Nunu bot please stop being so OP! Riot with the secret ninja buff of the item Frozen heart had us very confused yesterday… Apparently the passive debuff works halfway across Summoner’s Rift now!
Riot pls!
Riot pls!
How many Bronze Elo players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None, they can’t climb the ladder!
– The League Report Blog
Have a League of Legends joke of your own? Leave it in the comments!
Ultra Rapid Fire Mode, or URF Mode, is the most recent gametype on the League of Legends Live Client. As I’m sure many of you have played it I am not going to go into detail as to what it is, but I am going to mention a few of my favorite champions and list the the reasons why I like them so much. Once you have read this post I would like to ask you for your favorite champions in the League of Legends URF Mod.
My favorite champions in URF Mode:
1. Blitzcrank – Hook, E, R, Dead. Repeat. AP Blitzcrank is hilariously fun to play in this game mode, and his cooldowns are all very low. Hitting a hook on a squishy target is almost instant death for them.
2. Maokai – The burst, the chase potential, the damage, the sapling traps… This champion is way too fun to play in URF Mode. Maokai can chase down and stun opponents across Summoner’s Rift, while also throwing saplings (or presents if you’re awesome and use the Festive Maokai skin), and dealing tons of damage to enemies around him. Want to have some real fun? Sit in a bush that and stack saplings in it, then lure an opponent into the bush and watch them get deleted instantly.
3. Thresh – Essentially a 0 second Cooldown on your hook if you hit it. If that’s not fun I don’t know what is.
4. Elise / Jayce – Both of these champions are ridiculously fun to play because of their ability to switch forms. You have so many abilities that are off cooldown at any given moment that you confuse yourself more than anything. I had a blast switching between forms and face rolling my keyboard for games on end.
5. Ashe – W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W W. Then some R’s. Then W W W W W W W W W W W W W. Then GG.
6. Soraka – Just… hilarious. Good luck killing her is all I can tell you.
7. Nunu – Baron and Dragon are no match for the Nunu. Have fun soloing the jungle and never needing to back for anything!
8. Riven – If you want to face roll some enemies, here’s your champion. You are given endless chase potential with a shield that has nearly a 0 second cooldown. It’s almost silly if you lose.
9. Ziggs – Bombs away!
10. Mundo – Such health, much cleavers.
These are my Top 10 Champions to play in URF (for fun, not to win). Please comment with your favorite champions to play for this League of Legends Thoughts – URF Mode post!
– Steve
Thresh: The Soul reason to main support.
Thresh is the reason I call myself a support main. This champion managed to turn what I thought to be the most boring role in League of Legends when I first started the game (Season 3) into my favorite role by far. I remember when I first started playing League of Legends and getting stuck with support and playing Janna / Nami / Annie every single game. I only played Annie because I thought it was fun and super cheesy, and this was before she actually took off as a top tier support. Even in the Annie games I had played I felt like I was just sort of mashing buttons and standing in a bush, waiting for my next back to buy wards. Nothing was very enjoyable down there in the bottom lane of Summoner’s Rift, and I felt like I was more of a spectator than someone actually playing on the team.
Then I picked up Thresh. I remember how excited I was to play the champion because of how popular he was in the LCS, and I had never played him before. His kit looked incredibly fun to play, and I come from an FPS (first person shooter) background in video games, so I absolutely love champions based on skills shots (I’m looking at you Ezreal). Thresh’s hook is an incredibly fun mechanic to play with, and I love the constant threat that I give in lane with it. This ability was very easy to learn and adjust to immediately, and I always smart cast all of my spells so I didn’t feel the need to practice it too much. Thresh’s lantern is also an amazing ability, perhaps the greatest spell in the game that isn’t an ultimate. This ability is a huge factor in lane, in teamfights, and just roaming around the map in general. It can be used to create a gank, escape a gank, get a teammate into a good position, get a teammate out of a bad position, to give vision, and even to bluff and scare the enemy team thinking someone is going to take it. This ability took me a small amount of time to get the range down, but I quickly learned it and it is very simple to use (if your teammate GRABS THE DAMN LANTERN).
Now onto the E… the Flay. Oh. God. My first few games with Thresh I was told to not smartcast his E. I wish I had these games recorded, because they were absolutely hilarious I’m sure. I would basically try to E, and do one of the following things:
1. Miss completely
2. Stop walking, stand still trying to figure out the direction I wanted the flay to go, and miss completely
3. Flay in the opposite direction, either saving someone’s life on the other team or costing someone’s life on mine
4. Did I mention MISS COMPLETELY?
After a few games I said YOLO, and decided to smart cast it. This was the best decision I have made in my short League of Legends gaming career. As soon as I started smart casting this spell, I understood the mechanics of it more and didn’t need to think about the range or the direction I was going. It just made sense. Put the cursor behind me parallel to where they are running = They will come back to me. Put my cursor in front of me, or literally on the enemy, and they will go in front of me. It was simple. It made sense. I highly recommend you do this if you are learning Thresh, because a Flash+Flay is nearly impossible without it.
Thresh’s R is very simple to use, but it is also very simple to mess up. The Box is his ultimate ability, and it goes off immediately upon hitting R. Until his last nerf, the box literally went up immediately and slowed anyone who walked into the walls. This basically meant that upon landing a hook post level-6, you would follow the hook, hit R, then flay them into the back of the box. This was almost an insta-gib in lane if you hit the ADC (or the squishy Sona/Nami support), and if you’re maxing E (you better be), your auto will take a huge chunk out of them as well. Match this combo with a Draven or any ADC with burst and you pretty much guaranteed a kill regardless of summoner spells on the enemy. However, with the latest nerf, The Box takes a little bit of time to “be built”. The walls need a moment to set up, and this can let the enemy escape before it even slows them or does any damage (which is a ton by the way). I have found that I have had to change the combo up a bit here, and I will now flay them immediately upon hitting R if they don’t have flash. If they do have flash, I will wait for them to flash, flay them immediately at the end of their animation, and then hit R. If you let them flash AFTER you use your ult there is a good chance that they will dodge all walls and you will be left with a useless box in the middle of the lane.
All in all, Thresh is just fun to play. Every game he makes an impact, and his utility is second to none. He has an incredible kit for both supporting and carrying, and he can be built many different ways. If you build a full CDR Thresh you can land a hook every 4 seconds. I do this nearly every game now because I find it to be the most fun and rewarding part of the game. Everytime you land a hook, whether it be from 2 pixels away or max range in an unwarded part of the map, you get this satisfied feeling that just isn’t matched by many of the other champions on The Rift. If you haven’t tried out Thresh, or you don’t like the support role, I highly recommend you pick him up and play with him for a bit.
Final thoughts: Thresh top lane, Thresh ADC, and even Thresh jungle are all pretty fun to mess around with. I prefer top Thresh out of all of these, and if your team comp allows it, build full Attack Damage and watch the enemies melt with one auto attack.
Have fun Flaying!
– Steve
My first thought when I opened up the new lobby type on League of Legends called “Team Builder” was “damn… am I playing Warcraft 3 again?”. The layout was very simple to understand, and it looked like it was made for a Battle.Net game which came out about ten years ago. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… I actually really enjoyed the layout, and it made me feel like I was playing an online competitive video game again. Staring at an outdated client while there is a countdown at the top of the screen has never stood out to me as something a competitive game would have, so this new lobby just made the game feel more intense before it even started.
Okay, okay, I talked about the lobby enough… right? Nope. It’s a small part of the experience, but it really is a necessary part of any online game in my opinion. Hell, even Halo 2 had an amazing pregame lobby on the Xbox and that game came out a couple thousand years ago. My favorite part about the lobby is the opportunity to chat with your teammates while you are waiting for a match to be found. This is a great way to get to know your teammates and joke around a bit before the match, and I felt like it got rid of much of the toxicity which plagues the fields of justice. In this lobby you can see the champions and roles that everyone is playing, and you can discuss strategies using your team composition. On top of this, everyone got to play the role that they asked for, so there was no need to argue in the lobby over “pick order vs. call order”. I felt a much friendlier atmosphere in the Team Builder lobby than the usual blind pick / draft pick lobbies.
Some issues with Team Builder that I ran into during the few games that I played are as follow:
1. The roles aren’t properly labeled. I had a “fighter” support, and it ended up being a Darius who actually wanted top lane. The roles mix sometimes in the pregame lobby process of choosing them, and this can make for some odd team compositions. I had a Malzahar ADC that same game.
Team Builder please…
2. You cannot establish a solid team composition without booting players on your team and waiting for the right champion to show up. It would be nice if you could call a role and maybe 3 champions in which you wanted to play so that you could choose based on your teammate’s champion choices.
3. My final complaint isn’t really a complaint, but a suggestion. This lobby was really fun and reduced the toxicity in every game I played ten-fold, and I would like to see it implemented in a non-blind pick format. As I stated in problem #2, I think that you should be able to choose a few champions to go into the draft lobby with, and choose from those after a banning phase has gone through. In a ranked lobby, I think that you should just need to call a role and not a champion. This would allow for both the banning phase and the picking phase to occur. Draft would still go in order like it currently does, but you would only be able to choose a champion to fill your respective role, and everyone would be happy because they would get the role they wanted. For example, if I wanted to jungle Elise, I would go into ranked queue with “jungle” as my role, but not Elise. The draft lobby would go through as normal, and if Elise was up when it was my turn to pick, I would pick her.
On a completely unrelated note, I am terrified of spiders but Elise is my favorite champion in the game. Oh what a tangled web we weave…
All in all, I really enjoyed Team Builder and I hope that they find a way to implement it into the Live server forever very soon. The toxicity levels dropped dramatically, and I actually felt like the people on my team were my teammates rather than crazy psychopaths sitting behind a computer screen waiting to stab the next person who stole their blue buff. The game was fun… really, really fun.
TL;DR: Team Builder = #Worth
– Steve
With Snowdown approaching the League of Legends Live Client, I have been playing the new “Showdown” game type on the PBE. I absolutely love the 1v1 game type that Riot has introduced, and will explain why.
Rules of 1v1 Showdown:
Draft Pick, 3 bans each
Blind Pick after bans, both players can be the same champion.
First to 100 Minions Wins
First Player to Die Loses
First Player to Destroy the Enemy’s Turret Wins
Day 1…
As you can see there are three ways in which to win a game of Showdown. The most fun way to win in my opinion is to kill the enemy champion. I enjoy playing early game champions with fast paced kits, so I mainly play Riven and Lee Sin. Unfortunately, these champions are usually banned, so I tend to try out a lot of random champions. Thresh and Blitzcrank were both quite fun, as was Sion and Dr. Mundo. Showdown is a really great place to try out different champions and test out how they do in low level duals.
My favorite part about Showdown is the ability to capitalize on your opponent’s mistakes. You don’t need to worry about the enemy midlaner or jungler coming into your lane at any point in the game, so you can control the game however you want. If your opponent makes a mistake you have the ability to take full advantage of the game and dictate what the opponent can and cannot do for the next few minutes. If at any point they would put themselves into a situation where they could possibly be killed, you can take that opportunity to finish the game. I have won countless games at level 3 because of bad positioning and the false sense of security that many players have. If at any point you see a chance to get a kill, you can go in without fear of being ganked. The entire game is up to you, which is what makes it so fun for me.
Another thing that I love about Showdown is how fast paced it is. Sometimes I don’t even look at the minions and just wait until I have a chance to either trade very well or get a quick cheesy kill at level 2 after they burn their abilities on the wave. Lee Sin and Riven are both great for this early game strategy. Sometimes I win games without even touching the minion wave.
My main suggestion for Showdown is to bring Flash with you. Many people go fully aggressive with Ignite / Exhaust or Ignite / Barrier. This can work, but against aggressive players like Riven who will try to all in you early it doesn’t help. Anytime I see that the enemy doesn’t have flash and I do I know that I can force a fight, and if it is a favorable fight I will be able to chase them down with flash and end the game. It is also great for surprising your opponent with an engage that wouldn’t be possible without the quick blink across the screen towards them. I tend to run Flash / Ignite in every match-up.
Make rune pages! Remember that you don’t need to worry about a lot of the threats from Summoner’s Rift, and you also don’t need to try to scale to late game. Focus on winning the game early, and adjust your Masteries and Runes accordingly. Make sure to create a few rune pages with and without Magic Resist, as a lot of the champions used in Showdown do not deal magic damage.
This is your chance to really improve your laning skills as well as testing the limits of a champion. I already feel a lot more confident in 1v1 situations because of Showndown, and I will only get better as I practice more and expand my champion pool. This is also a great place to test out unfavorable match-ups and trying to cheese your way to victory with a quick, smooth play before the opponent can even react. Focus on your strategy in Showdown, watch for mistakes, work on your mechanics, and have fun!
– Steve
Good Game
In most games of League of Legends you will get 5 or 6 of the players typing “gg”, or “Good Game”, as the nexus is about to explode. Some games you get the players who type out “bg”, or “gg easy noobs”. I will be one of the ones typing “gg” at the end of every game, win or lose, trolls or no trolls, and I will tell you why I think you should, too.
I think of typing gg at the end of a game as the equivalent of the end of the game handshake in sporting events. That handshake separates the “game” from real life. To me it says what ever happened out there was part of the competition, and now that is behind us and I respect you as a person outside of the game. It has nothing to do with the game itself being good or not, rather, it is a way to ease all of the tension built up during the game.
To me typing “bg” at the end of a game is like licking your hand before you shake hands with your opponent. It is an immature reaction, and it displays a person’s inability to handle defeat. One must understand that not everything in life will go their way. I don’t care if your jungler dc’d 3 minutes into the game, it is no one’s fault, and neither team has any control over it. Unfortunately, this leads to people saying things like “bg” or “bot lane fed” etc. In a very team centric game things like this are bound to occur rather often. If you can’t handle it maybe you should play a different game.
Finally, let’s talk about the people who type “gg easy noobs” at the end of a game. These people make my head hurt, as it is the most cowardly way to insult somebody I could ever imagine. First off, you are hiding behind an internet name, anonymously playing with someone you will probably never play with again and certainly never play with in real life. Not only that, but you are doing it at the very last second you possibly can giving absolutely no chance for a response. This single statement leaves a bad taste in the opposing team’s mouth, and probably within that player’s own team. It is an unfortunate note to end any game on, and the emotions it causes in the other players may even spread to their next few games.
All in all, gg is not saying “Oh that game was close,” or “I really enjoyed playing with you.” To me, it is just showing a little bit of respect to another human that shares the same interest as you. It is a way of putting the game behind you, and moving on with no animosity between players. If you can’t do this at the end of a game by typing two simple letters, then maybe you should reconsider what it truly means to play a video game.
ggwp
Players tend to think that they need to “carry” every game in order to move up the ladder of Ranked Play. This is not the case, no matter what these “Carry out of Elo Hell” streams say. The truth is that you can’t win all of your games. In fact, if the system is working properly you will win exactly 50 percent of your games. The first step in climbing the ladder is to ignore the trolls / feeders, and focus on yourself. The second, third, and fourth steps are to be patient, learn from your own mistakes, and have fun.
Being able to positively impact your games will increase your entire team’s chance of winning to above the 50% standard. Assuming that the game matches you with people of even skill the best way to improve is to learn more from each game than your opponent does. If they truly are equally skilled before the game, you want to leave the game more skilled than them.
For example, let’s say that you are a top main. The Team Builder system is in place, and everyone is playing their main role. If you are at your correct Elo, the enemy top laner will be of equal skill as you. This means that either of you can win the lane based on skill level. If you lose the lane, think about why you lost the lane. Did you all in at a bad time? Did you not know how long the cooldowns were on the enemy’s abilities? If you can leave a game recognizing your mistakes and learning from them, you will be a better player because of it. Sooner or later you will have gained more knowledge than all of the other top lane players in your Elo, and you will begin to win your matchups and help increase your teams’ likelihood of victory. Winning your lane is a way to help your team’s chances of winning the game, but looking at the good and bad things that occurred in your lane is a way to help your future teams’ chances of winning the game and raising your own Elo.
Having fun is an important part of League of Legends and learning. If you play the game without having any fun, why do you play it at all? Having fun also puts you in a better mood, which will make it easier to think and recognize the good plays and the mistakes that take place throughout a game. It will also aid in the allocation of blame, as one who is in a good mood is much more likely to blame himself than someone who is in a bad mood. Seeing your own faults through this lens can improve your skills.
So, how do you climb the elo ladder? Patience, responsibility, and fun. It’s not a race to get to the next division, it’s a goal. Don’t rush it; make sure that you learn from every game you play, whether it be a /ff at 20 for the enemy team, or a 60 minute heartbreaking loss. Take responsibility for your own mistakes, and learn from them. Finally, have fun while you do it. After all, video games were created for entertainment and fun, and let’s not forget that.
This is an article written by a friend of mine who will be writing many articles for The League Report. I hope you enjoy it, as “Bartt” will be managing this website with me in the future and helping me run things. Enjoy “Why Lee Sin’s Suck”, by Barttpwnz, edited by HAble.
Why Lee Sin’s Suck
I have decided to start banning Lee Sin today. Not because he is a strong early game jungler who can apply pressure all over the map, nor because he is one of the most mobile champions in the game. Not because he is a strong 1v1 duelist in the top lane or an effective roamer in the mid lane, not because he can have strong peel and initiation late game no matter how far behind he may be… I am banning him because he sucks.
Don’t get me wrong put in the right hands Lee Sin can be overwhelmingly powerful; give him to Xmithie or any Korean jungler and they will be all over the map from level three applying more pressure than Gragas’ belly applies to his waist band. Give him to Voyboy in a solo lane and there is a good chance he will carry by out-dueling and out-roaming the enemy.
The problem is these Bronze/Silver players are not Xmithie, Voyboy, or Korean Junglers. They “see” (pun intended) Lee Sin, arguably the hardest champion to play in the game, in competitive play or on high level streams and think they can reproduce those performances. I have found that almost every single time this is not the case, especially with the solo lane Lee Sin’s.
Countless times they claim they are going to “carry” after I ask them if they want to jungle Lee instead of mid lane. They proceed to miss every q, never roam, get poked out of lane. When they finally get a chance to make a play they try to use their Dragon’s Rage (ult) to finish (ks) the kill and end up saving the enemy champion. The top lane Lee sin’s end up trying to duel a Riven or Kha’Zix with fort pot at level two, and cry about the other champion being op when they lose. They rush Ravenous Hydra into Blood Thirster every game despite being down 4 kills and 40 cs. They will maybe get a last whisper 5th item. I have never gotten far enough into the game to see if they will ever buy a defensive item because we will lose by 30 minutes every time.
The worst part is that these players think they are so good at the game that they won’t take any criticism, they will flame constantly if the smallest thing goes wrong, and if they ever die its not because they did something wrong, its because the other champion is OP. So I have decided to start banning Lee sin not so I don’t have to play against it, but so I don’t have to play with it.
If you have any thoughts on the article, or on Lee Sin players, please leave a comment anywhere on our pages! Thanks for reading,
– Steve and Grant
“HAble and Bartt”
I have been a gamer since I was 5 years old, and damn did I look it all the way until I was a junior in high school. I didn’t much care about my appearance, nor did I care about my diet or exercise plan. Don’t get me wrong, I played tennis at a near collegiate level, and I played soccer all my life. I was good at these things, but they were never things I had to really work hard on. When I was a junior in High School I weighed the same amount as my skinny mother. I was near 6 feet tall, and built like a string bean. Great for tennis, sure, but it wasn’t a good look. Junior year I started pounding away in the gym, lifting weights and eating as much as I possibly could. I would drink a 24 ounce water bottle 7 times a day. This would eventually lead me to gaining a significant amount of muscle, and evening my height and my weight out a bit. I still work out 5 times a week, and I am addicted to it. I love the satisfaction that it brings, and I love how good it makes me feel afterwards.
Why am I telling you this on a League of Legends website? Well, it’s simple. When you workout, whether it be playing a sport, lifting weights, or doing cardio, your body releases endorphins. These endorphins make you feel great, but they also have a positive effect on your mind. I always have my best gaming sessions after a good workout. The good feeling involved with working out can carry to your gameplay, and the new found focus can bring reaction time and decision making to a new level. Diet is also an important piece of your daily life, and if you have a good diet your mind will excel. I tend to plan gaming sessions around my workout times, so that I can benefit from the post-workout effects.
“Do you even lift?” – Alistar (Quote may not be accurate)
I recommend that if you don’t play a sport, lift, or run, you try some things out. I can almost promise that you will get addicted to your new found fitness hobby, and it will carry positively to other parts of your life, even League of Legends.
Do you workout? What is your favorite routine / lift / machine? Do you notice a change in your gaming afterwards?
Try it out, and leave a comment if you do!
The League Report 