Jungling: NaJin Mokuza's 10 Commandments

Mokuza, the jungler for NaJin Shield, recently laid down 10 Commandments for jungling in solo queue. They are:

1. Don't gank a lane that's completely lost.
2. Don't gank a lane that doesn't buy a ward on his first back to base.
3. Don't gank a lane that pushes but doesn't ward.
4. Dump the midlaner that doesn't come to help leash.
5. Always be prepared for the enemy jungler to come counter jungling.
6. Help the lane that is already winning and help them ward their surroundings.
7. Help out mid as much as possible, show your face even if you are just passing by.
8. Before Level 6, gank top at least once.
9. Communicate with your support player on where the enemy wards are.
10. Even if you follow all these commandments, losing games are still lost.

These commandments are good rules of thumb, and cover most of the common mistakes junglers make.

I'd say the hardest commandment to follow is #1, especially when playing with friends. Most players who don't jungle typically don't understand how pointless it is to try and salvage a lane that is multiple kills and a crapton of creep score behind. It's like investing money in a burning bank, a complete waste. But it's that losing lane which will yell and complain about the lack of ganks and help despite the impossibility of turning the lane around.

The only commandment I'd add would be, "Don't counter-jungle without an escape plan." I very frequently encounter junglers who counter-jungle without either tracking the location of the enemy jungler and other opponents, or thinking about what they'll do if they run into trouble. If the answer to "What happens if I run into an opponent?" is "Die." then you shouldn't be sticking your neck out.

If you're new to jungling, print out those commandments and pin them next to your monitor. They'll serve you well while you learn the role.

Thought: The Brush Crutch

As I've been duo queuing around the 1300 Elo range with Miscue a lot recently, I've noticed an addiction nearly all aggressive support players suffer from at that level. Because Miscue is a champion wardmeister, every Blitzcrank, Leona, or Thresh we come across finds themselves largely useless. These players are utterly reliant on the uncertainty of the brush to use their champions, and once that is taken away from them there's very little they can do but pray for horrible misplays (which, unfortunately, do happen).

It's easy to see how these players reach this point. Inexperienced or particularly stingy opponents avoid warding as much as possible, and when they do it's to spot incoming ganks. The idea of dropping 75g to ward the inconsequential lane brush is unthinkable. Because so few players ward brush at low levels of play, even with a Sightstone, it's easy for aggressive support players to rely heavily on the brush to exert pressure.

Unfortunately, it all falls apart as you move upward in ranking. By simply positioning well and/or using wards, good duos will nullify the efforts of any support relying too heavily on brush. It quickly becomes impossible to exert pressure without moving into the open. There the brush-reliant players flounder, having largely failed to learn the skills necessary to exert pressure outside the tall grass.

This goes back to the concept of zones of control. Brush allows you to extend your zone of control because your opponents can't quite be sure where you are and what angles you might attack from. It also allows you to enter into an opponent's zone of control without much risk of incurring damage. When these advantages are nullified, the players who rely on them are forced into an uncomfortable position. Unused to being subject to the full extent of their opponents' zones of control, and to the reduced effectiveness of their own, these players either become too cautious or too heedless of danger.

All aggressive supports are perfectly functional outside of the brush. Learning to play them there is critical to being effective in the higher echelons of ranked play. It takes time, attention, and patience, but learning how to pressure opponents without relying on brush will make you a better support, even when the brush is available.

Theory: Tryndamere and Ability Power

Tryndamere is a champion designed to carry, and like many such champions the issue has historically been getting to the point where he may do so. While he has some sustain from his Bloodlust, it has the fatal flaw of being largely based on his ability to melee, last-hit, and crit. When zoned by some of the more abusive top laners the sustain from Bloodlust is not substantial enough to guarantee Tryndamere's development.

That is, unless you start the game with a crapton of Ability Power.

The Setup:

Runes: Flat AP Quints/Glyphs, Flat AD or Crit % Marks, Armor Seals
Masteries: 21/9/0
Starting Item: Amplifying Tome + 1 Potion
Summoner Spells: Ignite, and Flash/Cleanse

By starting the game with 51.56 Ability Power, Tryndamere abuses the 1.5 ratio on his Bloodlust and the 1.0 ratio on his Spinning Slash to greatly increase both his sustain and his offense. Not only does the base healing on Bloodlust increase from a mere 30 to a whopping 107.34 (more than tripling its value) but the damage on his Spinning Slash increases by 51.56. This is a recipe for winning trades and lanes.

The idea isn't to continue building Ability Power, but to simply abuse this sustain and damage advantage to secure Tryndamere's farm and potential. Once its item slot is needed for something else Amplifying Tome can be sold for 305g, a net loss of a mere 130g. Amplifying Tome makes up for that loss in less than four minutes, assuming you would have spent that gold on potions.

Unconventional as this idea may seem, it actually isn't all that new. Back when Tryndamere was reworked (patch 122, a year and a half ago) this setup became popular as a means to deal with the even more contentious and exclusive top lane of the time. It, and Tryndamere, fell out of favor due to nerfs to Gunblade (which was better than Bloodthirster at the time) and the introduction of new abusive top lanes (i.e. Talon and Riven).

Because every champion who forced Tryndamere out of lane since that time has received nerfs, it appears the time is right to abuse a champion whose ridiculous sustain potential has snuck under the radar.

Jungler: Thresh

Over the weekend I uploaded a jungle Thresh video. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

To begin, let me state emphatically that Thresh is a very difficult jungler.

The fancy kiting I do at Blue buff, the over the wall hooks, and the other execution optimizations you see in the video are not for show, they are all entirely necessary for Thresh to clear quickly and safely when he does not receive help. Without those optimizations Thresh's health falls dangerously low at Red buff, low enough that clearing Wraiths is a matter of how many crits you received at Wolves earlier in the clear, and if you do clear it is many seconds slower. To achieve the "par" of 4:00 game time with a respectable amount of health those tricky maneuvers were critical.

It's come up before, but I believe strongly in the need for junglers to practice jungling without help. This is not because no one will ever help you, but because sometimes they can't or something goes horribly wrong. Thresh is exactly the sort of jungler who catches unsuspecting players unawares, consigning them to disaster when anything out of the ordinary occurs.

On top of his potential to flounder on his first clear, Thresh also requires skillful use of skillshots in order to gank and support his team effectively. You must be able to land hooks, must be able to reflexively knock champions in the proper direction with his displacement, and must be able to judge the timing and proper placement of his lantern and ultimate. A Thresh who lacks any of these qualities, in or out of the jungle, will often be a liability.

Now that I've finished scaring you away from Thresh, let me state emphatically that Thresh is also a very powerful jungler.

Everyone hates and bans Blitzcrank for good reasons, and Thresh is worthy of the same ire. While his hook has a much greater windup time, its potential is no less frightening. It actually has a longer range than Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab, meaning Thresh can actually throw it from outside an opponent's vision. The long stun gives your allies ample time to move in and go for the kill, and following it up with Thresh's other displacement ability can result in equivalent or greater pulls than Blitzcrank.

Thresh also doesn't decent damage without needing to itemize for it. So long as he collects souls his Q passive will allow him to deal significant magic damage on each auto attack. In a long game he can easily function as though he had four Wit's Ends or more (minus the Attack Speed). Combined with his Armor and AP gains, he can be frighteningly tanky and still effective.

Playing Thresh requires finesse, but if you're willing to put in the hard work to learn the champion it is well worth the effort.

Initial Jungle Thresh Impressions

I had the opportunity to jungle Thresh in a ranked game last night. I've been tooling around with it for a while, and I have a few thoughts as to its viability.

First and foremost, Thresh's initial clear speed is slow and dodgy. Even going full offense and abusing early Smites to make use of Executioner, he still finishes after 4:00 game time. He can clear without help, but the aid of his team is extremely pivotal in helping him do so quickly and safely.

Second, it may have just been the game I played, but it seemed entirely worth it. His hook may not be as instantaneous as Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab, but the long duration stun combined with the displacement and the potential to follow up with another displacement is extremely potent for ganks. His lantern is a huge asset for tower dives, allowing one ally to essentially "Flash out" without blowing summoner spells. All in all, his utility is undeniable.

The rate at which Thresh gained souls as a jungler was a little behind the ideal. A well played Thresh gains roughly 40 souls per 10 minutes played, but in the Jungle it's closer to 30-35. With better farm, or better luck when ganking, it might have gone better.

Attack Speed is definitively vital to keeping Thresh's clear speed competitive. I built Wit's End due to Thresh's low Magic Resistance, but that may not be the best or only option.

There are still tests I need to do before I conclude I've found his "optimal" setup. Even if I do find a superior setup I think it likely he'll be much more popular as a support than as a jungler (simply due to degree of difficulty). Still, I think he has potential worthy of further experimentation.

Thought: Think

It is often said that the current culture of the United States, my home country, rewards and encourages instant-gratification, impatience, and a severe lack of focus. In my experience this is quite true, and it presents a severe handicap for anyone attempting to improve or test ideas in League of Legends.

There is a significant extent to which one can improve simply through brute force. Play often enough and through simple osmosis and observation almost all players will get better at the game. However, eventually they will reach a wall which cannot be breached by simply force. Eventually, all players have to stop, reflect, and consciously consider what is required to continue moving foward.

This is where the culture of the now, the instantaneous, and the immediate undermines efforts to progress. It takes time, thought, and patience to step back and deconstruct the events of a game into digestible, informative bites. Meanwhile the large, friendly "Play Again" button presents an invitation to the next adrenaline rush, the IP counter looms in the corner begging to increase, and the thrill or disappointment of losing or gaining Elo defies the concept of a moment's pause. Who has time for analysis when there are game to be played?

Our distractibility manifests itself in many ways. Players don't practice their last-hitting outside of games, even after particularly horrendous performances. They don't test junglers and their routes, even though it's the single easiest form of practice in the game. Not a moment is spent thinking about where they are, what they are doing. All of these myriad obstacles, and countless others, conspire to constrain a player's potential.

The solution to all these problems is simple. Stop, and think. Maybe for just a few minutes the first time, maybe fifteen minutes later. Gradually, carefully exercise your ability to sit and think about something without distractions. Relearn and rediscover what it means to focus.

It's hard in a word of apps, facebook updates, texts, and constant connectedness, but the ability to simply think is one which will serve you well beyond the virtual conflicts of Runeterra.

Theory: How to Build Defensively

At some point we're all faced with a game where the threat of being instantaneously eliminated by a burst assassin is high. They may not be in your lane, but sooner or later you're going to teamfight and they'll be coming for you. Death seems inevitable.

In Season 2 the answer to this problem was Guardian Angel. Its strong defenses and incredibly useful passive made it ideal for surviving burst or protracted fights. In Season 3 it is no longer a complete solution. The combination of nerfs to the item itself and buffs to assassins, bruisers, and their itemization has made Guardian Angel ineffective on its own.

To survive now requires more thought, care, and attention paid to the circumstances of the game. Before I regale you with math, here are three simple rules for survival:

• Health is the most effective defense in the early-game.
• Armor/Magic Resistance are best when you already have a lot of Health or very significant sustain.
• If you can only afford to build one defensive item, it should be Warmog's Armor.

To understand the first rule let's examine a fairly simple scenario. You are level 9 with 1100 Health and 47 Magic Resistance, facing a threatening LeBlanc. You also have 1000 gold. To calculate the raw damage your opponent needs to kill you (Effective Health) we use the following equation:

Effective Health = Health * (1 + (Magic Resistance or Armor)/100)

To defend against LeBlanc there are three potential options: Giant's Belt, Negatron Cloak, or Null-Magic Mantle + Ruby Crystal. In our given scenario these work out like so:


(1100 + 400 [Giant's Belt]) * (1 + 47 / 100) = 2205 Effective Health
1100 * (1 + (47 + 45 [Negatron]) / 100) = 2112 Effective Health
(1100 + 180 [Ruby Crystal]) * (1 + 47 + 20 [Null-Magic Mantle] / 100) = 2138 Effective Health

The values are close, but Giant's Belt has the edge. It's slightly less cost-efficient than Negatron Cloak in this case, but at the same time it provides survivability against both physical and magic damage. Unless the only threat to you is that LeBlanc, Giant's Belt is the more versatile, sound purchase.

The second rule comes into effect as the health gains from leveling (or purchases) skew the math more toward Armor/Magic Resistance. Consider a level 16 champion with 1700 Health:

(1700 + 400 [Giant's Belt]) * (1 + 47 / 100) = 3087 Effective Health
1700 * (1 + (47 + 45 [Negatron]) / 100) = 3264 Effective Health
(1700 + 180 [Ruby Crystal]) * (1 + 47 + 20 [Null-Magic Mantle] / 100) = 3140 Effective Health

Because another 600 Health was gained through leveling Magic Resistance became a much stronger defensive option. Health still defends against all damage types, but if you're only worried about one type then the Negatron Cloak is definitively better.

You can think about sustain in a similar fashion. In a protracted laning situation sustain is equivalent to Health, save when you're at full Health. Armor/Magic Resistance will thus scale the value of your sustain just as they would Health. High sustain champions are therefore better off with Armor/Magic Resistance, provided they can survive the burst and hang around to heal back up.

Regarding the third rule, it's generally best to have at least two defensive items. Health and Armor/Magic Resistance increase each other's effectiveness the more of each you have, but it's difficult to get significant amounts of each from a single item. Two items can easily double your survivability or more.

However, when you can't afford the item slots Warmog's Armor is the single simplest and most effective option. It grants 1000 Health in addition to significant Health Regeneration, and while your opponents can cut into Armor and Magic Resistance with Penetration, they can't reduce your Maximum Health. Combined with runes, masteries, defensive steroids, and aura items on allies, Warmog's is the best one stop shop for survivability.

Season 3 and all its changes are still causing huge ripples, but one of the persistent waves is a much greater emphasis on champions who can afford to build tankier. Tank Katarina is seeing play, Warmog's and Frozen Mallet are appearing on AD carries, and even assassins are buying defense. The days of pure glass cannon builds are quite possibly over.

Jungling: Farm Forever (Part 2)

Tests were run, with the help of a few brave souls, to ascertain the viability of the "farm forever" style of jungling. A few problems immediately became obvious:

• Lanes must be extremely independent and cannot, under any circumstances, afford to outright lose.
• A roaming mid is an absolute necessity, but is also hamstrung by wards.
• The team coordination needed for passing lane farm to the jungler is beyond the capabilities of the average player.

In essence, the jungler can only afford to farm indefinitely if the game is even or better. When your jungler is planning on taxing lanes without giving anything in return, and the enemy jungler is planning on largely doing the opposite, the probability of such favorable circumstances is slim. Combined with the limited champion options available when picking to ensure independence and roaming potential, the "farm forever" style of jungling seems to be another ill-fated idea.

While the concept of a jungler who perpetually farms is dead, the idea of a carry jungler itself is not. In fact, it turns out removing the "farm forever" restriction from the jungler solves, at least in part, the difficult hurdles facing the carry jungler concept. If, instead of simply farming, the jungler does gank or counter-gank where it is efficient to do so, taxing the lane as they come and go, a very similar approximation of the same idea can be constructed.

By exerting pressure outside of the jungle it is no longer quite as necessary for lanes to be independent, nor is it absolutely necessary for mid to have a strong roaming champion. This frees up champion selection choices immensely, allowing the team composition to be better focused on the needs of the carry champion, rather than the needs of the ill-fated "farm forever" concept. At the same time, having ganks be the indicator for sharing farm with the jungler greatly reduces the level of coordination necessary to execute the concept. In this manner the looming issues facing the carry jungler are mostly dealt with.

To an extent this style of jungling is already being used by XJ9 to top the solo queue ladder. He farms his jungle, ganks lanes, taxes them, farms some more, and becomes a super-farmed force of destruction by the mid-game. Formalizing this style into a team strategy has the potential to make many champions with weaker early laning phases or strong counter-picks viable junglers.

Whether or not this new concept can be applied as a team strategy remains to be seen, but its efficacy in solo queue and less drastic break from current standards give it significantly better odds than the previous, flawed idea.

Quote: On Carrying II

"A team can't ride your back unless it's bent."

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Jungling: Farm Forever

The gold value of the jungle increased in yesterday's patch, matching the roughly 10-20% increase I initially expected with the advent of Season 3. As such, it's time to revisit an old theory of mine.

To summarize, a jungler has the potential to acquire more farm than any lane provided they continuously clear the jungle and occasionally cover a lane.

Before I dig into the math, I'd like to highlight the three biggest obstacles for this theory, in order of importance:

1. Smite on a carry is generally awkward.
2. It's much easier to predict and track a roaming mid than a jungler.
3. Machete represents a sunk cost of at least 180 gold.

Although #3 is a fairly simple hurdle and #2 can be dealt with, it's fairly obvious that #1 is a big problem. The only champion in the game for whom Smite is particularly useful outside of the jungle is Akali, and such a singular exception is not a robust solution to the issue. With the new jungle being as difficult as it is, jungling without Smite is not an option on any champions matching our needs.

While there are some practical problems facing the theory, mathematically speaking the new jungle is an insanely safe place to get a carry farmed. If we assume a jungler clears Wolves -> Blue -> Wraiths -> Wolves -> Red -> Golems, finishes at 4:10, and then begins a perpetual clearing cycle of the small camps, they will have collected 1550 gold by 7:40 game time (without accounting for scaling). By comparison, a lane who last-hits perfect will have farmed 1996 gold. The jungler, in this case, has only 77.66% of the lane's income.

However, all it takes for a jungler to match a perfect lane is to leech one creep wave every two minutes between cycles. Alternatively, a lane which misses 23% of their last-hits will match the jungler's income. Given the potential for lanes to build up creep waves, and the fallibility of players, it's suddenly easy to see how the jungler could be competitive.

For an example of farm in a real game, consider TSM versus M5 at IEM Kiev last year. 21 minutes into the first game the highest creep score of any champion in the game was 174. In an absolutely perfect lane that never took any jungle, the maximum possible creep score at that point in time would be 253 (40 creep waves with 13 cannon minion waves). In short, even the best players in the world are often only able to acquire 68.8% of their lane's farm (and that's assuming they never took any jungle by that point). Given that a jungler is absolutely assured of their farm barring incredible effort on the part of their opponents, there's obviously potential in this idea.

Some testing needs to be done to see exactly how much a jungler can farm in an actual game versus theory. There are myriads of extenuating factors which could kill this fledgling notion. With some help I aim to find out.

Patch Day: Balance Update 2

Thresh is coming later, but for now we have plenty of patch notes to evaluate. There's a lot to cover so I won't mention every change and bug fix.

Some of Alistar's nerfs have been rolled back. His jungling in Season 3 took a significant hit, and he's long since fallen off the ban lists, so Riot probably felt safe giving him a little nudge.

Annie gets a few quality of life changes, and a visual upgrade in the near future. Despite her lack of popularity straight buffs aren't necessary. If bruiser/assassin teams continue to be popular Annie is likely to see a lot of play for her AoE damage/initiation and tankiness.

Blitzcrank's passive gets duly hit with the nerf bat. For his trouble he does get vision on grabbed targets, which is a huge quality of life change. Knowing that you've landed a grab thrown into fog of war (and who you landed that grab on) is extremely important information.

After being given a very thorough beating in previous patches, Diana has been given some recompense. While she won't resume her frightening domination of the meta (in part because of all the AD assassins now chilling in the mid lane), restoring some of range to her ultimate and giving her shield extra duration and collision detection will be very noticeable.

Evelynn, who is all too familiar with the nerf bat, received another round of nerfs. The bonus Attack Damage ratios on Q and W aren't all that significant in the face of increased mana costs and cooldowns couple with reduced range and damage. Evelynn will still be good, but definitely not as good.

Changing Ezreal's base attack speed may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually huge. That 0.04 reduction is equivalent to reducing the effectiveness of all Attack Speed on Ezreal by 6-7%. A similar nerf dropped Graves from favor not long ago. To be honest, however, I doubt Ezreal will cede from popularity until Riot increases the cooldown on Arcane Shift.

Today we lay to rest the most enduring and frustrating bug of all time, Kassadin's reverse Force Pulse. Surviving through the beta all the way to the present day, the Force Pulse bug has befuddled and infuriated Kassadin players for years. It will not be missed.

Kha'zix, everyone's favorite overgrown cockroach, was understandably nerfed. He's been extremely popular even in the post-nerf Black Cleaver era due to his ridiculous damage with just that one item. His poke with evolved W is also extremely potent. Both of those aspects of him have been nerfed, but not by enough to sate the anger of his detractors.

Lee Sin didn't see these nerfs coming. The armor on Safeguard has been removed, and the range and effectiveness of his Cripple have also been reduced. These changes will hit both his survivability in the jungle and lane, and his early gank strength. He will still be overpowered in the right hands, and hilariously useless in the wrong ones.

The little support, Nami, received a few small buffs. The speed increase on her ultimate will make it much easier to hit, but isn't so large as to reduce the ominous, slow nature and corresponding psychological factor. The change to her base movement speed should her when trading early or trying to land her stun.

Rengar received changes which are, for the most part, actually buffs. Stacking health early on Rengar will no longer yield impossible healing values, but regardless of what you build the healing at level 18 is equialvent to what you would have received if you had 4000 Health. With extra Attack Damage on his Bonetooth Necklace and longer duration Attack Speed buffs and stealth, he's actually probably slightly better in the late game. The problem is whether he can still lane well, which remains to be seen.

Riven can thank her lucky stars she wasn't nerfed as hard as Evelynn, but she still received quite a few herself. The hits to her sustain and damage mitigation are big, and the cooldown nerf on her ultimate will severely impact her effectiveness early on. She might be fine regardless, but Riven players are definitely going to notice these changes.

Syndra gets a couple notable buffs. The increased range on her ultimate at level 16 makes her dramatically easier to use in a teamfight, and reducing the cooldown on her push back makes her harder to reach. It's likely we'll now see her in competitive play.

While Talon got nailed with the nerf bat at first glance, his ability to assassinate targets actually hasn't changed. His AoE damage took a hit, but that was largely necessary due to the bug on his E. Without these nerfs that bug fix would actually have made him incredibly strong.

Udyr, long forgotten after the "farm forever" jungle meta died in Season 2, has finally received a buff. It's not a huge buff, but 12% Armor and Magic Resistance will help him survive being kited long enough to accomplish something, hopefully.

Vi stands for viable. It only took more quality of life changes and bug fixes than any champion, to my knowledge, has ever received in a single patch before.

In addition to all the champion changes, there are some other changes of note.

Jungle creeps have redistributed health toward the bigger creeps, and picked up some extra gold in the process. The advantage of AoE junglers is now close to non-existent. Jungle gold values are at a point where simply farming the jungle is equivalent to a lane where creeps are last-hit with 75% accuracy. Depending on where the meta goes we might see some interesting changes in who we place in the jungle.

There are a lot of item change, but I'm going to stick to the most important ones.

Crystalline Flask's cost has gone up by 120 gold. It's now cost efficient after 6 uses, rather than 3, but only after it's sold. In the meantime you've locked 345 gold down for infinite potions. It won't be a bad item, but it will be harder to fit into builds.

Last Whisper now has a greater combine cost, raising its price to 2300 gold. This nerfs AD carries, and also nerfs bruisers who stacked Black Cleaver and Last Whisper. I'm curious why they felt this was necessary.

Iceborne Gauntlet remains a very good item even after the nerfs. The duration of the field isn't a particularly damaging change when you're chasing people as they tend to run out before 3 seconds are up anyway. However, it is noticeable when running away.

Spirit of the Spectral Wraith and Spirit of the Lizard Elder both got additional stats for free. They generally hadn't been picked up very often, and may yet see more buffs before they are accepted as useful items. Health regeneration simply isn't valued highly by the community (with reason).

Finally, the minimap now features animations/icons for when teammates recall or teleport. The next time I ping for my team to back off, tell them in chat that I'm no condition to fight and need to spend gold, and then recall, they'll now have three different vectors of communication they ignored rather than just two.

This is actually a very big patch even without Thresh and the upcoming changes to how rankings are determined. It seems bit much this early in Season 3, when players still have so much to figure out. We'll see if Riot continues this trend of extensive changes throughout the year.

Thought: Replacing Urgot

I discussed Marn's Urgot-based composition yesterday, but it suffers from one notable flaw; enemy teams can always ban Urgot. A few opponents did, and while Marn still moved forward and snagged a spot amongst the salaried teams of Season 3, they had no alternative setup for this playstyle. Without Urgot Marn simply chose somewhat traditional team compositions.

Replacing Urgot isn't necessarily easy, as he does bring a lot to the team. His range his short, but he has excellent poke, an incredibly strong crowd control ability, innate tankiness, and super-strong laning. There is no perfectly analogous champion, but with a few small modifications to playstyle and composition there are possible candidates.

Jayce is one of the most obvious choices to replace Urgot. He has fairly decent poke, great team utility, potent tower pushing, and the ability to all-in bruiser style on opponents. Taric could still serve as a decent support for him, but he could easily be paired with other tanky supports and still be effective. Leona would be a good option to make up for the loss of initiation, and Thresh, the upcoming champion, could also serve as a potent support.

Nidalee is another possible option. Built as a bruiser she can serve to push towers with or without the team. However, her utility is strongest when her team isn't fighting, and many of her abilities rely on Ability Power to be potent. She's not a bad option, but she lacks the oomph that Jayce and Urgot bring.

Any other bruiser could potential serve, but they are all notable in that none of them have ranged attacks. While many of them have ways to farm at range, pushing towers is another matter. You'll have to modify the plan if you were counting on using range to help push towers from safety.

Of those bruisers, Zed stands out for his infinite harass/farming, slipperiness, AoE clearing, assassination potential, and incredible scaling. Once his ultimate is available any crowd control from a support spells death. While he lacks the ability to push towers from range, the danger he presents to the enemy carries is enormous.

These aren't the only options, but they are the first I would try as alternatives to Urgot. If the Urgot composition is truly too much for any traditional carry to handle, finding variations in the inevitable event of Urgot bans is the key to truly breaking the meta.

Thought: Analyzing Team Marn

On the final day of the NA Season 3 Qualifiers, Team Marn picked an identical team composition three times, winning each game it was used. Today I'll analyze that team composition.

Marn's Winning Team Composition:

• Top: Olaf
• Jungle: Nocturne
• Mid: Ahri
• Bottom: Urgot/Taric

What should stand out immediately in this composition is the use of Urgot. Urgot is technically an AD Carry, but because of his incredibly short auto-attack range, lack of steroids, tankiness, and spammable Q, he tends to be built and played more like a bruiser. Urgot's lane harass and ability to assist ganks is legendary. It is not without reason that he is considered one of the strongest anti-carries in the game.

The potency of this pick becomes obvious when you consider how it alters team fights. Without a squishy AD Carry to focus or chase out of the fight, Marn's opponents had no clear target. Focusing Urgot would be to expend effort on possibly the tankiest target, and getting close to him would be extremely dangerous as at any moment his ultimate might catch someone. Olaf can completely ignore entire teams using his ultimate, and does incredible damage while still building tanky. Ahri is one of the most slippery and hard to catch AP carries in the game. There were no good targets on Marn's team, barring catching someone out of position.

Meanwhile, Marn had many easy targets. There were plenty of squishy champions for them to choose from when stunning, diving, or swapping places, pressuring their opponents while they themselves could be relatively relaxed. While Urgot's range would normally make him weak as a tower pusher, his tankiness, and the threat of a swap or charm, gave Marn all the pushing power they needed.

The carries facing Marn also had very little room for error. Nocturne and Olaf, two of the best divers in the game, could dive with impunity knowing that the rest of their team was largely self-sufficient. At the same time, the combination of Olaf, Taric, and Ahri meant that anyone swapped or caught would be chain controlled and burst down.

Ahri, Nocturne, and Taric were all excellent picks for the playstyle. Each is right at home in clustered, messy fights because of their AoE, while also bringing other key benefits to the team. Taric dramatically amplifies the threat of Urgot during the laning phase, as his stun and Shatter combo is an easy setup for Urgot's harass, while also providing sustain. Late-game, Taric's steroids increase his teams tankiness and damage, and his stun is excellent for dealing with potential dangers such as Katarina or Vayne. Nocturne increases early pressure across all lanes with his ward-bypassing ultimate, and augments a diving Olaf by providing additional control and danger. Ahri, again, is simply one of the hardest AP carries to kill, can catch opponents with Charm during sieges, and is more than happy to skirt around the edges of a messy fight. While this team composition is centered around Urgot, and to an extent Olaf, these picks round it out nicely and helped to make it a dominating force during the qualifiers.

While Marn changed strategies after Dirt Nap Gaming banned Urgot, the underlying principles behind the composition could potentially be applied with other champions. Using a tanky bruiser or pseudo-bruiser bottom in place of an AD carry could prove to be a winning strategy against traditional compositions. That remains to be seen, but the possibilities are tantalizing.

Thought: The Future of AD Carries

As discussed yesterday, AD carries are in a bit of a bind. The many changes in Season 3, combined with the proliferation of assassins and AD casters, has made running away the hallmark of their role in team fights. The problem is large and important enough to draw the attention of players across the globe, and many notable voices are weighing in.

For my part, I see two solutions to the issue:

1. Build tankier on AD carries, allowing them to survive burst and contribute to the fight.
2. Replace AD carries with another champion, and approach the problems of taking towers/objectives another way.

Obviously #2 is a little more drastic than #1, but we'll be discussing both.

Building tankier on AD carries seems problematic in that it will cut into the multiplicative scaling which makes them so prized. With fewer items dedicated to offense, the AD carry won't reach the ridiculous levels of damage that allow them to win team fights later in the game. In the end, can AD carries still be effective if they aren't able to dedicate four items to offense?

The problem is actually very similar to one that occasionally pops up in MMORPGs with raiding and dungeons as a core part of gameplay. There are often unavoidable damage sources in a fight, and if you don't have sufficient defenses to survive them it doesn't matter how good of a healer or damage dealer you are, you can't do much while you're dead. The same principle applies here, all that multiplicative damage scaling is useless if you don't survive long enough to make use of it.

A lot does depends on the carry in question. Carries with good AD scaling and built-in steroids will do inherently better with fewer offensive items. Graves, Vayne, and Kog'maw are excellent examples of this. Those who rely on achieving a critical mass of items won't do quite so well. The list of popular carries is bound to shift and change, as damage increases in importance versus mobility.

However, it's also true that multiplicative scaling is heavily reliant on having all factors represented. To drop one item in favor of defenses is to dramatically reduce a carry's late game damage. If their damage doesn't end up being significant better than that of another champion, why not simply have another champion?

Aside from multiplicative damage, the primary reason for having an AD carry is to siege turrets. To replace them requires having an alternative strategy. It might be split-pushing, diving, or simply overwhelming the opponent through jungle/objective control, but a strategy must be present. AD carries, however, have shone as the safest method of pushing a turret for some time.

There are reasonably close alternatives. A number of bruiser champions have sufficient range to siege turrets as well. Jayce, Nidalee, and Kayle have the range and the item builds for the job. Quite a few AP champions also have a good deal of range, and with a lot of AP and/or Lich Bane can do significant damage to turrets. If teams fail to find a consistent answer to assassins, these are alternatives that don't demand a radical change in how towers are taken late-game.

As things stands, AD carries are certainly still viable, especially if the enemy team lacks assassins or AD casters, so it's unlikely they'll disappear entirely. At the same time, the likelihood that we will see compositions with no AD carry at all is the highest it may ever be.

Thought: Of Assassins and Carries

The game is still in a state of flux following the massive Season 3 changes, and will remain so for some time. Black Cleaver stacking was just the tip of the iceberg, the first shot in what will be a long series of metas, overpowered champions, and heretofore unheard of item builds.

Murky as the future may be, there is at least one clear trend in the present which deserves attention. Assassins and AD casters have exploded in popularity, to the detriment of AD carries. Unless a coordinated team is prepared to peel for an AD carry, they can expect to spend most of a team fight running for their life with death the punishment for the smallest misstep. This isn't limited to the NA servers either; players and publications in Korea have been discussing the issue. The usefulness and necessity of the AD carry role is, for the first time since before Season 1, seriously being called into question.

So what, exactly, happened in Season 3 to make AD carries so vulnerable?

First and foremost, the vast majority of AD carry items received significant nerfs. Phantom Dancer's movement speed was made identical to Zeal and it costs more than before. Bloodthirster's Life Steal was reduced. Infinity Edge lost Attack Damage. Guardian Angel's defenses and passive were heavily nerfed. Overall, AD carries do less damage than before, have less defense, and are less mobile.

At the same time, the new itemization isn't sufficient to make up the difference. Runaan's Hurricane, as interesting an item as it may seem, isn't useful if you can't kite your opponents long enough to do damage. Statikk Shiv is a worse version of Phantom Dancer. Sword of the Divine has limited usefulness if you can't kill your target outright with it. The only light in the tunnel is the new Mercurial Scimitar, except it actually helps assassins and AD casters as much or more. In short, the Season 3 itemization changes did little except nerf AD carries.

On top of all of that almost every Season 3 change buffed assassins and AD casters. Deathfire Grasp is now an incredible asset to assassins like Akali, Fizz, or LeBlanc. Black Cleaver is an insanely strong item for AD assassins and casters like Pantheon, Talon, Zed, and Kha'zix. Combined with the penetration changes and nerfs to defense, these champions are able to assassinate any carry who comes in range.

It is because of these circumstances that the usefulness of AD carries is being questioned. Is it worth babysitting them for so much of the game if, in the end, they don't do significantly more damage than a champion who requires half as much attention and care? Are AD carries really necessary for pushing/sieging turrets, or can we find a way to do it without them? Couldn't champions who become powerful much quicker be advantageous? These are the thoughts that have started crossing the minds of many players, and in the coming months we'll begin to harvest what these seeds have planted.

Tomorrow I'll write down my thoughts about how one might alter the role of the AD, or replace them outright. Stay tuned.

PBE: Thresh Math Mk. II

Not long after I completed yesterday's math on Thresh's passive a PBE update went out. This removed the Magic Resistance from Thresh's passive (at least in the tooltip), which obviously changes the math.

So with the recent update we must modify our equation for value:

Gold Value = (# of Souls / 2 + 12.75) * (18 + 20) - 1296g

With the factors representing MR removed, this gives us the following numbers:

• 50: 138.5g
• 100: 1088.5g
• 150: 2038.5g
• 200: 2988.5g
• 250: 3938.5g

So the value of Thresh's passive is roughly one-half to two-thirds what it was previously.

Beyond curbing the absurd value of Thresh's passive, this change serves an important function. Before it was incredibly easy for Thresh to become impossible for AP carries to kill. Being able to exceed 100 Magic Resistance without any items or runes was silly. With the Magic Resistance removed from his passive, he'll no longer be the most abusive mid champion since LeBlanc's release.

PBE: Thresh Math

Thresh has hit the PBE, and he brings an interesting new mechanic, soul collection.

Every time a minion or jungle monster dies near Thresh it has a chance to drop a soul, with larger minions/monsters having a near 100% chance. Each soul Thresh collects gives him permanent Armor, Magic Resistance, and Ability Power, and also increases the damage of his auto-attacks through Q. The first handful of souls are worth more than later ones. For most numbers (beyond 30 or so) the math is simple:

Bonus Armor/MR/AP = Souls / 2 + 12.75

At 100 souls Thresh has 62.75 bonus Armor/MR/AP. That's a lot, and as a result Thresh's base Armor and Magic Resistance do not increase with level.

So how valuable is this passive anyway? To understand that we first must understand what Thresh has lost by losing out on level-based Armor and Magic Resistance.

All champions that have scaling Magic Resistance gain 1.25 per level, resulting in an additional 21.25 Magic Resistance at level 18 which Thresh misses out on. Magic Resistance costs 18 gold per point, so we'll have to subtract 382.5 gold when calculating the value of Thresh's passive.

The highest Armor scaling in the game is 4 per level and the lowest is 2.7, meaning 48.6 - 72 Armor that Thresh will not have at level 18. Armor also costs 18 gold per point, so that means another 1296 gold (to make the harshest assumption) subtracted from the value of Thresh's passive.

Finally, Ability Power costs 20 gold per point (based on Needlessly Large Rod). So the math for the gold value of Thresh's passive is fairly simple:

Gold Value = (# of Souls / 2 + 12.75) * (18 + 18 + 20) - 382.5g - 1296g

That gives us the following values at various soul numbers:

• 50: 435.5g
• 100: 1835.5g
• 150: 3235.5g
• 200: 4635.5g
• 250: 6035.5g

Generally speaking, 100 souls is what I would expect an average player performing normally to collect by the mid-game. 200 souls would be fairly typical for the late game. Expert players might collect as many as 150 or 300 souls (or more) at those same points respectively.

As we can see, this passive is worth a ridiculous amount of gold even once we've accounted for the loss of per-level stats, and that's without considering that all of these souls add to the damage of his Q's passive. Thresh gains so much without gold that he makes an ideal support. So long as he carefully times his warding excursions he'll easily stack hundreds of souls and be ridiculously tanky for a support.

Thought: Neophobia

The League of Legends community is a complicated amalgamation of players, and any generalizations regarding it are typically of limited value. There are, however, some truths which can be firmly stated, one of which being the certainty of hostile resistance to that which is different.

Before I harp heavily on the problems that result, let me be clear that there are understandable reasons for this common attitude. League of Legends is a complicated game, and it's difficult enough as it is to play to the meta, let alone trying to play against it. When a player makes an unfamiliar choice for a role, build, or lane it's just as common for them to be trolling, selfish, or ill-prepared as to be carefully and methodically innovating. It's not simply fear of the unknown, but experience with abject failures that effects this viewpoint.

For the innovators, this means intense and unforgiving scrutiny. Every game where you jungle Akali, play Caitlyn mid, or test support Maokai is a game where the slightest failure, misstep, or questionable statement can bring a torrent of disparaging remarks and threats. Even in games where you have been effective and positive you remain a convenient target for blame. It's not enough to be as good as everyone else, you must be better.

As innocent and understandable as it may seem, this cultural hostility enforces and reinforces the rigid, unadaptable thinking which plagues many players. Players seek set build orders, the "best" champion picks, and "correct" strategies because they are conditioned to do so by the harsh, derisive judgement of their peers. Taught to mimic rather than to think, these players struggle to fill in the blanks whenever they encounter a unfamiliar problems and situations.

This often results in the common fixation on winning over learning. When you believe in an unambiguously right way to play there isn't much use in doing anything other than pursuing that one righteous path. From that perspective if you aren't playing to win, then you're trolling or messing around or otherwise being a burden on your team rather than an asset. While victory is obviously the objective of the game, this mindset is a quick ticket to getting stuck and looking at every patch as a punishment rather than an opportunity.

The slow-to-change meta also has its routes in communal neophobia. It takes tournaments, sweeping balance changes, or particularly intrepid players to alter the meta because the community is actively hostile to all but the most irrefutably potent ideas. Unless convincingly demonstrated, and even then, the community is content to sit on what worked historically even though the conditions in which those ideas prospered are long past.

Curing neophobia on a community level is likely impossible. While it's demonstrably better for everyone to experiment, learn, and improve, the convenience and mental effortlessness of sticking with the known is powerful. All that innovation nonsense is work; there are champions to be killed, creeps to be farmed, and towers to be pushed. The best we can do is work on the individual level, starting with ourselves.

Update: Streaming Plans

The online S3 qualifiers for NA and EU are tomorrow. Riot is going to be streaming the games sans commentary, leaving people like myself to fill in the gaps.

The EU qualifiers start at 4 AM my time, so between sleep and work casting those is out of the question. However, if the NA qualifiers have started by the time I get home (Riot has yet to give details) I'll be casting them with TeamLiquid veteran Scip.

These may not be big name teams (yet!) but if you're trying to get your head in the game and learn a few things this should be a great opportunity. Be sure to tune in.

Update: Resolutions 2013

Before anything else, I apologize for the technical problems with Mondays with Monte on New Year's Eve. I know what happened, but because of the nature of the problem there was nothing I could have done to fix the problem remotely. It will never happened again.

That said, here are my League of Legends resolutions for 2013:

• I will figure out what is causing LoL to freeze for 10 seconds once per game and fix it so that I don't end up dying and costing my team the game.
• I will jungle Akali in ranked regardless of Elo.
• I will make jungle guides for other, less obvious champions as I encounter and jungle them.
• I will not rest on my laurels and continue to make predictions regarding the jungle viability and/or dominance of new champions, potentially marring my heretofore nearly spotless record.
• I will update this blog every weekday, unless otherwise noted beforehand.
• I will reach Diamond Elo.

 That's a lot of resolutions. We'll see how many of them I fulfill and how many of them, like so many other resolutions, are left to rot in the garbage dump of good intentions.