gnar it's not even funny. Yes his build was arguably not great the match-up is just a nightmare. GP compensates with having global assistance but they didn't use it that way even once. Without assistance from other lanes/jungler the result will always be exactly what happens in the game.

Yellowstar (and Rekkles) forced waaaaaay too hard for some reason. Additionally they had mechanical misplays (flashing in a straight line from Taric stun and still getting hit wat) that usually don't happen to them.

Listening to the bot lane stream, on low ping you should never get hit by a spear to begin with. Aside of that if all your lanes are losing there is only so much a jungler can do. Not that he had a great showing either but he wasn't playing terrible either.

The current FNC is not as good as it was in the 18-0 split but they are by no means a bad team. They made it to playoffs in a league with decent teams. For some reason they had very disappointing series but it's clear that this is not their usual level of play.

[DragoonKain3]

WTF Parth won coach of the split? I'm a TSM fan and all, but I really don't think TSM's success this split is because of Parth.

No, I think Reapered is the coach of the split. Not because he's Korean, not because he did well as a player, but because I half expected C9 to prance around like headless chickens without Hai. The moment I heard the news that Hai was going to Challenger scene this split and Meteos would be working with Jensen again, I thought C9 was going to be relegations tier. To think they finished 3rd during regular season again WITHOUT Hai... it's no secret that C9 members are known Solo Q Superstars, but it's Reapered who made them work well together as a Team.

On the EU side, yeah YamatoCannon deserved it with the 2nd place finish. Splyce literally went from relegations to a team that got a bye to semi-finals, and their only change is the new support who isn't a superstar by any means. I'm no fan of YamatoCannon's past antics, but I think he did well in making his team playoff level.

[Last Sinner]

I mainly agree with Thorin. The voting process and liberties were an absolute joke.

[Eisdrache]

Everytime I see Thorin he is raging about something. If you listen to him you would think that positive things don't exist in e-sports.

Now as for this particular video, he has a point that some of the results are ridiculous.

First of all, best coach of the split is such a BS award. Not to take anything away from the work they do but sooooo much of that is behind the scenes that nobody outside the team will ever know. It's perfectly possible that the coach of Echo Fox did a much better job than the coach of TSM but for outsiders that's impossible to judge. If anything I'd abolish that award.

As for the team awards, if nothing else some of these strike me as ... odd.

Spoiler for NA rant:

Top: Hauntzer - lol what? Hauntzer was rock solid which definitely is praise worthy but he wasn't the reason TSM won. Like Thorin said in the video he made others win the game but it certainly wasn't the other way around.
Jungle: Reignover - no issues here, Reignover was a beast throughout the whole split
Mid: Bjergsen - Haven't really followed that many of TSM's games but you can make a case of giving him the award.
AD: Doublelift - No. DL had so many instances of dying because of being out of position or simply overextending and getting picked off. He's still a mechanical beast and he had his highlight moments for sure but this is a clear case of winning an award just because he's on the #1 team.
Support: Biofrost - Are you kidding me? I'll give him the rookie of the split award without hesitation but he definitely is not the best support in the league. No. Just no.

Spoiler for EU rant:

Top: Wunder - Never struck me as someone who reliably carries the game.
Jungle: Trick - No issues here, he had a great split
Mid: Night - What? Night spent the first half of the split being bad and only revived in the second.
AD: Zven - Jup.
Support: Mithy - Mikeyx would arguably also be a good choice but Mithy performed well.

Somehow EU ended up much shorter than NA.

When I look at the votes cast especially in EU it is obvious that some people (LCS casters) had a meeting and discussed who to give their vote for together. Unless it's extremely obvious who the best player was in his role (junglers) the votes should be all over the place between a few candidates. Then some of the votes are just delusional but once you look at their affiliation it becomes very clear why. NRG members voting Ray for top lane or Maxlore for jungle to name a few. If you're not going to be objective then just abstain instead.

[Eragon]

Thorin is just a manchild who rags on people much younger than him (TSM fans) to earn money. He has no arguments - just hyperbole, no facts supporting said hyperbole or anything resembling intelligent discourse.

I can't believe people watch this shit. Well, I can since its youtube and he's famous on reddit.