League of Legends – Page 6 – League of Stories

Karma Carried

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I needed a first win of the day and decided to just throw myself into the ranked queue. It’s slightly depressing that you have to accept matches like five or six times because people don’t accept. I guess it is better to have them drop at that point than during the game.

Once I finally had a queue with nine other people willing to accept I was put into last pick. I knew what this meant, and started planning my supports accordingly. First pick just locked Hecarim without saying a word. Next two picks were Karma and Rumble, who wanted mid and top respectively. I had seen a lot of Karma play in higher elos who would play either mid or top, so I had to trust this guy. Later I saw that he didn’t have any Karma games in ranked. Whoops!

When it came to the last two picks Caitlyn locked very quickly, but had Cleanse, which gave me hope. I picked Lulu after juggling a few thoughts on Alistar and Taric. The enemy team picked Taric last, which really surprised me. They already had a Nunu and a Shaco, so I was set on them running Nunu support. Maybe lane Shaco, jungle Taric? Solo top Taric, Nunu support? I had no idea.

Solo top Nunu wrecked our Rumble so hard. Rumble started 0-4-0. We didn’t care. We picked up First Blood in bottom lane, and did it right as three huge creep waves got to the enemy turret. We immediately recalled so we could buy and get back to lane without missing much experience.

When we got back to lane Caitlyn walked into the bushes and just started auto attacking non-stop. I caught on very quickly what had happened when I saw her miss CS and not move between autos. Caitlyn had disconnected. My mind went into panic. At least she was attacking, which made her seem alive and showed presence and would push the lane so that Varus and Taric didn’t move in closer. I walked in and stood next to her, fearful that she would get targeted by the enemies.

After an agonizing wait Caitlyn finally started walking down the lane towards our base with the announcement of “A summoner has disconnected.” I felt like I was in the Hunger Games and the odds were ever in my favor. Or maybe it wasn’t the odds, maybe it was karma.

Cait was gone for awhile, but I took the time to get some CS. I knew it wasn’t money wasted because I would need it the longer this game went on. I actually was surprised how well I last hit at tower. I probably had two or three waves come into tower range and I managed to get most of them. I had two points in both Glitter Lance and Help, Pix! so the damage was spread evenly enough that either could last hit for me. It worked well and I ended up getting 25-30 CS waiting for Caitlyn to come back.

Caitlyn apologized when she reconnected, and came back to lane and we continued to do well. Shaco pressure was definitely a thing in our lane, and it held us back a little bit, but Shaco could only do so much.

I was pulled top to rescue our failed top lane and ended up getting a kill on Shaco as the rest of the enemy team pushed mid. I recalled and let them know I was coming. I saw Cait get snagged by Lux and figured she was a goner. I honestly looked back at myself on the Nexus platform and started walking to defend the turret. No kill call out. Cait had used Cleanse, but wasn’t safe. I walked towards her as fast as I could. Varus had jumped into our base and was fighting with Caitlyn. When she was about to drop I popped my ultimate and Help, Pix! on her just in time to save her life. Then I simply wrote “hi” and we walked out of the base to chase down the rest of the enemy team.

We were able to siege mid because Karma’s AoE heal was so massive that our whole team would get filled up rather quickly. The burst she was putting out was amazing. We stood in their base until the Nexus went down. Caitlyn and Karma got a lot of credit for kills this game. Before we moved onto Baron I had enough for Bulwark and three pink wards. I just never had to go back with Chalice and Karma heals. It probably would have really helped my team to let me use my Homeguard boots, but oh well. A win is a win, right? Ultimately, Karma carried.

Amazonian Scrim

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I want to apologize for piquing your interest and then dropping the topic on these Amazon scrims. I haven’t had a chance to play League lately, and so a lot of my drive was just absent.

I also apologize for the brief explanation of this first game. I don’t want to call people out because normally this blog only does that to strangers, but we had a couple key misplays early that cost us too heavily in the rest of the game. Amazon applied a lot of early pressure with the Hecarim pick, and it did work. We made sure they weren’t going to get that pick again. Also, I felt like Thresh was a key factor in their success, so we made sure to take that away from them.

Going into game two we told ourselves that we would run poke. In Champion Select we actually baited the Vi pick. We left it up so that the enemy team could pick it. I felt like we got to counter pick ever role except for the ADC role. I picked Kog’Maw with first pick, and then let Amazon pick two champs. They picked up Miss Fortune and Vi. We had left Vi up, while banning out Amumu and Hecarim, so we assumed Vi would be their strongest jungle pick. We immediately countered with Morgana, who they assumed would go mid. Morgana does exceptionally well in our poke comp because of the disengage powers of her ultimate, snare, and spell shield. Also, she is the PERFECT counter to Vi because she nullifies Vi’s ultimate, giving her no ability to scale into the late game. It basically changes Vi’s ultimate so now she Blitz hooks herself into the middle of our team and doesn’t get to CC anyone.

Laning phase opened strong for Morgana and myself because we had such an early Black Shield. I forgot to mention that it blocks all of Leona’s damage. It blocks her stuns, her extra passive damage, everything. It completely shuts down a support Leona in lane. It got to the point that Leona would go to engage on me, and without any of the CC from her abilities I would walk right through her towards Miss Fortune and MF would be forced to run away, leaving a poor Leona to die for her.

Our mid game had a few hiccups, but was otherwise flawless. We grouped and started taking towers and the enemy team could do nothing but watch. To think that we destroyed their Nexus at 24 minutes is really an amazing feat. Also, feeding your ADC by taking free towers and picking up Dragons is such a bonus. With the amount of global gold we had it was like everyone on our team was fed. I can see why most teams will take a four minute tower in a side lane now. It really made us all so big.

I felt really privileged this game to be the recipient of most of the spell shields and a focus for the Kayle ultimate. I felt like we were playing a real “protect the Kog” strat when really we just wanted ranged poke. It also was SUPER helpful that we had five ranged champs and ~~two~~ three melees!

It had been awhile since I had acquired double the gold of the enemy ADC, but it felt wonderful to have it happen in this game. At the end of the game MF went to trade autos with me while he was standing between her two Nexus turrets. After two autos from me she Flashed back towards her fountain, but my third auto was already in the air and finished her off. I was only 12-4 at that point, I had to pick up two more kills on the fountain itself.

This last game was for all the marbles. I was a bit nervous as they had bested us in the first game. We got pretty far behind in this third match up which really sucked as a Tristana player because Akali with a Kayle Intervention is enough to kill me. Luckily, while Akali was chasing me in the back of the team fight, Riven and Ryze were doing work on the rest of the enemy team.

Ryze got real big this game. Close to the end of the game Iggie said “I just need a bit more gold for my Arch Angel’s staff” and I interjected and told him that Ryze doesn’t get that anymore, he only needs Manamune to upgrade to Muramana. Iggie didn’t fight it or question it, he just said, “Ok.” With that Muramana his damage was literally almost doubled. He started flipping out over how strong he had become after that one item. It was a game changer. He picked up big team fight triple kills, which really helped us push this game over to our favor.

We were down close to 5k gold, but brought it back to tie the kills at 26 to 26. From there we kept our late-game pressure as high as possible. Our whole team had immense late-game potential, with Ryze scaling as long as mana items exist, Tristana just gets longer range, one Blitz hook ends the game, Riven buying second lives, and Hecarim tipping the “unkillable” scale, we were a mean looking team to have to deal with.

AHGL: Twitch

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I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is we lost our first game against Twitch in our best-of-three series. The good news is my client crashed crazy hard which prevented me from saving a screenshot. Sadly, it also crashed my LolReplay, so I have the first game’s replay file, and screenshots of the second and third game. Spoiler, this best-of-three series went to three games.

After miserably losing the first game, we subbed some players out to give Twitch a run for their money. They were a bit skeptical at first, but after some roster checks they saw that our guys were members of our team and the games continued.

We ultimately just wanted to see if we could get Lux and Pantheon in the bottom lane. We knew that if we got that combination we would be set. In the first game Miss Fortune had dominated us with some intense damage and wonderful play. We were not going to let her have that opportunity to outplay our bottom lane again.

I got to hang out with djWHEAT in mid lane this game. I really didn’t know it when it happened. We had figured that because he plays Ori so much it would be a smart ban. We left it up for him this game, and he did quite well with it. I would venture to say that laning phase was a bit rough for him. I started Flask, so I had slightly higher mana regen in the earlier levels, so I abused that to harass him down. Once I saw him drop to 100 HP and stick around a quick Flash Ignite auto attack combo finished him off for First Blood. I didn’t want to cause death by Space AIDs. No, I’d save that for next time.

We jumped out to a comfortable lead and realized it around the 13-4 mark. They were seeing our team’s full armada right now. We were synced up and playing well together, however the game was not yet over.

We realized too late that our lack of an AD carry was a very poor pushing option against their area-of-effect comp. We would need to pull something trick out of our sleeves.

Our opportunity arose when SirSpam and I were pushing top lane. The enemy team made a five-man siege down mid lane, expecting to take a turret or win a fight. They vastly underestimated Malzahar’s ability to push. I spawn minions! My spells are all area-of-effect (technically) except for my ult. My minions not only tank turret, they also help to push waves and turrets. The enemy team fights mid. Choppes picks up a kill in a 3v5. The enemy team tries to retreat and my team chases them out to stop them from getting back. Our push took the second tier turret, inhibitor turret, inhibitor, and both Nexus turrets uncontested. While I was trying to kill the Nexus they finally got back to defend their base. By this point the game was mostly over.

Our next objective was bottom lane. We picked up Dragon, and while doing so we found our old friend, djWHEAT. First we could only see the Orianna ball poking its head around the corner. Shortly after that we saw him walk around to get his blue buff. A Malphite Unstoppable Force stopped him where he stood. That was followed up with a Pantheon Aegis of Zeonia, a Lux Light Binding, and a dead Orianna. Now was our chance to push!

We are already pushing up bottom lane. Pantheon goes for a kill on a person right on the turret. I’m still sprinting to get to the action, so I cut through the jungle to the outer wall of the team’s base. I’m pinging for Choppes because he’s now between three enemy players. I call out and say “If you can get to this point I’ll save you!” He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t even walk towards me. He turns to the next enemy player and chunks them down. Double kill. Ok, Choppes, it’s ok, I’m almost there buddy, hold on! He still hasn’t turned. Jarvan is the only one left. Choppes fears no man, especially a Jarman. TRIPLE KILL! I just stop walking. It was one of the sexiest things we had ever seen. Aced. Mantheon strikes again. Welp, 13-1, he just earned himself a ban.

We tried to prep for a third game, but without knowing what bans were going to come out we just hoped we could replicate our bot lane from the game before, but we were almost certain that Pantheon would be banned out. After Pantheon was banned we picked up Kha’Zix to fill his shoes. We knew the Mantheon would live on in our hearts, but Kha’Zix would have to win bot lane.

They picked Kayle, and we concluded that Morgana is one of the stronger counters to Kayle, so I was taking Morgana mid. In the loading screen we were all scratching our heads. They had already switched up lanes on us once, but now we were lost. Picture this:

Kayle: Barrier Flash

Xin: Barrier Flash

Anivia: Heal Flash

Jayce: Ignite Flash

Vi: Smite Flash

We were pretty sure that the super annoying bird and her heal were coming back mid, and that Vi was going into the jungle. Other than that, we were completely lost. We eventually decided it was probably a kill lane in bot. The combined slow of Kayle and Xin would be enough to make anyone miserable. Their burst damage and sustain would be a huge bully, and if you thought you were about to win a fight, they would Barrier and beat you. Panic ensued. We didn’t know how to play against this because we had never seen it before.

They sent their Kayle and Xin Zhao kill lane to bot with that double Barrier comp. I would say that maybe they had never seen Choppes and Iggie before, but they had just dealt with them in the game before. Resilient players wanted a second chance at playing against Choppes and Iggie in the bot lane after they took away the Pantheon pick. I should upload more replays so that people could watch Choppes and Iggie do their magic dance.

I only played Morgana because we thought it would be a counter to Kayle. It actually did decently well against they cryophoenix as well. Eventually, Anivia was pushing me to my turret, but she loved to harass me after she cleared the wave, and we baited it a couple times to allow my jungler to sneak in behind her. This really allowed me to roll in mid lane and roam.

My first trip to bottom lane resulted in me ulting and us picking up two kills, but then I didn’t leave. I just hung out and laned while I waited for Choppes and Iggie to return. As soon as they did I had my ult back up and figured why not kill this bot lane again? We had enough CC and burst that the enemy team didn’t stand a chance. Vi came to counter gank and something amazing happened. She tried to use her ultimate on me, but I quickly self-cast Black Shield and Vi zoomed over to where I was standing, popped herself up in the air, and then slammed herself into the ground. I took damage, but I was free to leave. I had forgotten how broken Black Shield really is. I had no idea it would counter Vi that hard. The only thing that breaks Black Shield is magic damage and it expiring, so all of Vi’s CC was blocked because she couldn’t get the shield down.

The best was after I left bot lane I was pretty beat up. I was probably down to 400-600 HP and just walking from blue side’s bottom jungle up to mid. Vi saw me just waltzing through and saw how low I was. I knew the bird couldn’t be far. Vi tries to gap close and just presses R on me. As she gets closer I pop my Black Shield. I block all of the CC. I snag her in a snare as she tries to do her charged dash. I walk away almost unscathed. Again, I’m abusing poor Styles. The worth of his champion in this game was just fractured. It’s nothing that he did wrong, we really just got lucky!

The final push didn’t happen in a lane. We caught Twitch in their jungle near Wraiths and a fight started. Before anyone could react, Czarni went charging in like a hero. The enemy team started to scatter, but it was too late. We egged Anivia, and then just walked away from her. People started freaking out in our Skype call saying “hey guys, we gotta kill this bird!” We turn our attention to Eggnivia and finish her off. We switch from her to the next enemy and chase and chase and chase. Eventually we pick up the last kill on Vi to hear the announcer call out the Ace. At this point I started laughing out loud. I looked around me and saw all four of my team mates standing with me next to the enemy team’s inhibitor in mid lane. We had dove past two turrets in mid lane and were all standing in the enemy team’s base. The clock said 24 minutes, and the surrender vote was passed immediately.

It was such a good feeling to dive as a team and follow each other up as we pushed into the enemy team’s base. At times our team will split when trying to work together which usually results in a free death or an objective lost. It was great team work. After the game we were complimented when shiftkeyisbroke suggested that our team be in the A League. He had played in the A League the AHGL season before and felt that based on the way we played we could hold our own in the A League. This was such a huge compliment because our team isn’t all gold and platinum players, we just have games where we are able to work well together, communicate, strategize, and do well. Keep up that good team work, SecurityMetrics!

Welcome to Our Humble Adobe

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I was really done for the night, but then I got an invite from Tai Feng to come play with his guys. He had four guys ready to play a draft pick normal. I had turned him down in the past, and really wanted to have a fun game with these guys, so I went for it.

After I joined their party I asked if they had any voice communication methods like Skype, Ventrilo, or TeamSpeak. They confirmed that they had Vent. When I joined their channel they were quick to throw down the humorous: “Welcome to our humble Adobe!” I thought that was pretty fun, and very friendly, so it put me right into the mood to win some games.

Tai suggested that I play mid when we were in Champion Select, so I obliged. I’d be more than happy to play mid, it’s what I do! Looking at their team comp we were pretty sure it would be Kennen mid and Malphite top. Boy did they pull the switcheroo on us!

I had a terrible time mid vs Malphite. At first I was bullying him around because I have unlimited mana and could hit him with blue cards whenever he tried to throw his shard at me. However, his jungler was adamant about killing me. Luckily, I knew that the damage Malphite would be pumping out would have diminishing returns, and if the mummy didn’t build some ability power he would be in the same boat and they would lose late without an AD carry. Time to gank bot.

Ganking bot actually turned out to be a terrible idea. I had a number of times where I would show up in bot lane, teleporting down there with my ultimate, only to be CC locked by Alistar and followed up by a Varus ult. The Adobe bot lane would say, “aw, nice try” and then they would see me Flash under turret, land a gold card on Varus, and finish him off with Wild Cards. I would have made it out, but I thought Taric needed my help, so I stepped out only to realize I was out of mana, had cancelled my recall, and now Kennen had found me. Boo.

We were slightly behind in this game because Malphite was staying pretty even in mid (let’s be real, it’s Malphite in a short lane, his ultimate carries him back to turret, that wuss), Kennen was doing really well in top lane, and bot was only slightly ahead. We needed to make some magic happen to win this game. I decided it would be best to split push.

I shoved out bottom lane while my team grouped mid. When the enemy team tried to transition down to stop me from pushing my team followed up with immense pressure and actually caught some of the enemy team out of position. We were making our comeback! We had a team fight in bot lane after one of those transitions where we aced the enemy team and didn’t lose a single member of our team.

Eventually we were pressuring top lane and Adobe managed to gift me a triple kill to save my KD. The enemy team would throw their ults down, we would survive through them and then have more sustained damage to help us win the fights.

I’m still having too much fun with Twisted Fate. I love his mobility. I may make the switch to Boots of Mobility, but I’m not sure if it would be worth it to sacrifice my spell penetration especially where I’m running movement speed quints. Maybe I’ll try it out for a game or two, but I don’t think I could put the extra movement to good use where my ultimate can already teleport me out. Maybe Boots of Swiftness? We’ll see. GG Adobe!

Wooglet’s Witchcraft

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I’m sitting in Champion Select in Solo Queue and I notice that one of the people on my team is named Wooglet. Now, I see a lot of names in League of Legends, but this one sticks out to me, so I ask “Wooglet?” Wooglet responds with “what”. I continue “THE Wooglet? As in Wooglet’s Witchcap?” He comes back “Heh, ya. You’re observant.” I’m in queue with a guy who referred so many people to League of Legends that they named an item after him! You’d think with all those friends he wouldn’t have to sit in Solo Queue!

Our first pick is Tristana, followed up by an Annie. I’m third pick, so I start to get really excited. I say “If we can jungle a yordle and get a support yordle, we’ll have an all yordle team!” This is totally a possibility. Amumu was banned from our game, but Rammus was available. This would be so cool to pull off in Solo Queue when I got teamed up with Wooglet. Wooglet informs all of us that he is currently in a promotion series and would rather not risk the game. Well I’m playing Teemo, and he can deal with it.

I placed an early ward in tri-bush and I was glad that I did. Lee came to gank me really early, and thanks to that ward I saw him coming. My team reacted in a timely manner when we saw Lee running to our Elder Lizard. We tried to collapse on him, but Katarina and Olaf followed. This turned into a rumble in the jungle. Kat picked up a kill, and Lee Sin got away with about 100 HP. I cut towards Lee, Flashed over a wall and finished him off with a Blinding Shot. This transferred blue buff to me, which means that Olaf can’t get close to creeps anymore.

I was really abusive to Olaf and pushed him out of lane quite easily. However, he did well farming with just his Undertow. I thought I would be ahead by almost double in creep kills and found that I was only ahead by 15-20.

I found some early opportunities to push like a mad man. Xin pressured top effectively enough to send Olaf back and as soon as he did I pushed up and took top turret. Being a cute little rodent, I took the time to plant mushrooms all over their blue side jungle. It would be suicide to chase me through there or try to come gank me. So they didn’t. I saw that they had given up on me in top lane, so I told my team “if the enemy team tries to fight, fight. However, if Olaf teleports in, you need to disengage as best you can and just kite the fight.” They acknowledged that they would do that.

I’m pushing top and Olaf teleports out. My chance is now. I start using my Lich Bane to its most effectiveness. I’m stacking mushrooms on top of each other to ensure that I get Lich Bane hits as often as possible. The second tower melts. The creep wave vanishes. The inhibitor tower is destroyed very quickly. There are still five people in mid. I’m getting an inhibitor, even if it costs me my life. The inhibitor is dying extremely quickly, but Olaf is here.

I finish off the inhibitor and start to run from Olaf. I have mushrooms protecting me, but I know that he can probably ignore that slow. Olaf uses Ghost. The situation is starting to look bad. Olaf misses Undertow and steps on a mushroom. I thought I had gotten away and then he popped Ragnarok. I can kite him through mushrooms, but only for their damage, and reduced damage because of the lack of the Liandry’s bonus. I come to a dead end in the jungle and Olaf sprints towards me. I Flash over the wall. Welp, that’s one problem with Ghost.

With top inhibitor down the enemy team looks to fight us to buy themselves some breathing room. My team gets beat by Katarina’s resets. Corki and Lee get out, but are critically low. I see my golden opportunity. There’s a ward just outside their base wall and my teleport is available. I go for it. I come sprinting out and auto attack Corki while blinding Lee Sin. I agree that a blind probably shouldn’t hurt Lee all that much, but it proved to be super effective in this game. I scooted out of there with my Double Kill and went to pressure more towers.

While we were pressuring towers the enemy team called out GG. It was definitely strange to not die, but that’s more normal for the winning team. How about going 6/0 but never killing your lane opponent! He must have been furious.

As a fun extra, one of my kills came from Katarina escaping a team fight and walking over a mushroom. It was pretty great to be walking around in top lane and go up a level from killing the enemy team’s AP carry. In that instance it was more Teemo Magic than it was Wooglet’s Witchcraft, but he helped me get top lane where it needed to be, so thanks for that.

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