The Importance of Coaching

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

Coaching is rapidly becoming a huge thing in LoL, especially since the start of this season as teams move players from their starting roster and pick up brand new people. Riot actually officially announced that they are recognizing coaches as a part of a team now. You can’t deny that coaching is as big a part of the game as the players themselves at this point.

Coaches play a very large role, albeit behind the scenes, although every team uses their coaches differently. Some are purely for strategizing while others will have duties like analyzing games and keeping morale high. Either way, they are extremely important in guiding a team to a win.

The best example and probably the most prominent coach is Locodoco from TSM. Locodoco joined the team around Week 4 of the Summer Split. TSM had just come off a great Spring Split, but they still faltered in the playoffs. Early on in their Summer Split though, things were going rough. They had already lost over half as many games as the last split. With Loco's arrival, there was an almost immediate change in the general feeling of the team. They ended up winning all of their games the next week.

From an outsiders standpoint, over the next few weeks, it seemed as if TSM made no large progress, but when you took into account the amount of roster swaps and drama TSM had going throughout the year, one could easily make an argument that Loco was an integral part in keeping that team moving forward. Also, once Loco was able to finally take some time and meet with his team for a bit without the added pressure of upcoming games, look what happened. They won the NA LCS Playoffs and did extremely well in Worlds.

I can see a lot of teams making moves this off-season to pick up analysts and coaches. Not only that, but I think coaches will obtain highly increased recognition this upcoming season. This past season showed that strategy can change week to week, not only in champion picks, but in prioritization of objectives and lanes. Riot is adding a lot of map changes and it’s going to be hard for players to keep track of strategizing for their team as well as try to lane and win in the game.

Shotcalling is a different aspect, but quite similar. The main difference being that shotcalling is done in the game whereas coaching is done outside of the game. Coaches look more at theoretical picks and situations and how those things relate to each other. Coaches are a lot less reactive in what they do. It’s actually why someone can be an amazing coach and not be all that great at the game. It’s a lot different strategizing the game and playing it, especially if in-game you don’t recall your strategies.

Being able to see the game as a whole rather than just your champion is a major part of being a coach. You have to run almost every situation in your head and play it out from picks and bans onward. It can be an amazing aspect to add to your team and pull yourself from mediocre to great and I’m excited to see how teams handle this possibility in the coming months.

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by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

Samsung White : 2014 League of Legends' World Champions

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Worlds 2014 has been a roller coaster of plays, tears, upsets and high flying performances, but in the end, it was all down to Star Horn Royal Club’s second consecutive finals appearance against Samsung White, who crashed out in groups last year as Samsung Ozone. A lot had changed for both teams, and their respective rides to the finals were both fairly similar in being overlooked by some in favour of other teams from their region as well as being predicted winners by others.

Pick/Bans:

The ban phase from both teams throughout the four matches that were played was static at best. Samsung White was relentless in their commitment to remove Lee Sin and Lucian from all games played while Star Horn Royal Club also shared the same conviction in continuously banning out Alistar and Zilean. Staying on the topic of trends, Star Horn Royal Club also showed a very strong belief in Tristana and Ryze, who both featured in every game for them except game three. I believe their desperation in trying to outscale SSW is what ultimately led to their downfall in this series, as they were taken apart before twenty minutes in every single game except game three. Had Royal Club opted to try and pick a more early or mid-game peaking team comp, they may have had the opportunity to fight back the aggression and sheer dominance of SSW led brilliantly by Dandy’s map pressure.

Samsung White’s picks were successful because they always went for a team comp that had mid game power spikes and could pick individuals off with ease. They played around Dandy’s ability to perfectly execute ganks and skirmishes while continuously punishing the time it took for SHR’s comps to scale. Game 3 was the only one where their picks didn't particularly synergize and the Singed never did have as much impact as when Looper was on Kassadin, Maokai and Rumble. Similarly to how SHR relied a lot on Tristana as an ADC pick, Twitch was also taken by SSW in three of the four games and put to a much greater use than the Tristana pick. If anything, these games certainly stood out as a demonstration of exactly how you put down and keep down a Tristana, even in comps designed to prioritize her.

Games:

Royal Club, in game one, tried to go for a standard “Uzi protection” team comp that relied on Tristana hyper scaling into the late game with Janna and Orianna shields to prevent her ever being taken down. While this had worked in past games and Uzi is undeniably one of the best AD Carries in the world, Samsung White’s early to mid-game domination was simply too much for SHRC to handle and their Hyper carry comp never really got a chance to breathe. First Blood was secured at around 1:20, Dandy wasted no time controlling the enemy jungle with wards and pinks which then allowed for an easy second kill on the bottom lane. By fifteen minutes the score of the first game was 0/6, which went on to also be the story of games two and four. Insec’s performance was particularly lacking in the face of near perfection in Dandy and the pressure really seemed to get to him the most out of all the players on Royal Club. In game one he was killed by the same Jayce shockblast combo twice in quick succession; in game two he failed to secure an easy to kill on Pawn because he decided to walk away and let Damage Over Time deal the killing blow instead of simply attack one more time which allowed for Pawn to escape with a last second Janna shield. Insec’s failure to be relevant in any way compared to his counterpart is only the worst example as every member of Star Horn Royal paled in comparison to the Koreans and even Uzi who was really hyped up failed to put up any kind of relevant showing in games one, two and four. Once he finally got a chance to scale, though down to SSW’s questionable and overconfident picks and choices in game three, he showed what he’s known for but the beast was tamed whenever Samsung White had their feet on the pedal.

If I had to pick a standout performer of the series I would have no choice but to pick Dandy. He completely suppressed Star Horn’s lanes with well-timed ganks, counter ganks and flawless vision control. A lot of Samsung White’s ability to be so frightening is down to how well he and Mata light up the map, his ganks were covered by his team as well as circles of vision to ensure no blank spots could allude to potential danger. It was as close to perfect jungling as I’ve ever seen in my time watching professional League Of Legends, in both synergy and single-handed brilliance.

The question now is what will happen to Samsung White in the coming months, if they can maintain this level of beautiful gameplay it's more than possible that they can be the first team to re-qualify for worlds after winning it. But there is every chance that they could go down the route of SKT T1 K who many also thought were absolutely unstoppable, Only time will tell.

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by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Fashion in Esports

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

Is it weird to talk about fashion if we're talking as subjects of a group of teens who are playing hours of video games? Maybe, although I believe even geeks, nerds or whatever you call them, have their own fashion in some way, despite being far away from the “fashion” world you see in everyday mass media. But is it weird to talk about fashion if we're looking at a sport? Clearly it isn't. Every sports has its own fashion. Basketball, American Football, Soccer, Baseball, Golf, etc. they all have a clear set of clothes which is common only to them. So why not eSports? This discipline is still new and unites a bunch of people who weren't used to being in the spotlight before. Still, every successful team is selling its own merchandise and wants to popularize it. What is different from other sports is that eSports doesn't require a special outfit, and a lot of teams seems to have a different idea of what they have to wear mainly depending on their region.

Asia wants to be classy.

Asian teams (Korean, Chinese, South-East Asian) have somewhat united to wear almost the same outfits when they're performing on stage, or at least for the upper body. A lot of teams we saw at worlds are wearing low-key polo shirts with a little room allowed for the team logo and the sponsors. Regardless, they are still visible especially when Riot is making a lot of interviews and close-ups on players. A small difference is visible for EDG & AHQ where they're wearing classic t-shirts but are almost always wearing sports jackets which follow the same rule as before: subdued logos from sponsors.

In some way, the fashion these teams are putting on is really close to what you'd find in golf. And it's quite logical: golf is a sport, but not as intense as some other sports like Soccer or Basketball. Some might categorize it as “not really a sport,” but the same could be said for eSports. Also, Golf is a sport which requires a lot of focus, mental strength and precision. Same for eSports! The only difference here is on the lower body of our favorite players. Koreans are often wearing absolutely horrible sweatpants. I mean, I wouldn't dare to wear those kind of pants outside of my house nowadays, and I don't think it sends a good image around the world, since it'll keep pro-gamers classified as “geeks in sweatpants.” They also keep wearing them in advertisements like Faker did recently. I mean...come on.

Chinese and South-East Asian players are wearing a bit more classy jeans and you have to give them props for it. I know sweatpants are comfortable for playing in, but man, jeans aren’t that hard either. It's not because you wear jeans that you'll perform worse considering the level of those players.

Europe, too much soccer?

Despite being a fan of Europe's performance in eSports, I still don't understand how some structures think regarding their team clothes. I mean, yes, we like soccer a lot, but it doesn't mean you have to copy it and import it into eSports. Why did sports jerseys, of all clothes, make the cut here? My guess is a lot of people investing in eSports come from an average social class, not especially poor or rich, but with a middle-class culture which is obviously greatly centered around the most popular sport in Europe. No other sports come close to it, and it has a clear and vast influence on a lot of people.

Coming from this social class, eSports players and fans wanted to say their passion for video games was as great as some peoples passion with soccer (or as great as their own), and directly imitated its style, importing the sports jersey you can see on a lot of European teams now: Fnatic, Copenhagen Wolves, etc.

I honestly don't think this is the best piece of clothing for eSports. It isn't, properly speaking, a physical sport. It requires a lot of focus, and while you sweat a lot during an official match for sure, I don't think it requires such an outfit. The core “physical” and psychological needs of pro-gaming is mental strength and precision, which are mostly shared within sports like golf, or maybe baseball.

North America went in the right direction but stopped halfway.

North American LoL teams have embraced eSports fashion in a different way than other countries by not trying to make it look like a traditional sport, but almost all the teams have a different style of clothes. White hoodies and sky blue T-shirts create Cloud 9's theme. Dignitas has black hoodies and CLG wears long sleeve cotton shirts. TSM players wear satin varsity jackets and Evil Geniuses scored a fashion knock out in their amazing black leather jackets. Only Curse seems to enjoy the sports jerseys (and they should fit them more, because it looks like they're way too big for some players!)

But unfortunately, the NA teams are almost too convoluted. All of them want to differentiate from the one another too much, and none of them, except Curse, are reasoning as a business by renewing their official clothes regularly. At some point, a new season into LCS should mean a new set of clothes. Fans are generally happy to see those changes and feel like they need to buy the new ones to be a better representative of the team. Yet, a lot of teams are hesitant on this point and just play around with colors to offer more than one set.

In the end, I think eSports clothing styles may actually be too diverse. Hoodies, sports jerseys, polos, t-shirts (and even an attempt at polo-shirts and hoodies from SK) can be a little weird. All these pro-gamers play the same game but none of them are wearing the same thing. It comes across as a bit disorganized. But that just means that eSports has nothing written in stone yet. I like it, because then we can only go up.

Setting up some standardized fashion code might help set values and integrity inside the community. Moreover, it helps show the world that eSports are real, that they are happening here and now and that mainstream industries needs to invest now to get the bigger piece of the cake. I think polo shirts are the best option, but it doesn't really fit with the gamer image we have in our Occidental regions. Nevertheless, it has been shown in recent studies that a lot of eSport viewers are not hardcore gamers, and looking closely into this population might deliver the answer.

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

TOP FIVE EU FREE AGENTS

By Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

Europe, for me, has always been a promised land of talent for the League of Legends pro scene. Whenever you think that there won’t be another rising star, three more pop up and burst onto the scene. However, with so much rising talent, sometimes shaky infrastructure, and a tendency to hold onto well-known names too long, EU has a habit of letting some great talent slide into the shadows. So let's take a look at the top five players currently listed as free agents.

In no special order:

Gillius

Gillius technically didn't qualify for Worlds 2014; he was only brought in to sub for Svenskeren due to his unfortunate racial incident in Taipei. Prior to this, Gillius had only garnered experience from playing on SK Prime and Unicorns of Love in the challenger scene. Despite this, Gillius still put up a pretty solid showing for a rookie, at times even looking better than some of the actual team veterans who struggled to adjust and compete at their best level. While one would think that Gillius would go back bringing a wealth of experience and growth for newly LCS bound Unicorns Of Love, the team made the rather shocking decision to bench him, leaving him in the unfortunate position of having played in Worlds...but not the LCS itself.

Best Team Choice: Copenhagen Wolves

The Wolves have always been EU’s hub of promising talent, I believe they would greatly benefit from Gillius’ newly gained experience and solid playstyle.

Nukeduck
Nukeduck, in his prime, was arguably one of EU’s best mid laners and a real force to be reckoned with, especially at the height of the Season Three assassin meta, which greatly suited his playstyle. The whole of the Lemondogs' squad were some of EU’s best in their positions and the degradation of the team and the eventual suspension of Nukeduck and Mithy was a huge waste of talent. However, with his suspension over, Nukeduck now has another opportunity to explode onto the scene and every team should honestly give him a look. The recent rumours surrounding him and Woolite possibly moving to Roccat would be amazing for the team, as a Nukeduck/Jankos partnership has the raw potential to be one of the scariest if they gather good synergy to accompany their individual talent. With so much time off to work on his attitude, his work ethic and mechanics he should now be ready to take the EU LCS by storm.

Best Team Choice: Roccat

The more I think about it, the more I believe Nukeduck can take Roccat to higher levels. I’m really excited at the prospect of a huge playmaker and arguably EU’s best Season 3 mid laner paired with arguably the best jungler from EU Season 4. I also believe Overpow might be able to properly benefit from the more farm-centric style of the top lane, where there will be less expectation to hard carry Roccat games.

Forg1ven

After the Copenhagen Wolves had to give back Rekkles to Fnatic, many people doubted their ability to gather another AD carry who could have anywhere near the impact that Rekkles had. Then Forg1ven was picked up and all the doubt was silenced. Forg1ven was a monster AD Carry during his split with the Wolves, setting GPM, Total Gold, CS per min and Total CS records for EU and he was hailed by many as the best AD Carry in EU. Unfortunately, his fall out with the Wolves management left him unable to play during summer, but he is now free to be picked up and, in my opinion, is one of the biggest free agents EU currently has on the market to offer. His wealth of talent, fierce achievement-driven nature and prior LCS experience will get great assets to any team that take it with a pinch of salt.

Best Team Choice: Roccat

AD Carry-wise, most EU LCS teams are in a good spot. Every team expect Roccat, who currently doesn't have one. If the rumoured acquisition of Nukeduck is any kind of upgrade, the further acquisition of Forg1ven would catapult them into godly levels of potential. It would also likely leave Woolite on the Wolves allowing for Unlimited to actually play more than one split with a particular ADC.

Mithy

Mithy, like Nukeduck was a member of the overnight sensation team, LemonDogs, and was one of the three who transferred to NIP only to lose their slot in the LCS, eventually leading to Mithy’s suspension with Nukeduck and Zorozero’s retirement. Regardless Mithy’s suspension time is also nearing its end and with his eligibility for the 2015 LCS spring split, he should be a big consideration for teams in need of a solid support. It should be remembered that Tabzz and Mithy were one of the best, if not the best bottom lane in Europe by the end of Season 3.

Best Choice: Supa Hot Crew (now Meet Your Makers) or Millenium 

It would just so happen that Supa Hot Meet Your Makers are missing a support player following the teams rebranding and its release of Impaler and Kasing. It has also been heavily rumoured that Amin and Mithy will be the ones to fill in the newly freed up roles. Personally, I’m not too sure whether Mithy will gel well with the rest of the team, especially Amin, but MrRallez has shown himself to be the ADC equivalent to Unlimited, putting up good performances and easily building synergy with any duo lane partner he’s presented with. Alternatively, if MYM doesn’t work out another good destination for Mithy would be Millenium. With the departure of Kerp, Millenium is a team in dire need of a leader and a fresh start. Kev1n, Kottenx and Creaton are all top class players on the right day and I feel on most days, Jree just doesn’t allow them to perform to a peak of their (especially creaton’s) potential.

Kerp

As briefly mentioned, Kerp has now left Millenium in search of a fresh start. If he doesn't find a new team to settle down with, LCS casters and broadcast producers will surely be fuming at the loss of all the script they have to discuss his famous use of a trackball mouse. Despite how attractive it is to discuss, it isn't Kerp’s only asset. His raw talent is absolutely amazing and his ability to hard carry on assassin type champions is next to the best in EU. On top of this, his careful play on champions like Ziggs also provides a healthy switch between mid lane playstyles, which is impressive considering he was a top laner one season ago. Its also worth noting that Kerp was a Fantasy LCS superstar - bringing huge numbers (on his good days) for anyone who played him

Best Choice: SK Gaming or Copenhagen Wolves

If there was a better way to say I think Kerp is better than Soren and Jesiz, I would say it - but I can’t really find one. All three look the same in terms of being rather inconsistent, but generally Kerp can do a lot more a lot better and I think both teams would do well to consider how serious they are to be competing for the top spots with their current mid lane choices.

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by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos

The End of Complexity?

By Descend

As of October 4th, two of the players who shone the brightest on compLexity are no longer starting on the team. Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee has stepped down as their AD Carry to make some decisions of either competing in the 2015 LCS Season or to stream full time. He will still be on the roster as a back-up. Neil “pr0lly” Hammad, fresh out of his latest wrist surgery, has been replaced by Greyson “GoldenGlue” Gilmer. GoldenGlue has had some light in the LCS this season with a brief stint on Dignitas and has been on a few NA Challenger teams for coL Red and Coast. In my personal opinion, GoldenGlue is not an LCS-quality mid laner, while pr0lly had actually improved and was competing with the best of them. Let’s not forget when he made Shiphtur look like a weak mid in their matches against Team Coast, who had gotten relegated in the spring split of this year.

While compLexity didn't have the best split and in turn, lost their LCS slot to Team 8, their 10-18 record didn't stop them from having great games against top teams such as Cloud 9 and Curse. They had a huge fanbase that was always behind them for being the fun underdogs and they did not let up, even if it resulted in a loss. They pulled out all the tricks and made a name for themselves. The removal of their two top players right before the promotional series for the new LCS 10-team league is sure to affect them. Lets hope that this isn’t the last we see of ROBERT or pr0lly as they are very charismatic characters who show heart and play with all of it. In the meantime they are holding try outs for the AD Carry position. I would like to see the likes of Gosu trying out and possibly making the team as he is a reckless playmaker with incredible mechanics who beats even the best of NA’s ADC’s in solo queue on a regular basis.

A Quick Look: Samsung Galaxy Blue vs Cloud 9

Matt “It’s Pure Luck” Lee

Heading into the final day of games last Sunday, it seemed to be a bleak situation for Cloud 9. A loss to Alliance on day three, followed by an Alliance upset of NaJin White Shield put C9 on the ropes and needing multiple things to fall their way. Yet, what was considered nearly unthinkable happened on the final day. Alliance was defeated by the international wild card, Kabum eSports, and Cloud 9 came right back with a clutch victory over Najin White Shield to clinch a spot in the knockout stage.

It won’t get any easier for them from here on out as they meet the OGN’s top seed next in Samsung Galaxy Blue. SSB escaped the “Group of Death” with minimal damage. The only blemish was a loss to Fnatic on the first day, but they bounced back with a vengeance and won four straight games to close the group stage. Eliminating Fnatic had to be particularly sweet for Dade, as they dealt him two losses when he was on SSW (then known as Samsung Galaxy Ozone) in the group stage last year.

This will be the biggest test Cloud 9 has ever had. As terrific a player as Dade is, the biggest challenge probably lies with Sneaky and LemonNation in the bottom lane. Deft has repeatedly shown an ability to make himself relevant in games where he falls behind, something that is very tough for the AD carry position to do. If C9 manages to grab a favorable 2v2 match-up, I’d also expect SSB to lane swap on them to try and nullify this. I’d expect Sneaky to lean towards Lucian and Corki this series. Picking Tristana will play into the hands of Samsung; as strong as she is late game, opting to try and beat a team with such great late game prowess is playing with fire.

For Cloud 9 to have a shot in this series, mid game will be key. If they allow Deft/Heart to get ahead, I’m not sure how they will manage to salvage a win. SSB can be taken advantage of early game and mid game and this where C9 must strike. They are fairly passive early on as they are fine letting games go late and winning with their superior team fighting and objective control. This was evident in most of their group stage wins outside the first victory over LMQ. It often felt as if they were just sort of cruising along before they would slam their foot on the gas and take total control.

In the game Samsung dropped versus Fnatic, we may have seen the blueprint to beating OGN’s top seed. Despite being down (albeit only 4-1) in kills, Fnatic left the lane phase with a decent-sized gold lead all around courtesy of creep score discrepancies and taking two of three dragons. After setting a trap and getting multiple picks above the Samsung blue buff in the mid game, Fnatic seemed to take total control and used the team power spike of Lucian to take over the game before Kog’Maw could become a serious issue. Fnatic snowballed the game from that point and took the easy victory, showing that as great as Samsung Blue is, they are beatable. If C9 hope to pull off the upset, this is the strategy they need to employ. Considering how well versed SSB are in best of five series, it won’t be easy.

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By Matthew "It's Pure Luck" Lee

Worlds' Bracket Picks : Quarterfinals

Quarterfinals Picks

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

• SSW vs TSM

Samsung White is just plain out scary. They dominated their group and they weren’t even satisfied with their play in the group. They know how to play the Pick/Ban phase and then control you afterwards. Dyrus’ Rumble and Bjergsen as a whole have been great throughout Worlds for TSM, but I think Samsung White would be out of their minds not to ban Rumble, as Looper hasn’t really shown a liking for Rumble. PawN vs Bjergsen is the match-up to watch, but PawN doesn’t even have to win, just not feed. I think he can manage that over the course of a five game series. TSM has been the best adapting team in Worlds, so I think they could take a game away. White will dominate otherwise.

SSW wins 3-1

• SSB vs C9

This could go either way really. Samsung Blue is a team that is cohesive beyond belief. I like to think that C9 will be smart enough to go around this and avoid teamfighting at any point, at least when it wouldn’t be obviously advantageous. Hai will be looking to play Zed, and Balls may actually avoid his Rumble, since teamfights are not what they want. Look for Ryze to be highly contested and Dade to try and shut Hai down early in every game to keep him from trying to split. Lemon and Sneaky have a hard match-up against Heart and Deft, and things could go spiraling out of control if they get a lead. Basically this series is going to come down to how well prepared C9 are for Blue. I think C9 will be able to play around Blue smarter and pull out a slim victory.

C9 wins 3-2

• SHRC vs EDG

Two Chinese teams duking it out. These games will be a bloodbath for sure. Edward Gaming had a very disappointing group stage and NaMei has been hearing criticism of choking this entire time since Group A finished and I think he’ll be sick of hearing it. He’s going to come out swinging and StarHorn will be in their sights. Not only that, but EDG is familiar with SHRC and knows how to play against them. They took two Number One finishes in the LPL for a reason, I don’t see a reason for them to lose to StarHorn now.

As far as Starhorn themselves go, they did win their group, but they really only had TSM as competition. Basically all that they had to do was get a lead and run with it. They had messy wins and against more complete teams like EDG they’re going to have those weak points exposed. Even at Worlds we’ve seen communication issues with InSec and the rest of the team. Uzi would have to carry the team hard, and I’m not sure he’d even consistently win lane against NaMei.

EDG wins 3-0

• NJWS vs OMG

Najin White Shield is an interesting team for me. I feel like they are very overrated purely because of being a Korean team. They showed how wishy washy they can be in Groups by losing hardcore to Alliance after dominating most of the games. Watch has been underwhelming, but Save and Ggoong have picked up the slack with some occasional help from Zefa. I’m not saying that Najin is a bad team, but they are most obviously the lower of the Korean team and probably the easiest to knock out.

OMG is the black sheep of China. Strong laners, good jungler, and weak ADC/Support duo. Cool has been lackluster compared to what people built him up to be. He’s made his fair share of mistakes, one of the most notable that I’ve seen was his over-tanking of tower shots in the infamous FNC vs OMG match near then. If OMG wants to win they need Cool to snap out of whatever’s been messing with him and wake up. Gogoing on the other hand has been an absolute monster and put the team on his back. His Ryze has been dominant all Worlds long, he’s shown mechanics on a champ that people don’t even think has mechanics. His KDA is easily the highest on the team. LoveLing has been hit or miss, and he can have a good impact, however I’m not sure if he can have a substantial impact all 5 games. It may depend on which Watch shows up. Overall, don’t judge OMG by their record. They made it out of the group of death for a reason.

Despite that I’m taking NJWS to win 3-2

The Mid-Game Power Spike: How Important Is It?

by Kennan French 

                                

It’s a phrase you’ve heard the analysts say dozens of times before a game starts, when they predict what strategies we’re likely to see being used. For those who are new to the concept of champion power curves, a mid-game power spike is exactly what it sounds like: a large increase in the power of a given champion relative to the other champions in the game. Power spikes usually happen after one or two key items are bought, or after a certain level is reached (to unlock an ultimate or max an ability).

The Theory

It’s simple: these spikes are so important because in most professional games, the midgame is when one team really starts to develop a lead. It’s also when the real team fighting starts, so you can see why being powerful at this time is so vital.

The Practice

This all makes sense in theory, but how applicable is it to actual competitive League of Legends? Well, as it turns out, the answer is a little bit complicated. In terms of raw statistics, in Groups C and D, the team with more champions with mid-game power spikes won 52% of the time. That doesn't sound like it makes much of a difference, but the team with fewer mid-game spikes actually only won 20% of the time. These numbers may not seem to add up, but in 28% of the games, both teams had the same number of mid-game champions.

However, some games made it very clear that these champion picks are very important. In the game with the most mid-game champions, Samsung Blue’s crushing victory over LMQ, four out of Blue’s five champions all had considerable power spikes after they completed a core item or two. Sure, Blue is a better team in general, but in the other meeting of these two teams (where Blue didn't have four mid-game champions), the game was much closer.

You can actually also draw conclusions from the games in which both teams had the same number of mid-game champions. The first game between Fnatic and LMQ, for example, was decided largely because LMQ’s mid-game champions had a much greater impact than Fnatic’s did. Ackerman on Rumble went 4/0/7 and XiaoWeiXiao on Yasuo went 4/0/8, compared to sOAZ’s 0/1/3 Lulu and Cyanide’s 1/6/4 Jarvan. Fnatic’s victory over Samsung Blue happened in much the same way. Most notably, Rekkles had an impressive 8/1/5 score while Dade went 2/5/1 on Zed, one of his signature champions.

The Odd Case of KaBuM

Now, it is sometimes the case in any competition that some teams just massively outclass others. For almost the entire set of games in Group D, this was the case for KaBuM eSports. They would stand up to any team for the first few minutes of a game but fall behind before too long. This isn't to put down any team - it’s great that KaBuM made it to worlds and got to play against some of the top regions, but for the sake of analysis, let’s see what happens when we don’t include KaBuM’s losses in our sample. Not much really changes; the team with more mid-game champions still won 55% of their games.

But here’s the really fun part: KaBuM upset Alliance on the final day of the group stage. Each team had two strong mid-game power spikes: Fizz with a Lich Bane and Twitch with a Blade of the Ruined King for Fnatic, against Ahri with a Zhonya’s Hourglass and Ryze with a stacked Rod of Ages and stacking Tear of the Goddess for KaBuM. LEP was not inspiring on Ryze this game—1/3/1 at the 16-minute mark—but some unconventional itemization from Minerva’s Jinx made up for this: the second item he bought was a Hexdrinker. An item rarely seen in professional matches at all, the Hexdrinker has been almost exclusively purchased by top-lane bruisers. However, a 4/1/1 Fizz with a Lich Bane is a scary proposition for any AD carry, especially an immobile one such as Jinx. The usual response to this would be a late-game Banshee’s Veil, but Minerva wanted safety from Fizz right then—and rightly so. Hexdrinker is a much cheaper item, and gives very good protection against burst magic damage. In purchasing this item, Minerva created an artificial mid-game boost in power on a champion who traditionally has a milder version of Tristana’s U-shaped power curve: fairly strong early laning, a dip in power mid-game while farming up for items, and then an explosive late-game as she approaches a full build.

In short, the mid-game power spike is a very useful tool which can really impact the outcome of a game, but a team has to set it up starting from champion select and continuing with their itemization, and then know how to use it.

Alliance Save their Worlds hopes with a Flawless Victory over Najin White Shield.

by Reece "SabrewoIf" Dos-Santos 

It had been a long time coming for Alliance but the EU Super team finally hit the pinnacle of their potential and really hit the ground running with a perfect game over the heavily favoured Najin White Shield from Korea.

Coming into this game, Najin White Shield were undefeated in Group D and easily one of the favourites for the whole tournament considering their complete domination of the Korean playoffs gauntlet - taking out KT Bullets and the heavily favoured KT Arrows alongside the Season 3 World Champions SKT T1 K. Alliance showed promise in their first game against Najin Shield but were unable to convert their early game lead into a win due to a reluctance to push hard and fast before Shield’s hyper carry protection comp began to scale into the late game. All the right components were there in Alliance’s arsenal to take down Najin Shield: strong laners, tight synergy and the ability to not get out-rotated. Unfortunately, vision control was rather lax and that lead to an eventual loss of map control and the game.

This time, however, Alliance had come off the back of a very convincing win over Cloud 9 (which earned Shook a respect ban from Shield on Rammus) but clearly they did not respect him enough. Shook ran the map solo queue style, making huge plays and picking up the first three kills for Alliance and he proceeded to never let go of the stranglehold he had over Shield and the map. While Alliance destroyed ten towers and picked up fourteen kills, Najin White Shield were unable to pick up a single kill or objective, including Dragon and Baron, for themselves.  By the end of the game Alliance had amassed a 24k Gold lead and not once had the tide ever shifted in favour of Najin Shield. This was clearly a victory that was gained through hard consideration of what went wrong for them the first time, as more vision was both invested in and controlled (32 vision wards placed by Alliance compared to 16 by Najin Shield) alongside the fact that Zefa’s Tristana never had the time or the opportunity to scale up and become relevant in the game.

If this is what Alliance can pull out, it's clear that they are a team that should not be as overlooked as they were coming into this tournament. Shook and Wickd have shown that they themselves are now more than worthy of target bans towards them and should be wary of bans coming in on both Lee Sin and Irelia, but with this consideration it also frees up the possibility of Froggen, Tabzz and Nyph having bans less targeted towards them. What this victory has definitely done is changed the mind-sets of many people: Alliance is no longer just the Froggen show; it’s a true Alliance, a true super team of mechanically world class players.

Froggen built this team to challenge and overcome the best teams in the world, With this flawless victory over Najin White Shield, his team has done just that and can look forward to the possibility of doing so again. 

League of Legends Worlds Group Stage Predictions

Worlds group stage begins September 18th in Taipei, Taiwan. FanZone writers Jerrod Steis, Reece Dos-Santos and Louis LeMeillet took the time to write out their predictions. 

Group A Predictions  

Group B Predictions  

Group C Predictions  

Group D Predictions  

Intimacy has its Price : The Big Booth Debate

Booths vs. No Booths

By Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

            Recently the big stink going around the LCS circuit is over the implementation, or lack thereof, of soundproof booths. Anyone who watches LCS today will see the players are in an open air environment and are fully visible to fans. This was to promote intimacy between fans and players, just like almost any other sport. However, LoL, and E-sports in general, aren't like other sports. There’s a lot of deception and trickery as well as other things that need to be hidden from the opposing team. Most sports remedy this by having a playbook or sidelines where these plans are relayed out to the field. Imagine, in football, if the audience told the other team what play they were running. That’s the best analogy for what the LCS is dealing with at the moment.

            Riot’s always run a thin line between having the audience feel engaged with the game, and the audience actually being part of the game. The LCS is run in an open atmosphere where players and spectators see things at almost the same time. Riot has admitted there is a slight delay, but even still, players know the delay. Players wear sound-proof headsets and small earbuds that go underneath. These headsets don’t completely block out all sound, but they at least do something to keep players from hearing anything from the audience that might change the outcome of the game. However, even if they can’t make out specific words, cheers alone can be enough to understand what's occurred. Let’s look at what the crowd generally cheers for in the LCS:

·         Wards

·         Towers

·         Dragons

·         Barons

·         Kills

·         Steals of any kind

            Of all of these, the only ones that aren’t always visible to both teams are Dragons and Barons. Based on positioning  of the enemy it can be pretty simple to make out what was done and have an almost exact timer for it if the audience is heard. Krepo has even come out himself to say that players are well aware of both the crowd and the delay that they’re seeing.

This set up has recently come under fire as Complexity’s ADC ROBERTxLEE stated on his stream that there was a point in his match against Curse where he wasn't sure what was being said on the comms. This wasn't an issue with headsets not working properly either. The sound that was being heard was coming through his teammates mics. Riot absolutely needs to address this issue. Communication between teammates in a game as cooperative as LoL is paramount. Most of the time, plays happen in League because the other team didn't work as a cohesive unit for one reason or another. If this persists and happens again, it could easily swing the outcome of a game, and consequently a season, if it occurs at the right (or in this case wrong) time.

Ideas have been passed around for a while now, and the most readily accepted one is the implementation of booths. Booths have been used in many E-sports games. Starcraft and Dota usually use booths for their events for the exact reason that people are clamoring for them now. They do a better job at keeping sound out of players hearing range than headsets alone. In fact, OGN, the Korean LoL league, uses both of them

The only issue here is the possibility of these booths being little to no use in terms of effectiveness. People have argued that considering the strength of the headsets used, the diminishing returns of adding a booth are almost non-existent. The headsets used in the LCS are approved for use near jet engines, meaning that if sound gets through them, theoretically, a booth isn’t going to do much to stop it. The other issue comes with vibrations.

Obviously sound comes from vibrations, and at events like the LCS there’s not only a lot of sound, but a lot of other things that can cause vibrations as well. (e.g. feet stomping, inflatable noise makers, etc.) Booths and headsets do nothing to stop this and it can cause all of the issues that come with sounds. For large scale crowds, there really is no effective way to keep things from being heard outside of playing from a remote area, and Riot will do anything to keep that from happening.

The normal LCS crowd has a few hundred people. According to most, albeit self-proclaimed, sound experts, vibrations shouldn't be an issue routinely faced in the LCS. World’s may be another issue, but normal games leading up to the world playoffs should see at least some effectiveness from booths.

There’s also been the argument of money. To be honest, it’s hard to get a grasp on which side of the argument is really true here. It’s more an issue of conflicting information rather than one side being right or wrong. I’ve seen reports of the LCS making Riot tons of money, and I’ve seen other information that says the LCS actually loses money in exchange for further advertising the game. There’s no official information straight from Riot so I can’t actually confirm which side is correct. This is in addition to varying booth prices. Depending on how high tech Riot would get if they decided on booths, the prices could go from a few hundred each or into the thousands. If it’s true that the LCS doesn't make money, it’s easy to see how Riot could refrain from putting more money into booths.

Personally, I find myself siding with putting booths on stage. Riot has always prided themselves on keeping player/audience interaction high, but at this point there are enough other ways for players to interact that the negatives outweigh the positives. Even if they decide against booths, there needs to be some kind of statement as to why or what Riot intends to do. There’s no reason to not comment on this considering the amount of backlash that has occurred. Fans need to at least hear a reason and keeping quiet about this will only increase the controversy as people make up their own reasons.

Is the Generation Gap Slowing eSports Development ?

by Louis "Guichex" Lemeillet

“Hey son, shouldn't you go find some activity or join a sports club while you're searching for a job ? I know it's not your kind of thing but you could meet new people there !” “Dad, I'm already meeting new people quite often with my online games, and I have many friends I play with regularly” “Yeah, but that's not the same”. I bet I'm not the only one who went through a similar discussion with his parents. And in my opinion that last phrase is one of the best highlight of what is going on when you talk about “gap generation.” Our parents are having trouble figuring out what's going on within the digital age - where their children spend a lot of time playing video games or using social medias, because they don't understand where we're finding our fulfillment doing or watching such things.

For explaining this, the intelligentsia often refers to the introduction of “digital technology” and separates people born during or after the 2000s from those born before. Of course, it's not that strict and most generally includes people who grew up surrounded by those technologies. These generations are called the digital natives - versus the non-digital natives.

           

        A digi-what ?

            A digital native is a person “born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies”. It concerns every person who grew up with the technology, so every one between their late teens and early 30s. And to be even more clear : it is a person who can intuitively use any kind of digital device like smartphones, tablets, motion-control or such. Our parents don't know, at least intuitively, how to use such things; and they have to learn through a different process as they didn't grew up surrounded by this technology. For them, a similar situation would have been the introduction of the television, versus our grandparents who didn't knew that technology.

            Our parents had a similar way of life, except that it was not in front of the same technological device. They ate in front of their TV like we eat in front of our computers, they discover a new way to inform themselves, so did we. They saw the introduction of tape recorders, the all-new possibility to record and see something later, as we saw the introduction of the Cloud where you don't even have to record to see something you wanted to see. Both generations had their newfangled technology but they didn't grew up with the same, forever creating a gap between their behavior.

            Nevertheless, our parents perfectly understood the introduction of video games. They bought for us (well not all of us, some always see virtual games as “the devil”) Nintendos, Ataris, Playstations, etc. They understood it was something we liked and enjoyed as it was something completely new and dreamy. They even got into it at some point to share some time with their children. In the end, it was only like a board game that you were playing on your TV with “some technological device.” Where they lost us is with the introduction of the Internet and the possibility to interact with millions of people instantly and all over the world.

            They understood why we would play with our friends in our living room, but they couldn't understand why we would play with our friends each in our respective houses. Not seeing each other while we are playing is something totally abstract to a lot of our parents, but absolutely normal for us. This subject is extremely wide though and a lot of other things are coming in the way to explain this phenomenon like the birth and development of virtual identities, etc. If you wanted my point of view, here it is in its simplified version: Internet allows us to be whoever we want online and we can loosen up a lot more than our parents in real life. We're being more and more honest in our real lives because we can express all our bad sides on the “virtual” one, and we so create a generation gap.

        Digital Natives Rule eSports

            Now, let's look at the eSports stats we are beginning to harvest. Worldwide viewership for professional games tournaments exploded from 8.4 million in 2010 to over 70 million last year, with the lion's share made up of a demographic of men between their late teens to early thirties. Men over thirty are not a really big demographic in eSports; and you see here a real first difference regarding eSports audience. Viewers are digital natives & non-viewers are non-digital natives. Pretty manichean.      

           

            If we compare the audience of eSports, and what we discussed before about the digital natives, we can see a clear similitude between the two. eSports fans are digital natives who grew up surrounded by video games and Internet. It feels quite logical that people fond of virtual sports would be familiar with new technologies, even if they're not addict to it, but it also proves that non-digital natives wouldn't understand what we're seeing in all this. Somewhere along the road we lost our parents, the non-digital natives, and they can't come back now that we're becoming more and more connected by live, real life events, team bonding, sportsmanship or other values they could understand.

            Where I am going with this is: People playing and more importantly, watching video games are mostly between 12 & 30 years-old, people running eSports companies are also quite in their early 30's top. But the executive heads in charge of big mainstream industries are much older than that and belong to the non-digital natives generations.

        Are eSports Really Mainstream ?

            As much as they pretend to understand youngsters by showing how they love their smartphones or their Macbook (yes Dad, I'm looking at you), our parents generation won't see immediately what eSports is all about, how does it works, why do people enjoy that and most importantly where are the perks of all that. They can't see as easily as youngsters where can profit be made because they didn't grew up surrounded by digital technologies, Internet and its inter-connectivity, and don't understand as fast as us what are the perks, what are the drawbacks.
            And, naturally, if you don't see clearly where you can benefit from all this, then you won't take risks by investing in such a new industry. If you can't understand it, you'll fear it. Not like “Oh my god, nerds are taking over the world !” but more like “This is just a trend, it'll not last, no point in investing for a bunch of young utopists”.

            Of course, experienced strategists in huge companies will always see some potential in new industries, and will help their companies make a move towards eSports like Coca-cola did. But one believing in something won't make it popular, we need many. We can see that we're still far from the “mainstream” when you're looking at medias talking about eSports : even if its slightly changing with time, every report I saw was like a report on “wild life” where a specific kind of “humans” were enjoying watching other people playing video games. Ever saw that little smile and nod of a journalist listening to a report on eSports? It will necessarily change when it'll become mainstream, but for now we can just wait and believe that someday you'll smile and nod in front of this journalist like he did when he's forced to acknowledge eSports.

        Better Safe Than Sorry

            But we are also facing something more : because you are a digital native doesn't mean you understand eSports. In my opinion, you'll be more able to understand why it's working and how you create something which will result in profits for everyone ; but that is all. If you truly want to understand eSports, you have to drown yourself into it and live the thing : eSport is truly a subculture on his own. It means non-digital natives would have to understand a culture where people are using technologies they're not familiar with and share something that is not “real” to them. And by “real” I mean that we share something “virtual,” as a video game is taking place in a “virtual world.” Non-digital natives are really facing trouble deeply understanding that. It's not that they can't understand, it's that you'll never have the same approach towards it if you were raised surrounded by “virtuality”.

           
            These facts created invisible barriers which are hard to break for a lot of people, and eSports will have to take its time to become something “mainstream” and acknowledged by everyone. We have already forced it a lot, and it would be “delicate” to go further without taking others in consideration. But times are changing and Nintendo, for example, is now dedicating part of its efforts towards eSports while they tried to deny the EVO's crew to stream their Super Smash Bros Melee tournament just last year.

            Coca-cola invested this year into the Challenger Series of League of Legends with their brand Coke Zero : an ultimate proof that, despite companies are starting to understand the potential of eSports, they're just dipping their toes. Some companies could have gone all-in but many prefer to see where this is going; mainly because it's a whole new world they can't understand fast enough.

            Nevertheless, it's also a proof that mainstream companies are starting to see what is going on, and will seek advice towards the young generations to understand this new “thing”. Knowledge and feelings will be shared between eSports and mainstream companies to create something big and profitable for both parts. I often think that this cautiousness might be a good thing. For once, rushing things and injecting tons of money will not happen, and will not ruin our beloved virtual sport.

When is the right time to challenge Baron?

by Reece "Sabrewolf" Dos-Santos

Baron Nashor, a global buff and the strongest buff in the game. It is capable of turning lost games into wins, winning games into losses and sometimes doesn't make a difference at all. Regardless, every league player will become entangled in the infamous Baron dance in almost all of their games so what is needed is clarity and awareness of when and how to perform your baron dance perfectly.

In the Super Week match-up of Alliance vs Supa Hot Crew in Week Seven, Impaler was within one shot range with basically no support, trying to make a steal with Elise. Granted, Elise is a brilliant champion to make steals with, but not under circumstances like that. The play ended with Impaler dead and a baron that led to Supa Hot Crew’s one defeat that week. But this is far from a trend that stays in the professional scene; the threat of giving away a “free baron” compels junglers of all skill levels to throw themselves into certain danger on the whim of a miracle steal. 

If you are playing a champion like Elise, the steal attempt is a valid one, assuming you used your rappel correctly. However, once the timing for rappel has been botched, you should consider your steal attempt over as well, since flashing into the pit will leave you faced with overwhelmingly bad odds and certain death (especially if your team isn't already diving in to help you secure the objective). Junglers like Elise, Lee sin and Jarvan have the liberty of being able to jump into the pit and still have flash available for exit, but sometimes even that safety isn't enough to warrant a steal attempt. Hanging around the wall of the baron pit waiting is almost as bad as walking face first through the entrance. It leaves you open and vulnerable in a fixed position. Many junglers and even other players make the mistake of hovering around the baron back wall alone expecting to make something other than their death happen. 

One of the biggest reasons why teams make botched Baron decisions is due to fear of being behind. Through the eyes of many, the baron buff on an already ahead team is the mark of certain loss and thus, supports wander out of position to place a ward, Junglers hang around despite having lost members and other players waste valuable ultimates to try and steal the buff.  All these examples can be easily avoided with the employment of a calm mind-set and remembrance of the following things: 

Blue Trinket is powerful:

When Baron is un-warded and you need to get vision of the pit, the Scrying orb should be the first thing any player reaches for to ensure that the dark areas of their route aren't hiding an ambush, or simply to get a look at the pit itself without putting yourself in harm’s way. In the later stages of the game, losing your support to a baron face check is not worth the vision you get from the ward they died for. Assuming they get to place it in the first place, all you’ll be doing is watching the enemy team finish the baron before they siege your base 4v5. A carefully used Blue Trinket can allow you to gain vision from a safe distance and properly assess your route as well as the decision to move towards the pit in the first place. A noticeable user of the Scrying Orb is MrRallez of SHC, who himself is usually impeccable in his positioning when it comes to big objective skirmishes. 

Your ultimates are valuable:

Often when a jungler is killed or if a team is out of position, players will resort to using abilities like Ziggs’s Mega Inferno Bomb and Jinx’s Super Mega Death Rocket to try and make a steal or simply deal damage. In the long run, this is never a good thing to do unless there are members of the enemy team that are killable with those ultimates. Especially at a higher level of play, it’s almost absurd to expect that the enemy jungler will be out-smited by your ranged ultimate. This then leaves you without important high damage spells for when the enemy team make a charge on your base with the buff. Also, the damage that may have been done to them will be regenerated by the buff or simply by going back, healing up and then moving on - which means it’s a complete waste of an ability in every instance that doesn't lead to a kill. These abilities could still prove to be helpful in the siege that comes after the enemy team secure the buff. 

Play around your team comp: 

This sounds basic but if you have a poke comp, you should poke. Most people, when faced with the adrenaline of baron dancing, tend to make miss-steps with how to play their champion match-ups. Trying to engage or getting within engage range of a heavy engage comp doing baron is suicide, while not dynamically engaging on such comps when watching a baron be done is equally as wasteful. Hai, in Week Three of the NA LCS, showed exactly what can happen once you let adrenaline get the best of you when he chose to pounce into three low hp members of CLG as Nidalee rather than finish one or two of them off with the spears he had been using to great effect up until that point. What could have been a quadra kill and even a baron ended up as merely the one kill upon Aphromoo’s Morgana. 

There are more things you could do besides contest:

One of the biggest misconceptions made everywhere is that when a team is doing Baron, you must contest and you cannot let them just have it. While Baron is a powerful objective, it isn't the main objective. If you've lost members and you can’t contest the Baron, don’t. Use your time to secure the dragon, place wards in key areas or even push a lane and take down turrets/inhibiters. Walking three vs five into the Baron pit or simply loitering around the jungle entrances is a waste of your time. Baron is a commitment that can be punished if you can’t challenge for it. A well-timed push can prove to nullify the effect of the buff or even stop the enemy team from securing it altogether. 

Baron fights have proved time and time again that one moment can change everything in a game. Don’t let a Baron fight be the moment where your game changes for the worst.

Reworked and Remastered - Skarner Edition

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

            I’ve already gone over Nidalee and her rework, so now it’s time to take a look at Skarner. Skarner is a bit more straight forward and his kit didn’t receive as many changes as Nidalee. I feel more comfortable with Skarner, as he’s the first champ I ever put time into learning and for a long time I only played him. I’ve written guides for him and have spent a lot of time with all three of his different eras. So while Nidalee was more of a general look at what was changed, this will be a more in-depth analysis on how to play Skarner.

            Skarner is a champ that’s been around a long time. He was actually released a few weeks before I started playing the game in August of 2011. When he came out, he was immediately a strong pick. He had easily the fastest jungle clear in the game, along with a devastating gank pressure once he hit level 6. The trade off was that it was nearly impossible to gank someone before you had your ultimate. His Q (Crystal Slash) was a slow instead of a speed boost, and his E (Fracture) was a completely different ability. In short, the Skarner we know now, and the Skarner that was released, are extremely different champs.

           There were a lot of design issues with the original Skarner’s kit. First of all, the idea of his perma slow. As Skarner’s enemy, you basically were either stuck or not. There was no in-between or escape chance, especially during his release time when very few champions had dashes or jumps. It was a crippling slow, and not only that but it meant he was in range, meaning you could auto attack and lower the CD. Skarner could easily bring his Q down to a 1 sec CD and never let his opponent leave.

            Next in line is Fracture. Skarner’s E ability was widely known to be his weakest and most Skarner players didn’t even put levels into it until they were forced to. Essentially, he was a three ability champion. His Fracture used to mark enemies and heal Skarner when he auto-attacked them, consuming the mark. It just didn’t have a use when compared to putting more points in shield. Why would you pick something to heal you when you can get more speed and effective health from another ability?

Finally, there were the bugs with his ultimate. Skarner’s ult was known for pulling people who had gotten away. He would grab people who would flash or jump just before the grab and even midway through they would get pulled, usually wasting an important CD on their flash or escape. Actually, the reasoning behind this was an interesting little blip in the code design.

You see, Skarner’s ultimate, when cast, sends a small almost invisible projectile that - when it hits the opponent - will encase them and pull them to Skarner. However, the ability is targeted, meaning it can’t miss. So because there was a travel and cast time, there was a small time where the enemy could jump away before the projectile actually connected with them. Once it hit though, you were snared and pulled, no matter what the distance at the time, leading to a bunch of strange interactions. (I.E. Janna’s flying with Skarner after Monsoon, Trist being grabbed mid jump, anyone blowing flash but still stung.)

Riot put a small fix in for Skarner’s ultimate making it so that if the enemy got out of cast range before that projectile hit, the ultimate would not connect and would go on CD. It ruined most ultimates Skarner tried to get, effectively ending Skarner’s reign and putting him where he was until just recently.

Insert patch 4.2.

·         Q -- Loses slow, and gains attack speed stacks instead

·         W -- Small buffs, Movement speed ramps up now

·         E -- Now longer and slimmer, slows instead of mark/heal

·         R -- Now roots before ult, making it more consistent

           

4.2 was ultimately a failure. People felt like Skarner just didn’t have a niche anymore. His kit didn’t mesh well anymore, and all in all he just felt wrong. A lot of clamoring about how Skarner needed a re-rework and Riot put some time into it and put out a new new Skarner in 4.10, which is what I’m going to talk about today.

                                                         Patch 4.10

I’ll be the first to say that I was not looking forward to most of the changes happening this patch. The biggest thing for me was losing the original passive Skarner had. I understood it was to make him a more "lockdown dive the enemy" champ, but I loved being able to “farm” my ultimate back up, especially considering how important Skarner’s ultimate was to who he is as a champion.

Crystallizing Sting

·         CRYSTAL VENOM----Skarner's damaging spells apply a 'Crystal Venom' debuff to enemy Champions and large monsters for 5 seconds

·         UTILITY----If Skarner lands a basic attack on a target with 3 stacks of 'Crystal Venom', he will deal an additional 20-105 magic damage and stun the target for 0.5/0.75/1 second

·         CRYSTAL VENOM----After being stunned, targets cannot be debuffed by Crystal Venom for 6 seconds

            Skarner got a brand new passive that’s completely unrelated to his old one. His passive now revolves around hitting spells on the enemy. After three spells connect, Skarner can stun them with an auto. It’s a really cool passive that plays up to his theme of being a scorpion; encasing his enemies in crystal. It also cements him into a champ who specializes in locking people down.

            It has a lot of uses, the most obvious being stunning a target to kill them. Keep in mind of all the other possibilities though. For instance, this actually makes Skarner a very deceptive duelist in the jungle. Not only will his damage increase over time through more attack speed, but he can stop you from doing anything mid fight. Leading to sometimes surprising wins.

Crystal Slash

           

·         UTILITY-----Basic attacks reduce Crystal Slash's cooldown by 0.5 seconds (doubled against Champions)

·         CRYSTAL ENERGY----Crystal Energy now additionally grants +2/3/4/5/6% movement speed per stack (up to 3 stacks)

·         BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE----25/40/55/70/85 (+0.8 attack damage) ⇒18/28/38/48/58 (+0.4 attack damage)

·         BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE-----24/36/48/60/72 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒18/28/38/48/58 (+0.2 ability power)

            Skarner kept his old passive as a passive on his Q, which was necessary for his ability to pump out damage, proc his new stun and jungle clear. It may not seem like much, but if you try to continuously use Q without basic attacking, you’ll notice a difference. It will also help his sticking power, which I’ll get into later.

            The old Q used to slow the enemy and this was what kept Skarner in his all important melee range. When he originally got reworked he had no way to stay in range. He had a slow, but it was on a long CD and didn’t let him stay in range. His newest Q basically has the opposite effect of what his old one did. He now has his old stickiness by speeding himself up instead of slowing the enemy. Great design change. They kept the fun sticky part of Skarner, but made it rewarding for him and not displeasing for the other player. It was also great to keep it on his Q because it’s his pivotal skill. As some have put it, it’s the “heartbeat” to playing Skarner.

            They also lowered both the base damage and scaling damage of the ability in exchange for this. Riot did this to push Skarner more towards the CC oriented tank role over damage dealing duelist role. Surprisingly though, this doesn’t hurt his clear time much.

Crystalline Exoskeleton

·         COOLDOWN16 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12.5/12/11.5/11 seconds

           

            A welcome buff to the shield/speed boost. It’s good to note that this was secretly buffed by adding movespeed to Crystal Slash as well. Move speed grows multiplicatively, which means when you add more you get a lot more. Basically, if you have full stacks on your Q and pop your shield you will fly towards people, and if they don’t have a jump or dash, you will be all over them. Outside of that, there really isn’t much to say about changes. Do remember to use this a little before you want to engage so you get full speed by the time you charge in.

Fracture

·         MAGIC DAMAGE80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power)

·         COOLDOWN14 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks

            In actuality, this is a straight nerf. You can’t even really claim that the CD buff is worth anything, because you easily get it lower with Skarner’s old passive. AP Skarner was pretty much ruined with this change, and even though I never tried it, I’m kind of sad about that. One thing I love about this game is how many different ways there are to play it. Any different build path is really interesting and the possibilities are un-ending in some cases.

            I’m pretty ok with this in the grand scheme of things though. It’s a small nerf to an ability that was a one point wonder in most cases, and everything that was gained in return was very much worth it. The slow wasn’t even touched, which is what the skill is used for anyway. Fracture’s come a long way from its original ability, but it feels at home now.

Impale

           

·         IMPALEMENT----Impale consumes all stacks of Crystal Venom and deals 50/75/100 magic damage per stack consumed

·         COOLDOWN----130/120/110 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds

Skarner’s ult now has a really interesting interaction with his passive, but I’ll get back to that in a second. Let’s look at the CD reduction. Overall it’s great, but doesn’t help much. This is really more just to make up for the loss of the old passive. One of the things that I loved about the old Skarner was getting to level 6, using my ult, and then going back into the jungle and farming as hard as I could until it came back up. You can’t do that anymore, and it also makes Wriggle’s Lantern a much less viable buy. You’ll still get decent use out of it, but nowhere near as much as before.

Now for the interesting change. Skarner’s new passive has a different interaction with this spell. You can choose how to spend the stacks, either for a stun before/after the ult for more lockdown potential, or more damage.

It may not be obvious at first glance, but this is a huge decision to make. Let’s take it a bit deeper by looking at examples.

Say you’re ganking a lane:

·         In scenario A, your laner is a champion with good CC like Jax, Nasus, Renekton etc. Stack your passive up and before you stun them, use your ult. By level 16 you’ll get an extra 300 damage out of it. Even early on you get 150, which is a lot at level 6.

·         In scenario B, we’ll say your laner is someone like Teemo or Tryndamere. Essentially someone with no CC and especially on someone with no items or building tank, you’ll want to proc your stun before you use the ultimate, or in a perfect world, use your ult before hitting a spell. These champs need more help keeping people in range and generally have more than enough damage to take people down.

            Once again I really love this design idea and it let’s the player make choices that can impact how they involve themselves in the game. You can do more damage or stun. Plus, it rewards smart play with the damage by making sure you get 3 full stacks and then using ult. It gives you the ability to be what’s needed at the time, while not making Skarner overly powerful.

Conclusion

            So wrapping it all up, what’s been changed? Skarner was a sticky fast jungler before, and the first rework he received pushed him more towards a duelist with fast clear speeds and a kit that was wonky when put together. He got his slow moved to a longer CD ability and his trademark stickiness was lost in the crossfire. However, the attack speed move to his Q was great for his clear and damage.

            4.10 brought a new passive that enhanced his CC and lockdown ability, which more fits his theme. His clear was still held as fast, and now with two abilities that can speed him up, his stickiness was brought back by reversing his original Q ability.

            Skarner’s back! He’s not as damage heavy as he used to be, but he is a lockdown king and his ganks are scarier than ever. Your early gank pressure is now viable and you’ll still clear just as fast as you did before. Plus 4.11 is out and he was barely touched. My impression is that Skarner is here to stay.

Also, if you’re interested in learning Skarner and want to know how to play and/or build him, I’ve made a guide. It’s not perfect, and I’m not amazing player, but I love Skarner and I want to teach people more about how to play and dominate with him.

Skarner Guide