Preseason Impressions: The Jungle

I've had some time to play around in the Season 4 Jungle and with the new jungle items, and I'd like to share with you what I've found.

First, the Cliff's Notes version:

• Smite's 40 second cooldown inhibits counter-jungling and eases clearing for tanky junglers.
• Spirit of the Ancient Golem is still the best of the jungling items.
• Having two "small" camps on each side helps jungle flow considerably.

Smite:

Smite's 40 second cooldown is a big deal. You no longer need to worry about saving Smite for your second buff because you can have it up for both. If you Smite your first buff on spawn it's seamless (though that should obviously only be done when you're certain it's safe). Even if you don't you can just take 10 seconds to look for the enemy jungler and Smite will be still be back in time to secure your second buff.

This makes contesting an opponent's second buff significantly more difficult early on. The types of junglers who routinely have their buffs contested tend to take extra time and damage at their first buff unless they get an extraordinary amount of help. Being able to Smite that first camp means a healthier jungler will arrive at their second camp sooner. Combined with every laner having the ability to throw down early wards, early counter-jungling is going to be rare except in very lopsided setups.

Having Smite up constantly also makes clearing much easier for junglers in general, though tanky junglers tend to benefit the most. All in all it's a huge quality of life change.


Jungling Items:

All the jungling items now have gold generation passives aimed at boosting jungler income. Of these passives, Spirit of the Ancient Golem's stands out as the most versatile for fairly straightforward reasons.

Conservation, the passive in question, stacks once per second up to 80 times. Killing a large or epic jungle monster consumes up to 40 stacks granting one gold per stack. The upshot of this is you can half a minute and a half of downtime without losing incoming. Moreover, you still gain roughly 10-15 gold per camp if you're straight up farming due to the time it takes to move between them and clear. With four small camps and a low cooldown on Smite it's easy to make use of the passive even into the late-game.

Bounty Hunter, the passive for Elder Lizard and Spectral Wraith, is considerably less potent. The 10 gold bonus per camp is functionally worse than Conservation. Getting two kills/assists every 80 seconds to keep up with the potential of Conservation is basically impossible except in low level games. At the moment I question the value of either Spectral Wraith or Elder Lizard.

The new Wriggle's is potentially powerful, although the much whispered about upgrade currently does not exist. If you're straight up farming the jungle Wriggle's provides a very considerable amount of gold. The problem is that Attack Speed, while sensible for Wriggle's passives, is not by itself that great for most farming junglers. Without the upgrade Wriggle's is a little awkward.


Jungle Flow:

The new jungle camp makes a huge difference to jungle flow. Absolutely huge.

One of the biggest problems facing a jungler is balancing farming and ganking, and a large part of that problem is how their clears flow into their ganks. In Season 3 ganking the side lane closest to the wolves camp is the most costly in terms of time and farm. There's just the one camp on that side and it's fairly distant from the lane, especially if there are wards involved. It's still a gankable lane, the issue is simply that the personal cost to the jungler is higher.

The wight camp significantly helps this problem. It's positioned extremely close to the lane, allowing for quick access in case something happens. It's now easy to flow from wolves to wight to gank, or even vice versa. Moreover, if you exit the gank with a lot of health you can almost always go straight back into the jungle and have a nearby camp waiting for you. Jungling flows better in Season 4.



Overall I'm liking the new jungle, but there's a lot left to figure out. Double jungling might actually be viable with each jungler able to farm two camps. Dealing with free wards all over the map will be an interesting problem.

My only regret is that none of the jungling items are really suited for jungle Akali, alas.

Preseason Impressions: Support Items

The first wave of preseason changes has hit the PBE. It's fairly incomplete, there's a handful of blatant bugs and issues, but thankfully the new support items are in and functional.

I'm not going post the stats of the items here, but you can find them at surrender@20. Just search for "philosopher" and you'll skip down to the relevant section of their mega post.

Here's a quick fact round-up before I dig into some analysis:

• You can only have one of the three support items (they're also exclusive with Avarice Blade and jungle items).
• All three have a mini version costing 365g that's half as effective that upgrades into the full version.
• The final upgrades (e.g. Shurelia's, Shard of True Ice, Martyr's Call) keep the gold generation passives.

To begin, here's a quick comparison of the maximum gold generation each item provides.

• Philosopher's Stone: 10.4 gp10
• Kage's Lucky Pick: 20 gp10
• Reaper's Emblem: 13.3 gp10

These calculations are for ideal scenarios, and this is important. All Philosopher's Stone has to do for its ideal scenario is stay in lane (although I didn't count Z. However, Kage's Lucky Pick's ideal scenario requires you to harass two targets every 10 seconds exactly. It's fairly obvious that won't happen often. Your opponents are not going to open themselves up for harass at exact 10 second intervals, if they're even in lane at the same time you are. Reaper's Emblem requires that you're in lane and can safely Execute minions, otherwise it has no gp10 generation at all.

Kage's Lucky pick is thus the most iffy of all three items. To match Philosopher's Stone you need to be landing 5 valid harass hits every minute. That's a little dicey, and if you fall behind (or even if you get too far ahead) you won't have the opportunities you need to make that quota. Shard of True Ice, despite its changes, is still somewhat questionable in usefulness.

Philosopher's Stone is obviously the safest option, so long as you aren't losing the lane so horribly you can't even get near minions. Of the items it's got the most solid performance throughout the game, generating gold in siege scenarios just as well as in laning scenarios. It also builds into Shurelia's, which is still a reasonably useful item.

Reaper's Emblem is unique in that its functionality doesn't preclude last-hitting. You can last hit all day while waiting for your next charge, and as long as you're using charges on melee minions you're still generating 10 gp10. For this reason I suspect we may seem some interesting duo setups involving one or more of these. Most importantly, it upgrades into Martyr's Call.

Martyr's Call is, in fact, probably overpowered at present. If it was merely a shield it might be roughly equivalent to the others, but the shield can be self-cast and works like a Zilean bomb. Breaking the shield doesn't stop the damage from occurring four seconds later, and the damage is AoE. The power this can represent in both skirmishes and teamfights is huge.

I don't know if it will bring about the return of double-bruiser lanes or bruiser-support lanes, but in any matchup I can get away with it I'm planning on grabbing Reaper's Emblem (which incidentally also scales as minion values go up).

That's it for the support item review. There's a lot more preseason stuff coming, but with the jungle changes incomplete and some trinkets outright not working, it'll have to wait for a later date.

Thought of the Day: Lucian

It's been a while, but I had a epiphany about Lucian.

If Ardent Blaze, Lucian's W, could be cast while moving he'd be a competitive AD carry.

Right now Lucian is considered terrible for a number of reasons:

• He's a short range AD carry without a powerful steroid.
• His W isn't an effective tool for either chasing or kiting.
• His E is a relatively weak escape/gap closer.
• His ultimate is difficult to aim and doesn't do much damage.

At first it looks like Lucian has multiple issues that need to each be resolved individually. Upon closer inspection, however, it's clear that three of the purported issues are actually symptoms.

• Lucian's short range is an issue because he can't chase or kite effectively.
• Lucian's E is underwhelming because it's insufficient to make up for his chase/kite deficiency.
• Lucian's ultimate feels week because he's often forced to use it mid-fight when he's been zoned by the tanky front line due to his range and chase/kite issues.

It all comes back to the fact that Ardent Blaze fails to be more than an additional damage skillshot. If it provided the kite/chase potential it was supposed to, all these dominoes would be knocked over and he'd be much, much better. Perhaps not perfect, but far closer.

Update: Plans

So I've been absent for quite some time and a few people have been asking me to update my blog. Here you go.

I've been thinking about my Mondays with Monte show. It was a lot of fun to do, and I'd like to start it back up again, but I need to find ways to attract more viewers. Unfortunately, people aren't very interested in the advice of Gold or even Platinum players. As such I'm putting my money where my mouth is and hunkering down to play all the ranked games I should have been playing months ago. The goal is to reach Diamond, maybe even Challenger, in order to better attract viewers.

So in the meantime I'll be streaming my misadventures during the day, and occasionally updating this blog with thoughts on my progress. Enjoy.

Update: Life, the Universe, Everything

It's been waaaaay too long since my last blog post, and not without reason. Unfortunately I've had a lot on my plate, and it isn't looking to let up anytime in the near future.

As a result updates to this blog are likely to be incredibly sporadic. What time I do find available to me is most likely to be consumed playing League instead of writing about it, though occasionally some idea or thought may excite me and spur me to post.

Thank you all for reading, and best of luck in League.

Patch Day: 3.5 Balance Update

Some new balance changes have arrived, and as usual I'll give them the old analysis once over.

The changes to Akali will have a semi-significant impact on her laning. While technically speaking she'll do more damage part 300 Ability Power, most games are decided before Akali could reasonably acquire that much power. You basically need a 3-4 item build finished before you cross that threshold.

Corki hasn't seen much play as of late. These changes help him a little, as missiles have been a limiting factor for him for some time. His lack of play is really an oddity in any case, so if you were on the rocks about playing him before now is as good a time as ever to pick him up.

Karma sees a few adjustments to her abilities. These are almost entirely quality of life buffs. Beyond making her Mantra easier to access through buffs to her passive and its activation, her most important change is to her Focused Resolve. Now that using Mantra charges automatically gives the 60% speed boost she no longer has any abilities who gain Mantra benefits for being skilled up.

The cast range reductions on Kayle's abilities are steep. Dropping her utility to 900 range forces her to stay much closer to a fight in order to ensure she can save or aid allies in need. However, this primarily affects Support Kayle, as any other form of Kayle is already going to be in the thick of it or near a needy ally.

Lux will no longer be able to instantly clear a creep wave every 24 seconds. Instead, she'll be able to clear a creep wave every 30 seconds. Ultimately (har har) she hasn't been significantly hurt, save for those foolish enough to consistently overextend while laning.

Morgana, Nami, Nautilus, and Nunu all got minor tweaks to make them more competitive. I'm of the opinion that it's largely unnecessary in Nami's case. Nami is good, but before anyone could get used to her Thresh (who is clearly amazing) arrived. Morgana and Nautilus' changes are mostly friendly bumps to remind you these champions exist and are good. Nunu, however, is still on the edge of competitiveness.

Quinn had a few significant playability issues which have now been addressed. Valor's mark timing was such that it was extremely common that you would start to attack a target, and before you finished Valor would have started to mark it. However, because your attack was in the air before he finished marking you'd fail to get the proc, resulting in no benefits and a 10 second wait for the next mark. This is a little more rare now, and along with her Vault change should improve her popularity slightly.

Volibear got a slight nerf. He's still extremely strong, especially when ganking, so don't freak out if you love jungling as a bear.

Jungling is now different, thanks to changes to the items which build out of Spirit Stone. They now all cost 2000 gold. In order to effect this change, Spirit of the Elder Lizard received a slight nerf, and Spirit of the Ancient Golem traded its Armor for Cooldown Reduction, with a slight change in recipe. This will incidentally also make it easier for jungle tanks to get the Cooldown Reduction they need to spam their utility.

Overall there were any crippling nerfs or incredible buffs, nor was there anything out of the ordinary. However, there were significantly more buffs and quality of life changes than nerfs this patch, which reverses the previous, concerning trend where almost everything was a nerf. Good show.

Patch Day: Zac & Karma

The patch is actually here, and with it comes Zac and a remade Karma.

Karma's remake is interesting in that it makes her much more of an offensive caster than a support. While she can support, she'll likely be played as a straight carry more often than not due to her high damage and survivability.

Nerfing Akali's Twilight Shroud through its mechanics is painful, but only for those overly reliant on it. The truth of the Shroud is that beyond the laning phase its usefulness drops due to pink wards and Oracle's. In fact, in high level play pink wards are par for the course when it comes to ganking Akali.

Hecarim gets another bout with the nerf bat. This dramatically affects his survivability in longer encounters, especially at low ranks. He'll still be played, but his popularity is likely to decrease as will his chances at competitive play.

Rumble's ultimate is now entirely damage over time without any special upfront burst. Using it to catch people who were nearly dead was apparently too strong. I'd be interested in seeing the analysis which lead to this change.

Everyone's favorite gap closer-less jungler, Udyr, has essentially been given a minor rework. This should help his jungling and distance closing issues, though he loses a bit of tankiness, mana sustain, and longer duration mobility as a result. Chances are he'll still be very strong both top and as a jungler.

The changes to turret damage will make early dives harder, but in the end it's mostly going to make foolish junglers accidentally kill themselves more.

A decent patch overall, and nice in that it had a fairly even share of both buffs and nerfs (even if I didn't discuss them all). Hopefully this balance will continue in future patches.

Patch Day?

Servers are borked. I'll review the patch notes when they are not.

Patch Day: 3.04

A day late, but there was a patch which had notes and everything yesterday.

Elise takes a laning phase hit, but ultimately this isn't going to dramatically change her viability. The Health-based damage on Neurotoxin wasn't affected, so it'll still be a very effective poking/damage tool against top lane champions.

Jarvan loses his team Armor buff. This actually surprised me when I saw it. Jarvan is definitely strong, but at lot of his current power stems from the current popularity of physical damage junglers and solo lanes. His winrate wasn't excessive despite that circumstance, and he would have fallen in popularity with a shift in the meta. As a result I think this change was premature.

Everyone's favorite chemist, Singed, receives nerfs. This will make him slightly easier to catch, but his deadly cloud of poison is still the most dangerous part of his kit, and will still choke to death anyone foolish enough to chase him.

Taric is likely to see a significant drop in popularity due to these nerfs. However, I'm inspired to try a variation on jungle/top-lane Taric where his stun is maxed first. With these changes it makes a lot more sense to max that first, regardless of role, especially with Shatter's armor bonus no longer based on skill rank.

Runic Bulwark and Locket of the Iron Solari both received nerfs. Yes, each is cheaper, but the combination of the two was extremely common on support-oriented junglers. Dropping 200 Health and 5 Magic Resist is significant, even if you save 400 gold in the process.

As with most recent patches, most changes are aimed at making popular champions and items weaker, with a few minor buffs here and there to make others more viable. In general the nerfs have been outnumbering the buffs, a trend which remains concerning. We'll see what 3.05 hold, but for now I wonder what popular jungler will next get the nerf bat.

Thought: Dragon Priority

There may be a few spoilers regarding MLG Dallas in this post. Consider yourself forewarned.

There were many fantastic games over the weekend, but rather than highlight any particular one game I'd like to focus on an interesting trend I've noticed across all of LCS and Season 3 thus far. It's something Gambit Gaming has picked up on and made central to their strategy. Specifically, Dragon is more valuable early than turrets.

The strategy Gambit Gaming, and some others, employed was to simply take every Dragon during the early-game, even if it meant committing all five members of the team and losing a turret. Dragon is considered more valuable because the outer turrets are almost guaranteed to fall eventually. Thus, taking a turret in exchange for Dragon will only temporarily keep the teams even in gold. The team that prioritizes Dragon has an advantage because they evenly trade a permanent advantage for a temporary one, and eventually the other team will have to pay the piper.

The key to the strategy is the initial mid-game team fight. If the Dragon-hoarding team wins that first, crucial team fight they'll easily gain several thousand gold on their opponents due to all of the easy objectives within reach, regardless of their relative position before the fight started. Even without a decisive win, it's far harder to defend outer turrets than inner ones, meaning even a disadvantaged team is likely to make up ground. The result is a near-guaranteed slingshot effect, where the team which had yet to take towers will catapult forward.

This is not an invincible strategy, but it appeared to be a very reliable one for Gambit Gaming. It took them all the way to the international exhibition finals, and almost made them the victors. It was only KT Rolster B's superior early game pressure, consistently shutting down Darien, which kept Gambit in check.

I've mentioned this to a number of people in a number of places, and the reaction has been largely the same every time. Practically everyone becomes immediately concerned about map control, citing how the loss of one's jungle, increased necessity of wards, and the like negates any benefits. Given how prominently this strategy was on display, especially during the first two games between Gambit and KT Rolster B, I myself was, in turn, surprised by the reactions.

Map control is an issue, but I believe it to be nowhere near as dire as others seem to believe, at least competitively. Against a coordinated team who wards as a team and reacts as a team, jungle invasion and aggressive map control are risky even with turrets down. The potential for the defending team to intercept incursions is high with proper warding, and the likelihood that there are unsuspecting players to catch out of position is low. Especially with GG Edward prioritizing warding and clearing wards over personal development, the map control issue seems born out of solo queue experience more than competitive. At the very least, Gambit Gaming was not particularly inhibited by this.

It's also important to note the progressive nature of the exchanges. One does not instantly trade three turrets for Dragon, but does so over the course of 12 minutes. For much of that time map control is still assured due to the remaining turrets and the developmental stage of both teams. It's only when the mid-game is effectively in progress that map control becomes a major issue, and that's when the strategy calls for team-fighting in order to begin making up the difference.

Again, the strategy isn't perfect or without counter, but I believe it's more effective than many players will realize. It has potential applications in both solo queue and ranked 5s, and should be carefully considered by any competitive player.

Jungler: Karthus

Jungle Karthus? What madness is this!? You might be confused by the topic, but believe me when I say that jungle Karthus is real, effective, and arguably the strongest Ability Power-based jungler in the game (apologies Akali, but tis true).

Jungle Karthus:

• Quints: Spell Vamp
• Marks: Attack Damage or Magic Penetration
• Seals: Armor
• Glyphs: Flat Ability Power or Magic Penetration
• Masteries: 21/0/9 or 21/7/2 or 9/0/21

The mechanics behind jungle Karthus are actually very simple. Lay Waste is an extremely Mana-efficient and spammable nuke, giving Karthus potent clearing power, and only suffers the AoE Spell Vamp penalty if it hits multiple targets. With Defile providing mana returns on kills, Karthus can sustain both his mana and his health (through Spell Vamp) while jungling. His combination of speed and sustain makes him an extremely fast and effective jungler, even without Blue buff.

His ganking is also extremely dangerous both before and after level 6. His Wall of Pain is an extremely long range and long duration crowd control, reaching 1000 range and lasting 5 seconds. With only one rank the slow is a potent 40%, making any opponent hit an easy target for Lay Waste. So long as your aim is true Karthus brings more than enough damage to a gank to take down all but the tankiest, most slippery champions by himself.

Once he has Requiem, Karthus can "gank" without even leaving the jungle, although it serves just as well as a follow up to an actual gank. The constant, global pressure applied by the threat of red orbital laser death is not to be underestimated. If undisturbed or distracted Karthus can hit level 6 less than a minute after a typical solo lane, sometimes in parity. The result is a jungler who can quickly take control of the game.

Karthus also is extremely good at taking Dragon. His huge single target damage when spamming Lay Waste on a stationary target means Dragon falls quickly, not even requiring the presence of anything other than a support should there be sufficient mana. Later in the game he poses a similar threat to Baron, meaning that as a jungler he has surprisingly few weak areas despite being so unorthodox.

It's important to embrace lane taxation and selfishness as jungle Karthus, for it benefits your team significantly for you to gain farm. Hold lanes whenever possible, do not shy away from grabbing a few creeps following a successful gank, and figure out in advance who will have priority on Blue buff. So long as you do not handicap your team you'll be able to carry them in mid-game fights.

In terms of item build I generally focus on getting a quick Spirit Strone, followed by Sorcerer's Shoes. The former item helps your clearing significantly, and the latter makes your ganks and Requiem significantly scarier. From there, building a Tear of the Goddess and finishing Spirit of the Spectral Wraith should be your priorities. Follow those items with Haunting Guise, Seeker's Armguard, and whatever else suits the game at hand. Unless your team is truly struggling, you'll have a commanding presence in team fights.

Jungle Karthus is often overlooked in today's meta, but despite not being a dive-oriented tanky bruiser he is an extremely secure and viable jungler. Just be ready for when people call you a troll (they don't know any better).

Quote: On Skillshots

"I love skillshots. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

-Douglas Adams

Quote: On Want

"It is curious how often players manage to obtain that which they do not want."

-Spock

Thought: On Quinn

It's too early to have any hard opinions on Quinn, but I have a few observations.

Quinn seems to have a few issues in a duo lane. Her very short range makes her vulnerable to longer ranged champions, and more susceptible to being crowd controlled. This also weakens a lot of her abilities considerably. With greater restrictions on her positioning it's hard to land her Blinding Assault or follow up on her passive, and using her Vault offensively is dangerous as it removes her primary escape mechanism. She's not completely worthless, but she feels weak in that position.

However, Quinn appears to excel in a solo lane. Her ability to roam with her ultimate is extremely significant. One on one it's much easier to force an opponent into a position where her Blinding Assault harass is deadly, and to follow up on her passive. Her Heightened Senses is also an excellent tool for a champion who can only ward one ganking path. There are very few ranged carry champions who can exert map pressure like she can.

I worry that her short range will be a liability against many mid champions, but I won't know how much of a factor that will be until I have further opportunities to try her out. In the meantime, remember that you can interrupt Vault's backward jump with Flash, and that Vault will chase flashing/dashing targets ala Maokai.

Support: Nasus

It's time for me to eat a little bit of humble pie and talk about support Nasus, a concept which I initially spurned due to several bad but unrepresentative experiences. Support Nasus is actually a fairly frightening partner for many popular carries. It's counter-intuitive, as Nasus is best known for his carry potential, but his utility is actually significant enough to make him a potent support.

The key to support Nasus lies in Wither and Spirit Fire. The former ability is an incredibly potent slow, affecting both Movement Speed and Attack Speed to significant degree. Not only is it powerful in laning, but throughout the game it will shut down any carry who forgets to grab Cleanse or a Quicksilver Sash. The latter ability is the single strongest Flat Armor Reduction ability in the game, removing an incredible 20 armor with only one rank, and scaling up to 40 at maximum rank. The degree to which Nasus both decreases an opposing carry's damage while improving his own makes him a scary support.

Because of these factors, Nasus works best with high physical damage carries, and is best used against carries who depend heavily on auto-attacks. Champions like Miss Fortune, Twitch, Graves, Caitlyn, or Draven become absolutely terrifying when Spirit Fire is placed properly. It's therefore important to be very judicious when placing Spirit Fire; haphazard placement will dramatically reduce Nasus' effectiveness.

Nasus needs to be built similarly to any all-in support. While his two most important abilities are ranged, hanging back is a gigantic waste of his potential. He should be in the thick of things, and as a result he prioritizes items like Locket, Aegis, and other items which make him tankier while providing team utility. Cooldown Reduction is also extremely important for support Nasus, as capping it yields very high uptime on Wither and Spirit Fire, dramatically increasing his teamfight contributions.

Obviously in a supporting role Nasus will not be able to stack Soul Siphon very much, but even with limited stacks he can contribute significantly to a tower push. Soul Siphon's auto-reset also allows him to quickly dispense with wards if his AD is attentive. While not his most defining feature when supporting, it's not a useless ability.

Nasus' ultimate, however cannot be underestimated. By simply standing near opponents he can deal significant damage while also gaining AD. Even with just one rank it deals nearly a third of a target's health in damage over the duration (even Baron and Dragon). With Health stacking a common itemization path, Nasus' ultimate is extremely potent.

Overall support Nasus is not mainstream. It's likely that his use will be met with derision, fear, and loathing by those afraid of the unknown. Still, when playing among friends or simply defying the jeers of solo/duo queue, support Nasus can be surprisingly effective.

Quote: On Sport

"For what do we play, but to make sport for our opponents, and laugh at them in turn?"

-Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice

Patch Day: Quinn

Quinn should soon be released, but in the meantime her patch brings with it a crapton of notable changes.

Amumu has been nerfed. Reducing the damage on his Bandage Toss and range on his ultimate makes him a less scary initiator. These changes, however, concern me. Perhaps it's different in some other tier of play, but he didn't strike me as anything more than decent. Riot would do well to avoid a game of perpetual whack-a-mole, where anything that's being picked frequently must be nerfed.

Ashe, Tristana, and Vayne received minor buffs. For some time these champions have been second tier picks due to either poor mid-game performance or reliance on outside protection. The buffs will help a little, but more than anything else they'll simply remind people these champions exist (and aren't as bad as people think).

The change to Darius' ultimate addresses a common abuse case. Getting killed by his ultimate once essentially set off a chain of inevitable executions. Riot's changes should do exactly as they've stated, removing this unfun situation without impacting Darius' teamfighting.

The Garen nerfs represent another case of proactive balance. He frequently got a little too tanky with too little effort, so a minor nerf to his durability is useful. However, I also didn't think him more than decent, so he is another "whack-a-mole" case from my perspective.

Hecarim is getting nerfed. The fact that Spirit of Dread has higher healing at low ranks is a red herring, the loss of 10% healing at maximum rank as well as the increased cooldown at lower ranks makes the ability much weaker. The slight buff to Rampage doesn't make up for this. Perhaps he needed it, but Hecarim was only a fixture of the NA meta (EU largely ignored him), and so I call into question the necessity of the changes.

Kayle also received nerfs, despite Riot's dancing around that word. In her case it was likely necessary, as she was not only a first pick/ban in tournaments but a powerful choice in any tier of play. That said, removing the damage amplification from her Reckoning and replacing it with a single stack of her passive makes it the most underwhelming debuff application I can think of.

Meanwhile, Nidalee is losing all her bonus Armor and Magic Resist. This essentially kills Bruiser and Tank Nidalee. Given Nidalee's recent popularity as an AP champion this may be warranted, but it does kill off a once-popular build.

Taric received some notable buffs. While he needs 250 Armor to give an equivalent armor buff to his team as before, Taric's laning phase was always less about his Armor aura and more about his stun -> ult+Shatter combo. That now does more damage and costs less mana, meaning Taric is actually scarier than before.

Tryndamere's once overpowered sustain from Ability Power is being significantly nerfed. As even I was able to play him top without issue, it's probably a necessary nerf.

Vi and Xin Zhao, NA's most popular junglers, are both receiving nerfs. Vi was simply able to clear too quickly and deal too much damage, whereas Xin Zhao had too much sticking power and damage even when building tanky. They'll still be strong, just slightly less so.

Zed's changes don't really change anything. A slight damage boost on later ranks of his shuriken doesn't remotely make it as good as his AoE. You can still use the latter twice as often, making it much more important for both wave clear, damage, and stacking with his ultimate.

Overall the patch changes worry me. Aside from a few token buffs, it's all nerfs. While it's good to try to avoid power creep by favoring nerfs more than buffs, this patch was very, very heavy on the latter. I'd rather they err a little more toward buffing weak champions, or letting the players find counters to popular champions.

There are also some item changes to consider this patch.

Warmog's Armor dropped to 1% maximum Health regenerated every 5 seconds. This is a very significant nerf, though Warmog's position as the largest, most cost efficient Health item remains.

The Bilgewater Cutlass changes convince me that no champion should bother getting Hextech Gunblade any more. Unless you can make very good use of Cutlass (which is significantly less inspiring than before), it's not a very fruitful build path. As a step toward Blade of the Ruined King, however, Cutlass is a worthy item.

Blade of the Ruined King is currently overpowered and is definitely going to get nerfed. What made Madred's Bloodrazor so bad was its heft cost (3800 gold) and inefficiency (magic damage on a physical damage champion is awkward). Blade of the Ruined King is almost 1000 gold cheaper, has a Deathfire Grasp-esque active ability, and does physical damage. You're going to see a lot of this item before it's hotfixed.

That's all for this patch. Hopefully we'll see Quinn before long.

Thought: Xerath and Double AP

During yesterday's LCS matches Reginald brought out the oft-overlooked Xerath. For some time I've considered Xerath to be an underappreciated champion, in particular because of the vast amounts of Magic Resistance he can simply ignore. TSM took advantage of this facet of Xerath by incorporating him into a Double AP team composition.

The cleverness here is obvious. Depending on how many runes Xerath commits to Magic Penetration, he can completely bypass between 105 and 140 Magic Resistance. Even a target with 300 Magic Resistance will effectively be reduced to 70 as far as Xerath is concerned. As a result, investing in Magic Resistance is only effective against one champion, and failing to build Magic Resistance would be equally bad.

While the composition met with mixed success, in large part due to misplaced Xerath ultimates, the principle behind it is sound. Forcing your opponents into suboptimal choices is a very strong strategy, as even if they do what's "correct" they're getting weaker returns on their investments than you are. Xerath in a Double AP composition is a textbook example of that principle.

Still, Xerath himself seems to have a few issues. The awkwardness of his wave clear, his mana consumption, and his dependence on never missing a skill shot were extremely obvious in the TSM versus MRN game. I'm not sure he deserves a buff, but he definitely has exploitable flaws.

Update: Video Backlog

I've been remiss for failing to update the Mondays with Monte archive for some weeks. Episodes 10, 11, and 12 are all in the process of being uploaded right now and should all be finished and process by this evening.

I'll try to avoid taking so long to update the archive in the future.

Quote: On Elo

"Elo is what gives a player his power. It's an energy field created by all raging things. It surround us and penetrates us; it binds the Tribunal together."

-Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars IV: A New Hope

Theory: Gold Values

In your travels through Runeterra you may at some point have encountered strange phrases such as "item efficiency", "cost-efficiency", or "gold value". Theorycrafting gurus expound on these strange, mystifying terms, claiming that they indicate one item or mastery is secretly overpowered. There's a method to the madness, and madness to the methods.

The basic concept of an attribute's gold value is straightforward. All you need to do is take a basic item and divide its gold cost by its attribute. Voila, now you know that 1 Attack Damage is worth 20 gold, and 1 Ability Power is worth 21.75 gold. Simple, obvious, and useful.

Theorycrafters use these values to determine what items are cost-efficient. An item is cost-efficient when the sum of the value of its attributes is equal to or greater than the cost. It's fairly straightforward math once you have the gold values for all attributes.

The problem, referred to previously as "madness", is that we don't have gold values for all attributes. A significant number of attributes don't have any basic items on which to base their gold values. Cooldown Reduction, Life Steal, Spell Vamp, Penetration, Movement Speed and others are only found through upgrading items and other special cases. As a result, the only data points we have to work with are the combine/upgrade costs of items.

Unfortunately, combine costs have essentially nothing to do with the value of the stats gained. You need only look as far as Trinity Force for this to become self-evident. Its combine cost is a ridiculously small 3 gold, yet it gains 5 Ability Power, 10 Attack Damage, 12% Attack Speed, 50 Health and more. The value of the stats I listed alone is 880 gold, not to mention the nebulous value of the Movement Speed and item passives. Upon closer examination, all item combine costs are just as devoid of meaning.

This presents a problem for theorycrafters as the gold values of roughly half of all attributes cannot be determined. Many theorycrafters try anyway, but the results are mere conjecture. Do we base the value of Cooldown Reduction off of Kindlegem, putting the value of 1% Cooldown Reduction at 32.23 gold? Or do we base it off of Glacial Shroud, giving us -6 gold? With Fiendish Codex and Stinger giving us values of 16.75 gold and 45 gold per 1% Cooldown Reduction respectively, it should be immediately obvious that there's simply no way to assign a meaningful gold value to these sorts of attributes.

Some theorycrafters lack the conviction to admit it, but it is essentially impossible for us to have a complete picture of cost-efficiency. Without an incontrovertible method of determining gold values for advanced attributes most items can't be fully assessed. The best we can do is see how close an item comes to being cost-efficient before making a personal judgement as to whether the remaining attributes are worth the difference.

Thought: Ashe

There's an utterly hilarious thread on the official forums calling for Ashe buffs or quality of life changes through the medium of comical conversations between Ashe and other champions. It's worth a read, and started the analytical gears rolling.

Ashe is a fairly balanced champion, but her kit has two of the most awkward abilities in the game. Her passive and the passive effect of Hawkshot are problematic in a myriad of ways.

The problem with Ashe's passive is that it's fairly useless in both laning and team fighting. Aside from the guarantee of a level 1 crit, the need to constantly last-hit or auto-attack prevents the passive from stacking. You can try for crits between creep waves, but generally it's a null factor.

Hawkshot's passive, meanwhile, is notable only for it's mediocrity. Maxing it first sacrifices Ashe's only reliable offensive ability and poke for a small return in gold. While an additional four gold per creep is substantial (you'll have at least one rank normally anyway), missing a single creep due to having no way to respond to an aggressive lane negates almost an entire creep wave of last-hits. On the other hand, by the time you finally max Hawkshot (last) most of your farming is done, giving minimal impact. Whatever you do, Hawkshot's passive isn't worth much.

I have a simple idea that could possibly fix the awkwardness, swap the passives.

With gold generation tied to Ashe's passive she would no longer need to worry about the folly of trying to level it first or the uselessness of leveling it last. Instead, the passive would scale similarly to Nasus' passive, reaching full power at level 11. Some balancing would be necessary, but the awkwardness would be gone.

Shifting the Critical Strike effect to Hawkshot would not only work mechanically, but thematically. It's more intuitive to tie Critical Strikes to vision than gold generation. While this would create some tension between level 1 choices (you could no longer try to abuse a guaranteed crit at level 1 combined with Volley), it's a sound, simple change.

The key to these changes is that Ashe, while not picked often competitively, currently has a fairly average winrate. Changing her crit passive to work meaningfully in team fights or laning would possibly imbalance her. Instead, I'm simply suggesting a change that will only make her slightly more intuitive and understandable, without dramatically buffing her.

Thought: Spectral Wraith for Jungle Akali

Hextech Gunblade has been Akali's quintessential item for some time, having usurped the now ancient Rylai's into Lich Bane combo shortly after patch 105. It's easy to see why Gunblade is so critical to Akali; it provides her with a hefty 27.5% Spell Vamp, 65 Ability Power, and an extremely useful active. However, the recent cost reductions and buffs to Spirit of the Spectral Wraith have caused me to reconsider Gunblade's position when jungling Akali.

Compared head to head, Spectral Wraith is clearly inferior to Gunblade. The stats on Spectral Wraith are all lower, save for the addition of 10% Cooldown Reduction. Its passives, while nifty, can't adequately be compared to Gunblade's incredible Active. If asked to choose between the two any player worth their salt would pick Gunblade, it's simply the obvious choice.

Unfortunately for Gunblade, that head to head comparison is deeply flawed for one simple reason: cost. Spectral Wraith is 1400 gold cheaper than Gunblade, an absolutely staggering difference in price. Because Akali, like most junglers, starts Hunter's Machete she's also 300 gold closer to completing Spectral Wraith than she is Gunblade from the outset of the game. In short, Spectral Wraith can be completed 1700 gold sooner than Gunblade when jungling.

To call the gold gap between the two items significant would be an egregious understatement. 1700 gold is a large number even for champions or roles with top farm priority. For junglers, who often defer to everyone but supports, it's enormous. The size of this gap should immediately cause any veteran jungler to pause and question whether the stats and benefits of Gunblade are worth that cost.

It's a difficult question to evaluate because almost all of the stats involved defy typical cost-analysis. Mana Regeneration and Life Steal are essentially worthless to Akali, Attack Damage's value is confused by her passives, and most of the remaining stats have no clear basis for a gold value. To a significant extent it is subjective, a judgement based on one's jungling experience.

There are, however, a few ways of approaching the problem that are useful. Comparing builds first when Spectral Wraith is completed, and subsequently when Gunblade is completed, can give insight into the value of each.

The moment Spectral Wraith is finished Gunblade should have Machete, Revolver, and Long Sword with a little gold to spare. At this point the Spectral Wraith build has an additional 10 AP, 10% Cooldown Reduction, 6.33% Spell Vamp, and significantly faster jungle clears when compared to the Gunblade build. The mere 10 Attack Damage from Long Sword is hardly enough to match the power surge from completing Spectral Wraith.

This timing is important because of the opportunities it presents. Clearing faster makes it easier to farm while maintaining map presence, making it likely that Spectral Wraith Akali will begin earning gold faster than Gunblade Akali. At the same time the Gunblade build just entered a lull period as it invests the next 1435 gold into more Attack Damage and valueless Life Steal. Just as Spectral Wraith Akali starts taking off, Gunblade Akali is winding down.

When Gunblade finally finishes there are a number of ways the Spectral Wraith build could have allocated the 1700 gold (or more) difference. If Spectral Wraith Akali rushed a Kage's Lucky Pick, it's possible that she'll have both that and another Revolver completed (due to gold per 10). Alternatively, she could simply save up and buy a Needlessly Large Rod. She could also begin working toward Rylai's, sporting a Giant's Belt and possibly a Blasting Wand. In all cases Spectral Wraith Akali has a significant Ability Power advantage, and is well on her way to completing another key item. Gunblade Akali may be about to leverage a strong timing, but Spectral Wraith Akali is already more than halfway to her second.

It's this early impact followed by additional early timings which has lead me to significantly improve my appraisal of Spectral Wraith. The clear speed difference is extremely noticeable, enough so that I wouldn't be surprised if the Spectral Wraith Akali farmed a significant advantage. Factor in that both builds will likely want to finish Sorcerer's Shoes before Gunblade is finished, and there's plenty of time for Spectral Wraith Akali to pull well ahead with or without gold per 10.

For Akali, who depends heavily on turning early momentum into further power, the allure of Spectral Wraith is undeniable. Spending 500 gold for 10 AP, 8% Spell Vamp, 10% Cooldown Reduction, and ridiculously faster clears is obviously an efficient and valuable investment. The next time I jungle Akali, I'll be putting this through its paces.

Patch Day: 3.02

I'm much later than I wanted to be with this "patch day" analysis, but better late than never. Some people think Quinn will be coming out before 3.03, but I'm not so certain. For now, let's focus on what the patch notes themselves say.

There are a lot of quality of life changes and bug fixes this patch. While many champions have been affected, most of those changes aren't notable enough to be analyzed here.

Akali's passives no longer require a set amount of Attack Damage or Ability Power to activate. This is extremely useful for players who don't have many runes or rune pages, as it allows them to avoid dedicating an entire page to Akali. However, the best page for jungling hasn't changed; Spell Vamp Quintessences remain vital for sustain, Ability Power Glyphs remain vital for clear speed, and Attack Damage Marks remain vital for both.

Nasus' entirely balanced and not in any way abusive crit glitch has been fixed. Though I mourn the loss of my overpowered and unfair crits, it's entirely understandable. In return, Nasus gets some extremely valuable buffs. The mana cost reduction on Q is extremely useful for both laning and jungling, allowing him to farm his Q without worrying about mana. The cast and attack range changes on his ultimate may not seem like much, but being able to spam Wither from 900 range makes Nasus a nightmare for any carry not rocking Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash. He may not be able to one shot bots in Coop vs AI games anymore, but he's still significantly better off than he was a few patches ago.

According to LoLWiki Riven's new passive is actually 20-50% of total Attack Damage, not 15- 45%. The original numbers were probably too much of a punishment at early levels, and slightly too little later on. This should have the desired effect, as even at level 9 (when the passive reaches 35% of total Attack Damage) the new passive should be slightly stronger than before due to base Attack Damage.

There are significant changes to items as well this patch.

Cooldown Reduction got shuffled around a bit. Athene's Unholy Grail, Spirit Visage, and Zeke's Herald all saw increases, while Deathfire Grasp, Glacial Shroud, and Iceborn Gauntlet all saw decreases. This was one knob Riot very consciously turned to help balance overused and underused items.

Armor and Magic Resistance became cheaper. Stacking Health was the best option not only because it was cheap and easy, but because defensive stats were costly and difficult. In some cases items had their stats increased, and in other cases they had their costs reduced. Riot obviously wanted to make non-Health defensive items more competitive.

Liandry's Torment was modified slightly. Previously damage over time abilities or repeated casts munched some of the passive damage from this item. It's an old problem that used to plague Teemo and Nautilus, but no longer. The change, and the damage increase, should help make this item strong against Health-stacking opponents. Blade of the Ruined King received buffs as well with the same goal, but Riot is already playing around with a different iteration due to the insufficiency of the changes.

Ohmwrecker has been modified to try to appeal more to supports than tanks. Despite that, the gold cost is extremely steep. A lot of the cost comes from the Ability Power, which is arguably less than useful for supports. Riot seems to have forgotten that they nerfed the Ability Power ratios on supports long ago, making Ability Power a largely undesirable attribute for a role centered around ability actives and team utility.

All in all, not the most exciting patch, but a good one nonetheless. You'd think I'd be more thrilled about the Akali changes, but as I primarily jungle Akali rather than lane it didn't change all that much for me. It's the lane Akali players who can now run Magic Penetration who should be excited.

Jungler: Akali (3.02 Update)

Patch day analysis will come tomorrow, for now I have some initial thoughts after taking advantage of the Akali changes.

It's not, unfortunately, very exciting news. While you can theoretically use other rune and mastery setups, my tests indicate that the same exact setup from before is the fastest, safest, and most effective in general. Other setups are functional, but inferior.

So if you really want to free up a rune page or modify one to be more general you can do so, just be aware that it will likely weaken any Akali jungling you plan on doing.

Quote: On the New League System

"Players are not the enemy of players but through the medium of a false system of ranking."

-Thomas Paine

Math: Malzahar

Malzahar is a champion dear to my heart. He's the reason I became enamored with League of Legends, and despite the fact he's only rarely been competitive I still consider him one of my favorite champions.

I was curious how well Malzahar might work in today's Health stacking meta, so I put together a few spreadsheets to examine the question. The spreadsheets model the ideal case where all of Malzahar's abilities, most importantly Null Zone and Nethergrasp, do their maximum damage.

The first and most obvious takeaway is that Malzahar represents a significant threat to any tank he can lock into his Null Zone, provided he has a Deathfire Grasp. Even with 3500 Health and 210 Magic Resistance, the amount of Ability Power Malzahar needs to potentially eliminate a tank or bruiser outright is well within the bounds of reason.

This is important, not because we would expect Malzahar to flawlessly one shot tanks all the time, but because it illustrates how much of a threat he poses even to tanky champions. In the idea case, Malzahar needs as little as 340 Ability Power to crush a thoroughly decked out bruiser or tank. With the core of items required to do so only filling four slots, Malzahar has plenty of room to build defensively.

Is Malzahar a viable pick to focus down a scary bruiser or tank? I don't know, but it's something I'll have to test out the next time I have the opportunity.

Jungler: Nasus

With Nasus' Siphoning Strike now granting double the stacks when killing large jungle creeps, Nasus is now a powerful jungler (especially if you have Crit runes).

What makes Nasus so strong is that his damage is largely independent of his itemization. So long as you properly last-hit with Siphoning Strike as you jungle you'll be able to hit like a truck. This allows Nasus to build tank items early without being ineffective during ganks, skirmishes, and fights over  objectives.

You do want those early tank items to sport Cooldown Reduction. This enhances both Nasus' offense by allowing for more Siphoning Strikes, and his defense by increasing his Wither uptime. Nasus with Cooldown Reduction is far, far scarier than Nasus without. For this reason my first items are typically Glacial Shroud and Kindlegem, which I later upgrade into Frozen Heart and Spirit Visage.

The next priority for Nasus is to become unkiteable. The best way to do this is to build Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Swiftness Boots. Between Tenacity, reduced slow effectiveness, and Wither spam, running away from Nasus is extremely difficult. Nasus lacks gap closers, so it's easy to get kited if you aren't prepared.

It's only after completing all of those items that I begin to consider offense. Against an Armor-stacking team Last Whisper is extremely effective, and also cheap. Nasus' doesn't stack Black Cleaver fast enough for it to be a worthwhile investment, and you should already be capped or near-capped on Cooldown Reduction anyway. Infinity Edge is currently an excellent option against Armor-light teams, though when and if Siphoning Strike's interaction with Crit is removed that will change. Most games you won't reach this point, or if you do there won't be much of the game left.

The most critical skill required to jungle Nasus is last-hitting with Siphoning Strike. Failing to judge its damage properly is fatal. The better you do early, the better you'll do later, so focus heavily on making that first clear smooth and effective, it'll carry through to later clears.

As the game goes on, realize that Nasus is a monster when it comes to objectives and towers. With his monster 14-20% Life Steal and auto-resetting Siphoning Strike Nasus can easily solo Dragon; just drop a pink ward, wait for a nearby lane to recall, and go. Towers provide little obstacle as well, falling quickly if left unguarded.

In team fights either spam Wither on the enemy ranged AD carry, or use it as a peeling tool for your carry. Nasus is just as happy to take chunks out of a bruiser's health as he is chasing squishies. So long as you keep spamming Wither  and smacking people around you'll have a ton of presence.

Jungle Nasus is strong enough to use just about any rune/mastery setup you can think of. All you need to do is pick what fits your playstyle, and scatter your enemies like the sands of the desert.

Quote: On Rage

"No one is so mad that they do not think they could play another game."

-Cicero

Quote: On Elo Heaven

"To every man is given the key to the gates of Elo Heaven; the same key opens the gates of Elo Hell."

-Richard Feynman

Patch Day: Season 3

The preseason is over, Season 3 has arrived. With it, we have new patch notes.

The new League System is perhaps the most notable change in all of the notes. Gone are the days of Elo Hell. Welcome to Division Hell, Tier Hell, Promotion Hell or whatever other catchy names players come up with to describe their inability to advance. The system is very reminiscent of the one used by StarCraft II, which has earned Riot's implementation both criticism and accolades. I don't have a firm opinion yet as I plan on running the system through its paces before I make any judgements.

Blitzcrank's mana and Rocket Grab's mana cost have been nerfed. This change doesn't really change Blitzcrank's effectiveness unless you're highly inaccurate or careless with your grabs.

Ezreal gets another round with the nerf bat. The lower duration on his passive will make landing every Mystic Shot critical, and is the largest of the changes. Reducing his movement speed, even by so small an amount, will make proper use of his Arcane Shift slightly more important. Overall these changes are less about the math and more about increasing Ezreal's difficulty.

Tank Katarina has been seeing a lot of play as of late, and the changes this patch are largely targeting that build. With less base damage, reduced duration on her damage reduction, and more incentive to build AP, AP Katarina's viability has significantly increased. However, the changes are likely too small to eliminate Tank Katarina as a build.

The scourge of all ARAMs has been dealt a severe blow. Master Yi will no longer be able to casually Meditate in the midst of an entire enemy team and get free pentakills by building AP. The build will still be potent and viable, it just won't be impossible to deal with if you're lacking in crowd control.

Nasus, Sion, and Veigar all got a special bonus on their stacking abilities. It's small if you aren't jungling or frequently taking jungle camps, but it's still a nice little boost.

Nunu's ability to just sit in a bush spamming W and winning lanes is gone. Many claim this has utterly killed his jungling, supporting, and many other things, but that seems a bit of an exaggeration. He's certainly worse off for losing 20% Attack Speed, but his buff still provides roughly 1425g worth of stats, not counting the Movement Speed. He still has one of the most spammable and effective Movement/Attack Speed slows in the game. Ultimately, he's still Nunu and he'll still be good, he just won't be as effective when played as a buff bot.

Olaf, my favorite bruiser to hate when I'm a squishy champion trying to hide behind a wall of crowd control, is a little less fearsome post-patch. His free damage sources from his W and ultimate were nerfed, and his slow's effectiveness will be much more dependent upon proximity and good aim/axe placement. He's still going to be extremely powerful and a pain in the neck.

If you think for a moment that the nerfs to Shaco are going to prevent your team from inexplicably feeding him, you're thinking wishfully.

Tristana and Tryndamere, a couple of carries lost to time, have both received a few minor buffs. These aren't completely game-changing, but they're enough to edge them toward being played more frequently.

I'm not a big fan of Seeker's Armguard. It will be a very strong item for AP champions, helping them to deal with the proliferation of bruisers, AD casters, and assassins. I don't like it because it allows players to be lazy; they could have been grabbing Cloth Armor guilt-free before anyway. The item represents Riot making decisions for their players instead of allowing the game to evolve naturally. Philosophy aside, you'd be pretty silly to ignore this item.

The removal of Mana Regeneration from Fiendish Codex is interesting for the effects it has on other items. It now allows champions building Deathfire Grasp to acquire Cooldown Reduction before finishing the item. It reduces the cost of Nashor's Tooth (over the years it's dropped from 2835g, now down to 2270g), maybe to the point where we'll see it on champions other than Kayle and Teemo. If nothing else, support champions might actually consider picking up the new, cheap Fiendish Codex.

Black Cleaver now takes longer to stack is provides less Health. It's been a one-stop shop for everything bruisers and AD casters could want, and while it remains so it will be less effective in this role.

While all Spirit Stone-based items are now cheaper, Spirit of the Spectral Wraith got the most significant reduction. It now costs a mere 2000g, and provides an insane amount of stats for that cost. Riot is obviously displeased with the lack of traction AP junglers are seeing, but they may have overcompensated here, as this value is in the range where lane champions are liable to pick it up.

Also, bots now talk at the start and end of Coop vs AI games. Obviously the most important change this patch.

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.