Lux – League of Stories

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!

Broken Liandry’s

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In a recent patch by Riot Games they announced that they were removing the diminished effect of Liandry’s Torment for area-of-effect and damage-over-time spells. This was an instant buff for champions like Malzahar and Swain who have multiple damage-over-time abilities. I hadn’t gotten a chance to play since the new patch, so I found some time this morning to get a game in. My mentality going into the game: get my first win of the day bonus.

I was fourth pick, which is low enough that I could end up not getting the role I want to play. However, I ran into a spot of luck. As our team captain was choosing bans I started writing “I would like TF mid please” and just as I pressed Enter to send that message he banned Twisted Fate. Now the team quickly assumed I would be playing mid or raging because the guy had banned the champion that I wanted. This actually worked out well because we had three champions picked and the enemy team showed who their mid lane would be before I was forced to pick.

The enemy mid picked Lux. I had played a game recently as Malzahar where I was against a Lux and I felt like I had done rather well against her. With the recent changes to Liandry’s Torment I wanted to see how it would play. Based on the opening to this game I would say “very well”.

Xin ganked my lane fairly early and got red buff down on Lux. After Lux used Flash I made sure to land as many spells as possible and threw down Ignite. I watched as it ticked and ticked. She hadn’t put a point into her shield yet. You know, that shield that is designed to prevent damage-over-time damage? Ya, she hasn’t put a point into that yet. At the last second Lux used Ignite on me under the tower and I put my Malefic Visions on her. Lux disappeared from view and I escaped tower radius with enough health to survive the Ignite. Lux, however, was not as fortunate. First Blood!

Lux comes back to lane with a second Doran’s Ring, no wards, no boots. I should also mention at this point that her Flash is on cooldown for another three minutes. I tell Xin Zhao and we just auto-attack Lux to death. I pick up the kill and listen as bot lane dies. I wanted to reprimand them for dying, but I knew that would just cause our team to spiral out of control.

After I recalled from mid I see bot lane engaging the enemy again. I start running. I actually bought upgraded boots to make it to the tower faster. Xin was down there helping them, but Vi counter ganked, eliminating the advantage that Xin was providing. I watch as Twitch falls, then Taric, and the enemy team is throwing everything they have at Xin. Xin sees his opportunity and pounces back on Miss Fortune. He drops her, but puts himself out too far. I Flash into range and drop my silence across the other two remaining enemy champions. My Visions picks up the kill on Vi, and I still have enough in my arsenal to finish off Thresh. Double kill. I’m 4-0 and just getting warmed up. The next time I double kill in bot it puts me to 8-0 and I’m Legendary.

When I get back to mid lane I was level nine compared to Lux’s six. I was able to bully her so hard. The only thing I missed out on was Xin kept taking my blue buff. He tried to hand it off twice, but both times he managed to steal it from me. It actually just got humorous near the end of the game because my team could see that I was beast-moding this game, but I kept running out of mana! Xin felt so bad for taking blue! My second death came when all of my abilities were off cooldown, but I just didn’t have enough mana to cast anything and Miss Fortune’s auto attacks were hitting harder than mine. OP.

We were grouping around Baron, but the enemy team knew we were there as Vi started to run back from top as soon as I got close to her. I threw my silence at her, which took her Flash and put us in a better position for taking Baron. However, my team had reacted correctly and were invading the enemy team’s top jungle. We caught Miss Fortune and Nasus as they tried to transition to top lane. We easily won the team fight and swung over to pick up a free Baron. This was the first time I got blue buff because I actually pinged Xin away and said “I’ll solo it, thanks” to which everyone just laughed.

Now that I had Baron and blue buff I called for everyone to push out bottom lane. We had them group in the bush at blue buff while I pushed bottom lane solo. The enemy team was in the lane, but they were playing back. Thresh was the only one manly enough to step forward. I see him trying to get in position to land a hook. I throw my silence down so he won’t have that option. Drop my pool. I get Vision and my ultimate on him and watch as his health melts to nothing. Dominating!

At this point my team just about shrugs their shoulders and comes walking out of the bushes. With Thresh down they have no threat of catching us out, especially with Xin Zhao on our team. They also lack a way to peel for Miss Fortune. We walk up, melt the turret and take the inhibitor for free. We rotate mid and do the same thing. Our creeps are there, so we push up and take the Nexus turrets. The gg’s start rolling in and the game is over. Taric thanks me for carrying and gives me honor. What a nice chap!

AHGL vs Oracle Game 1

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I decided I would sit out this game, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got to listen to the caster’s commentary the whole time and they loved our team. They loved how we refused to follow the meta. They loved that we had an aggressive bot lane. They loved the confidence of Caitlyn starting Doran’s Blade mid. They were proud of SirSpam out-farming Rumble in the top lane.

This game is easily summarized by saying that Mundo was unkillable and Pantheon did a bunch of killing. However, that wouldn’t be telling the full story. That wouldn’t include how SirSpam managed to survive top against a strong counter-pick or how “support Lux” brought huge burst to the table. It wouldn’t let you know how many cleavers Rumble had to eat. It wouldn’t tell how many more creeps Caitlyn took than Ahri.

Time and again the casters for the games would say “Wow, that burst!” when Pantheon and Lux would jump onto bot lane. The compliment that surpassed them all was when they weren’t discounted for countering a lane or a match-up, but they were actually recognized as having played together. The casters at one point admired that when Iggie would make a move Choppes would be making that same move. The amount of teamwork that existed in that bottom lane was enough to be referenced as Legendary.

The one time that our bot lane combo was caught out of position the casters started to get really excited. They saw that bot lane had bit off more than they could chew. However, this is when SirSpam stepped up. Malphite lined up a beautiful ultimate that kept himself out of turret range, but stopped three members of Team Oracle in their tracks. This let Pantheon re-position and “secure” some more kills for Team SecurityMetrics.

At the end of the game Hunterofthetiki was cheered on by the casters as he rushed headlong into five members of Team Oracle. They threw stuff at him, but nothing was as deadly as the cleavers he was throwing at them. He emerged from that team fight unscathed at literally full health.

While the rest of the team was crushed, Lux managed to snipe a Hecarim moving at full trot with a gorgeous light binding, which sealed Hecarim’s fate. Pantheon had seen that Hecarim was going to die, and had already started to channel his ultimate in hopes to catch Miss Fortune. Sadly, her passive strut had enabled her to create enough of a gap that she had retreated to safety. Pantheon returned to help his team take the inhibitor and end the game.

Poke Comp

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We had five people online who were in Skype, so we decided to try the famous CLG Poke Comp. Ours would be slightly different, but still based on the same wonky strategy.

The game started out better than I would have thought; all our lanes were winning. Despite picking a team comp designed for winning a game by sieging turrets, we were winning the laning phase! We actually jumped out to a 6-0 lead early in kills. However, a few well-executed ganks by the enemy team quickly took that lead from us. I had been sharing farm mid with Mundo as often as possible because we needed all members of the team to be strong, not just one or two. Also, if you share creep exp both parties actually get 55%, for a combined 110% exp gain, rather than just 100% creep exp gain from being solo. So by getting myself slightly behind early by sharing creep exp with Mundo I was actually catapulting him ahead of the enemy jungler.

However, Vlad can become a monster very quickly if he’s left alone for too long. This is exactly what happened. He was cutting me in half through my MR runes and Chalice with just one slap of his Tides of Blood at max stacks and his Transfusion. It hurt. I would spell-shield the Transfusion, which actually helped to stack my Tear of the Goddess quicker as well. It also proved to be the most useful thing against Darius, as he was unable to pull the person with the Black Shield. However, I was falling behind Vlad early, and had to make up time. We were tied at 11 kills for each team, and I knew we needed to transition to our push strategy.

First step in the strategy is to make sure all the tower are down. I ran bot with Mundo and we dropped bot turret. We transitioned and did the same thing for top and then grouped mid. By this point kills were tied at 16. We had traded two for three in bot lane, where we would have come out ahead, but we lost Elise in top lane to Lee Sin.

The next step is just to stand mid. This is the part that sucked for the other team. This is when they started hating their lives. They had Nunu/Vayne, which is strong, but not if Vayne can’t team fight. So this is what Vayne is trying to avoid while getting some gold from creeps: Morgana snare and puddle, Lux snare and bubble (and ult occasionally), Mundo cleaver, Caitlyn Piltover Peacemaker and trap (and ult occasionally), and Elise’s suicide bomber spider, web skill-shot, and Neurotoxin. In the words of Morgan Freeman when talking to the accountant who is trying to blackmail Batman, “Good luck!”

At one point we were transitioning from Dragon to bottom lane and saw a Nunu. I snagged him with a snare from the other side of a jungle wall. Without any of us ulting or being on the same side of the wall as him we took him from full health down to less than 1/4 HP from just poke abilities, at which point he used Flash to create some distance. It was a nightmare of CC and damage. I don’t think my puddle was helping that much, but because it is MR shred, each ability (except for the Peacemaker) was dealing increased damage if I had a puddle down.

As we were sieging their base I would put my puddle down in an area we didn’t want them to stand and they couldn’t stand there. Lux would do the same with her bubble, just completely zoning the enemy team from getting anywhere near us. Once we arrived at the Inhibitor Turret we didn’t want to get Darius pulled, so I would put a Black Shield on Caitlyn and she would walk forward and just auto the enemy turret while we kept key players away from her.

The best parts of that game was when we would catch Vayne with a snare, because she was dead. If we hit Vayne we would immediately commit. We could finish her off and it would be worth it because without her their team had almost no sustain DPS. If I landed a stun on Vayne I would puddle as I was walking towards her and I would press R. She would be dead before my snare expired. One of the times we caught her I walked forward, pulled tower aggro, made sure I had the other four enemy champions in my ult, and got ready to be blown up. I would eat Ignite, Vlad ult, and then, just as Darius was gracefully swan-diving onto me, I would press 3. Untargetable, suckers. It’s not a trick, every Morgana builds Zhonya’s, but not all of them use it correctly. The idea is to get the enemy team’s focus and wait until you will come out of Zhonya’s just as your stun completes. This way you can move around freely, but aren’t ~~stunned~~ useless while the enemy is stunned. This also helps to make sure you get the healing from your passive spell vampirism as you give the enemy less time to retreat if you aggro’d them correctly and they were trying to kill you.

If you come out of ult and you’re in trouble, press 2. Seraph’s Embrace is a joke! The shield is huge, and it combined so nicely with Chalice to cost 1580 gold. Chalice of Harmony? More like Chalice of Broken! Spamming spells as soon as they were off cooldown and I’m full mana? Whoops. Best 1580 gold I ever spent!

Ultimately, we snow-balled our strategy and our lead against this team to go from tied at 16 kills to a final score of 31 to 20. It had to be extremely aggravating for the enemy team. Luckily for us, Lee Sin read his build on SoloMid dot net which told him to build armor boots. That probably saved him from the auto attacks of our AP heavy team.

Not at a “Loss” For Words

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I always blog about my victories, but people never get to see my losses. Maybe I like it more that way, but I don’t want to mask the sad truth; I lose games sometimes. Luckily, I get to pick which games you see, so this will be my example. You’ll notice the positive KDA and highest creep score in the game, but if you would have been in that game with me you would have believed that we could win. That’s what I believed as I was playing. I knew we could win this game. All we had to do was somehow DDOS Irelia.

This game started better than it finished. We probably shouldn’t have dragged it out this long. Our bot lane was insanely strong with Ezreal/Lux. Very skill-shot dependent, but high range and damage. Lux and I shared kills, but she let me farm the creeps. She was an exceptional Lux. Despite a mental misstep of my own causing me to lose my Flash early we still were able to zone bottom away from creeps. My 5-0-5 start combined with Lux’s similar start are not shown in this game. Some team mates are too heavy to carry.

Losing out on five early kills to my support and jungler didn’t help me this game, especially when our top fed three kills and then rage quit. I don’t know if he was ashamed or just bad, but if you’re going to take a solo lane and lose it you may as well stick around to help your team as best you can. If you can’t survive top then gank mid, steal jungle, or gank bottom and take Dragon. Your other option is to not feed three kills to top in the first five minutes of the game.

We stayed in this game, and had surprising success. Our game plan was to ignore Irelia. She was already fed. If she showed up, we ran. If we could team fight without her then we could win. She actually verbally attacked her Corki after the game, saying that he was non-existent, so it was a 4v4. He was still richer than anyone else on my team.

I probably should not have gotten another BF, and I probably should’ve grabbed a Last Whisper, I just was hoping to get to Black Cleaver and sustain with it’s attack speed and armor reduction. This would have let me melt targets like Annie, Corki, and Jax. Unfortunately, they were able to pick off Teemo and push to end. In the final seconds of the match Irelia Q’d to get on Lux and Lux died instantly. It made me question why I don’t play Irelia every game; if she can two-shot a champion of equal level with two items that deal damage while not using a summoner spell or an ultimate. Ability Power champions focus the whole game and all of their precious money into items designed to make them deal damage, and Irelia can counter that with a Trinity Force and Wit’s End? Balance in all things. I hate you, Rengar.