So, anyone playing League of Legends?

[Phage]

I'm 100% serious, lol.

Have you watched any in the past two weeks? His popularity has blown up. Maybe it's just an American thing? I've been watching BigFatLP on his SandyRichard smurf (which is in the top 10 solo queue elo) and of the 4 games I watched, morde was banned or picked every time.

At that elo everyone in the game was within the to 100 on the solo queue ladder (24 minute waits in the queue), so I doubt they were dicking around with that.

He's basically a sleeper OP. As soon as high level players started to actually use him, they realized his laning ability is off the charts. I suppose that this is more important for solo queue than an actual premade tournament though.

 

[Phage]

I'm about to get 12600 IP, I'm trying to decide who would be the best 6300 champs to pick. The first one is probably going to be Wukong because he hits pretty hard and seems like my kind of champ. I do best with Gankplank for some reason. Been playing him since February. The second champ I think is going to be Skarner. Someone said Skarner adds nothing to the team, but fuck the team.

Any ideas?

Wukong does not hit hard compared to the other tanky DPS. Skarner is also very underwhelming. (I own Wukong and a friend owns Skarner so I've played both - plus that is the collective opinion on them).

Gangplank is a very solid jungler, but he is constantly banned at low elo (and picked at high), if you care about that.

Best 6300s? IMO:

Brand - Insane burst mage. Strong laning.
Caitlyn - Decent endgame carry. Amazing laning.
Corki - Great endgame carry.
Irelia - Amazing tanky DPS. Despite being nerfed 3 or 4 patches, manages to be a powerhouse.
Karthus - Amazing AoE damage, incredible utility via wall/ult, decent burst damage with mines.
Nocturne - Decent jungler who is built for ganking.
Vladimir - Not as crazy as he used to be, but is still a great laner, and a tanky mage who can dish out good damage.



Anivia and Cassiopeia are great too, but they require a lot more skill to use properly.


That's all just my opinion. Honestly? Wait until a free week, 6300 IP is a lot if you care about runes.

 

[Grunker]

He's basically a sleeper OP.

Okay, assuming I'm not being baited, I've got some questions:

1) How do they farm with him? He has two choices for farm: a) Only last-hit with auto-attack - get killed a lot in the early-levels or b) Farm with abilities - monsterpush lane - die to jungler.

2) Why EVER use him over Rumble or Gragas? Rumble has the same survivability and damage + CC, Gragas has heavier damage and a phenomenal ult at the cost of some minor survivability. Other champs that do better seems to be Udyr, Irelia, WW. Heck, even Yorick.

3) Top100 Solo Queue is extremely prone to flavour of the month. You'll know this if you followed it some time. Even the best of the best have these sudden rushes of "uh, this champ is completely in now" after which they drop that champ after a short while. Are you sure this is not the case with Mordekaiser?

I'm not just spewing "Mordekaiser" sucks because I'm copy/pasting the opinions of AQ and Tournaments. I honestly can't see what he brings to the team that I can't get elsewhere better - I've never played against a Mordekaiser I couldn't ignore, and the three times I've seen him in my AQ-games (and we ARE a fairly high ELO team) we have insta-gibbed him with the jungler the second he starts to farm.

 

[Grunker]

I'm about to get 12600 IP, I'm trying to decide who would be the best 6300 champs to pick. The first one is probably going to be Wukong because he hits pretty hard and seems like my kind of champ. I do best with Gankplank for some reason. Been playing him since February. The second champ I think is going to be Skarner. Someone said Skarner adds nothing to the team, but fuck the team.

Any ideas?

Wukong does not hit hard compared to the other tanky DPS. Skarner is also very underwhelming. (I own Wukong and a friend owns Skarner so I've played both - plus that is the collective opinion on them).

Gangplank is a very solid jungler, but he is constantly banned at low elo (and picked at high), if you care about that.

Best 6300s? IMO:

Brand - Insane burst mage. Strong laning.
Caitlyn - Decent endgame carry. Amazing laning.
Corki - Great endgame carry.
Irelia - Amazing tanky DPS. Despite being nerfed 3 or 4 patches, manages to be a powerhouse.
Karthus - Amazing AoE damage, incredible utility via wall/ult, decent burst damage with mines.
Nocturne - Decent jungler who is built for ganking.
Vladimir - Not as crazy as he used to be, but is still a great laner, and a tanky mage who can dish out good damage.



Anivia and Cassiopeia are great too, but they require a lot more skill to use properly.


That's all just my opinion. Honestly? Wait until a free week, 6300 IP is a lot if you care about runes.

I agree with that list, except for Cassio and Caitlyn.

Cassio can deal some insane burst-damage early-mid lane but from then she becomes underwhelming compared to Brand or Annie.

As for Caitlyn, I'd rather buy Vayne. She has a little less strength in lane (though is still a hardcore laner), a little more strength in late-game, and is much, much more fun to play in my opinion

As for the rest, Phage is pretty much on the spot. Watch out for Corki though. He can be a beast to learn if you're used to more traditional champs.

If you're looking to get some value for your IP - that is, more champions instead of few expensive ones - I'd consider getting:

Annie (Mid)
Ashe (Bot)
Amumu (Jungle)
Warwick (Jungle or Top)
Gragas (Top)

For the roles they fulfill they are some of the very best champions in the game. Nothing feels more powerful than playing Annie, nothing helps the team more than an Ashe. Nothing can turn a team-fight to your advantage like an Amumu or a Gragas, and no-one sustains himself better during the entire game than WW.

 

[Ulminati]

If I were to advise people on what to get I'd say:

Morgana, Annie, Akali and Kassadin as fun-to-play AP carries.
Amumu, Nocturne and Fiddle as fun-to-play junglers.
Irelia, Gragas and Skarner as top lanes
Ashe and Tristana as dirt cheap ho's and Vayne as a fun to play carry. Caitlyn's ok too, but needs bigger tits.
Taric and Soraka as solid supports or janna as a fun-to-play support.

What do all of them have in common? some sort of hard Crowd Control (stun, silence, knockup, knockback) that'll interrupt channeled ults, suppress Summoner Flash or get an assassin the fuck away from your carry. No coincidence.

In my opinion, it's more important to play something you are good at and enjoy playing than playing whichever happens to be the OP flavour of the month. If you're having fun, you'r emore likely to take time to learn the ins and outs of your champion. If you learn the ins and outs of your champion you'll do better than if you simply copy the build of someone elses OP champ.

 

[Phage]

He's basically a sleeper OP.

Okay, assuming I'm not being baited, I've got some questions:

1) How do they farm with him? He has two choices for farm: a) Only last-hit with auto-attack - get killed a lot in the early-levels or b) Farm with abilities - monsterpush lane - die to jungler.

2) Why EVER use him over Rumble or Gragas? Rumble has the same survivability and damage + CC, Gragas has heavier damage and a phenomenal ult at the cost of some minor survivability. Other champs that do better seems to be Udyr, Irelia, WW. Heck, even Yorick.

3) Top100 Solo Queue is extremely prone to flavour of the month. You'll know this if you followed it some time. Even the best of the best have these sudden rushes of "uh, this champ is completely in now" after which they drop that champ after a short while. Are you sure this is not the case with Mordekaiser?

I'm not just spewing "Mordekaiser" sucks because I'm copy/pasting the opinions of AQ and Tournaments. I honestly can't see what he brings to the team that I can't get elsewhere better - I've never played against a Mordekaiser I couldn't ignore, and the three times I've seen him in my AQ-games (and we ARE a fairly high ELO team) we have insta-gibbed him with the jungler the second he starts to farm.

Ever play as morde?

1 - All of his abilities, save for R are made for farming. His passive shield makes it nearly impossible for almost every melee champ to harass him, and many ranged champs have a hard time too. Go to hit morde? He simply smacks you and your creep wave with his E, now he has a shield that can take up to two turret hits, and you took some decent dadmage. Massively powerful early game. Once he has a hextech revolvler he can literally sit in lane forever farming. Once he reaches level 6, QWER+Ignite will rape almost any champ who dares get near him, plus he gets a free ghost to suicide at the tower. Not sure why you'd be so scared of a jungler, sans maybe nocturne - buy a damn ward for your bush and don't overextend, lol.
(Of course there are a few exceptions, some champs can beat him in lane, such as Caitlyn)

2 - Since I play/watch American, Rumble and Gragas aren't used too much. Regardless, Morde with any spell vamp has far more sustain than either. His shield is much stronger than you're realizing. In a team fight Morde's ult is arguably better than either of theirs. Ghost a ranged carry such as Ashe - now you've got their ashe firing holes in their scrotum for you, or annihilating one of their turrets.

3 - As I stated earlier, this is solo queue. The ability to dominate a lane, and ghost a carry in a team fight matter a lot more when people are less coordinated. I dunno man, all I know is BigFatLP, who literally holds positions 1 and 5 on the leaderboard right now (and went to dreamhack) finds it necessarily to ban the character in every game. Elementz has finally conceded and put morde into tier 1 of his solo queue tier list, and high level players across the board are realizing that the character fits really well into this metagame. Same goes for Jax.

 

[Grunker]

I played Morde as my main way back when

1) Read what I said again. You're explaining how his abilities work. I know that. How they work is my concern. His farm has the direct result of pushing his lane. Anyone in ELO 1400 and above can tell you what pushing your lane in ranked means if the enemy has a half-decent jungler.

2) I concede that he has better sustain in early lane than Gragas, Rumble or Irelia - but not by a long-shot better than WW or Udyr. So my question is: If you want tankyness, Irelia, WW and Udyr are better. Damage, Gragas, Rumble and Irelia easily beat him. Sustain? WW, Udyr or Udyr. And ALL of these champs have CC. Morde has none. Even if you absolutely need a hybrid of magic damage, tankyness and sustain (which Morde is), how do you get around issue number 1?

3) As I said, I can somewhat understand picking him in Solo Queue, though I'd put it down to flavour of the month. 4 months or so ago, Renekton was insta-banned in Top Solo Queue and the whole community raged at his OP-ness. This lasted about a month or 1½. Did they nerf him? Nah, people just found out he wasn't that great.

 

[Phage]

WW and Udyr may have better sustain, but they'll have a very tough time against morde in lane. As soon as one goes in for a last hit, morde can simply blast with E, not to mention they cannot harass the guy at all.

I suppose we'll simply have to wait and see if this is a phase or if Morde is here to stay. Riot seems pretty hellbent on destroying sustain in lane, and if they leave Morde alone, it's only going to make him more appealing.

Also, I think Voyboy would like to have a word with you about Renekton, lol

 

[Grunker]

Didn't say Renekton was bad, mind you, he's a good champ. But he's nowhere near as powerful as people in Top Solo made him out to be back then (seriously, top players raged on and on in their streams about how they could not believe his power-level).

About Morde, I can see some potential in him if they destroy sustain more than they already have. But even then I'm sceptic. I have the same relationsship with Morde as with Akali; they are very situational and what one might call "N00B-Slayers" in that they're insanely powerful if you haven't got a clue. But Akali is still viable because she can last-hit without pushing and has some decent mechanics.

Time will tell though, I guess. I for one will remedy my opinion of my own LoL-knowledge if he turns out a steady pick in Arranged Ranked!

 

[Phage]

Honestly, the more I play this game, the more I realize almost every champion is viable. It's only the truly gimped ones that cannot compete (eve, twitch, heimer). Some are definitely better picks than others though.

I'm really hoping that season 2 changes up the rating system, and ups the ban number to 6. It's really frustrating stating off at elo 1200 with everyone else since there's so much randomness. Then again, I'm probably just salty that I can't carry a team with anyone other than Karthus, lol.

 

[Jaedar]

So, I'll soon get 3150 IP and I was wondering what heroes in that priceclass are good and fun to play. Currently leaning towards taking Leblanc, she any good? Never seen her being played so I'm a bit cautious. I prefer high damage output heroes with great gank potential(current favorite: Morgana).

 

[Grunker]

I'm currently placed at the divine Solo Queue ranking of 1100. I may be called weak for attributing it to ELO-hell, but I don't give a fuck - that's what it is. I am by no means a god at this game but I am more than able to keep up with my high-ranked team in Arranged Ranked.

I believe it is possible to pull yourself out of ELO-hell, but you have to be way, way better than me, and I'm not terrible.

I am polite and try to instigate a coordinated effort to win when I play in Solo Queue, but 99% of my matches are completely random. Someone feeds a fuckton or goes afk - opposition wins. I'm not good enough to carry an entire team out of that, and thus, I am utterly stuck.

A quick look over my match history will reveal that I typically have extremely few deaths (1-4 in an ELO where the norm is 6+ even for ultrafed dudes) and a whole bunch of kills when I play (not because I'm particularly good but because most of the people at this level are straight horrible). There is literally no difference between my score when I lose or when I win - I almost always have most Creep Kills and the most stabile score - I'm just not good enough to carry an entire team to victory without help from that team.

I played five matches yesterday, and I can honestly say that I can't take credit for neither wins nor losses in any shape or form. Three of the games, which we won, was a result of me getting fed by someone who was either very bad or doing it intentionally. The last two was a result of one instance of the same but on my team and one player staying AFK since level 5.

And I haven't even mentioned how tough it is to try to be polite and coordinating when all your team-mates want to do is shout FUCK SHIT ASS RAPE UR MOM in the chat. I tried a mate's account on West - same deal. My own level 30 account in US had the same problem, but through sheer luck I got out till about 1250, where it's much better.

The funny thing is that I've never - not once - run into Ulm's problem of people speaking russian and refusing to speak english. People are more than willing to trash each other and feed in proper english.

 

[Markman]

Elo hell knows englih. Im also now at 1150 and aint movin till season2 starts. I really would like to meet some good players that can carry to victory. I always get to tank, kill and push for the team. Its fucking stupid, if i tank and initiate and set ganks and ward do me a favor and kill somebody and push that fucking lane. Carry the fucking team. Thats elo hell in a nutshell, people wanting to play all the cool killer champs and failing.

 

[Ulminati]

I'm really hoping that season 2 changes up the rating system, and ups the ban number to 6.

The main problem with upping the number of bans would be that poeple are already whining about having to buy/learn "too many" champs to play ranked. Adding an additional 2 bans on top might spark a shitstorm.

That said - as a person who enjoys draft mode and plays a lot of different champs - I was practically fapping with glee when I watched the Dota2 draft process. Having a few bans at the start, followed by picks, AND THEN MORE BANS BEORE THE FINAL PICKS was such elegant genius. "Oh, they managed to pick amumu and we want ashe? Better ban MF". I hope RIOT blatantly steals this pattern at some point.

I'm currently placed at the divine Solo Queue ranking of 1100. I may be called weak for attributing it to ELO-hell, but I don't give a fuck - that's what it is. I am by no means a god at this game but I am more than able to keep up with my high-ranked team in Arranged Ranked.

I believe it is possible to pull yourself out of ELO-hell, but you have to be way, way better than me, and I'm not terrible.

I am polite and try to instigate a coordinated effort to win when I play in Solo Queue, but 99% of my matches are completely random. Someone feeds a fuckton or goes afk - opposition wins. I'm not good enough to carry an entire team out of that, and thus, I am utterly stuck.

I have been in the same spot as Grunker at some point. My all-time ELO low after a spree of trolls and leavers was the majestic ELO of 1086. I've since then managed to drag myself back to the 1500's. But I spent a lot of time in "elo hell" before I found the key to understanding solo queue. I learned to play Akali and Irelia - champions that can carry a match even if the rest of your team is shit. That got me to around 1250. I learned never to badmouth a team member until after the match was over. (Though I still chew into the retards at the post-game screen). I learned to spot when someone weren't pulling their weight on the team and compensate. That is - I'd buy wards if support wasn't. I'd get beefier and initiate if our tank was iffy. That got me close to 1400. Most importantly of all, I'd act as map awareness for my team. I'd ping the map if I noticed someone was missing for lanes other than mine. I'd keep track of respawn timers on dragon/baron/buffs and alert my team when there was a minute to go. I'd make sure to inform my team of oppertunities. (Eg. "3 of them pushing bot, we can do a safe baron. It's a good trade for a tower").

I firmly beleive there are two ELO ratings for every player. There is the ELO cap where they can still play competently. I play with friends at 1700-1800 ELO. I don't drag the team down, but I have no illusions I could pull myself that high. And then there is the ELO plateau they can consistently pull themselves to. In my case it's around 1500. This is as high as you'll go in solo queue until you grow as a player. You can pull yourself above the ELO plateau by duo-queueing with someone you work well together with, but the second you solo queue you'll begin the inexorable descent towards the plateau where you can consistently pull yourself. It is the difference between the plateau you acheive and the peak you have played competently at before that is considered ELO hell.

 

[Teepo]

So, I'll soon get 3150 IP and I was wondering what heroes in that priceclass are good and fun to play. Currently leaning towards taking Leblanc, she any good? Never seen her being played so I'm a bit cautious. I prefer high damage output heroes with great gank potential(current favorite: Morgana).

Have you tried Blitzcrank, Gankplank, and Kassadin?

All 3 those guys would be worth their pricetag if they cost 6300. What matters is if their play styles suit you.

Blitzcrank is secretly OP.

I think I might just be really used to Gankplank, but when I play him, he's easy as fuck.

Those are the 3150 guys, I like. Make sure to try a champ before you buy him. You might find Kassadin to be really unfun to play or something.



I got Skarner. His Q is hard to land, but shit the cooldown is fast. It seems like it would be OP if I could not play retardedly.

I think I'm gonna get Wukong.I already have Vlad, Irelia,Gankplank, Sion, Nasus, Mundo, Zilean, Warwick, Rumble, and Kayle for some reason. I don't remember buying Kayle, and I would never play her.

 

[Ulminati]

LeBlanc is fun to play but useless in ranked. she is extremely depandant on getting early kills, so if your opponent is even slightly defensive, she'll never become useful.

A leblanc with lots of good ganks will be powerful in the midgame and so-so lategame.
A leblanc without lots of good ganks early will be ignorble in the midgame and nonexistent in the lategame.

 

[Markman]

http://www.own3d.tv/live/27904/Intel_Ex ... of_Legends

Tune in for the next 3-4 days, first match starting soon.

 

[Markman]

Farming wins games. 170-180 creep kills by 20 minute mark is fucking insane. Frenchies roflstomped germans.

 

[Grunker]

Indeed, very one-sided game. But the items were fucked up as well. I mean, soul-stealer in a pro game? ON LUX?!

 

[Lupus]

Soulstealer is actually very good item on Lux. The thing is you shouldn't buy it in tournament games where kill counts are lower then ranked or normal games. And when you are ganked 24/7.

 

[Grunker]

The thing is you shouldn't buy it in tournament games where kill counts are lower then ranked or normal games.

This is my point - so IF you're even considering getting a soulstealer in tournament games (which you shouldn't), choosing Lux seems like a pretty bad call.

 

[Markman]

Cant watch other game, please post who won. It seems like its pension day today, standing in a store with lines long 15-20 meters with old people dragging full carts. Shoulda picked selfscanning, but was too fucking lazy. Life can be a bitch sometimes.

 

[Grunker]

TSM started with a quick 4-0 but due to stupid decisions it's now 6-6. They've had all dragons however, so they lead by 5K. It looks like a TSM win - except for the obvious mistakes that made kill ratio equal they play a lot better.

 

[Grunker]

Two inhibitors down for myRevenge, TSM has not lost a single tower.

So... yeah.

 

[Jaedar]

LeBlanc is fun to play but useless in ranked. she is extremely depandant on getting early kills, so if your opponent is even slightly defensive, she'll never become useful.

A leblanc with lots of good ganks will be powerful in the midgame and so-so lategame.
A leblanc without lots of good ganks early will be ignorble in the midgame and nonexistent in the lategame.

I bought leblanc and got 13/1/8 in my first game. Gotta love that burst damage It might be because I'm only level 10 and not fighting proper opponents, but I found that even though my enemy(Ryze) was playing quite defensively, I could still kill him with that crazy damage she has.