At my wife’s baby shower we took the opportunity to celebrate minions spawning by making League of Legends themed onesies. As terrible as making onesies could have been, when we made Teemo and Singed onesies it made the whole experience that much better. Now I just need an elderly woman to tell me “11 days until minions spawn!”
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.
With the start of Season Three many new favorite champions have been discovered. We’re seeing more Pantheons, Kha’Zix’, Talons, etc. My favorite champion is still LeBlanc, but the most recent addition to my champion pool is Lulu.
Lulu has the best laugh in the game. Her abilities are fun, yet effective. She has multiple abilities that work in more than one way. For example, her W spell can be cast on an enemy or an ally. Ally cast grants the target bonus Ability Power and movement speed. An enemy cast of her W results in Lulu screaming something ridiculous like “Transmogulate!” or “Cuddly incoming!” It gets better. Her E on an enemy deals a significant amount of damage (you see those three big kills down there, don’t you??) but also places her annoying pixie on that target, which lets her shoot her Q from that new target. This is very effective at slowing both enemies in bot lane. Her E also provides a shield when cast on an ally, also allowing that ally to use the power of her pixie to aid their attack damage. This actually adds 87 damage at level 18 to her shielded target’s damage.
I love buying Homeguard Boots of Mobility on Lulu. It’s so satisfying to shoot out of the base at 900 move speed and then cast W on yourself to propel yourself even faster. You’ll also notice Shurelya’s. With Lulu you can get out of almost any situation. With Twin Shadows you can also close the gap on just about anyone, slowing them and enemy nearby enemies.
I do build a chalice on her because her abilities are so fun. I feel like I’m constantly abusing my mana pool. I felt a bit childish building a Chalice of Harmony on Lulu as a support because I was basically building Magic Resistance in a lane with mostly physical damage. However, I was watching a stream for the TSM weekly tournaments and the guy who played Lulu three games in a row copied my build. I’m not saying that it was perfect, but having mana to endlessly throw out shields for your carry is never a bad thing.
Also, we didn’t lane against Kog or Nunu. Singed swapped lanes at level one and came bot. We just worked to pick on him all game. We kept him very behind. That also helps justify my Chalice purchase!
I had the honor of playing two games against a stalwart opponent. His name was Slight Soluble. When I said hi to him at the start of the second game he responded with “Oh no, not that Lulu.” What a great start to the game!
We didn’t have a jungler, because Katarina refused to play anywhere but mid, despite the fact that our team already had Lux to play mid. When Galio didn’t connect at the start of the game we immediately knew that we needed to band together to win this 4v5. Our team split up the lanes and started discussing when we would clear the jungle and how we would handle lanes.
Eventually, Galio did connect, but the enemy team immediately started picking on him. It’s easy to kick a player when they’re down, isn’t it?
We did really well in bot lane. Ashe wasn’t using Volley very early in the laning phase, so I could get about as much free harass on her as I wanted. Steve did a superb job or ice-balling Ashe and letting me farm in safety. We pressed our advantage to propel me to a quick lead, which got me a finished Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer by 21 minutes, a new personal best.
Katarina started complaining about lag issues. We were split. The enemy team would rather chase Nunu and myself around than pressure turrets. So I told my team that we needed to group. We started walking down mid lane and found a Skarner just hanging out by himself. As we were killing him the rest of the enemy team engaged on us. Nunu and Galio both got to channel their ults in a bush and Kog got to right-click on people who couldn’t right-click back. Those fireworks never felt better.
Pet peeve: I hate buying Guardian Angel only to die a minute later. That didn’t happen this game, but it happened early this week and it just made me so frustrated. I rage-sold a Guardian Angel! I technically didn’t die, because it saved my life, but it was still taking up a slot in my inventory and had five minutes before it would be any use to me.
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