League of Legends News
Faker: “I want to show that esports is a healthy sport and is internationally competitive.”
SK Telecom T1’s Lee “Faker” Sang-Hyeok was recently covered for a news program on one of South Korea’s largest broadcasting networks, Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). The feature was small — barely two minutes long — and contained only three lines from Faker, one of which was on stage after winning the finals of the Mid-Season Invitational. His last line of the feature, however, included a very interesting choice of words:
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7/14 PBE UPDATE: SPECIAL PROJECT LOADSCREENS, PROJECT: KATARINA UPDATES, TENTATIVE NIDALEE CHANGES
The PBE has been updated! As we continue on the 6.15 PBE cycle, today's update includes new special edition loading screens for the upcoming PROJECT skins and PROJECT: Yasuo, tentative balance changes, OFA's PBE return, and more!New Poll Party skins and content now available!
And the Pool Party Pentathlon winners are...Nexus Seige revealed
Explodification abounds in this round-based attack and defense mode. Rush to crack (or defend) the base with brand new, 100% safe-for-testing™ siege weapons.Link
Schalke's Steve: "Origen Is No One's Nemesis Anymore"
On their mission to reach the EU LCS playoffs, Schalke 04 will face off against Fnatic and Origen in week seven. Both opponents have new additions to their rosters but the royal blue squad is confident that they still have the edge. Crowd favorite Etienne 'Steve' Michels talks about the upcoming encounters.Ask Riot: Haz keys, no haz bugs please?
Have a question (or two...hundred) yourself? Head over Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Do’s, the Don'ts, and then ask us something. We’ll archive the answers once we’ve accumulated a few of them. One thing to note, asking the same question over and over again won’t help your cause. (Yes, I’m talking to you, who asked why you’re still banned from Hextech Crafting and did 40 times. Please don’t do that.)League of Legends Community
Shouldn't IP gains be higher? - by Blood_Lacrima
Seriously? After an intense 50 minute game and a hard-earned victory, all I get is 90 IP? Considering how most of the champions (especially the more popular ones) are at least 3150 and mostly 4800/6300, it takes an extreme amount of grinding just to get a single champion. And since there is over a hundred champions in the game, I can barely imagine how long it's going to take to get all of them. And don't get me started on the runes.
From what I've heard, the IP gains are pretty much the same as during beta/S1, when there was like 40 champions and none of them cost something like 6300. It's kinda mind boggling how they haven't changed this considering the total IP costs are now exponentially higher.
A Poppy main's complaints with the recent set of changes - by Johnmogens
Hey guys, I'm a Plat 1 (recently diamond 5, but the tilt is strong in this one) toplaner, who primarily plays Gnar and Poppy. I'm hoping the PTSD of her glory days has recided and we can have an honest discussion about her current state, which is, let's be honest, on the brink of non-viability.
Now the main problem with Poppy, especially for soloqueue, is her weak laning-phase. Once she gets to midgame, she's actually pretty strong. Not as strong as a Maokai maybe, but still a very decent toplaner, which any team should be happy with having. The buffs on patch 6.14 don't change this, rather they cement it, increasing the movespeed on her w, which is 1. the ability last maxed. and 2. only useful in fringe cases in lane, but nice to have in the roaming stages of the game.
My complaint is this: When they reduced the passive cooldown, they also reduced the dmg. And they reduced it, in fact, just enough that her passive-auto doesn't kill a caster-minion which just took a turretshot. If you're playing against a skilled opponent, who puts down pressure, you'll be doing most of your farming under turret. With this change, farming efficiently under turret is almost impossible, as there simply is not enough time to hit the caster twice, when your passive is up, and if the second proc of the q hits minions they die to the turretshot, making it even more difficult to cs the casterminions than it already is with an enemy laner harrassing you. The counterplay to someone hard-shoving is ganks, but since the e-nerf (which I don't find to be unfair, mind you, but still hit her really hard), her gank-setup/follow-up is pretty weak, and getting a kill is very difficult if your jungler doesn't have hard-cc in their kit already.
So, I believe the buffs to Poppy are misplaced, since they buff her strongest point (slightly), but actually impact her weakest point quite negatively. In competetive, where laneswaps are frequently used to dodge weak lane-matchups, and where they are pretty sure their teammates won't "feed", she may see play, but I doubt it. In soloqueue, where laningphase plays a huge part in how much impact you'll have on the game, I believe Poppy will still be less than viable, and that other lategame scaling tanks (which do better in the lategame), will outclass her, and make her obsolete. Poppy's identity is not that of a huge lategame scaling unkillable rock, but that of a midgame beast, who has the possibility to outplay and bully in the laningphase, if given the opportunity.
The hard fix, I can't give you, but I hope they'll figure it out. The easy fix: Give her back the auto-reset after her passive auto. It would give her a little more power in lane-trades, while not impacting midgame much, and help her a lot with farming under turret.
I miss Champion Select Music and I miss Champion Select Quotes. I feel a bit emptier before starting games now. - by SaulJoker
Let me begin by saying this is just my personal opinion. Others may agree or disagree. However, I have to say this because I feel it is important to me and other players who feel the same way.
These two things were fairly important to me and I never realised how much I missed them. Playing Team Ranked is NOT the solution, especially for loners like me. I just moved over to Florida and I have barely any friends to play League with. So while it may seem stupid and minor, it's important. To me at least.
- Champion Select Music is gone. The song playing during Draft Pick, while it may have annoyed some, always had me hyped up for a game. The song was just perfect, the beginning where it seems mysterious and you are unsure of what may happen. When you hear the melody playing, reminding you of the game you are playing and it's meaning. The climax, preparing you to fight. All of it. Gone. Ever since the new champion select. And while it may be that the feedback was 70% against champion select music (just an example, not actual numbers), Draft and Blind pick is still in the game, and the other 30% wouldn't be hurt by an option to enable it during new champion select. Even allowing us to change it manually through editing files like you used to be able to would have been fine.
- Champion Select Quotes are gone. While minor, hearing Lee Sin's "Your will, my hands", letting me know he was ready to do as I wished regardless of the outcome (sorry for those dumb Q's). Pantheon's quote, "They are privileged to die at my feet!", Malphite's "Rock solid" reminding me how hard I get when I see Miss Fortune's splash art. They are also gone, minor things, but gone.
I know this may not be the best site, but I feel like if this gets good enough attention then a Rioter will see it and bring it into consideration when they brainstorm ideas or something.
I don't have my hopes up, but at least I can try and get my voice out there.
Props to Riot for not enforcing a majority vote to remake. - by LexaBinsr
Just went into a game where top lane failed to connect and I got my first remake. At 3m we started the remake and some idiot pushed no (cause hurdur lets play a 4v5) but since me and someone else said yes the remake was accepted.
I just wanted to say that I am really happy with Riot's decision. I was surprised that the game was remade with only two votes and I couldn't be happier. Games where 60% of the team wants to surrender an obvious loss but the two shitty premades think the game is winnable cause his third cousin threw a game that one time are such a pain..
With the amount of teamwork this game requires, I think the addition of cooldown pings is one of the best changes Riot could've made - by mj9057
Seriously, being able to communicate summoner spells, jungle camps, drag/baron, and ultimates with just the click of a button is awesome. It saves a lot of typing when you're trying to communicate important information to your team and knowing your teams cooldowns is incredibly helpful. I think it's one of the best and least talked about changes on this patch.
On Cloud9 Challenger: It might just be business - by V_the_Victim
For those of you who missed my first opinion piece on this topic, I recommend you at least skim over it here. I think it'll help you better appreciate the swing in public opinion on the part of people like myself who didn't already doubt C9 during the NACS qualifier drama.
C9C: It might just be business
by Luke "V the Victim" Torok
Since the beginning of the NACS open qualifier, Cloud9 has received heavy criticism from eSport fans for exploiting the organization's League of Legends roster depth to "boost" a challenger team to the LCS for profit. That team's mid laner Hai Lam, whose first - and ingame - name "Hai" invokes thoughts of a stellar LCS career as captain and shotcaller of a dominant Cloud9 LCS team, took to his personal blog (available here) to defend the organization's decisions.
Hai stressed the importance of protecting C9 owner Jack Etienne's investment by qualifying for the NACS using veterans instead of inexperienced challenger players - not an unreasonable point, to be sure. But Hai also wrote of the great benefits a trustworthy, established organization like Cloud9 could offer a challenger team in the turbulent, scam-prone environment that is the NACS. Cloud9 has the resources to provide its challenger players with stable paychecks, living quarters, coaching and practice opportunities...key resources that several previous challenger teams have failed to deliver to their players. And to use Hai's own words, after using its pros to qualify C9C "can now try out players and see who is good because we aren't at risking of not being in [NACS]." Many of those following the NA LCS scene, including *ahem* a certain LoL opinion piece writer, were satisfied with this explanation - provided C9 followed through on Hai's claims. Hai even wrote of "an entire sub challenger team that we've been scrimming and even given an analyst and show them how to use data/teach them pick and bans."
So fast forward to now: After a 3-0 dismantling of NACS contender Dream Team in the summer playoff semifinals, Cloud9 Challenger appears poised to defeat the likes of bottom-tier LCS teams Echo Fox, Phoenix 1, and NRG eSports and claim their rightful spot in the NA LCS. The Cloud 9 Challenger team has clearly benefitted from the resources Hai wrote about in his blog - but LCS fans are still unhappy with C9 because the all-important question remains unanswered:
"Where are the challenger players from Hai's blogpost?"
The current C9C roster boasts four ex-LCS players with plenty of stage experience in top laner An "Balls" Lee, mid laner Hai, support Derek "LemonNation" Hart, and AD carry Johnny "Altec" Ru. All four of these pros even have significant LCS playoff experience - the former three with Cloud9 and the latter with Team Gravity. The only player on C9C without LCS experience is jungler Juan Arturo "Contractz" Garcia, and even he had previously been recognized by fans and other teams as an LCS-caliber player who had not yet reached the age required for LCS eligibility (Garcia turns the magic age of 17 this August, in plenty of time to see play at the highest level next split). He also gained some competitive experience on former challenger team Ember (before they failed to qualify for the NA LCS promotion tournament).
Besides Contractz, who many believe should already be considered a professional in his own right, Cloud9 Challenger has yet to unveil its supposed secret sister squad. On the subject of Hai's "entire sub challenger team," C9's social media has been radio silent. The players themselves have given no new indication of this team existing, and C9 owner Jack Etienne has offered us nothing, either. To the casual observer, it would seem this team does not exist.
It's not too early to call anymore. While there's little question that Cloud9 is an upstanding organization that takes good care of both its players and financial interests, Cloud9 Challenger appears to be nothing more than the million-dollar cash grab Hai so aggressively denied. And while organizations like C9 do have a lot to offer the challenger and amateur LoL scenes in terms of infrastructure and integrity, it seems - as with all other businesses - that their top priority lies elsewhere, in...greener pastures.
Cynics everywhere, rejoice.
Luke "V the Victim" Torok has been following the League of Legends competitive scene since its inception. He loves Kindred, hates Renekton, and can't quite seem to escape Elo hell.
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