Double kill Archives - League of Stories

Pantheon Mid

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We wanted to shake things up a bit and run Pantheon in mid lane. Normally when we pick Pantheon we send him bottom with Lux to wreak some havoc on the squishies in bottom lane. However, this game we decided to put Pantheon in mid lane where he would have some global presence and ability to farm. Having that Pantheon in mid lane really pressured the enemy team, and remained unkillable.

Iggie also got a free farm fest against Akali. There’s not much Akali can do against a Kayle after level two. Kayle got to zone Akali to the point that Malphite out farmed her in the jungle! Ouch! That makes for a sad lane.

Lux and I played in bot lane where we had quite a few mix ups. It was humorous to watch Malphite come to bottom lane, Flash, and then not ult anyone. However, his constant pressure, and the sustain of Ezreal’s Bloodthirster and Sona just proved too much for our bot lane. We had a crucial fight where Ezreal used Arcane Shift to jump over the wall towards me behind Dragon. All I needed was one crit to finish him off. The RNG gods frowned upon me that day. In a last ditch effort I jumped to land smack on his face, and died, leaving Ezreal within 100 HP of death. Lux stepped up, and auto attacked Ezreal, and turned to walk away. The auto didn’t finish him so she stepped in for one more, but it was too late. The lifesteal from Ezreal had healed him for too much. Lux went down, resulting in an Ezreal double kill. Sadness. I think Sona healed Ezreal from the other side of the wall twenty five times during that fight. Hate that song lady.

At 20 minutes this team was done holding on and they surrendered. This was probably one of the worst ranked games I have played in years. I was using a champion that I hadn’t touched in quite awhile. I was glad to get that game over with and head on to our next epic battle!

Honorable Evaine

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During champion select I requested that our first pick leave Ryze up for me to play in mid lane. However, the enemy team banned out Kayle and then immediately first-picked Swain. Not wanting to brawl with Swain as Ryze, I opted for my champion of choice: Evaine LeBlanc.

I was much less calm going into this match up. I don’t know why, but every time I play LeBlanc I get very nervous and shaky. I think it’s the fear of falling behind and being completely worthless in fights later. The fear of missing out on kills in mid lane and watching the enemy mid become the snowball that I longed to be. I hoped that wouldn’t be my fate.

I took Swain’s Flash at level three, but had to use my ignite to get it. I should have known that I could take it. He doesn’t get a chance to respond to my mobility and burst. Once his Flash was down I checked its cooldown: 300 seconds. I knew Swain had no Flash until 8:30. I messaged Shen and let him know that Swain’s Flash was down for a good while.

When Shen came to gank I made a few key mistakes. First, I responded just a second or two too late and had to walk through an army of creeps. Second, I missed my skill shot E ability. Technically I didn’t miss it, but I’ll explain what happened. The creeps proc’d my passive, so I got a clone. I walked the clone down into the river to face-check the Swain while I walked around the back side in case Swain was running. My clone found Swain, which kept me at a safe distance so that I couldn’t get bursted. Shen got to just beat on Swain, but Swain is a durable monkey. I wanted to get in the mix, help Shen, and make sure to pick up the kill on Swain.

You have to understand where I am now! I just looped down the ramp to the river where if I turn right I walk over to the dragon pit and if I turn left I walk into a row of bush that leads to mid lane. I am shooting Swain from that bush. My Q lands and I shoot my Ethereal Chains to hit Swain and A MINION STEPS IN THE WAY!!!!! Why on Earth was there a minion tanking for Swain?!?! Ugh. So Swain ISN’T silenced and proceeds to unleash all of the spells he’d been holding on me. Sad face.

So now I’m headed back to lane and I’m 0-1-1, Shen got the kill on Swain, but Swain is a kill up on me and I didn’t get any extra time in lane to myself. By the time I get back to mid my blue is about ready for me to get. I go and pick it up, it had eight life left, so I was thrilled to get to kill it with an auto attack. I walk back to mid, having just leveled to six, I see Swain using his ultimate to clear the creep wave. He probably knows whats coming. I blink into the lane, get my full combo down on him, and finish him up with another Q when it came off cooldown. Swain is dead, but Ignite and his E are ticking on me. I’m dipping lower and lower. Potions aren’t healing fast enough. I’m going to lose blue buff. Suddenly I’m shielded. By the time Shen lands he’s already walking away to go farm more of his jungle. All he says is “I didn’t know if you’d make it!” What a pal!

I clear out mid lane and run back to buy my first item: Mejai’s Soul Stealer. This has been a pretty core item in my LeBlanc build lately. My decision was based on my belief that if I could kill Swain with just an Amplifying Tome before, then if I got a couple levels and had my Soul Stealer then I would be just fine against him.

I don’t know if Shen saw my Soul Stealer purchase but it seemed like he did because he swung past mid to gank a couple times. Each time he did I netted myself two stacks. Eventually I started to roam bottom because top was winning on his own. Bottom was doing quite well themselves; the enemy bot lane was 0-3 combined at the time. When I went down and snuck through the lane in the bushes the enemy team was too afraid to come out and farm, so I wandered up the river to Dragon and the enemy blue. We were converging on what was beginning to look like our first team fight. The enemy team had a much harder time fighting with us in close quarters. We cleaned up anyone who got too close, stole their blue and took Dragon for free.

By this point we owned their jungle. I was walking towards their blue, chasing Lulu and Miss Fortune when Hecarim started to pincer me from the backside. Hecarim was below half. He must not have realized that I wanted him to chase until he was close enough. He was within range and still charging fearlessly. As soon as I hit the bushes I turned back on him and instantly destroyed his health bar. I was walking towards him as I cast the two spells that dropped him. I walked right through where he was standing to the tune of a double kill. I was left unscathed, but I wasn’t ready to leave.

Shen was standing in bottom lane while the enemy team grouped to stop his push. He wasn’t afraid of them, but couldn’t exactly engage them either. I was in their jungle, but got as close to the lane wall as I could and waited patiently. The enemy team grew tired of Shen taunting them and they slowly pushed forward. I blinked over the wall and instantly wrecked Lulu then blinked back. Nothing left. The enemy team tried to chase but they were met with chains of ethereal. Shen and I walked out, laughing.

At the 20 minute mark the surrender vote came out. I could be considered a feeder this game, but I prefer to be called the feeder that helped force the surrender vote. After all was said and done I was honored by each of my team mates for achieving 16 stacks in a matter of 20 minutes. They all thought that was pretty special.

The Random Fifsh

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When you play League of Legends teams normally consist of five players each. If you have three friends that want to play, plus yourself, Reggie Miller would say that you have four people. This means that you get stuck with what I habitually call a “random fifth” player. This game, however, our team mate played as the fish.

I’m not a fan of the fish. I feel as though she doesn’t bring enough to bottom lane. Her crowd-control ability is a skill-shot with a very large cooldown. Her heal and harass are both underwhelming. Her ultimate is slow-moving and easily avoidable. However, SirPwntheGreat showed me that one of Nami’s emotes makes fireworks, which I thought was very cool. I had started liking her more already.

I made a mistake very early in this game. I got condemned just after using Arcane Shift. I probably shouldn’t have stuck my neck out as far as I did, and I was only level two. Vayne threw her ignite down on me, but I used Cleanse to remove the true damage and flashed into the bushes. Both Janna and Vayne tried to pursue me. I knew when they got there that my life would be over. It was in this moment that all hope was lost.

That’s me at 98 health facing a Vayne with a Janna shield, and way out of position just before I used Cleanse and Flash. In a panic I just turned to fight. That random fish knew exactly what to do. She’s probably bailed over-confident Ezreal’s like myself out of situations like this thousands of times. Instead of me looking like First Blood, bottom lane looking like this:

Thank you fish. You really lived up to your name that game. I paused momentarily after that double kill to write “I love you forever now” to which the fish responded with “I love me too.”

I honestly only buy Frozen Fist and Static Shiv because I love the on-hit stuff. I just make sparks and ice as often as possible before the fun items get nerfed.

Double Jungle: New Meta

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I didn’t really look to see what was happening at first. I had assumed that Shaco was jungling and Warwick was going to play in top lane and I would have an unconventional support, thus the safer Ezreal pick. However, before Champion Select ended I noticed the double Smites and knew I would be alone. Three solo lanes and insane gank potential. I was really looking forward to my lane match-up. Ezreal versus Caitlyn and Janna. Joy.

I didn’t have a ton of kill potential early on, but luckily Janna and Caitlyn had even less. I just got to sit in bot lane and try to last-hit at my turret. This actually went surprisingly well. I was willing to spend mana on my Mystic Shot to get last hits from 1100 range because it would keep me safe from Caitlyn and Janna poke. I was actually ahead for most of the early game in creep score, and felt like we wouldn’t lose as long as the game went late enough that I could get some items.

Shaco eventually just had to come lane with me because he was falling behind quickly in the jungle. He really wasn’t a good laning partner, but his clone worked well to block Caitlyn’s ultimate.

Elise’s early game strength started to taper out and eventually I was strong enough that I could lifesteal through her burst. With her unable to kill Irelia, Warwick, Malzahar, or myself she was almost useless, only providing a slow, unreliable skill-shot stun. Unfortunately, she was just a better player than our Malzahar who repeatedly got hit with her silly skill shot. At times it would have been more effective for him to just press R on some poor un-assuming Janna, instead of trying to grab Singed, Elise (had QSS), or Caitlyn (had QSS).

When this game went late I finally got to pick up some kills. We had a couple team fights where I got to pick up some Double kills, but I never got to spend my money! You’ll notice that Caitlyn had 1000 less gold than me, but had a completed QSS and an extra Doran’s Blade! I was sitting on so much cash at the end of that game, but we just had so many opportunities to chain from team fight to Baron to team fight to buff steal and Dragon to team fight. Then the enemy team surrendered. It was probably smart that they did because if I would have spent my money I would have actually been useful.

Real reason we probably won: the enemy Yi disconnected.

First Ranked

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We made a new ranked team! This was a massive undertaking that took weeks of planning and thought and emails and team crafting and theory crafting and… You get the idea. Well, we didn’t like where that took us, so yesterday we just said “screw it” and jumped into the ranked queue!

We told ourselves that we would ban Ezreal if we were second pick and pick him if we were first pick. We were second pick, but the other team banned Ezreal for us, so we didn’t have to. Let’s go through the pick stage though.

First pick Varus. I guess with Ezreal out the other team felt very comfortable on Varus. We picked up Tristana and Nunu. Nunu was going into the jungle, but the other team didn’t know that. The other team picks Sona and Vlad. Silly kids, they thought we wouldn’t have any sustain in bot lane. Well, we out-smarted them by conforming and picking support Morgana and Lux for mid. The other team countered with Amumu and Darius. Oh no. I hate Darius. I don’t like his kit. I hate that if he hooks you, you burn flash. That drives me crazy. He’s too dangerous without damage items. Oh well. We’ll send Steve up there anyway. Best of luck, Steve! Steve picks Nasus. It actually worked better than I thought it would.

Level 1 we’re just minding our own business in bottom lane when Amumu, Varus, and Sona come walking in behind us in river. Game on! Our first instinct is to run once we see three. However, Sona is already low from helping Amumu steal our blue. I ignite and start hitting her with autos. I flash to match her flash. One more hit, but she’s under tower. I get the first blood on Sona, and turn to see Amumu and Varus. Then a wild Nunu appears. We had helped him steal the enemy red, so he was in the bottom jungle, ready to wreck some kids. He helps to DPS Varus so even though Varus used summoner heal we still kill him before he can get out. Amumu is crying at my feet, probably because of the double kill I just got, but that double kill, combined with the creep wave that I got to soak up before they showed up ticked me up to level 2. I quick level into my rocket jump and away I go! See ya, suckers! Double kill for the ADC? What a great way to start the game! Blood Boil OP!

I won the race to Infinity Edge, then got my Phantom Dancer, and was going to get a Last Whisper, but the crits were too much. I was somewhat frustrated with my mid-game because I kept getting bullied by Sona and Varus. Their combined poke burst was too much for my small health pool. I guess I was too used to playing as Ezreal and having Dorans and Phage. I also prefer to just sit in bot lane and farm until I’m huge and then team fight and get my kills that way. I felt like the way that bottom lane was going I kept missing lots of experience and gold from waves that I had to miss because I was too low. I would have Varus and Sona tower dive me if I was at or below half health. It was VERY annoying. However, the feeling of just mowing stuff down later was priceless. I haven’t felt like that on Ezreal because I don’t get as much crit through Trinity Force as I would with Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer.