World Championships

So the season two World Championships are well under way with several matches already over. I watched a little of the games, some very high levels of play going on. I'm not really interested in these tournaments, but I suppose they warrant at least one post.

Here are the Group A scores so far for those interested:

Team	Wins	Losses
iG	2	1
Azubu	2	0
CLG.NA	1	1
SK	0	3

I'm surprised SK are doing so bad, I thought they were better. With the final worth $2 million, everyone is going to be putting on their tryhard caps.

Each team has a very pretty logo, you can even represent them with your summoner profile online. I wish I had more to say about the World Tournaments, but sadly I'd rather play myself instead of watch other people.

So what squad is your favorite?

I think I'll always play LoL

Despite being completely hooked on my new fetish, Guild Wars 2- I still somewhat reluctantly log onto League of Legends once every few days to play a couple of games with my friends. This draws the conclusion to me that I believe regardless of how bored I get of playing a match, LoL will always be a game I can return to.

I believe a lot of people do the same thing as me and play very casually, the only downside is your ability to win games and make successful moves deteriorates. I get beaten in my lane more often, and have to do what I can to mitigate the damage for my team come mid game.

All in all, I feel Riot have really created the god tier of Moba games. One that has no pull telling you that you have to play. A game that so many people play when you make a new friend, half the time they play League of Legends. I bond with a lot of people I barely know purely because they play the game and I say 'Hey, play a game with me sometime.'.

I think some sort of server transfer should be made easily available. So people can hop from NA to EU and you can always play with everyone you know. I currently cannot play with some of my friends because I don't want to start over again and lose all of my characters.

Anyway, make sure you all have a great time playing LoL folks, and remember there's nothing forcing to play. So take a break instead of raging.

That feel when a new champion tears your face off.

So after taking a short break from playing League of Legends, I return to Diana and Rengar. Such a nice way to welcome me back by stuffing two stupidly hard to deal with champions into the game. Riot are so wonderful, pumping out champions that are always above the bar to get you to splash out on some Riot points. At least they retain a semi-money-grubbing status instead of going full on EA games.

That feel.

Upon my first returning match of League, I pick Evelynn. As the loading screen appears, my friends decide to inform me that the opposing Diana and Rengar are going to eat me. Nothing I can do right? Blind pick, so I just have to suck it up and deal with it. I get dumped solo top against Rengar, with Diana ganking me every couple of minutes since level 2. Fun.

The worst part is not taking some time to research the new characters abilities before the match started. When you're up against somebody and you have no idea what kind of rape they will throw at you, sitting back and giving them some berth is the only logical option left. That, or play Yorick.

If you don't ward your own base, you're bad mkay.

Thank god they're giving Diana a nerf soon, her burst feels too high for someone with a fairly reliable shield ability. Getting hit by a fed Diana is more devastating than a fed Veigar or Leblanc, purely because you actually get to see Veigar and Leblanc actually land a couple of abilities on you before you die. With Diana, your screen goes grey and then the notification that she killed you appears.

As for Rengar, he's strong but looks quite balanced in the full scale of things. He has nice burst, a fair amount of utility and his clear speed looks pretty damn fast too. I haven't played against somebody who can use him properly yet though, so I shall reserve at least some judgement.

So what do you guys think about these two new champions? Balanced? Or stupid overpowered?

Garen cosplays

Cosplay for those of you who don't know is dressing up as a character from your favorite cartoon, anime or game. Some people go to extraordinary lengths to create a costume that is accurate and looks good. Cosplay can be very time consuming and very stressful, and you see some people make an impressive effort to become a realistic version of one of your favorite characters.

Why do people do these things you ask? I have no idea whatsoever, I suppose some people think spending 30 hours slaving over some stitching and then wearing it for 5 hours at a convention is considered fun.

Anyway, I've decided to start collecting a few cosplay images that I find on my travels on the magical internet keyboard. Yes, League of Legends has cosplayers if you didn't know already. A lot of them, too.

Oh internet, you so crazy.

I think we'll start with Garen. Garen is a nice champion to start with. I also never thought he would be a popular choice for masquerading around since his armor would be difficult to replicate. Although most people might consider cosplay a little wierd and geeky (I know I do), you have to give them credit for going the full distance on these costumes. There's more tryharding on some of the images below than I've ever tried in my life. Good work crazy cosplayers.

Who hates jungling? I do.

A group of my friends and I signed up for League of Legends after beta. Throughout the majority of the games we queued for, picking smite and going in the jungle was practically considered a privilege. Sometimes we'd even argue over who got to jungle over the next few games. Even in solo queue and blind pick, there was always a player eager to take the role.

Clear speed is somewhat important.

However, for the last few months encountering someone who wants to jungle just seems unbelievably rare. By rare I mean none-existent. It's not too bad to get into a match with two champions in the side lanes- but when the enemy team only has a single champion at top you have to absolutely crush them and/or sabotage the jungle. Otherwise, your entire team will probably fall behind the longer you leave it.

Ideally in champion selection I like to wait to be one of the last picks, so I can choose a champion that will best bring together our setup. It's frequent for people to lock in what they want to play regardless of how it affects your chances of winning. So I pick a champion that will compliment the team. Unless it's support. I only support if I am positive I have a reliable carry to assist.

Covering lanes is optimal to keep the enemy at bay whilst your team buy items.

For the last couple of months I have slowly smothered the jungle to death with almost every character that can attempt it. I hate jungling. While you have to pay more attention and try to watch all of the lanes, it bores me to sit farming and being commanded to gank every lane at the same time. Not all champions can clear the minions that quickly, so wasting your time on a couple of doomed ganks will set your experience and gold back as much as dying.

When the entire enemy team bum rushes the opposing red or blue, they can absolutely shut you down from the beginning. Jungling can be way more stressful and risky than laning. There are always moments when your team need to react fast to support you; for example when you're attempting dragon or encounter an enemy player whilst scouting around.

Ganking is the most prominent feature of the Jungler.

Ultimately playing with a jungler is a necessary sacrifice unless your team composition is built specifically to work without one. But there is a possibility of it backfiring if you can't keep your clearing speed up, or don't have a proactive enough approach to it.

The one thing I've learnt from playing jungle, is you always have to make things happen. If you see a lane to gank you have to do it well, if not you should be attempting to steal the enemy jungle or something else damaging to the enemy team. If you sit and farm your own jungle for the first 20 minutes, you might come out with a fair amount of farm but you could have accomplished so much more.

My pentakill and a couple of games with Slowlyawesome.

A couple of days ago I was playing some matches with my American friend Slowlyawesome. He captured two games on stream, which can be found here.

You may not see me much in the video above, but you'll notice me killing a lot of scrubs in the background.

We won both games, and in one I got a Fiddlesticks pentakill. To be fair, I was incredibly fed. The other team was pretty mad about it, too.

Here's the penta video:

Caw Caw Caw

Check out Slowlyawesome and his stream sometime, he's not an avid League of Legends player but he is very entertaining and a great streamer. He's new to the game, and improving very quickly so expect some highly skilled videos in the future.

League drawings, comics and images.

I found an excellent set of funny League pictures today, so I gladly post them here for your viewing pleasure. Leave a comment and tell me which one you found the most entertaining. I preferred the Maokai one myself.

If anyone recognizes this comic, you're a cool guy.

The last face is just wat.

Garen and Lux are actually a pretty good laning combo.

Seen it a hundred times, and now it makes me laugh when I see it.

Maokai and his stupid saplings are so gay.

Well.... okay then. I'm afraid of playing Taric again.

Pantheon should be my wife.

This comic is true, awesome, and hilarious.

This has happened to everyone at least once, and the facial expressions really sell the moment. God damn BR.

Soraka isn't allowed any kills. Obviously. I've genuinely laughed at this moment in a match.

Kinda reminds me of Orochimaru. Just more outrageous.

I get killed for this same reason every single time I play Teemo.

I don't even know why this one is funny. Ezreal is such a bitch.