pacov's League of Legends general discussion thread - strategies, etc

By pacov on November 29, 2011 1:07:18 PM from

pacov

Join Date 02/2008

I've locked/archived this thread/blog and have started a new discussion over here: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/454943/

Please join me if you like.

Am I streaming?

Well, I started a thread back in August (http://forums.joeuser.com/411269/) that's seen a lot of activity and actually had quite a few good bits of information for new and old players alike. I figure it's time to start a new thread and perhaps keep the OP up-to-date with useful information, etc. Feel free to use this post for any LoL discussion, etc.

Super fast background: I played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011 or so, I started getting heavily involved in LoL and folks have been kind enough to chime in with tips and links to various sites that have been quite useful to me. In addition, I've been able to keep up with folks that I've played Demigod with in the past and meet some new folks that play LoL and frequent these message boards.

Here's some of the things I've learned in the previous thread:

For anyone that is level 30 with an account in good standing, you can participate in the tribunal. This is a system that was setup by riot to allow the community to police their own. Check it out here: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/Tribunal
You can view players stats here: http://www.lolking.net. If they are in a game, you can check out those stats here: http://www.lolnexus.com/
Good site for builds: www.probuilds.net and www.lolking.net
You can unlock alistar and his unchained skin for free by following Riot games on youtube here: http://youtube.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/youtube#.

New Player tips

Play the tutorial.
Consider picking up the starter bundle. It's 530 RP (that's about $4). You get 8 champs unlocked, a 4 win IP boost and a 10 win XP boost. It's a pretty good deal (used it recently on an alt account). You can find it in the game store under bundles.
Riot gives you 400 RP as soon as you hit level 5. It's enough to buy some skins, a boost, or a cheap character.
Learn to last hit! Last hitting is simply landing the last hit on creeps. If you last hit, you get gold for that kill. The number of creeps you have killed is tracked in a value called CS. You can see this number in the top right hand corner of the ui or by pressing tab. Here's a really simple tutorial re: last hitting if you are brand new - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LheiRB76x5g
Read some guides on any character you want to try out. The recommended builds (what you see when you go to a shop) are not optimal. The guides include item suggestions and skill orders. These are very useful in learning decent ways to build characters
Use the rune combiner to get level 3 runes prior to level 20 if you like. You will need 375 IP. Buy any tier 1 rune that costs 15 IP. You need to purchase 25 of these. Click on your rune page. In the bottom right hand corner there is a button called the Rune Combiner. If you place 5 runes in there, you can get a random rune that is 1 tier higher (eg if you have 5 tier 1 runes, you will get 1 random tier 2 rune. Anyway, the math works out such that you spend 375 IP ( buy 25 tier 1 15 IP runes) and you get 1 completely random tier 3 rune. Some of the quintessences are 2k IP, so if you luck out and get one of those, you just won the lottery. You can always keep the random tier 2 rune if you end up with something good and don't want to trade it out yet.
Consider setting aside IP for tier 3 runes (available at level 20 and above). You can't purchase them with real money - only IP. Keep that in mind.

Great site I visit every day for LoL related news - http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends

pacov's misc info

I play on several accounts - my main is pacov.
I stream most nights between 8PM-11PM EST here: http://www.twitch.tv/1pacov1
I created quite a few short clip vids with in game voice chat, etc over here: http://www.youtube.com/user/LeagueOfPacov/videos?flow=grid&view=0.

Here's a guide I made

pacov's Guide to Improving at League of Legends and Moving Up in Elo

k - so I'm just going to put down some of my thoughts. I'm not amazing at this game, but I do certain things that improve my odds of winning in ranked and so far its panning out just fine (bronze 5 to gold 5 in about a month or so). We all have varied skill levels, so some of this might be useful and some not. Caveat complete.

Prerequisite- you need to know how to play every single role. You don't have to be a god at every single role (more power to you if you are - I'm certainly not). You need to be able to play at a serviceable level in every single role and excel at least at 1 role (preferably 2). In my case, I'm good at support and adc. I'm not great, but have serviceable mids and jungles and so so tops. Knowing what you are good at and bad at is very important. If you don't know, I can probably tell you - but you really should know... Anyway, you need to have enough champs to make solid picks in any role and you need to be able to cover any role if it comes down to it. I'll talk about how to get better at specific roles in a bit.

Champ select advice - Don't be the "fill" guy unless you really feel like you are awesome in all roles. Call your preferred role immediately when you hit the lobby. Say "adc pref." Do this as soon as you hit the lobby. Some people believe that if you call a role you magically get it. This is stupid, but if you call something out, folks will often accomodate your request. If you are feeling wishy washy for whatever reason, call out multiple roles in order of what you want to play - "adc/mid pref." In my experience, you generally do not want to call support. It's a very important role, but you want to be in a position to carry every single game if possible. If you aren't calling out a role, you are hoping that other players can carry you. If you are hoping that folks will carry you, you don't deserve to win. You need to know your best roles and you absolutely should request them.

Solo or duo in ranked? - Well, my 1st thought here is that you should solo. If you solo, you have to rely on yourself. IMO - its a much bigger test of skill to play solo and win than to duo. Do you want someone to carry you or do you really want to know that you are actually good? That said, provided you have the right duo partner, you can increase your odds of winning quite a bit. The simple math is that instead of having 4 teammates as unknown quantities, you only have 3. If you have a good duo teammate, you know what you can expect. When you duo, you get the most bang for your buck by having complimentary roles. Support/adc is good; jungle/mid also works. Even if you don't have direct symmetry in roles, if you are an amazing mid and I'm an amazing adc, our odds go up quite a bit if we both get those roles. Our odds go way down if we can't get those roles and are forced to play out of positions that we are weaker. For example, Bryff is a good mid. If he duo's up with me, the only way he will get to play that role is for me to call mid, take it myself, and then put myself into a position like support where I can't carry out of (I'm always 1st pick, Bryff is always last pick when we duo)... that and I have to show the mid I'm picking at the start which means Bryff gets hard countered. In short, we can expect that we will be a disadvantage when duo queuing. Now, if Bryff queued up with someone at a lower elo than himself that was solid, he'd likely be 1st pick and be able to get mid and have a better chance of carrying the game. Anyway, you need to keep in mind where you end up in pick order when duoing if you aren't looking to go adc/support. If you want that, you can usually get it.

How do you get better in roles that you are not good at? - Well, here's what I do. And this is really what I do on a regular basis. I think about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. For instance, I realized that I don't play any hyper carry ads. So, I read up on hyper carries like vayne and kog maw. I look for guides on how to build them (most adcs are the same btw ), I look for vids on how people play them (eg how do I all in with a specific champ - is there a combo - when do I all in - what's the best way for me to burst - how should I behave in lane with this champ). Then, I fire up a custom game and try out the mechanics of whatever champ vs AI. Usually I learn a few tricks during that custom on how to position myself, etc. Then, I'm off to normal games where I'll request the role or character I'm trying out. Now, people still report your for being awful in normals, but it really is where you need to try out characters to see if you are any good or not as the bots are useless for proving your skill level to yourself. So, fire up that normal and ask to play a role (again - after you've tried out the champ against bots). If you don't know anyone you are with and you are quite awful, I suggest muting everyone at the start of the game. Then, do your best. Continue with this until you feel like you have a serviceable skill level in whatever role. And keep in mind what you need to work on. For me, I noticed I didn't really have alot of mids for ranked, so I started practicing some with gragas against and karth. That way, I'll be able to get the job done if I need to play mid. The next thing I need to do is put more time into being better top lane. Again, because while I prefer adc/support, I might need to play top for the team. So, best to be ready for it. Put your time in and practice roles.

One last thought - there are certain things you can generally expect in ranked. 1 - if you are 1st pick, you generally can call whatever you want. Common knowledge, I'm sure - but I'll add - CALL WHATEVER YOU WANT. 2 - if you duo queue, you generally can lock down both adc and support. It works best if your adc is 1st pick, ofc. I've bumped into like 10 random dedicated supports in all of my games of LoL. People generally aren't going to call support. So, if you are 1st pick and duo'd, just call adc and then your duo partner can almost always get support.

Lol King profiles for ranked tracking

I'm not going to update this regularly, so just consider it a snapshot (I'll add a date when I update them). Anyway, I enjoy seeing folks progress through ranked and keeping tabs on that sort of thing from time to time.

Snapshot updated 05/28/2014

blackhathedgehog - Gold I
Brad wong - Unranked
bryff - Gold V
danKnee - Platinum II
dynamo sexy (thundercles) - Gold III
krazikarl - Plat V
thegameofthrows - Diamond V
The Swan Is Back - Silver I
pacov - Gold V
Rui - Diamond I
zen_god - Platinum II

Character guides

Mid Ziggs by cow - http://www.lolking.net/guides/7906

pacov explains his thought process in detail
pacov now speaks in the 3rd person
pacov doesn't insult the enemy team yet is told he's insulting them.

I've been going on and on about how you guys are terrible at every turn here. Just terrible. Can't believe how bad you guys are. Getting every dragon but 1. Awful. Oh - and I totally tricked you guys into making hunny play top as shen then taking a tower and killing him with an ill advised bot/top lane swap (we arranged before the game to have him give us first blood and then get fed out the ass and finish the game with 15 or so kills). I GOTCHA SUCKA! Please...

And while I'm having a great time repeating myself. Seems like my being proud of knocking out 3 towers that early is stuck in your craw. I've only been pointing to 2 things in the initial strategy, admitted I had an awful game, and invited discussion re: why we won/whatever other feedback. I still think 3 towers at 12 is good. Sorry. This isn't a wang measuring contest here and as you are taking direct offense, I'm still at a loss. Guy A talks about strat and his thought process - guy B - well f u - we also did this good thing! I'm insulted you didn't mention it. Really... you mention it if you want to discuss it. guy B - also - YOU SET ME UP! super. I gave you peter dump truck. Killed him and his tower. Then, we let him kill everyone on the team for funzies.

Quoting awuffleablehedgie,

reply 3900

While obviously Hunny did fine both those games

obviously Hunny did fine both those games

I obviously set you up. Hunny did fine both games (even though I tricked you into taking him so I could exploit him viciously in game 2). Really... that's what you are going with? My master plan came to fruition in our 2nd game of the night? Even though he performed fine in both games, eh.

If you have any concerns about matchmaking, at all, please participate directly when teams are made. You are more than welcome and even invited directly - please join in. Hell - you and thunder could even make the teams directly! I'm pretty easy going and typically try to make sure my team has a little flexibility with roles when possible. I was playing with 2 unknown players and willing balanced based on thunders assessment of those players skill levels. I'll take hunny next time if you are now equating him with peter in any way. That's a bit disparaging. Anyway, keep an eye out for my secretly putting a sleeper agent on your team. Come game 7, I will spring my trap. Anyway, I find your insulting comments insulting. I also don't particularly care that you are insulting me by saying I'm sabotaging you and "trying to swindle" you. That's... stupid.

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3897

Based on that example, all the data you have informs the strategy, but the result dictates whether or not the strategy was a good call.

No.

A slightly less grim example than what was used earlier:

Lets say that you are playing blackjack and get two 10's. You then choose to hit on 20 and get an ace. 21!

By your reasoning, it was a great strategy to hit on 20 in blackjack. After all, the result was positive, so the strategy was a good call.

I'd argue that regardless of a single trial, it is a bad idea to hit in 20 in blackjack. But then you would be talking in Skype for 10 minutes about how I'm wrong about making blackjack calls because of a single trial.

Since you have limited knowledge, all calls in LoL can be considered probabilistic. This means that some good calls will inevitably go bad, and some bad calls will turn out well. But, a bad call resulting in a good result doesn't make it a good idea - it just means that you got lucky.

As expressed earlier, this is a fairly frequent problem - you judge the quality of a call based on a single outcome. This way of judging things does not make logical sense - it is appealing to a fairly major fallacy.

Also, taking a quick glance at parts of the game, you do have a major problem with your data. Every time something positive happens from your call, you claim that the data supports the idea that your call was good. But, when something bad happens after your call, you systematically reject it as occurring for some reason other than the call itself.

You can't have it both ways. If you want to take data, you have to use it all (in which case your call probably wasn't justified with the results), or you use none of it. You can't cherry pick based on what is most convenient to support your argument.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 3902

Lets say that you are playing blackjack and get two 10's. You then choose to hit on 20 and get an ace. 21!

Except that your example makes it seem bat shit crazy to go for the ace. Probable odds based on multiple factors. A unique situation where something good happens in spite of the statistical probability of success. This makes sense if all of my calls are batshit crazy luck storms. Furthermore, I explained the logic of the initial swap strategy in detail. I did not feel like I was holding 20 shooting for 21. I felt like we had reasonable odds of success not based on an incredibly lucky outcome.

Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 3902

But, when something bad happens after your call, you systematically reject it as occurring for some reason other than the call itself.

Oh - I'm sure you are right here in some instances; I just wouldn't go so far as to say systemically. I made a dumb arse dragon call just last night which hurt the team and apologized for the poor decision. I do tend to do what you are saying, though.

It's not that difficult to cede that there are good calls and bad calls in every game. I'll make an effort to own up more to my mistakes, though (which I have been doing throughout this entire conversation if you'd take note).

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3903

I'm not making any comment on the quality of your calls. I'm using a counter example.

The purpose of the counter example is to show that your premise is not valid.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 3904

The purpose of the counter example is to show that your premise is not valid.

Your counter example fails in this instance then as it cites an extreme case and draws a direct correlation to my calls. As such, is irrelevant to the current discussion (but still certainly applies to some of my less informed calls)

Let me go further by making a counter example along the same lines of your thinking. Let's say I make a call to take dragon based on ABSOLUTELY nothing. If its successful based on no logical reason to take the dragon (eg I have no vision of the enemy team, they could all likely be waiting at dragon, we have no pink, etc), its still a successful call if we get dragon and suffer no losses; however, its an incredibly high risk call - completely uniformed, yet yielded the best possible result. That is poor strategy. That is having 20 in blackjack and taking a shot at an ace. I do that from time to time and it is quite awful.

That said, the instance under discussion is nothing of the sort. It was an informed strategy. While it could have failed, it was successful in the initial goal and then successful in the secondary goal. I'm quite comfortable admitting that the secondary goal could have failed, but it was achieved.

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Brad - here's that vid you wanted from the base race game.

http://www.twitch.tv/1pacov1/c/2705926

uploading to youtube for anyone else interested

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3905

You asserted a general premise. I came up with a counter example. Since we both agree that the counter example directly contradicts your premise, we must throw out the premise.

You want a less extreme example? Fine, lets say you hit on 19 instead. Still a bad decision that can have a good outcome. You want an even less extreme example? Lets say you hit on 18 instead. Still a bad decision that can have a good outcome. The extremity of the example has nothing to do with the quality of the counter example.

Um, what is this supposed to be a counter example to? I've already said that bad decisions can have positive outcomes.

In any case, you are conflating "successful" and "good". Not all good decisions are successful, and not all successful decisions were good. I was talking about whether or not a decision was good, but now you are talking about the completely different subject of successful decisions.

While it could have failed, it was successful in the initial goal and then successful in the secondary goal. I'm quite comfortable admitting that the secondary goal could have failed, but it was achieved.

You shouldn't evaluate whether or not something is successful in such simple terms.

Let's say your goal is to get the first bot tower so you call your whole team to group bot. You get the tower but give up baron in the process since you were all bot.

I suppose you could say that your call was successful in that you achieved your goal. But you probably have to also evaluate whether or not the price you paid to get your goal was worth it.

In this specific case you did achieve your goal, but you also probably gave up more resources than what you got from your goal. That means that the trial should probably be evaluated as a fail since you gave up more to get your goal than you got in achieving your goal.

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@Karl

You've been explaining your point extremely well in an eloquent (though droll) fashion. Pacov is a very smart guy and if he wanted to get your point, he would have by now.

@Pacov

I've asked over and over and over to have us pick teams in these "in house" games but every time we play, it turns into an awkward situation where we try and just to figure out a rushed "arbitration" of what the teams should be. It's not fun to watch the replay and hear that you felt you got the weaker team when you lost the first game, and that you came up with a strategy to prey on a certain player's weakness when you were essentially the one who came up with the teams.

You and I play the exact same roles so let's just pick teams like we've agreed to in the past? I think I speak for Hedgie and definitely myself, when I say we're not willing to participate unless teams get picked by captains or in a "Hey I got 5 guys I'm playing with, want to scrimmage?" sorta thing.

We'd rather lose as a team when we're all listening to each other rather than win with people who throw off the communication.

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Quoting Thundercles,

reply 3908

I agree with this. As a former demigod player I am more than happy to sit in a lobby for 30 minutes so 2 people can figure out and balance the teams. I would rather have a fun even game than one where one side gets stomped and feels cheated.

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Quoting Thundercles,

reply 3908

@Karl

You've been explaining your point extremely well in an eloquent (though droll) fashion. Pacov is a very smart guy and if he wanted to get your point, he would have by now.

POPPYCOCK! We go on and on about the same rot. We've said the same things over and over. It's quite a pedantic conversation and lacks further value for any party involved. I'm fine with the conclusion that pacov would get your point if he wanted to. Just ignore anything I've said on the matter - this should continue to be easy to do and tabling the conversation will waste less time.

Anyway, if all you are saying is that you want to go back to one of those alternative setups for creating teams, sure. That's fine with me. It's been a bit since we had our last in house, so I didn't think of it at the time. If you simply say, pacov - lets setup teams using X method. I'll say swell. Easy peasy. I would like to reiterate that I don't care who makes the team all that much. I'm often willing to take a perceived weaker setup at any rate in order to get a game going. Not saying I have to because folks try to make op teams - just saying I'm often willing.

onto ranked news - COW has made it to his promo series to plat V. He is current 0/1 in his best of 5 though. Good luck and hope you make it there! Always proud when one of our bros moves on up. I'm hoping hedgie gets all fired up and shoots for diamond 5 before end of season. Would love to hear how you find competition at that level, etc. Anyway, he's plat III atm with 1 lp.

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3910

Onto another topic that thunder brings up - creating teams for in house games. I think Thunder and I have had more discussions on this particular topic than most. I'm a little uncertain why you bring this up in this particular context. The in house games in question added 2 folks that I didn't know. If I recollect, I proposed an initial setup, which you declined, then we went with an alternate setup that I thought was actually more favorable to you fellas, but I I was fine with it.

Anyway, if all you are saying is that you want to go back to one of those alternative setups for creating teams, sure. That's fine with me. It's been a bit since we had our last in house, so I didn't think of it at the time.

Context as in a negative manner or that I'm bringing it up on the forum?

I'm bringing up the subject here because it has been a while since our last in house game together and I had forgotten we agreed that we would pick teams as well. Just bringing it up here as a reminder to myself and you that I'm not going to be doing the "negotiation" thing anymore... no matter how much of a hurry you're in. Either we have 5 minutes to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of players that are unfamiliar to us and pick teams, or we don't have time to play an in house.

I'm bringing it up in a negative way because even back when we played in house games frequently and had agreed to pick teams, it never seemed to happen so I'm a bit frustrated with myself for letting it not happen again. My fault, not yours... so I apologize for being pissy.

As memory serves, you used to point out that we would need to decide teams based on people's role playing flexibility, not just their skill level to make things fair. Well... we're both between competent-great in the roles of ADC, Support, and Jungler... and our solo lanes... might both need some work? If you agree to this assessment, then there is no reason not to go with the Two Thieves/Honest Bargain technique since we have equal ability to fill roles.You or I divide the teams, the other picks which team he wants. Sound good?

Before tabling the Karl thing, just some suggestions to you first; Don't take exaggeration as an insult. We all use it as a way to get our points through to each other and IMO it's counterproductive to take Karl's BlackJack analogy as "The odds of Pacov ever making a good call is the equivalent to the odds of hitting an Ace after drawing on 20." I'm guessing most everyone got his point immediately that sometimes good plans sometimes get bad results, and vice versa. It seems to me you're too quick take it as an insult when not at all intended as such, and thus miss out on understanding what he's saying.

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Sigh.... Stupid thunderstorm knocked out my power last night so I ended up loosing that game when it as really close. I was carrying super hard but my team kept getting caught out. It would of been interesting to see which team won that game if I was still in it.

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Quoting Thundercles,

reply 3911

ontext as in a negative manner or that I'm bringing it up on the forum?

I'm bringing up the subject here because it has been a while since our last in house game together and I had forgotten we agreed that we would pick teams as well.

ah - I'm just referring to the context of the previous discussion. Not offended and no offense meant. I forgot as well re: team setup. I'm all for whatever drawn out process if the end result is folks being more satisfied with the quality of the game.

hopefully last thought on the previous topic - karl says don't call a bad call a good call even if you accomplish what you set out to do. I'm just annoyed because I see the entire blahblah as semantics. Arguing that you can't have it both ways... bleh. The goal is to make better calls. Yup. I spent a ton of time defending/explaining my call in 2 particular instances. Time not well spent imo.

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With regards to teams:

I'm fine with having captains picks.

But, regardless of the method, people have to realize that stomps are going to happen a reasonable percentage of the time. I mean, if you look at reasonably even pro teams play a best of 3 series, a lot of times one team will stomp in one game, but the other team will win the next. LoL is just set up in a way such that a game with reasonably even teams can still be a stomp.

I think that the other major things that should be kept in mind are:

1) Avoiding personality problems. For example, some people have more tolerance for getting DUMPTRUCKED than others. It is probably better to have mildly uneven teams rather than toxic pairings.

2) Let people play positions they are competent in. I don't think that it is wrong to try and exploit weaknesses in organized games. But, it does get frustrating when somebody gets put in a spot they aren't comfortable with and then the other team systematically exploits that. People will be upset about that. But then again, expecting a team to play in a non optimal way to "be nice" is kind of condescending. So we should try and avoid that situation in general.

As long as those two ideas are kept, I think that mild mismatches are tolerable. I'm fine with losing games, but I don't really like losing games where I get dumptrucked for 25 minutes.

I think that a few people mentioned this above, but I just wanted to say it explicitly.

Quoting pacov,

reply 3913

I'm just annoyed because I see the entire blahblah as semantics.

Nope. If you want to make better calls, you must be able to differentiate between "successful because of pure luck" and "successful because it was a smart thing to do". The difference between those two is not semantic, which is why I'm insisting that we use different words for them. Also, you have to be able to determine whether the goal was worth it or not. Clearly, accomplishing some goals will not be worth it, and that really factors into the quality of calls.

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3913

I'm all for whatever drawn out process if the end result is folks being more satisfied with the quality of the game.

I'm not sure why you've always been convinced that picking teams would be a long, drawn out process compared to how we have been doing it. Your cooperation is appreciated however...

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I don't get what the heck you guys are arguing about in the first place. They were 1W1L for both. Sounds pretty decent to me.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 3914

With regards to teams:

I'm fine with having captains picks.

But, regardless of the method, people have to realize that stomps are going to happen a reasonable percentage of the time. I mean, if you look at reasonably even pro teams play a best of 3 series, a lot of times one team will stomp in one game, but the other team will win the next. LoL is just set up in a way such that a game with reasonably even teams can still be a stomp.

Getting stomped, or "DumpTrucked", or having your weakest link picked on by target bans or whatever... these are all things that wouldn't feel as bad when the team's were picked by Captain's IMO.

The point you bring up Karl, about avoiding personality problems wouldn't be that big of a deal when picking teams. If one of the Captains is assembling the two teams for the other Captain to choose, you wouldn't want any toxic combinations on one side or you know you'd get stuck with that team.

If there are too many people that don't get along or too many people who one Captain doesn't know the skill sets of, then we can just scrimmage. The in house games will often come about when I have a 5 man team and Pacov does as well and one "team" waits for the other to finish their game. If that's the case we may as well just stay in the same TS3 Server/Skype Call with the people we are having a good time playing with, even if the in house game ends up a little uneven.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 3914

But, it does get frustrating when somebody gets put in a spot they aren't comfortable with and then the other team systematically exploits that.

I do want to call out that in the case of hunny, he's actually pretty versatile re: role and has a decent depth of characters. I believe in game 2 I banned out jax and that was all towards hunny as he was more successful than I was a fan of game 1. If you think banning out jax shuts him out of a game, you are very wrong. If this is more of general comment, yeah, I completely agree. As a matter of fact, in the past if we had someone that could only play a few champs well, I'd talk with whoever the other captain is and get them to agree not to ban x character before the game. I might try to ban out a player that is an excellent mid with certain champs, but in these cases, they are also good in other roles. I THINK (can't remember), my bans in game 1 were all about forcing cow to be mid and keeping kicking hedgie to some other role.

Anyway, the best thing for us to do when making teams is to have the captains discuss if we have any specific person that requires a handicap for whatever reason and go from there. I think the worst example of targeted banning was in the instance of dax's uncle that only plays singed getting an immediate singed ban. Pretty sure everyone on both teams were pissed about that one (including meh)... minus whoever made that ban ofc...

Anywho, going forward (in case there is any thought that I've done this in the past), I won't be target banning anyone if it means they become completely useless or a huge weight to their team. Obvious example is that singed one. Bryff's the only other one I can think of that could be gimped by some targeted bans, but he's still be able to easy fill the support role if he couldn't play his prime characters. In his case, I'd prob mention that to the other team captain if I was attempting to force him to support and see if he had any concerns. Also, keep in mind that with targeted bans, you also very likely leave open some good picks for the enemy team/your team. There can be an immediate cost with trying to ban someone out.

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#teams:

i'm going to start off by saying i don't particularily think the teams were imbalanced last time. Both games had back and forth and were reasonably close in terms of "chance of both teams to win at any given moment". According to the "if it was successful, it was good" logic, the teams were balanced.

/edited/ poorly phrased, no point talking about it, not really a serious issue, sorry

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And then I went and made a flow chart... side note - sleep schedule is jacked... worked 11PM-2AM then 5:30AM-11AM today... I think I'm going to sleep soon?

Anywho - the goal is to make calls that fall into the bottom 2 consistently and remove the top 2 options - for me anyway.

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So - things I need to work on. Karl has much better experience at the following and I honestly just need to pay a bit more attention to the mini map in many cases.

The following comments relate primarily to the jungle role, but some can be univerally applied. I'm going to ramble a bit, so please bare with me.

Most of us need to pay more attention to the damn mini map. Not just for ganks, etc, but for seeing opportunities for team globals, etc. This could be a tower, a dragon, stealing a buff, w/e. Think about the stuff you pay attention to during a game. A jungler is very interested in where the enemy jungler is for counter jungling, etc. My last game of the night I was a beast at counter jungling - probably my best counter jungling game ever. That said, when I counter jungle, I'm often less focused on directly helping lanes or pushing down towers. I think this is something that karl struggles with from time to time as well. Eg I have a window where I can steal their red safely - or I could give that up and come push a tower or go direct for a gank. In my last game of the night, I utterly wrecked the enemy jungler getting 3 of the 4 buff camps consistently 3-5 times. In one instance, I MIGHT have been able to help take out a team global objective by taking a tower but instead chose to continue to punish the enemy jungler.

Being map aware related to dragon. If 3 are top, it should be a no brainer to get everyone to get 4 to go to dragon if no one is already assisting. I'm a little slow and actually pretty smeh at dragon control. I'm fine in no brainer situations (bot lane just got killed, lets take drag). In less clear instances, not so much. Def an area to work on.

Pretty sure we also lost my last game because of how I handled a late late game baron. I was able to take the previous baron and get our team back into it. This baron, I did a few things wrong. 1st - I disengaged when I should to come off onto the enemy team. Note - our support gp was a shite and was not pinking and I don't believe we had an oracles at the time. So, it was a ballsy call (see happy flow chart). I knew where 1-2 of them were, but we couldn't finish baron by the time they could arrive. Anyway, I break off and push the enemy back some. Then I reengage baron in the hopes of being able to kill it quickly, but that did not happen fast enough and the enemy jungler was able to smite steal. Even worse, I foolishly thought I actually got the baron for a moment as a pop up happened indicating I just got a kill... slow brain. Anyway, I end up killing 2 people off, but the baron was enough at that point to ensure a loss. We would have been better off skipping the baron or me being smart enough to either reengage the enemy quickly or just break off baron.

We spent a huge chunk of the game with a vision deficient due to our gp. When I'm counter jungling, I usually pretty good about warding for safety, but should have warded some more mid/late as possible.

Unfortunately, I don't have a huge amount of experience as jungler with clutch decisions and occassionally make a bad move. In hindsight, we should have forgone baron completely and warded (provided anyone had a pink... which I don't think anyone did). Anyway, def a good example of a smeh move on my part that could have panned out (falls into category 2 of the flowchart), and ended up having extremely negative results on a game where I was actually performing pretty well overall.

If you are curious about the game, just pull up the last vid in my stream and find the starting timer.

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Well I lost my first promo series. Game one was an extremely close one with me carrying my team until the power went out at my house. Game two I had to lane swap with an Elise that had built to lane vs Zed but Swain was top instead. I did pretty well as top grag although my lane was constantly pushed to his tower leaving me vulnerable to ganks. That game was a win. The next two games were completely unwinnable due to teammates. Some games there is nothing you can do but look to the next game. After I lost my promo I played two more ranked games and now I am in a promotion series again. I think its only a matter of time until I hit plat. I just need to keep grinding the games.

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Quoting OMG_ZEX,

reply 3922

Yeah - I think the most difficult thing is actually getting to that promo series. At least they generally make it pretty easy to repeat your promos (eg no more 1 lp grinding). Sorry you didn't get it on your first time, but I agree, you'll get there soon! Good luck and hope you get good teams for at least 3 games eh.

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I wrote something on an alternate topic and manage to accidentally close my browser like a pro... so I'm skipping that.

HEDGIE - are you seeing any major different in the level of competition where you are in plat now compared to other levels? Just curious if you have any feedback you might provide. What's diff? Is it just more of the same? Thanks!

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Quoting pacov,

reply 3924

I wrote something on an alternate topic and manage to accidentally close my browser like a pro... so I'm skipping that.

HEDGIE - are you seeing any major differences in the level of competition where you are in plat now compared to other levels? Just curious if you have any feedback you might provide. What's diff? Is it just more of the same? Thanks!

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