Questions and Answers: Vi Matchups

Every now and again I browse the Guides and New players section on the League of Legends forums. If I find a question that I am suited to answer fairly well, I try to help out the poster by giving my 2 cents. This is a transcript of the original post and my reply.

Question: I main Vi, and sometimes going top is the only or best option. But there's champs I struggle against such as.

Renekton, everyone's favorite gator, I usually beat him Pre 6, after 6 I'm screwed unless I have a jungler with lots of cc. I usually start Cloth, 4 hp pots and 1 mana pot
Darius, can't beat this guy 1v1 pre 6, after 6 can't out dunk him lol I always start red elixir against him.
Singed, I know not to chase, but dat fling. It hurts :s I always start 5 hp pots, 3 wards, 1 mana pot.
Wukong. Went against him once. I never want it to happen again, not sure if it was cause he was smart, (engaging while my passive was down etc.) I started cloth 5

Tips for these matchups are very appreciated

Answer: Renek is just a monster and you won't be able to beat a good one consistently. If you're sure you can outplay and kill him pre-6, you're going to need that kill early on just to survive later. I'd just try to mitigate the damage in this lane by hunkering down and farming, and try to keep Renekton in the lane as long as possible. If you can sneak off for a gank when you have an ulti do it. But always keep an eye on Renekton, because he can ruin the **** out of other lanes if you let him run unchecked.

Darius is super scary for any laner because instead of punishing your mistakes by making you lose CS or being outtraded, you are rewarded with a free trip back to base. My favored tactic to beat Darius is really simple. Start with cloth armor and 5 pots, and farm defensively until i can afford a Giants belt and chainmail. Once you have these two it's virtually impossible for him to beat you in a trade, and if you can buy some more health pots you can outsustain him and eventually land a kill.

This isn't a perfect strategy for Darius, because if you play Vi masterfully I'm pretty sure you can kill him a couple of times early and build a vamp scepter instead. I just prefer to play it safe, because he's still a monster even with the ult nerf. Just know that you don't have to lose to Darius in the lane, you can just make it a stalemate.

Singed is just gay. I honestly try as hard as I can to get a solid trade on him between levels 1-10, because if you don't stop him before then he usually becomes exponentially harder to kill and you'll just end up dying. If you can land your full combo and avoid a good amount of poison you should win.

Wukong is potentially the worst of all match ups. If he's poking you and escaping every time you can try 2 things: Whack down a vision ward to catch him in invisibility, or charge your Q as soon as he uses his fake so you can slap him when he becomes visible. This is another lane that you can win by landing a couple of good combos early. If you wait too long, Wukong will happily harass you down all day.

The only other advice I can give you for Vi at top is spam the bushes to charge your Q, they will predict you're going to charge at them but they will find it much harder to dodge you. If you can't win your lane just freeze it and farm, and if the opponent decides to pull it and zone you out just gank mid or counterjungle.

I play a hell of a lot of Vi but I prefer her jungle. She's a solid choice for top but without a blue it can be frustrating to keep powerhousing the lane. Hopefully this advice provided you with a few ideas and helps a bit, good luck!

If you have any input or think you have better advice, post a comment and let us know!

The ten best pubstomping champions in League of Legends and how to counter them

I have compiled a list of what I believe to be the best pubstomping characters for solo playing League of Legends in 2011. What I mean by pubstomp is the champions that are easiest to obtain multiple kills on with less skill and effort than the enemy team. You have little justification to pick the characters on this list, unless you're a tryhard =3

Please bear in mind, this list is for normal games only. This has nothing to do with ranked or elo, just stomping in a casual match. By no means will any of these characters have the same effect in a ranked game.

This list is now outdated, it was accurate during 2011.

I have also provided some general tips on how to play against and counter these overpowered champions, since it's likely you'll encounter at least one on this list every couple of games. Bear in mind, this advice might not be too useful, they are the most overpowered after all.

I had trouble choosing the top 5, so it's open to interpretation. But in my experience all of the characters in this list deserve to be here.

Honourable mentions:
There are a few other noteworthy characters who might of gotten into the charts, such as Annie, Evelynn, Akali, Rumble, and Master Yi. After careful deliberation and recent patch notes, I made my decisions. Most of them didn't make the list because they can be a little more tricky to play, which means they aren't faceroll.
 
Top ten overpowered Champions and how to counter them

10. Mordekaiser

Why he's overpowered: Morde is classed mostly as a soak, but he can also put out an incredible amount of damage. Lane control is quite often granted to those of Mordekaiser status, because of his big bad shield. While he isn't really considered viable in ranked, it's not uncommon to see this guy fending off hordes of scrubs and carrying in normal games.

How to counter him: 

• In the laning phase try to auto-attack his shield down when you get a good opportunity. Use your abilities to damage him when his shield is low, to work on his health.
• He doesn't use mana, so the only way to stop him is to kill him or deny/harass him. If you can prevent him reaching creeps he won't be able to charge his shield, making him very vulnerable.
• Mordekaiser has a long range on his ultimate, and it does a fair bit of damage. If he has ignite it will really do a number on you, so beware.
• In the early team fights it is vital you kill higher priority weaker targets before taking him down, since he can be quite difficult to kill. Use your best judgement.

9. Malzahar

What makes him overpowered: Malzahar is one annoying bastard. He is granted rank nine on the list purely because of his ultimate, which is a guaranteed kill on practically anyone. The rest of his abilities are surprisingly lacklustre, but they compliment his stupidly OP stun. A good malz in mid will get first blood at level 6 most of the time, since there are almost no characters in the game that can stand up to his Stun+DoT+AoE combo.

How to counter him:

• When facing Malzahar in the lane, you can win fairly easily with your lanemate by double teaming him.
• If you're fighting Malzahar in mid, stay out of his range when he hits level 6. If you can harass him without being ultied, try to send him away. If not, call for a gank or ignore him and farm away. 
• A little magic resist like Banshee's veil or Force of nature will make him target someone else or make you laugh as you shrug off his pathetic combo.
• I thought it would be straightforward, but avoid his silence and AoE like the plague. You gotta be stupid to stand in the purple voidy stuff anyways. His pet shouldn't be too much of a problem. 
• If you can exhaust him before he ults, it will do no damage. Edit: Someone kindly pointed out his ult is a suppression, so even if you have cleanse, sadly you're still fucked.

8. Xin Zhao

Why he's overpowered:  Although some recent changes have somewhat nerfed Xin, he still remains one of the best Champions to win your lane. With an awesome gap closer and faceroll knockup, enemies will be eating your spear as you carry your team to victory.

How to deal with him:

• Xin's passive allows him to regenerate health when attacking, so don't let him get near creeps if you have harassed him.
• Once you learn the range he can leap on you from, take advantage of this knowledge and kite him.
• Stay near towers because getting surprised by Xin isn't pleasant.
• Don't bunch up in team fights, spread out a little so Xin can't hit multiple targets with his ultimate.

7. Swain

Why he's faceroll: If you haven't laned against Swain, you can count yourself lucky. This guy is one of the most rageworthy champs in the game. His AoE snare deals substantial damage, and combined with the DoT Swain is capable of killing weaker players early game. He trades that all in at level 6 for the godmode hat of douchery, since his ultimate heals him incredibly quickly. Those idiots who have trouble controlling the toggle on Swains crows and can't land a stun still get kills, which is why he is rank 7 on the list.

How to kick his ass:

• Before you get boots, it's difficult to avoid his snare, so make it hard for him to land it on you. When you have boots, you can screw around with him by moving unpredictably. 
• A lot of his damage is DoT
• His ultimate gives him a ridiculous amount of health per tick, it can require a team effort to take him down, or an ignite. Try to burn his mana if you can't finish the kill.
• Swain is almost defenseless against heavy DPS carries, he moves slowly and they can slaughter him mid to late game.

6.  Irelia

Why she's rollface: With a gap closer that resets every last hit, farming on Irelia can be like a creep hoover. Hiten style allows for a little lifesteal to help in the lane and some true damage for good measure. Her ultimate is amazing at shooting down runners, and she is surprisingly tanky. Due to some comments, I have replaced Yi with Irelia, since it seems like a logical trade.

How to subdue her:

• As usual, the best way to shut down a carry like Irelia is to deny her farm and experience.
• Don't waste time using stuns and silences on her in a teamfight, just burst her down.
• She is an excellent 1v1 champion, don't approach her unless you know you can win.
• Irelia can shoot several missiles for a lot of damage. They can be quite easily avoided if you strafe.

5.  Jax

Why he's overpowered: Jax is a whore. You can jump him with 2 people, get him to 10% health, then he'll one shot the both of you and take your tower. His burst is so ridiculous he can eat tanks in seconds, and weaker targets just dissapear. Fear the Jax, fear him.
He isn't the most mobile of characters, but that's more than made up for by his damage.

How to counter him:

• To stand up to Jax toe to toe you need to be fairly tanky. He can be bursted down, but beware he can easily take a squishier character down with him. 
• I know I've mentioned Exhaust a lot, but it is a very useful spell to shut down annoying pubstomping champions. Yes, it works wonderfully on Jax.
• Before level 6 he is very weak, and with a little co-ordination you and your lanemate can harass him out of the lane several times.
• Don't leave him to cruise around destroying your team, focus on shutting him down.

4. Tryndamere

Why he melts face: Everyone knows the Tryndaking. His 'R' is arguably the best ultimate in the game, 5 seconds of wtf he can't die. I've seen people play tank on Tryndabling and still get a godly score while carrying the team. Up until level 6 he's nothing special, but after that a good player can't really die on him if cautious. What makes him rank four on the top overpowered list however, is not his ultimate. When Tryndamere gets on you, slows your ass, then start critting you like Batman you know it's all over.

How to combat him:

• He always has his ultimate up, trust me. 
• Ignite him before his ulti wears off, it will usually finish him.
• Be wary of tower dives, Tryndamere can and will do it at level 6. If you can kite him around the turret, it could backfire on him.
• Don't waste time nuking him while his ulti is up, focus other targets instead.
• If you face him when he casts his slow, it will reduce your attack damage but you won't be slowed. If you can abuse this, it makes it much easier to kite him.

3. Nunu

Why he's wtfOP: With unstoppable lane staying power and a hard hitting slow, Nunu earnt his place as rank 3 in the overpowered chart. In a normal game his ultimate turns the tide of team fights, and is easy to place. At max rank Nunu's snowball and speed increase is awesome for setting up ganks and teamfights. There's nothing to aim, it's near impossible to die if you're playing cautious, and you can harass/kill most champions in the lane.

How to beat him down:

• If you're quick, you can escape his ultimate before it's fully charged. Flash is excellent for this.
• Eating creeps restores a massive chunk of Nunus health, if you can force him back, you can keep him on the defensive.
• Beware if Nunu is missing, he is very fast and his snowball makes it very hard to escape.
• Silence or stun his ultimate, it will do no damage if you interrupt it early.
• In a teamfight focus his allies first. Besides his ult, Nunu has little utility in a 5v5 situation.

2. Udyr

Why he's godly: With a slight buff recently, Udyr is now terrifying. If you find yourself fed on this guy, you've pretty much won. Towers, Nexus, Players, or Baron, it's all dead if it tries to face the stance shifting bear man.What surprises me, is how underplayed this guy is. His turtle stance has something like a 2 second cooldown, which makes him a good soak, practically as good as Mordekaiser. Tiger stance is where it's at, it places a powerful DoT on everything, including towers. I think a lot of people just don't know how to play him, but you'll want to when you see an Udyr go 10-0 in 3v3.

How to fight him:

• If he's jungling, put some wards up and gank him early game.
• Don't waste time trying to harass him in the lane, he can heal and shield himself. Either attack his lanemate or burst him down.
• Udyr is incredibly vulnerable to kiting. It is the best way to survive his burst. Flash is also excellent.
• Seize control of the game early on and don't allow it to get to late game. A fully built Udyr is a wrecking ball.

1. Katarina

Katarina statistics on Lolbase are better than any other champion

 Why she's an overpowered bitch: Now we're down to the rank 1, I can really start complaining. Katarina takes no skill at all, yet kills fall into your lap faster than a drunk ugly chick at a party. Her ultimate is spin to win kill everything nearby except tanks, and to top it all off, she can teleport directly onto enemies for optimal spinnage. All of Kats abilities reset cooldown upon killing an enemy, so the more you faceroll the more you can faceroll wut? Seriously, if you can't succeed on Kat you really need some practice, kills are easy pickings. If you want to learn more about her, take a look here.

How to not get killed by her:

• Her ultimate cooldown is supershort, so have a disable ready every time you encounter her.
• Early game her damage output isn't very good, and she can't farm very well. Capitalize on this by denying her experience and gold.
• Don't let her farm throughout the game and she won't be a threat.
• Exhaust stops her ult killing your entire team. 
• She can use shunpo to escape easily, try to see which creep/champion she is going to teleport to before she does it.
• Don't risk standing in the ultimate, unless you're a tank.

That's it for my list of faceroll Champions, if you enjoyed it or disagree with any of the above, please comment!

If you want some hilarious League of Legends comics to kill time, here's a link.

Edit: Thanks to a comment from a viewer, I have changed the eighth rank from Shaco to Xin Zhao. He made a fair point, since Shaco isn't particularly easy to play.

Interview #2

Hello everyone, it's been two days since my last post, because I've been playing the heroes of the week.  I prefer to test them out when they are released, so I can cut down on my feeding. The thing I hate most about the new heroes, is the abundance of people picking them in normal games and either:

1 - Saying they've never played the character before; and they have no idea how to play it.
2 - Or skipping the whole part where they mention they are a virgin to the champion they have picked entirely, only to feed relentlessly.

Still, it's a good oppurtunity for players to try out all the characters without spending Riot points or IP.

Anyway, today I have another interview for everyone. A forum troll on the official League forums came up with the initial idea to change my perspective from the famous top five ranked players, to the less popular top 15 underdogs. His reasoning was: "Everyone already knows the top five, teach us about the others". I think he was right to some extent, we all know Elementz and Reginald, who here can honestly say they know Samsterlicious?

Samster is currently in the top 20 players for solo ranked, which is quite an achievement. Especially when solo queue is more based on who has the most failers on their side. I managed to get a brief interview with Samster, take a look and see what you think:



1: So, how long have you been playing League of Legends?
Been playing since beta. So basically too long. I was playing Singed before the war
on terrorism.

2: What do you think of the game in general? Is Riot taking it in the
right direction?
The game is really great for a free game. It's fun and addictive. Riot
releasing champs every 2 weeks is a great step in the right direction. If
that direction was money over balance.

3: Do you play with a clan? Or friends? You are currently in the top 15
for solo queue, what's it like playing at such a high rating? Enjoyable?
I'm lonewolf all up in this game. I play with friends. Sadly Riot hasn't
implemented a clan system. Being high rating is cool, it allows people
to think I am better than I actually am. The respect is nice but the
long queue times are not.

4: There are a lot of complaints about the idiots and trolls in this
game, does this affect your gameplay too? What is your approach to the
common in-game flamer?
The idiots and trolls are all up in solo queue. I think solo queue has
turned into who has the least amount of trolls. It's the opposite of lord
of the rings. If someone is flaming a lot in game I usually flame back.

5: Who would you consider to be the best LoL players? Other than yourself
of course!
Bigfatlp and Chauster are the best players by far. Honorable mention goes
to Saintvicious when he isn't randoming in ranked.

6: Recently, Riot have been bought by one of the most influential
internet companies in the world, Tencent. For an astounding $400
million! Would you say this is a good thing?
More money more problems. The only good that can come from this is if they
use that money to hire more people for the alleged "replay team".

7: There are rumors that Riot will use their new money to create a new
game, probably an MMORPG. What do you think about this?
If it's a free MMO that would be a great idea, but I don't think Riot
could put out a good MMO. They can't even put out a good urgot skin.

8: If you had to share a house with ANY champion in game, who would you
choose and why?
I really have no clue. It would be cool to live with a robot so Blitzcrank
would be up there on my list.

9: And finally, is there anything you want to add?
Xpecial is not good at this game.

So there you have it. Beware of Xpecial, he is not good at this game. Anyway, I know the interview today was a short affair, I personally would prefer more information but it depends on how much the player wants to talk, and not on how much content I need.

I have another interview currently in progress with Heat n Serve from the Leaguecraft forums, which should be up very soon, and I know there's a few of you eager to see it. So check back in the next couple of days if you want to read it.