LoL Playoffs

So the play offs of the second World Championship of League of Legends are over.

Here a few of my thoughts:

Some matches were really great.
I loved some new strategies that I didn't know of, like the teleport split push! Wonderful idea! Can and did secure a win. 
I have two new favourite teams.
I knew about Moscow 5 before and saw a few matches but now I like them even more, they play well, I love the strategy! And they are real sportsmen, they play the game, they do not seem arrogant, and I can not say that about all the teams.
Like I did not like Taipei Assassins for the simple reason that they seemed pretty cocky and I don't like such an attitude. But this is just me personal opinion.

I fell in love with Invictus Gaming, they played pretty aggresive but also with a lot of strategy.
Newcomers NaJin Sword from South Korea seemed pretty nice and they did play pretty well but from what I saw they won't win this championship. They are by far not as professional as for example Taipei Assassins or Solo Mid. I think if they wanna stay in these top ranks they will have a lot of work ahead of them. Probably will see them next year again.

The finals are on 13th October and I will be there to watch.
I personally will shout and sweat and "mindping" the map for M5!

After long absence

I haven't posted anything here for about three weeks. Sorry for that, I was moving.

But now back, with interesting stuff:
I have dropped learning Caitlyn for the moment and started looking into other roles.

• Support: The first one was Soraka in a support role. This is what Soraka is mostly known for. She is a great support and the build suggestions are not too bad if you do play support.
  BUT after a few good matches with her in that role I wanted to try her as AP and you may not believe that but she is great and does a good deal of damage with her Q if you level it early and buy items for Magic Resist and Ability Power. Sounds like it's not much but you would be surprised! If play her well, you stay in lane and even in teamfights very long. I usually chose Flash and Heal for the D and F buttons which means that over all I have 3 heals! Flash to get out of or into range. So in a teamfight, given that you aren't out of position, you last, keep yourself and even the whole team alive and do a good amount of damage in addition. Here is a guide on Soraka in the AP role.

• Jungle: The second thing that I tried was Nunu for Jungling. Now this was a very interesting experience. I found that it is really difficult to keep up with the leveling if all you do is jungle. A lot of times you go for a gank or the jungle monsters. Not a lot of XP, with Nunu's ult though not too bad. He needs a lot of Magic resist and health items as far as I see it.

• Last but not least: Of course I did not stop playing my favourite Ashe. Today I had my personal highscore on the EU West Server. 7 kills, 0 deaths, 11 assists. Here my screenshot.

Some Links

As promised I am going to provide a list of links that I find very useful. This will include some gameplay and tutorial videos.
(All links open in a new window)

For starters let me mention, that if you have an account on youtube there are two channels that I find really good and am subscribed to.

Riot Games has a channel "RiotGamesInc" It gives regular updates on client patches and has the so-called "Champion spotlight" where they focus on a champion, tell you what it can do and gives hints on how to play him and how to play against him.

The second channel is Protatomonster and what he does is more for the community. He uploads special gameplay videos and lets the community decide on which they liked best. This includes awesome teamfights, lucky plays, fun baron steals, and much more. So if you like to get involved in the community this is one of the ways.

Some links I find useful:
1. League of Legends Wiki
2. Summoner School
3. solomid

 One of the videos I found useful for my gameplay:
 AD Laning Guide

Very detailed explanation on how to position yourself and what to be aware off during laning phase if you want to play AD (attack damage).
After this video I got ganked a lot less!












Also, useful if you actually want to play well, watch live streams and gameplay videos.
I am always watching videos on the champion I want to play.
The championships are interesting as well, just to see how world class players play. From those you will learn a lot of stradegy because, just like in other sports, there are commentators that tell you what is happening and explain why people are doing what. Helps understanding things a lot.

The only thing I find difficult at times is to find out where to go and what to do after laning phase, because at that point I never know where the enemy champions are.
So if anyone has tips for that, let me know.

Caitlyn here I come and a ks - rant

Yesterday I played two more matches with Ashe and won, therefore the five are complete.
So for 13.5 levels I have played Ashe almost exclusively. Right now I think she will remain my favourite but you never know.

I will now start playing Caitlyn until I know her well.
Right now I am watching videos on her game play, mostly with commentary so I understand the choices made. I like to be AD carry so I will try to do that with Caitlyn as well.

In general I found that the best matches are those where the team just works together and doesn't chat or curse the whole time. I like those most. You can just play and you know that your team will be there if you need them, and your team knows that you will be there when needed.
Haven't had too many of those but yesterday, one of the matches was exactly like that. It felt really good playing with that team.
As I am a moron, I did not add any of them to my list...


One thing I find highly annoying: "ks! fuck you, noob!"
I admit that some people might do it on purpose but I doubt that the majority of players is running around just trying to killsteal.
I will share the situation when I got this line:
A team"mate" being ganked.
I reach him as he is down to about 80 or so health. The two enemies who did the gank are both on about 500 health. I am Ashe, well fed, well built. I kill both enemies, my team"mate" does not die and our team gets the kills.
I don't care WHO did the kills, just as happy if someone else would have done them. But my team mate did not die, the enemy did.
I did not killsteal! I saved your ass, sucker!

Five wins and runes

As I am getting better with Ashe I decided to play five more wins with her and then move on to Caitlyn.
I have played Caitlyn a few times when I started, because she was free, and I enjoyed it. The moment I could, I unlocked her, but haven't played her even once.

Right now I am three wins into this. Two more to go.

Yesterday I started my first runepage.

After this set up, and although it doesn't look like much, I did feel a difference in the gameplay.
I do not yet fully understand how to put the runes and why to put what where. I had help to set it up.
But once I understand it better, I will let you know why I make what desicion on the runepage. For now I just follow what I am being told and it only led to better gameplay so far.

Soon coming a list of links that I find useful for learning this game.

Newbie at League of Legends

On my LoL (League of Legends) experience so far:

I am pretty much a newbie. My lvl 12 is a real lvl 12 (nearly 13), I have not had other accounts before this one. So I am in the process of learning this game.

From the beginning I liked Ashe most. In all other games I play ranged characters, and so I chose this type for LoL as well.

First thing that was a problem for me, in the very beginning. I had to read so much that it took away from the fun. During matches I would have to click through the shop menu so much to understand what items are for me and which aren't.

I chose completely wrong things of course – until I started watching game plays with commentary, Ashe builds and read on the wiki and on other sites, what a good Ashe-build looks like.

My mistakes in the beginning where these:

1. I realized that I will take a lot of damage, so I built a lot of health. This led to me not hitting well.
2. I realized that my Q,W,R take a lot of mana, so I built a lot of health. This led to me using slots for items that could be used a lot better.
3. I realized that I need to hit faster if I want to kill minions or have a chance in any kind of fight, so I bought stingers a lot.

By this time my build would normally look like this:

2 stinger, 2 frozen heart, boots of swiftness, mana potions

Soon I realized that this is a crappy build. Not only are the stingers obsolete if you build in the direction of say Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, and Banshee's Veil, they actually take spots that you might need for other things for the time being.

Say during laning phase you might wanna bring health and mana potions and maybe some sight wards along.

So you better play safe during that phase, have a Doran's Blade as first item and stay in lane as long as you can to farm minions.

I learnt to not push too much for as long as it makes sense. I would rather get the last hits on the minions and then fall back a little, than draw attention to my lane for getting to near to the turrent. This would increase my risk of getting ganked a lot and would simply get my team in a bad position as in that case it is most likely that my turret will be destroyed in no time.

I kept watching game plays and targeted for lvl 30 plays and championships by that time. This was very useful because it started increasing my map awareness. Watching others play and trying to figure out what is happening by checking on the mini map is very useful because I didn't have to pay any attention to anything happening to me or my lane.

Something very good happened, when in a forum a guy showed up. He opened a thread about LoL and asked if anyone would like to play with him. I said, I am new but I would like to.

Turns out this guy is a pro and he started explaining a ton of things to me. Why to build things a certain way, what to do, where to go. He would play a few matches with me and then tell me what was wrong with my game play or build etc.

Recently we simply swapped roles and went bot together. He played ranged to show me how to properly build and play it.

Since then I build like that and try to play like that. Although I am still getting a few ganks, and I still sometimes run out of position for no good reason, I feel I am getting better and more secure.

I start understanding when to push and when to leave.

By now my problem is that obviously at this lvl people are very aggressive. It seems that they care more about killing champions than about destroying turrets, making gold, or even winning.

I have tried other champions as well. 

I tried Miss Fortune and Caitlyn and liked them so far but I have mainly played Ashe.

The one that I played worst so far was Master Yi. And the one I had fun with but really am bad at playing was Dr. Mundo.

I salut everyone who can play anything else but ranged champions. I suck at all these, ranged is the only thing I am ok at.

I play a lot

I play, a lot. I like games!

I have played tons of games in the past. Ranging from text based browser MMORPGs to big installs that make my computer run hot.

Right now I am focussing on two games.

League of Legends, where I am currently playing ranged champions. 

Minecraft, where I have about 5 worlds running on my windows and 3 on my Mint, and in addition I am playing on a multiplayer server. Yes, I play Minecraft on the computer, not on the Xbox, I am not one of the "cool kids".

Apart from that, I started playing a few games by Zynga, but I am generally annoyed by those games. They suck, they make the browser freeze and they are too annoyingly time consuming, as you have to stare at your screen so much while doing nothing but waiting. Really not my thing, I think I will quit them soon.

Apart from computer games, I play "old school".

Something, I recently discovered, are pen&paper. Very fun, I must say!.

Another one of my all-time favourites, Munchkin. A hilarious card game, you have to love it!

But I am very certain that these are games, that I will not tend to ramble about.

You will find a new post all the time. I tend to get very annoyed at times, so there might be some light ranting envolved, just bare with me :D

So let the blogging begin!