Jhin is my new love. So much fun. Such satisfy. Wow.

Aside from him, I also play Caitlyn, Lucian, Jinx, Trist, and, when I can get away with it, Vayne and Draven. My pool is pretty varied.

Fuck Ezreal though. He can go die in a trashheap, where he belongs.

 

I've been working on my support game recently. Nami last week, Soraka this one. I'm liking Soraka a lot.

 

If you've been playing support, may I recommend the amazing Bard? I'm running a Bard Only account and have a decent 25/4 in ranked so far.
Not to count that I'm betting one of the new Star Guardian skins might be him!

 

Haven't tried him yet, but I've seen him come up in a bunch of different games on Youtube. Looks interesting, so I'll give him a go before the rotation shifts again.

 

If you can find Aphro and Biofrost's compilations you'll learn a bunch of tricks.
The fountain portal is essential, just to name one.

 

Go Illaoi support. I hadn't seen it too often recently until I landed one yesterday. Test of spirit + Kog's long range rapid-fire = bot lane constantly backing. After the first gank (which failed spectacularly) I swear even their jungler was tilted.
Good times

 

So Sandbox mode would me more like Training mode in Budokai? I interpreted the idea wrong, my bad.

 

A little late, but I'm a Cait main. And this was before her rework.

Honestly, in love with new Cait. Her traps make her siege and siege defense otherworldly, and I've dragged many a game out way beyond the point where we should have surrendered.

Unfortunately, my winrate with her is somewhere around 50%. The biggest problem is mid-game you deal no damage at all. And oftentimes waiting for four items is really hard when everyone in my ELO just loves to teamfight on respawn.

Only games I manage to win are the games where I can abuse Cait's laning to force a 20 minute GG, or the game drags out late enough that Cait's dmg becomes OP and hypercarrying becomes a thing.

Oh and the games where I get carried. But those are usually few and far between.

EDIT:

I play some Ezreal, Trist, and Ashe. They're fun, but I can't hit a global ultimate to save my life. Funnily enough, my Ashe winrate is much higher than my Cait winrate. Just goes to show you how OP Ashe was a couple patches back.

 

I can't be the only one that imagines Sandbox as the mode where you can mess with pretty much anything, right?

I mean, in a literal sandbox, you play by creating a bunch of stuff. What I thought Sandbox was would be closer to making that Tower Defense mode in Warcraft, but in League this time.

I completely get what you mean, would it be fun? Yes.
Would it have ups and downs? Most likely, nothing is perfect.
Could it make people more toxic? Actually,yes it could. I can already see the insults of "Go back to training mode, retard." after you feed your ass off.

I'd still really like Sandbox mode in the game, your definition of it or what mine was.

 

The thing that worries me the most is the "starting at level X with X amount of gold" part of sandbox mode.

I feel like experimentation with new metas in game is part of the fun, instead of having everything solved beforehand because of sandbox mode. Like, it's more interesting and easier to remember for people to figure out "Oh, this item is better against this champion" in a game rather than in sandbox mode.

I'm also worried that sandbox mode would make competitive boring, or outcomes practically guaranteed, since people could pre-test which comps work against which comps, and the game is mostly decided by the end of champ select (barring outplays, etc, which I think happen less often than one would think in competitive).

 

Sorry, but that's utter bollocks.

Theorycrafting always has and always will be part of the game. Itemisation doesn't get decided on a whim - there are people in the community that literally make their living by running numbers on different item combinations for different matchups and scenarios. Sandbox mode would merely be a tool to help set up these scenarios in practice, cutting out half an hour or more of pointless grinding in customs, because, make no mistake, teams can and do pre-test builds, champions and strategies. That's what scrims and practise are for.

If you think this game is decided in champion select, you've got another thing coming. The ability to draft cohesive and effective compositions in champion select is one of the things that can make or break a team, yes, but it's not the only thing (and you've gotta remember the other team is doing the same thing, at the same time). Mentality, playstyle, macro/micro, individual talent and consistency all play a massive part in determining the success of a team.

 

Duly noted. I may have overexaggerated. The chance for outplay is, of course, always there, but my only concern is that with the ability to "preview" almost any comp against any other comp at any point in the game, as well as being able to simulate playing from ahead and behind at any point in the game, it makes the game more "solved" than at any previous point in its history.

Analysts are currently doing this, but because they can only present one itemisation and strategy at a time per scrim, I feel like progress is infinitely slower than it would be with sandbox mode.

 

Solving a game means finding an optimal strategy for playing it - i.e. one by which one of the teams can always force a victory, or both can force a draw (which doesn't apply to league anyway).

Chess has been around for roughly 1400 years, and hasn't been 'solved' yet. What makes you think that giving the players the tools to actively and efficiently improve their abilities makes a game solved? It might increase the quality of play, (which we've seen over the past few years anyway with the adoption of coaching and analysis in pro-leagues worldwide), but solve it?

Hell no.

Which is a bad thing. Would you have football players spend an entire 90 minute game to work on the accuracy of their penalties - something occurs very infrequently - or would you have them practice penalties in isolation? I can guarantee you that the players practising core skills through repetition, and focused, dedicated practice would trounce players that trained using the former.

This idea that we shouldn't have a sandbox because people would improve too much, and players that didn't want to use it would be left behind, is absolutely absurd. Practise makes perfect, and if someone isn't willing to put in those hours, they deserve to be left in the dust.

 

Wait what? I'm not saying that we shouldn't have sandbox because some people would improve too much while others were left behind. I completely agree with you on that point, of course if you're willing to dedicate hours to improve yourself with sandbox mode then you deserve to be better than those who refuse to put in those hours.

I'm just saying that I'm not sure if the game would become less entertaining because professional players and even high-elo solo queue would feature close to zero mistakes and we would see practiced, mechanical, clinical finishes to most games. It's good in terms of a winning perspective, but less so for entertainment purposes. Personally, I'd enjoy a 70 minute clown fiesta of a game much more than a 25 minute well-executed game. I recognize that most teams are aiming for the 25 minute well-executed V, but 2 HP nexuses (nexi?) games are the ones that I rewatch over and over (I'm thinking FNC vs OMG Season 4 right now).

Not sure if that makes sense.

 

See, that's where we disagree.

I fucking hate clown fiestas in any sport. Oh, there's 1 mil on the line? Better go full yolo ham and dive 1v5.

There is a beauty in perfect play. Watching Samsung White in 2014 was beautiful, because it was so practised. They were not boring to watch. Their practise allowed them to make incredible plays.

Clown fiestas are wrong in any competitive sport. Playing aggressive is a viable strategy, and I'd argue that KOO Tigers from last years finals were amazibg at this.

If you want a shitfest, go watch the WWE, or whatever its name is now. That has all the drama you want.

 

Well, we'll agree to disagree then.

If you asked me whether or not Samsung White's play would allow them to dominate the competition (arguable more so than even SKT) and win every single game if they were trying their hardest, I'd say of course. If you asked me whether or not their play was beautiful, that it was instructive, that they should be studied by professional teams across the world even two years after their time, I'd say yes.

But if you asked me whether or not their games had me on the edge of my seat, whether it was the type of game where I would carry my laptop around the house instead of leaving the game for a few minutes, then I'd say no.

I'd rewatch FNC v. OMG (2014), or CLG vs RNG (2016 MSI) over SSW's games. Shrug, that's just me.

 

You mean my team might actually end games when there's an opportunity, rather than farming raptors, or throwing harder than an olympic shotputter?

Sounds like heaven to me.

 

Oh for sure, if I'm playing, I'd much rather have a bunch of teammates who have practiced sandbox mode and know how to end games. I'm talking about from a viewer's perspective in competitive.