Why people say they hate League of Legends

The following graphic is my last six games. You might notice that they are mostly defeats. You might also notice that they are also Summoner’s Rift games. I do not play a lot of Summoner’s Rift games these days; I typically play a lot of All-Random-All-Mid (ARAM) games with my girlfriend, because they’re quicker, and the random player select for all participants absolves all players of such nagging details like responsibility and skill, and sometimes they’re tremendously fun when you and/or other players get to play a little mad scientist with how to build out a character for varying results.

Summoner’s Rift games are typically way longer, and play to what’s known as a “meta,” basically meaning a traditionally accepted form in which the game should be played, with specific positions, roles, and styles that is expected of those players designated to each role. Personally, I feel that playing games to a style because that’s what’s expected is kind of stale, boring, and tedious.

Summoner’s Rift games are also what is played on the professional level, so the alleged millions and millions of League of Legends’ player base are playing the exact same game that kids all around the globe are paid serious money to do so.

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Photos: League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational

So after a few years of watching LoL streams, the east coast of the United States was finally thrown a bone with an actual League event, with the arrival of the first annual Mid-Season Invitational.  The good news was that it was within reasonable driving distance for me, however the bad news was that it was held in Tallahassee, Florida, and most notably, on Florida State campus.

Florida State blows, but since it would be nice to actually attend and see a notable League event, sacrifices had to be made.

Anyway, as a whole, I thought the event was pretty good.  MSI proved that there are in fact, serious LoL fans on the east coast, and hopefully this will be a promising sign that perhaps more things might come to the east coast; maybe not such a shithole like Tallahassee, and perhaps a place that’s easily accessible by anyone via plane, car or internationally, has facilities to host, as well as an existing culture, like say one of the Collegiate teams, like in, oh, I don’t know, like Atlanta*cough?

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The appeal of Garen

During yesterday’s pursuit of 150,000 IP, I had a game where I drew Corki.  And because I didn’t like Corki, I was game to trade him for just about anyone; much to my delight, there was someone else who didn’t want who they drew, and so they traded me Garen.  Despite my occasional displeasure of having to play a melee-tank meat-shield in ARAM, I embraced the opportunity to play as Garen this time, for some reason.

My team won decisively, and despite the fact that I didn’t have a genuine damage item (save for the passive damage by a Sunfire Cape), I still contributed to the killing of opponents, because Garen is Garen.

I don’t really play Garen, as I don’t really play much top lane for the matter, as it pertains to current game meta.  But I have a bro that I (used to) play with regularly that pretty much uses Garen in 99% of the games we play together, so I’m fairly familiar with Garen in general.

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Rank shaming is basically the lamest form of flaming

I was playing League of Legends one day (big surprise), and I was in a game with a teammate of marginal talent, repeatedly dying.  Eventually they blamed their performance (or lack thereof) on the royal lag, which is obviously the reason why anyone has a bad game, because everyone is extremely talented at League of Legends and the only thing that can suppress their immense talent would be uncontrollable ISP maladies.

Anyway, my natural response to someone whining about lag was to basically tell them to stop playing, because let’s face it, it’s not fair to their current and their future teammates to repeatedly enter games with their true talents inhibited by connectivity issues, and not necessarily said to (entirely) antagonize them.  But naturally, since 95% of LoL’s player base are functioning deadbeats, they naturally took it personally and decided to spend the rest of the game antagonizing me as best as they could, which is to say pathetically and completely ineffectively.

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The misery of ranked mode

I’ve never really had any aspirations to play ranked mode in League of Legends. When the day is over, I know that I’m a fairly middle-of-the-pack player at best, and don’t necessarily have any aspirations to rise to the Challenger ranks or anything.  I play with a locked camera, which I get a ton of grief for, and my preferred role is that of ADC, specifically either Jinx or Miss Fortune, to which I receive much more grief over the fact that I have allegedly “four champions (in spite of the fact that my “friends” trolled the shit out of me and mystery gifted me like 15 new champions, thus polluting my stacked champion deck with champions I’m less familiar with).”

I never really saw much point for me to play ranked, because I figured it would ultimately end up with me placing where I probably figured I’d belong, somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Additionally, once ranked, I put myself in the crosshairs of the tryhard players who scrutinize their peers’ accounts to check their rankings, so they could use what they find as fodder for harassment.

This is doubly worse for those who end up placing bronze (the lowest) on account of their own talent level, or in most cases, by being tanked by the weight of trolls who deliberately and flagrantly sabotage games, in order to grief others.

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League of Lobby, volume 6

It’s been a while since we had a League of Lobby, but I also haven’t really played nearly as much as I used to, due to the whole epidemic of “the con season,” AKA doing shit for Dragon*Con, as well as a myriad of other occurrences that have unfortunately pulled me from the Fields of Justice over the last few months. However, there was also the “problem” that simply put, there just weren’t any good verbal spars going on in the lobbies worth chronicling.

Fortunately, given the nature of LoL’s player base, it really doesn’t take more than an observation, Murphy’s Law and tempting fate by pointing out how “quiet” it’s been, for a Player X to decide to throw some jabs at Player Y, and entertainment for all who stick around to watch.

In this edition of League of Lobby, what we have here is a Player X (playing Ziggs) on the winning team (mine), deciding that it would be perfect time to gloat about their victory to Player Y (playing Karthus) on the losing team, and about how easy the entire match was.

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Still seeking my unicorn

Although I never tire of seeing Jinx costumers, I’m still awaiting the day I come across an outstanding Mafia Jinx.  Or as I like to call her, Flapper Jinx, as indicative of the flapper style dress she wears.  Jinx is undoubtedly my favorite League of Legends champion, but I pretty much only play as her in the Mafia skin.

An awesome Mafia Jinx costume, is my unicorn.

I’m a fan of 20’s fashion in general, from zoot suits, wingtip shoes and of course flapper dresses, so when Jinx was released and had an alternate skin in a flapper dress, it was a no-brainer pickup, and I’m fairly certain I’ve never actually played as Jinx in her default skin under my main account.

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