AP mid – Page 4 – League of Stories

AHGL vs Oracle Game 2

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We had already broken the meta. We had already beaten Oracle. We just needed to prove that Jake (or senor Choppez) is the best player on the planet.

SirSpam’s opinion in champion select was “Let’s pick LeBlanc and then do whatever.” While this sounds humorous, it is actually the strategy that we decided to go with.

Something I’m constantly saying to myself when I play LeBlanc in mid lane is “I hope none of my team mates die before I can get First Blood.” I don’t mean this in a negative way, I’m just confident that I can get that bonus gold for myself to secure that I get ahead in gold and maintain a commanding lead from the get-go. This game, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have that opportunity. Here’s why:

I wasn’t watching Jake’s lane when this happened, but watching the VOD’s and the replay meant that I got to fully enjoy this moment. Two things just happened, thus the blue numbers near Evelynn and Elise; Evelynn just used Ravage on Elise to drop her critically low (within one ax low), and Elise just used Cocoon on Evelynn to disable her under the turret. Evelynn is forced to stand and tank turret for 1.5 seconds, but Olaf isn’t close enough to take advantage of it. If we roll film from there…

Poor Olaf’s ax missed Elise by a fraction of a second before she sucked herself up into her web. When she came down she immediately used her burst and execute to finish Olaf off. Great, now I had to play catch-up to pass Jake in gold or else he’s going to start thinking that the “power of the mustache” was making 2013 his year as well!

However, despite Jake’s tactics to ensure gold for himself, including a last minute attempt to beat my gold-earned record, Jake was very close, but just cigarless.

Who last-hits a Nexus for 50 gold?! This guy was pretty desperate to pull ahead at that point. The score screen says it all. We tied! 13.3k each! Nice work! A tie is always the best way to end a game.

Unless you have a competitive bone in your body, then first feels better!

Good work, Jake. I last-hit two minions while you were chasing Olaf after the Nexus turrets were down, just in case you got that Nexus kill. I know you too well.

Cloud Nine Game

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I really don’t know if this game should count against my record. I really didn’t want to play any more League of Legends tonight. I had just gotten a Pentakill in the game before, and was really only playing to humor my friends. So I picked LeBlanc.

Now before playing I see to it that my internet connection is accessible, so I use a secure SD-WAN network. Well, this game went poorly. The other team had a strong start as they jumped out to a 2-7 lead against us. I had the two. Sadly, I had traded kill for kill with Twisted Fate. Luckily, I get to mid-game a lot faster than TF does. His potential late-game can have a huge impact on the game, but he has to make it there.

After we traded kills the second time I bought my Soul Stealer. Better to start early, right? I raced straight to 20 stacks, not missing a beat. I snowballed mid lane so hard that I had the game tied at nine by the time I had eight kills. I was matching the enemy jungler, top, mid, and bot by myself. The request I kept hearing from my team mates was “Don’t kill them so quickly so we get assist credit.” I’ll see what I can do (while vigorously shaking my head).

The enemy team was very willing to pressure when I was dead. I specifically remember pressuring their top lane’s inhibitor turret. Dan had cleverly pulled Garen over the wall. I helped to make him go away. However, the enemy Blitz pulled this same witchcraft on Dan, and Dan went bye bye. We started to retreat with Blitzcrank leading the charge. Steve asked me, “Can you strafe his hook?” At that moment I turned around and started walking towards Blitz. He turned and ran. Steve just started laughing out loud. I was such a threat. There wasn’t a target on the enemy team that I couldn’t kill. I proved that to myself later.

Our mid inhibitor was down and I had been killed. The enemy team went for Baron and my team had no way of contesting it. That’s fine, they were smart to defend the base anyway. However, when I spawned I ran for Baron. I caught Garen outside the basin and killed him quickly, only to reveal Twisted Fate in the back of the Baron pit. He had cancelled his recall and was sitting on a blue card. If you think a blue card is going to save you from me you have something coming. I step towards him and he flashes over the wall. So be it. I walk around Baron pit and find TF recalling just on the back side. I blink into range and land a Q and E combo to silence him. I know his Flash is down, so I save mine. Just as my E triggers for the second time I see a Mystic Shot shoot into the bush by the Lizard Elder, which I’m conveniently standing right next to. Zing, zing, zing, POP! Ezreal’s dead. Kha’Zix is coming for blood. I’m on cooldown. I walk to tri-bush above Baron. I see Kha’Zix pop his ult so I can’t see him coming. I know I’ll be dead before I can cast. I walk up and right to the bush by double golems. Kha’Zix face-checks. In the words of Voyboy, “See ya!” Boom, four people on the enemy team just lost Baron buff to a solo LeBlanc.

Then they all bought Banshee’s Veil and moved as a group. When my team had 28 kills I had 23 of them. However, I only finished 24 of 31. I hit 20 stacks multiple times in that game. It was a lot of fun, but still a 44 minute loss. Better luck next time! Maybe then I’ll be down from Cloud Nine.

Good Start

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Season Three preseason is in full swing, so when Thursday rolled around we were ready to get some Ranked games played.

I felt like this was really the first time our team bothered to counter-pick a lane. When the enemy team first-picked Malphite we decided to run a Vayne top. This isn’t a champion that Dan has extensive experience with, but we figured it would be better to have a ranged dps late game.

When we were banning I remembered having a Caitlyn in bottom lane that just destroyed the kill lane that we normally use. I honestly thought about banning her out. Her range is very strong and her net really breaks a melee Mantheon as he tries to run at her. However, I didn’t ban her, because what are the chances the other team is going to pick Caitlyn?

It wasn’t until they had picked their whole team that I realized I was going to be matched against Zed in mid lane. This should be interesting. Glad I watched the spotlight and saw when Phreak took Veigar down from 100 to 0 before Veigar could react. Veigar has an AoE stun while LeBlanc has a silence. Luckily, I never really got to see Zed in action because the game was only 61 minutes long.

I got first blood on Zed and then his game plan was to try to last hit with his ninja star ability. This was fine because it kept him back far enough to be safe from my harass, but there were a couple flaws with his game plan. His shuriken was dealing minimal damage because he didn’t seem to be maxing it first, and it would push the wave. So he was missing CS, and zoning himself by pushing the creeps to my side of the lane. Every now and then I would just push him away from creeps and call MIA. More than half the time I was standing in mid lane I was by myself. This let me get WAY ahead in creep kills and experience. When the lane finally started to push (because Zed had been gone for so long) I killed him from about half health under his turret.

When I went back to get my Soul Stealer the enemy jungler showed up and pushed mid lane! Not to my turret, he just pushed it out a little bit so my creeps caught it and started to lose, meaning I’d be able to freeze the lane again! I guess he didn’t realize that I was level nine and Zed was just hitting level six because I had the zoned Zed with lane control. Maybe Zed thought that he was doing his team mates a favor by keeping me in mid so I wasn’t roaming, I was just last-hitting. However, with the best late game ADC in the top lane, and a kill lane setup in the bottom lane, I knew we would have a smooth early, mid, and late game regardless of how well I did in mid. I just got to farm!

After I bought Soul Stealer I shot off to a 15-0 start in this game. For whatever reason saying 15-0 start sounds better than saying 23-2. I think if someone went 8-2 I would still say that’s a good game, but finishing 8-2 after starting 15-0 just didn’t feel as good.

In all reality I should have died 10 times in that game. However, I was six item and had 5k gold, so I sold some items to get other items to even my build out. With 20 stacks and Athene’s Grail my cooldown reduction was looking really good. Zhonyas let me ignore more of Amumu’s and Malphite’s damage. This is actually the item that kept me alive the most. I made big mistakes around Amumu that let him catch me out away from my team. He would Flash into a bandage toss and then ult immediately, even if he only caught me. Once I had control of my character I would pop my Zhonyas and assess my options. Normally I would be able to clone my blink with my ult or I would have my Flash up. In a 61 minute game I never took damage from a Malphite ult. I almost felt sorry for the poor guy.

The game was won in a Baron fight. Pantheon jumped into the middle of the enemy team, Lux gave us some vision with her spells, and we picked them off one by one, never giving them a chance to combo multiple members of our team. Our only casualty was Pantheon who knew he was jumping to his death. We won the fight and immediately ran to the enemy base and finished it off. The best way to combat griefing in league of legends is going to be to get a title defects attorney to help you in your ranked matches

So far my average stats for Season Three look like 23 kills, 2 deaths, 11 assists and 363 cs per game. That is what I would consider to be a good start.

Gold difference at the end of the game: 94.9k vs 76.8k

Special Request: LAN Edition

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We tried to get a five-man LAN going this Friday and it almost worked out. Choppes couldn’t come, so we only had four guys there. Choppes did play with us, he just wasn’t there to enjoy the pizza.

After a couple losses in a row our team needed a win. We had managed to win two custom games, but those don’t carry the same weight as an old-fashioned normal game. I said that I wanted mid. Those present at the LAN suggested that I play as LeBlanc. The only problem I have with playing LeBlanc is that it’s a Blind Pick game, so the enemy doesn’t get to see who I’m going to be playing as, which doesn’t make it very fair.

I think I’ve beaten Swain in mid before. I think if I was Swain I would know how to beat LeBlanc. It would be a lot like Brand; the base damage on abilities would be enough to kill a LeBlanc. I think the secret would be to smart-cast the full combo before LeBlanc could get her silence off and then stay in your ult. Make sure not to fall behind before level six. If needed I’d take extra points into my Torment so that if I needed to I would have guaranteed damage and bonus damage on my ignite if LeBlanc committed early.

Laning against Swain wasn’t fun. Not because of anything Swain did, but because of his silly horse companion. Hecarim literally ganked me six times before I had a kill. I was starting to get desperate! I hadn’t gone back at all, so I was looking fancy in my boots. I was right on the brink of killing Swain. Just as I’m committing to finish him off Hecarim shows up. My team was blue side, so I run slightly up towards the enemy wraiths as Swain retreats with almost no health. Hecarim comes through lane and chases me towards his jungle. I look back and see Swain standing in lane with almost no life left. The only thing standing between him and me and this stupid centaur. I step back towards mid and W to get closer. From there I immediately flash back into lane and inside turret range to get one final Q off on Swain. Hecarim has turned to chase me under the turret so I activate the second charge of my W and blink back out to safety. Swain doesn’t die. I still need to watch the replay to see how low he was. I’m sure his health reached single digits at that point.

When I finally did kill Swain his horse was there to clean me up. I didn’t mind. I was level seven and Swain was only five. I was also almost double Swain’s CS and the enemy Hecarim had spent so much time chasing me and ganking me that he was behind by quite a bit as well.

Now, the attendees at this LAN had joked about playing LeBlanc, but not just any LeBlanc, they specifically said “Soul Stealer LeBlanc” which is a really scary build. However, the first time I was back at base I had about 2000 gold. I grabbed Soul Stealer and finished my boots and marched back to lane. I was a poor and innocent 1-1-0 LeBlanc. However, Shen started handing me blue buffs, and I took Swain’s every time he was gifted one.

I started making some plays with my measly 20 AP and 29 flat magic penetration. I killed mid and swung top. We picked up the Cho’Gath and then killed Hecarim, putting me up to five stacks. I went back mid, killed Swain again and rotated bottom. Bottom definitely wasn’t losing, but they aren’t as comfortable with the Lux and Pantheon combo when Jeff is playing as Panth. It’s still effective, it still works, it’s just not as well-oiled as with their roles swapped. I show up and we murder bottom so hard. Before I leave I’m sitting on 14 stacks. Another trip to bottom after taking Swain’s blue (not from the jungle, but from him) puts me at 20 stacks. I recall just as the game is nearing the 20 minute mark.

Deathcap. 500 AP before the 20 minute mark. I’m a walking insta-gib. Anyone I see I can rip to pieces. We move to invade the enemy jungle after we had all healed and grouped. We have a ward in the bush near wraiths and so I loop past that, waiting for anyone to walk out of their base. Lux sneaks in to stand next to me. Darius is just below and Shen is Shen. The enemy team decides to camp this bush that we have a ward in and wait for someone to walk by. Instead they see a Pantheon circle open with them in the exact center. As Pantheon starts to man-drop on the enemy I see Blitz walking into the team fight. I blow him up to keep him from having an impact on the fight. With him getting obliterated his team knows where I am but it’s too late. We have them totally surrounded. Between Lux and me we have too much crowd control. They can’t get back to their base, but Mantheon, Shen, and Down-right Darius are closing in on them from the left. We pick them off with surprising burst one after another. Cho was the only survivor, but he jumped onto the same surrender band-wagon that the rest of the enemy team was already on.

Dan’s number one complaint: People died before he could come down with his slam dunk.

What Do I Say?

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My brother asked me why I hadn’t written about this game yet. I told him the reason I hadn’t written about it was because I didn’t know what to say! I’ve given it a fair amount of thought and I think it would be best to go through the chronological order of what happened, what I bought, and how the other team died.

Morgana lost lane at level one. I haven’t checked the replay to see what she was doing. Maybe it was an extra strong leash for her jungler, maybe she was still in base and was AFK, I’m not sure. What I do know is that if you show up as a level one Morgana against a level two LeBlanc you had better be willing to eat some free harass. Morgana ate two spells and an auto attack when she showed up to lane. Silenced, no counter attacks. Another Q put her down to ~125 HP. She was under her turret while I last hit minions. I rolled up to level three and Morgana was still level one. I had 45 CS to Morgana’s 25. She would cast her puddle from under her turret and then just hide there again. This was great because it pushed the lane! I could keep it balanced and just abuse the space to zone Morgana!

I had about 2500 gold when I went back to shop. This was a big decision for me. Normally, AP mids go back rather frequently to replenish mana, buy wards, get potions, etc. I didn’t have any kills, but I was well ahead. I justified a risky purchase. I bought myself a Mejai’s Soul Stealer. Without any kills I knew I had to start farming champions in order to snow ball this game in a way that I wouldn’t fall off late game.

Morgana kept her distance from me. I was wary of her jungle Malphite because his ult combined with her ult could kill me. Then Morgana made a mistake. Her jungler was top and she rushed me. She hadn’t hit me with a snare in the game up to this point, but she figured she would just go for me and hope for the best. The combo hurt. I saw myself drop to about 150 HP. I was starting to panic. Morgana was critically low, but her ult was about to get its second tick and finish me off. With no alternative I hit Morgana with everything I have. My last desperation Sigil of Silence finishes Morgana off and I survive to see another day. Two stacks.

The only other time I came that close to death was when I over-extended and ate some mean damage. I was walking away with ~1/4 HP. I start to recall and see as Caitlyn starts to ult me! I have no idea how much damage this ultimate is going to do to me. I look at my pathetic health pool and try to calculate my chance of survival. With no way to make my passive proc and no team mates nearby the bullet crashes into me taking me to ~30 HP. Sweet! I start walking back towards creeps from mid tower and my whole team starts freaking out on me. Ok, they’re right, I should go back and heal!

There were a couple highlights from this game. One was the fact that I dodged three Malphite ultimates. He was a good sport about it, claiming after the game “I pride myself in those ults” and acknowledging that he had messed up a couple times. The last one I dodged actually caught one of my team mates. It was as we were diving the fountain to get 45 more gold out of Maokai. I blinked past Malphite to full combo Maokai and as I returned to my initial position Malphite ulted my team mates. They were sacrifices to the lazer gods.

The other highlight that I thoroughly enjoyed was when we were sieging the enemy base. We were standing in mid lane and the enemy team knew we would eventually get their base if they didn’t make a stand. Yorick, being the brave soul he is, led the charge for his team. We all stepped back from this strange act of aggression by the other team. Well, not all of us. I hit Yorick with a full combo. He walked into my range, he showed signs of aggression, so he deserved it. I was already at 20 stacks by this point, but my DFG was a huge initiation, and the ridiculous burst from Sigil of Silence followed by an ultimate version of Sigil dropped him to just a few hundred HP, which quickly disintegrated when I blinked forward on top of him. The enemy team immediately started to retreat. That was a great battle!

After they let us take their middle tower I just abused the walls of their base to pick people off. I was so fed I could blink over the wall, lead with DFG and gib someone in less than a second. This accounted for most of Caitlyn’s deaths.

This was the best score that I can remember getting in a Ranked game. I was very nervous picking LeBlanc early and getting counter-picked with a tanky team comp and Morgana. It’s very intimidating to see the enemy team picking champions like Yorick, Malphite, and Maokai because I know they are going to be inherently tanky and difficult for me to kill. Last item would have been Void Staff and I think I even had the cash for it, just didn’t get a chance to go back and buy.

Also, for the record, Lux/Panth beats Cait/Mao.

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