f13.net

(http://i47.tinypic.com/2vv6cza.jpg)

Couch Athletics is having a captain's night Friday, Feb 12th starting @ 9pm EST 6pm PST.

You just show up in their vent around that time and go to the appropriate channel.  Their vent has no pw and the info is: ventrilo.couchathletics.com 28587

Schild, Thrawn and Corbaine had a team a few weeks ago and their team met the team I was on in the finals.  There are some decent-good players who were there but overall the talent level is fairly low so nobody from f13 should be intimidated in the slightest.  The regulars especially aren't that good.

That said just go to the channel they have set up and set your comment to the champs you want to play by clicking the comment button.  They will pick team captains then the captains all get a room and you get moved in when you are picked.

I won't be around that weekend and most of the next week but I hope you guys go and stomp them and I want to go to these in the future.

***

More importantly and why it was worth a thread:

Solomid 2v2 TT Tournament (http://www.solomid.net/forums/index.php?/topic/865-2v2-treeline-tournament-sign-up-thread)

Rules:
Map:
- Twisted Treelines

Number of players:
- 2 players on each side
- 1 optional observer (if one team has an observer the other team must have one too to balance tower gold)
- The observer may not picks a champion with a global passive, use a global skill, nor speak in all chat. He is allowed to go to top lane tower to stop the lane from pushing

Game mode:
- Best of 3
- Single bracket (you lose, you're out)
- Draft: 2 bans each team followed by 1-2-1 exclusive picks, team that bans first picks second
Round 1: Home team picks side and whether they want first pick or first ban
Round 2: Swap sides and swap pick order
Round 3: Home team chooses pick order, away team chooses side

Objective:
Either 1) kill enemy inhibitor or 2) first team to score 2 kills (killing the same enemy twice or killing each enemy once)

Prizes:
TBD, probably going to be Riot Points

Other Rules:
- Bottom lane only. "Middle" jungle is also allowed (lizard and 2 surrounding camps), but not "top" jungle (dragon, ghost/wolf buffs, and 2 smaller camps).
- Runes and masteries are allowed
- No champions are auto-banned for now, but this might be subject to change
- Sign-ups will close and rosters will be locked on Feb 22. I might push this back a little in the future if need be
- Unfortunatly no top tier players will be allowed to compete in this. This tournament is really to help non-top-tier players become more competitive

I'm guessing that means MegaZero & Messiah won't have their usual teams in this one.  I'm totally down to practice this some and sign up.  I'm sure Cooltang and Synthetic will field a team, I'm guessing Adam will too.  Anyways I'd be down to do some practice mode scrims and shit for this could be lots of fun.  What champs do people think are best for the format?  I'm thinking Shaco, Trist, Annie, Sivir, Ashe, Nid, etc.

***

Random vent server is hosting Saturday 5-man draft mode tournaments.  Apparently their first event went off well. (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=58080)

You'll want someone with a stun and/or escape mechanism. I assume that shaco will be banned, so you can probably forget trying that. You probably want a ranged character.

A strong pusher and/or burst would also be preferred. Nasty combos. I wouldn't pick a caster.

Well that's the thing, 4 bans and exclusive draft means some interesting champs will get played I would think.  I haven't really fucked with the format much but it really does have a meta of its own that is probably really interesting.

I really don't get why first ban gets 2nd pick, I see no advantage in banning first unless the bans go 1-2-2-1 in which case yeah I can see the advantage of having the last ban option.

Sivir & Nidalee & Taric & Alister. Pick two. Think I'm gonna call dibs on Thrawn right now.

Also, now that I'm level 30 and my ELO is relatively stable, I see no reason to not just practice most of the time as that map will undoubtedly be eventually official.

Taric?  Really?  I wasn't even thinking of him as a good pick.  However I played two games against Taric + Clarity lanes and the pressure was crazy annoying yesterday so you may be on to something with that pick.  If the other team has Allistar I would just play very safe and wait out those early levels where if his teammate can score a kill off you getting stunned, at say level6-9 having a teammate who doesn't contribute any damage isn't going to give you a gank in a 2v2 and then you lose.  Just theorycrafting of course, which is why it'd be fun to play some practice games and see what works.

Map control will be huge, but honestly, this is one case where I'd probably go AP/Cooldown Nidalee and drop traps and just control everything. Clairvoyance on both is key - replace Teleport. Karthus and Morgana might work.

Karthus maybe (but probably not, no stun, kinda squishy), Morgana no, although black shield is still a great spell she just can't output much DPS compared to other casters right now.

Those lanes are small and there's thin enough woods right next to them that she can wander next to the lane, still get creep exp, and throw shields through the terrain that karthus can then wreck whoever they're on. I imagine most people will take Flash and Cleanse though.

Since it's one lane first to push down an inhib, could always just go Allistar/Sivir or something similarly good at pushing a lane and not dying.

Yarp. Guess I might have to start playing Sivir, though I've outpaced some good Sivir's I've played against as Nidalee. i assume everyone will field a Sivir though and double heals will be ridiculous. Though, I'd wager CM and Nidalee will be the first ones banned.

I dunno, CM could be pretty neutered on a small map stuck in one lane.  His mobility is the main reason he's op, if you know where he is you can play around gold card.  I'd probably ban Shaco/Nid/Kayle off the top of my head.  Maybe even Zilean would be a decent choice, his ult would be insane in a 2v2.

Since it's first to two kills also no one is going to be fed or insane so the character selection and stuns/ults/disables are going to be huge I think.

Mmmmmm, I didn't notice the two kills part. Alister or Malphite and Nunu. If you make it to level 6, you win!

Seriously though, this is going to be one of the most limited tourneys I've seen for any game in terms of character usage. They should just really make it "Win the game."

There is now a poll asking if Nid should be auto-banned from the solomid 2v2.

So not shocked.

Ima win me that 2v2 :D

I see we have a couple F13 teams signed up.  Hmm, guess I'll have to take my theorycrafting to pms as to not help out the opposition. :)  I think Gragas/Soraka would be an unbeatable 2v2 combo.  Someone should run it.

So, looks like Nidalee might not be getting any nerfs. Devs are ignoring the issue whereas normally they're vocal.

A lot of the tournament is just going to be on the fly decisions.  You can theory craft a great team but then game 2 they ban both those characters and you get crushed if you weren't prepared to do something else.  I think the only thing likely to stay steady is in most cases you will want 2 characters with dps and disables, or very very strong dps/utility if they don't have a good disable.

Hmm, won't let me edit posts from my phone I guess.  I do wonder how rules are being enforced though, if someone wanders into top lane briefly or a steath character kills some top jungle creeps it's just your word against the other team.  I predict more than one occurance of shenannigens, can't ever have competative play without people trying to cheat unfortunately.

Really, the map is so small they shouldn't have made rules about the jungle creeps, but whatever.

Agreed, I think the overdone rules are just going to make thing worse.  Having a spectator, limited to one lane, so many things to be discreetly abused by creative players.

Just a friendly bump to remind people today is Friday, I'm going to try and remember to make the Couch-Athletics thing tonight.

I guess I could.

I really expect and intend to.

Hoax, Schild and I showed up, we cruised to 3-0 victory in the tournament.

Team Bat Country, whatup.

Nice guys

Finals of another tournament we're in, being streamed: http://www.livestream.com/epistemic

Game over, we win another tournament.  :awesome_for_real:

Video of final game from opponents Kayle - http://www.livestream.com/epistemic/video?clipId=pla_8df931b5-ec44-4b85-aafd-d3b4175ed3c3

Not terribly interesting really, 16:30 ish is when the game really turns when we take them doing dragon.  Really wish you could here the vent chatter better.

So true.

Nice work guys!

Did you ever find out why so many people took Singed?

Also grats guys, wish I could have stuck around for it.

No.


If you came along and replaced one of our team members it would of been boring, we would of crushed so much harder.

Gratz on the wins.

Still haven't been able to get our 2v2 match rolling, the tournament seems a bit sloppy for various reasons Hoax pointed out well on vent last night.  Whatever, I think I like the larger games anyways.

I feel like we've gotten better on some of our issues like communication, staying together, warding stuff.  But one thing we are still TERRIBLE at is focus fire in team fights and were getting losses because of it. :(

We should nominate one person to call targets and all follow. Trying to get the hive mind to make a decision in the span of 2 seconds is hard. Hell, said person flag the target with a map ping so they don't get lost in the fight as easily. I've been having a lot of success flagging the squishy in my solo Q games.

I think tommorow is the deadline to finish round 1 2v2 games and post results.  I don't think Schild has even been able to get a response from anyone we're supposed to play.  Win by forfeit I guess? :P

I'm going to push it as a win by forfeit. Checking my solomid account now.

Edit: No response, PM'd Messiah.

That's that then. I'm out til 11PM EST tonight, so if they don't respond, they're hosed.

Yeah we are and it really sucks, also being lazy if we "seem" to be up on a team.

Here's my report from me and MrBoss getting beat in the 2v2, we didn't get beat badly all things considered but we weren't really in it and we didn't have any experience with the format, 2v2, or first kill wins in general.

Game 1 (we are home team, we choose first pick, for my money first pick is a lot better I still think)

They ban -> Blitz (they ban Blitz because of my wins both games)
We ban -> Nid (one of their guys is a 100% Nid player, also her abilities are still retardedly OP in a 1v1 lots of running in and out situation)
They ban -> Annie (because Boss plays lots of Annie and Annie at L6 is stupid in small scale engagements)
We ban -> Shaco

We pick -> Ryze (admittedly we're very limited in our picks because me and boss don't own many champs and we don't play enough to play everyone, 3 of our 4 champs picked were only because they were free)
They pick -> Cho & Ashe
We pick -> Nasus (I think I fucked us over pretty bad w/ this pick but I wasn't sure what I should play tbh)

We had a chance to win this one for sure, they were playing Cho in front and Ashe hanging way back doing very minimal harassment they had no intention of going for kills until L6.  We got Cho down to 25% or lower about 3 times before they got first blood of my poor play and failing to pop my fort pot, that is a reoccurring theme unfortunately.  Once they get fb they roll it to first tower and the game is over shortly after because we try to force a fight and can't get it because now Cho has veil.

Game 2:
We ban -> Nid
They ban -> Blitz (I might have played him but I doubt it)
We ban -> Ashe (I didn't want to play against Ashe because I had declared beforehand we wanted to run a more rushdown team)
They ban -> Annie (go with what works, I can respect this)

They pick -> Cho
We pick -> Ryze & Zilean
They pick -> Morg

My Zil is terribad, I had considered playing him a bunch to get him down now that he's so OP and because I thought he would be a good pick for this.  But Boss hasn't been around and nobody else I know has been practicing for this format so I figured fuck it.  It was working sort of, we had them back a ton and were getting more creep kills but we could have done a LOT better.  I should have told Boss and checked my own auto attack and if we had taken only the last hits so that as few as possible of our creeps were getting to their tower range (the only place they could get kills) we might have won off of money advantage alone.  We were laying down some harassment but Morg is a fairly hard counter to our team.  With playtesting I might have known that, so if you guys think of taking Zil make sure you have Morg off the board.  The shield was keeping them in the lane and eventually I died because Zil is still paperthin and I kept mishitting E instead of W and casting on yourself is a  bitch if you aren't used to the particular champ's hitbox.  Our plan would have worked (ryze + zil) IF we had practiced like 10 games with them.  But we hadn't so we lost.

Oh well.

Final thoughts:
I don't like 4xBan Unique Champ draft though I do want to learn the 1v1 solomid format but I'm not sure when/how to do it.  I just don't play all the champs nor do I want to play all the champs and for a 4 bans unique draft format you have to own and play a LOT of champs or have invested time into figuring out what is worth playing, probably a lot of the latter.  If as a group we had gotten Adam's team, the 2 f13 teams and Cooltang&Syn together and played a few games I think we could have done much better.  I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea that people are planning to gravitate competitive play to such an annoying format that requires you to give a fuck about trying out every champ.

I plan on trying to show up for captains night on Friday again. I seem t remeber someone saying something about being signed up for a draft pick tournament on Thursday??

Yeah I'll be around for both Friday and Thursday night unless something drastic comes up.  Thursday is a 5v5 event, not sure of the details but its through Couch Athletics but with a more serious tryhard vibe.  Supposedly they might even let Adam play again.

Boy howdy, you'd be wrong.

http://www.couchathletics.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=195&t=5745

I suppose signing up first may have stopped anyone else from signing up. Auto-win IMO.

If we do end up playing draft I'm guessing TF will be our ban pick every round? :)

TF/Ryze/Blitz, sure.

My second choice after TF would be Nid almost always if it wasn't for the fact it would gimp ourselves.

I don't worry about playing against other Nids and Nid/Fiddle is just too horrifying a combination at low level.

Don't waste a ban on Blitz you can just play safe and outfarm him he can't afford to melee many creeps because he can be harassed hard and has no real escapes.

I'm not even sure banning TF is worth it unless they have a TF player.  Ryze for sure is a good one.

Speaking of TF, this was so hilarious I had to post it:


Apparently, you can get your team to all buy elixirs and kill a tower before minions spawn, too.

HMMMMMMMM.

One fortify or two teleports shit all over that plan though, right?

Which is why you look at their starting spells. You can still go for the gank. It's becoming pretty common.

Whoo hoo, so currently it looks like Thursday night draft is on and we have 2 of our team present (counting me).

5v5 draft, F13 wins

Final game -

Bans - TF and Twitch

Pick order was (I think)

Bat Country -
2-Sivir
2-Taric
4-Fiddle
4-Alistar
6-Nidille

Opponent -
1-Mordikiser
3-Annie
3-Ashe
5-Jax
5-Kassadin

I would make a comment about us hoping to continue the streak tommorow night, but captains night is likely to see us all on different teams.

Team Bat Country rides again.

ON A PALE WHITE HORSE. NAMED TEEMO.

Still can't believe they picked Mord first.

Here's what happened (I wrote it down) in case anyone is interested:

Game 1 > We ban first & pick first (somehow this happened, I'm not clear how)

Our ban - TF
They ban - Fiddle

We pick - Sivir (Hoax)
They pick - Malphite
They pick - Ryze
We pick - Annie (Tsal)
We pick - Alistar (Thrawn)
They pick - Ashe
They pick - Karthus
We pick - Taric (Tiberius, not from f13)
We pick - Nidalee (Schild)
They pick - Udyr

When we weren't standing in Karthus' aoe we pretty much raped face off, we took 3 exhausts so Udyr had almost no effect on the game and Ashe never really got going.  We took Lizard at start but Alistar stole it from Sivir/Nid, in fact he had Lizard 2-3 times in the game and ended with 8 kills tryhard indeed.  Our push was stronger and our 5-man was stronger we owned dragon and most of the buffs and never gave them much breathing room, they got first blood and it was downhill from there.

Game 2: (we have first ban but 2nd pick)

We ban - TF
They ban - Twitch

They pick - Mordakaiser (who fucking knows why, the team captain wanted to play him and made this ridiculous pick)
We pick - Sivir (Hoax)
We pick - Taric (Tiberius)
They pick - Ashe
They pick - Annie
We pick - Alistar (Thrawn)
We pick - Fiddle (Tsal)
They pick - Kass
They pick - Jax
We pick - Nidalee (Schild)

This time we cleared our south wood on blue and got Nid Lizard and then got dragon to start.  The lane phase was mostly in their favor probably, though Nid was running over Ashe.  They got first blood but we recovered with some coordinated play before they were really ready for it.  They countered by going five-man before we were and honestly the game was very touch and go for awhile.  Luckily, we controlled dragon and dragon wins games, while we had strong enough pushing to keep our towres up and they really didn't push at us hard enough if they had they might have gained advantage.  Also by the time we reached the mid phase Nid had almost all our kills and was insanely fed which made our pushing power insane.  There were a few more team fights, some we lost but we had such creep control that they could never get anything out of their half victories and once we managed to finish Baron it was over.

gg's to all, it was fun playing serious games like that.

Wow, looks like you guys are doing really well. How is the hero rotation/unlock system working out?

It's better on Alistar anyways because I like punch stuff...and stuff.

I started playing again and enjoying Sivir. Since you guys already have one, is there any hero you feel would help the team to learn? I really only know lower tier guys like ChoGath, singed, and Veigar. Used to play Ryze as well...

We don't normaly run a Sivir actually.  She was just a really good pick for draft.  Our normal team is Malphite, Fiddle, Nid, + whoever happens to be on.

Ok, I'll hone my Sivir skills and have Singed and co. as backup fun.

I'd like to play some non-tourney shit tonight, I was on vent last night but noone was on. Anyone get on there still or did ya move to like Cool's spot?

We were playing the Couch Athletics draft tournament last night and will likely be playing the CA captains night tonight.

I still can't believe that LoL hasn't implemented a 5 random vrs. 5 random mode. Now that would be pretty damn cool I'd say.

Make it so all champs are unlocked in that mode, hell it could get people to try new champs, like them, and buy them.

It's ok that they haven't released game modes or added twisted treeline to normal or a third rune page or etc or etc.

They've released a ton of mediocre skins and a bunch of champions that were almost all terribly broken for good or bad on release.

Oh, and don't forget Leaverbuster!  Nothing like being punished because your team was 2 hard randoms and a Mordikiser with clarity and revive.

I was thinking maybe try to get good with karthus - him and fiddlefuck together is painlocker

Karthus
Fiddle
Niddle
Alistar
Sivir/Taric/Annie

That's a lot of magic though....

Karthus isn't bad, but Sivir is currenlty much, much, much, much better if you're playing tryhard and trying to win.

Yeah, I have found as long as you are willing to be a team player with her (minus some solo queuing bad luck...discons and such) she can really turn the tide in team fights and lane pushes and win games.

I have been practicing with Shaco and Twitch during the last few days and I think I am getting semi-competent. Have been thinking about buying Warwick, he sure is fun to play.

Hoax, Schild and I ended up on the same team again last night.  Made it to the final game where we absolutely fell appart and did not play smartly or as a team and got crushed accordingly.

Oh, and one of our 5 we picked up was a bit of dead weight, but I don't think he was why we lost the final.

Bans:
Shaco - Us
Nidalee - Them
Blitz - Us
Mordekaiser - Them

Picks:
Jax - Them
Rammus / Teemo - Us
Malphite - Them

Powers:
Jax - Cleanse / Smite
Malphite - Smite / Exhaust

We lost.

They're also so tryhard it made the game unfun.

-

Game 2:
Bans:
Nidalee
Shaco
Mordekaiser
Jax

Picks:
Pantheon - Us
Them - Blitz / Malph
Fiddle - Us

WE GOT THIS HERE WE GO

We lost. And we don't really care.

Indeed, no way the team we lost to is making it to the finals though.  We didn't crushed and we didn't really practice the format at all or put much thoughts into our picks, both games were 2 kills to 1.

Smite ?

To get an early golem buff ?

Lizard, which I promptly stole in the first game by killing Jax with Ignite. They tried that shit in the second game but we had wards.

March 11th is the big 3v3 TT tournament top 16 starting, it was 90 teams with big prizes ($50 RP + headsets, mice, kb for 1st place) so it has 2-4 really top teams in it with players most of the community will recognize.

I'm sure Messiah will stream and more info will show up on solomid if you look for it.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=71352  for lineups

I'm suprised they livestream these.  Seems to me it opens abuse potential for the other team to watch what they are doing.

If you are serious about playing some tryhard signing up for Solomid's League system that is going live in a week or two is a good idea.  From what I can tell it may give us a chance to play with some very good players and learn some shit.  Nobody is 100% sure how it will really work in practice though.

Do they know when the league will be? Which days there doing I should say?  Could be fun to do depending on when it is.

The way the league LOOKS like it will work is as follows:

-You join #solomid and check w/ the bot, it tells you there is a game waiting for more players or that there are no games currently running.
-Eventually you get together 10 people who want to play.
-The Bot selects team captains?  Or it randomly assigns teams based on the #solomid elo (not sure)
-I think it assigns captains and they pick teams from the 10, then there is an exclusive draft.
-You setup a practice game join, select the determined champs and play the game.
-When its over 6+ people who were signed up for that game need to report which  team won to the bot for the game to be counted.
-The bot will instantly change everyone who played's elo according to that result.

Rinse, repeat.

Basically its a way to get pick up tryhard games that will matter, how it will actually turn out in practice is anyone's guess.

Ahh, interesting.  Looks to be what the old TDA games in dota were.  Should be good if it works out, that was always a good way to get quality players in the game and to get people who weren't going to be complete asses.  Well, maybe complete asses but at least they wouldn't rage quit.

Ok so people were testing out the system yesterday and it works and anyone who wants to be tryhard should probably try it out.

Its 1-2-1 bans and 1-2-2-2-2-1 picks first ban picks second.

To give people an idea here are the picks in my games:

Bans
1 - Jax
2 - Fiddle & Taric
1- Nid

Picks
2 - Sivir
1 - Alistar & Annie
2 - Soraka & Malphite
1 - Nasus & Ashe
2 - Shaco & TF
1 - Gragas

another game:

Bans
1 - Jax
2 - Soraka & Nid
1 - TF

Picks
2 - Blitz
1 - Taric & Sivir
2 - Trist & Ashe
1 - Malphite & Fiddle
2 - Anivia & Nasus
1 - Corki

another game:

Bans
1- Alistar
2 - Taric & Jax
1 - Sivir

Picks
2 - Nid
1 - Amumu & Fiddlesticks
2 - Soraka & Warwick (to counter fiddle, this worked well)
1 - Ashe & Kayle
2 - Malphite & Tristana
1 - Nasus

How this all works in practice, you need to get an AUTHENTIC account on quaknet (the irc #solomid and #lolbeta are on).  If somehow you don't know irc, its free just download a client.

Usage: /msg Q HELLO user@host.com user@host.com

You need to specify your email address TWICE (to prevent typing mistakes). A link where you can obtain your password will
then be sent to the email address specified. You must read and reenter a code before you will be given your password.
You can then AUTH to Q.

Q accounts expire if you do not use them. This takes ~80 days of inactivity (no AUTH'ing) to happen.

the user@host.com is where you will put your email address. After you enter your email address you will recieve a email
from Quakenet with a link. Click that link and you will then see your Username and Password.

To auth yourself to Q, type the following command:
/msg Q@CServe.quakenet.org AUTH CobrettiX17 whateverpasswordtheygaveyou

Then to change your password you type the following command:
/MSG Q@CServe.quakenet.org NEWPASS whateveryourpasswordis Newpass Newpass

Every time you connect to quakenet you need to use the "/msg Q@CServe.quakenet.org AUTH UserName PassWord" command before the bot will be able to put you into games.

Now that you have a registered AUTH'd account on quakenet post in this thread following the post guidelines in the OP so that they can manually add you to the bot. (http://www.solomid.net/forums/index.php?/topic/1149-how-to-sign-up-to-league)

Once you are AUTH'd

/join #solomid

All bot commands start with "-" if you want to not be a dumbass unlike most LoL players you can double click on the bot (SoloMidBot) and just private msg commands to it instead of flooding channel.

Once you join you can use -authstatus to check if your acknowledged by the system and -authreq to be acknowledged if you've done everything else right.

The other commands you use are -gamestatus to see if a game is waiting for players and -sign to sign up for a game  that is waiting.  Once a game hits 10 the bot picks teams at random based on your league elo (starts at 1000) and you join a chat channel (lower left of pvp.net) that is the game # (i.e. if your in game 250 you join/create a chat channel called 250 in game) make sure you move to the right team in practice and join solomid vent.

texas2.nationvoice.com
4091

Someone in irc or chat will give a match # and just move to that match and then once teams are picked that team's room to discuss picks/bans.  The picks/bans need to go fairly fast.

From what I've seen you need to have a variety of champs in mind to play thanks to the format.  You also need to speak up.  Don't give a hard and fast list at the start but chime in if you can play any of the champs your team is considering picking.  Certainly after the first 2-3 picks if there isn't a champ you feel you can use you need to let them know who you can play for the team.

I'd say Thrawn & myself are at the low-average end of the skill level for a marker of whats expected of players.  In every game almost everyone was 200+ wins or every close to it.  I haven't seen anyone with under 150 wins.  These people for the most part aren't a ton better but there are a lot more top 500 guys scattered in then we usually see.  PM me or talk in game if you have more questions.

Too much work.

Holy work Batman.  Authing looks like a huge pita.  Although this may be the type of thing I need to keep me interested in the game.  Even most of our "tryhard" game and tournaments lately have been such an uncoordinated mess.

Will have to try this, should be good for when nobody else is on and I want to get in a real game. 

Its quite tryhard, for me since I don't play a ton of champs and I've mostly tier whored its a bit nerve wracking seeing if I'll get a champ I can actually play worth a damn.

Had to play a game as Ashe (first time since beta) in a game where we got stomped as a team but I didn't help matters.

Just played one though, bans were TF, Jax, Nid & Blitz and teams were Ali, Singed, Karthus, Poppy & Trist versus Svir, Taric, Fiddle, Amumu, Ashe

You can not let the other team get Taric, in the two games I've seen him not banned the team w/out Taric has fucking steamrolled.  Also Trist is not a great counter to Fiddle, it seems Warwick > Gragas > Janna > Trist in the counter fiddle sweepstakes.  That or I haven't seen a pro Trist yet which is equally possible.  Typically the dps are picked last (picks like Trist, Ashe, Annie often come at the end) and as a result teams have a bad habit of not getting comfortable players on their dps champs.

I'm really of the philosophy that player comfort is more important than team comp and I've started to speak up a lot more when it comes to the draft process since some people just aren't that good at it and have a tendency to forget crucial shit like that Sivir wasn't banned or picked yet or that we're giving the other team the chance of picking Taric and Soraka if we're not careful.

Currently my team comp strat is to ask right away if we have any Nidalee, Taric, Alistar, Fiddle or TF players, like serious players of those champs.  If my team does we force the other team to ban them if/when we can.  Jax is pretty much 100% first ban with good reason.  Then you just need to keep in mind who can play what and not give them a team comp advantage.

Authed, signed up, etc etc.  Took 5 minutes or less.

More observations inc.

Ban candidates:
Jax, Taric, Alistar, TF, Fiddle, Sivir, Nidalee, Soraka + random champs that people know someone on the other team uses really well.  Teams that deviate from this usually get owned.

The four of those champs that weren't banned will be picked almost every time.  Sometimes neither team runs Soraka since she really forces your team comp.

Champs you should know how to play because they are often available and what the team needs at the end:
Physical ranged (Corki, Trist, Ashe) and to a lesser extent casters with high damage (Annie, Ryze & Anivia)

If you play at least one of those 6 well and in the perfect world 2 of each category you will have more fun doing this.  Otherwise its sometimes nerve wracking having to play tryhard with a champ you really don't know well or forcing your team to run a Gragas/Mord/Poppy/Janna type pick because you can't playing anything else.

There is also a huge lack of good Kass players and I think Kass would be a fucking amazing pick for this metagame.  He can fucking ruin fiddle if he finds him before he gets off his ult and he also can chase down and vaporize Sivir or TF.

The champs that you are bound to see in the game as picks:
Malphite or Amumu, these are your tanks unless Ali is unbanned.  Almost every game each team has one of them.  I've played one game that ran a Singed and one that ran a Rammus.

Nasus is pretty much taken every game since he fits in with almost any tryhard team comp so well but I've yet to see him banned.

***

My most recent game was: TF, Nid, Soraka, Warwick & Rammus versus Fiddle, Sivir, Nasus, Malphite, Ashe (we won) the bans were Taric, Alistar, Shaco & Jax.

Thank for these posts Hoax, will be nice to have a bit of direction going into this.

About to start my first league game, I'm on team 2, picks were -

Bans
1-Fiddle
2-Taric
2-Sivir
1-Jax

Picks
2-TF
1-Malphite
1-Nidalee
2-Alistar
2-Annie
1-Corki
1-Shaco
2-Kassadin
2-Ashe
1-Gragas


End Result

Game wasn't that exciting really, we were just better players.  A very well coordinated team would of given us much more challenge.  Also obviously I think our team makeup was much stronger.

Looks like you team fought.

Solo mid tournament two, on team two again, picks -
(probably wouldn't hurt to have a mod break these out into a "tournament reports" thread)

Bans
1-Jax
2-Taric
2-Nidalee
1-Sivir

Picks
2-Fiddle
1-Alistar
1-Soraka
2-Annie
2-Corki
1-Ryze
1-Trist
2-Malphite
2-Ezreal
1-Kassadin


Well that was painfull, not because we got crushed that badly, just because our Malphite was a terrible pub.  His ults were...wow.  At one point top turret has like 100 hp and they are 5 pushing it.  We call back on vent and start to back off, Malphite runs up, ults them and is promptly killed.  Later they are pushing and someone says on vent "If fiddle can ult in we take this fight."  Malphite immediatly ults them and after we lose the fight says "Well, not my fault, someone said fiddle was ulting so I went."  Etc. etc.  Obviously the heal heavy team was an issue as well and I think Ezreal really didn't help our cause, but I really place the blame firmly on our Malphite even if the scores may not reflect that.

Solo mid tournament three, on team two, picks -

Bans
1-Jax
2-Fiddle
2-Nidalee
1-Sivir

Picks
2-Taric
1-Alistar
1-Soraka
2-TF
2-Annie
1-Ashe
1-Blitz
2-Amumu
2-Corki
1-Ezriel


Ezriel is simply not tournament level good, Blitz isn't really either.  But really a lot of the game came down to agreeing with what Hoax has pretty much already said.  If the other team has Taric, you lose.

Solo mid tournament four, on team two -

I was very vocal about not agreeing with some of our pics/bans, so meh, we'll see how this goes.  I did not agree with Soraka ban or Nid first pick at all.  I even said, if we first pick Nid they will take Alistar/Fiddle and wreck us.  That and the fact that my 3 top characters were taken out early leaving me in an odd position.

Bans
1-Jax
2-Soraka
2-Sivir
1-Taric

Picks
2-Nidalee
1-Alistar
1-Fiddle
2-Malphite
2-Corki
1-Nasus
1-Tristana
2-Ashe
2-Rammus
1-Gangplank


Well, concerns were unfounded I guess.  I think we were out picked early but the later picks seemed to even it up a bit.  We knew their Fiddle jungled because someone just played with him and we shut him down hard.  We denied him early golem and then Nid harassed him constantly.  When I hit 6 Fiddle had just hit 4.

Can someone explain to me the rules of those tournaments ? The whole thing about picks and bans somehow eludes me.

Solo mid league game five, on team two, picks -

OMGROFLWTFLOL, we decided to all take a random pick.  You can set masteries and spells but your first random is your character.  It was one of the most fun games I've played in a while -


We could push down towers really hard really fast and we were able to kill baron and dragon really really fast as well.  That seemed to be a big deciding factor apart from a few people that couldn't play their chars very well.

Bans - Every banned character cannot be picked by either team.
Team 1 - bans one character
Team 2 - bans two characters
Team 1 - bans one character

Picks - Each teams picks the characters for their team, it's exclusive pick which means if one team takes a character it is no longer available to the other team.
Team 2 - one pick
Team 1 - two picks
Team 2 - two picks
Team 1 - two picks
Team 2 - two picks
Team 1 - one pick

Solo mid game six -

Bans
1-Jax
2-Fiddle
2-Sivir
1-Taric

Picks
2-Nidalee
1-Corki
1-Soraka
2-Alistar
2-Annie
1-Ezreal
1-Ryze
2-TF
2-Aniva
1-Gragas


I hate stupid people, take Nid, ask for solo mid, and then build AP, die a bunch to their solo and be useless.  We out-picked them so badly and then couldn't win a team fight because we didn't have enough constant focused damage.  They were good for sure, probably the best Gragas I've ever seen, but...meh.

Solo mid game seven -

Bans
1-Sivir
2-Fiddle
2-Nidalee
1-Jax

Picks
2-Taric
1-Alistar
1-Corki
2-Malphite
2-Tristana
1-Kassadin
1-Gangplank
2-Annie
2-Ashe
1-Twitch


The scores speak pretty well as to what happened.



 

So practice matches are the only way to set this up ? For some reason I can only use a handfull of my champs in those.

Solo mid game eight -

Bans
1-Jax
2-Sivir
2-Nidalee
1-Taric

Picks
2-Fiddle
1-Alistar
1-Annie
2-Malphite
2-Ashe
1-Blitz
1-Corki
2-Singed
2-Tristana
1-Twitch


Raaapppeeedd.

Solo mid game nine, on team 1 -

Bans
1-Nidalee
2-Jax
2-Sivir
1-Taric

Picks
2-Fiddle
1-Alistar
1-Tristana
2-Malphite
2-Soraka
1-Kassadin
1-Annie
2-Ashe
2-Corki
1-Blitz


Raaapppeeedd.

Apparently Jax/Taric are globaly banned now, seems kinda dumb to me.  Isn't that the whole point of ban picks??  (seems I also had a game full of idiots, later on in another game someone said the same thing and the game host told him he's an idiot and to shutup, thats a likely season 1 rule and it's still in pre-season so it doesn't apply)

I'm also hearing that when they start "season 1" it won't be assigned teams by the bots.  The two people with the highest ELO will then captain pick the teams.

Solo mid game 10, I'm team 2, played Rammus -

Global - Taric/Jax

1-Soraka
2-Sivir
2-Alistar
1-Fiddle

2-Nidalee
1-Annie
1-Malphite
2-Tristana
2-Warwick
1-Ashe
1-Amumu
2-Rammus
2-Anivia
1-Twitch


Game was pretty basic back and forth.  Twitch was wrecked every time he showed his face, and later game we focused well and took them in just about every team fight.

Game 11?, I'm team 1, played Alistar -

Global - Taric/TF

1-Fiddle
2-Jax
2-Nid
1-Sivir

2-Soraka
1-Alistar
1-Tristana
2-Warwick
2-Ashe
1-Annie
1-Amumu
2-Pirate
2-Malphite
1-Nasus


Their pirate got mostly owned mid vs trist and top lane was Ashe vs Alistar&Annie so she was pushed out of lane from the start and gave up first blood.  We mostly rolled them cleanly and effeciently the remainder of the game.  Chatting with the other team after the game they were pretty salty about their pirate who apparently spoke up late saying "Oh, I can play Pirate or Twitch, but no one else."

Does anyone even read my mini draft game write ups or am I wasting time posting them? :P

I read them, but I don't need to comment since everything makes sense to me.

Yeah, I like reading em. Keep on rockin' in the free world.

They have officialy reset scores and started season 1 as of Monday.  They also have 3v3 matches setup on the bot as well.

The rules are the same except the hos has the option of global banning 2 chanpions.  They are working on setting up a captains pick format in IRC as well but it looks like a lot of people are leery of it.

So what is new during Season 1 at this point?  I thought they were going to make it captain's mode and I have no idea what the point of resetting elo's is.

Also, I read the write ups, I'd be playing draft again but I'd like to work on a few more champs first.

3v3 is added, bigger prize payout at season end, host can global ban 2 champs.  I think that's it for now.  No captains pick yet.

Oh there are prizes now?  Just based on highest elo?

Game 12, team 1, played Ashe -

Global bans by host HydroBuddah-
Jax
Taric

1-Corki
2-Fiddle
2-Sivir
1-Nidalee

2-Trist
1-Alistar
1-Annie
2-Malphite
2-Soraka
1-Warwick
1-Ashe
2-Kassadin
2-Shen
1-Amumu


Don't have the final screen because lol PVP.net, we won pretty solidly.  I was originaly going to play Alistar, but somehow ended up playing Ashe.  We stole an early Baron, we got every dragon, and we focused their Tristana very very hard later game.  Their Shen and Kassadin both weren't very good (Kassadin rushed Sheen, lol), our Amumu wasn't very solid (when told to build Aegis first instead of Heart of Gold he proceeded to build a Rod of Ages) and my Ashe was mediocre.  But I did go positive kill death (2-1 I think, heh) and other then one very bad miss on my first shot I didn't miss an arrow all game and didn't give up any deaths holding the 1v2 lane very well while Warwick jungled.  Was a pretty low kill game, but we took a good early win when we took a 0 for 4 fight then just pushed it all the way in.

I have for sure noticed that the games are very much more "serious business" now that it's "season 1".  To a fault in some games, we won this game but 2 of the people were pretty much raging on vent the entire game.

Game 13, 3v3, team 2, played Blitz -

Bans
1-Mundo
2-Taric
2-Zilean
1-Mord

Picks
2-Nidalee
1-Warwick
1-Poppy
2-Annie
2-Blitz
1-Nunu


It wasn't quite as bad of a beatdown as the score looks like.  I kept to myself on vent during picking and told my teamates that I haven't done 3v3 in League before and to basicly pick for me.  They decided a bit into the game that Blitz wasn't a good choice probably but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.  In the end the teams I think were pretty even skill wise but their comp just beat ours.  Add to that 3 Banshees on their team and it was gg.

3v3 is a very different meta and a very different playstyle.  Will take some adjusting to.

Game 14, 5v5, team 1, played Rammus -

Global bans - Taric/Jax by host HydroBuddah

Bans
1-Sivir
2-Alistar
2-Nidalee
1-Tryndamere - faggot ban by HydroBuddah that no one agreed to

Picks
2-Fiddle
1-Warwick
1-Soraka
2-Malphite
2-Ashe
1-Tristana
1-Nasus
2-Janna
2-Poppy
1-Rammus


Raped and rolled, and I could care less.  With the "season one" rolling now more and more games are becoming just a bunch of nerd raging on vent because they are so worried about their league ELO.  90% of our vent chatter was everyone telling everyone else what they were building wrong and what they did wrong and why we were losing.  We were losing because we couldn't hold 3v5 mid well enough for Trist and Warwick to solo farm.  We were losing because the tanks weren't doing a good enough job of taking damage and not dying.  We were losing because we didn't keep them off Warwick.  We were losing because Rammus built hearts of gold.  etc. etc. etc. all 24 minutes.  I may be done with league games, so much faggotry in solomid now.

Hydros joke Tryn ban, if a random dude would of done it, probably would of been banned from playing.  I see hosts canceling games in IRC and remaking them because someone they wanted to play with didn't sign up in time.  I see hosts making games and then aborting them because they don't know the people signing up, etc. etc.

Man, that sounds like most of my solo queue games. I'm never sure how it's the tank's fault that the carries can't manage to kill anything. :oh_i_see:

Yeah, thats a pretty re-occuring problem when you solo queue as a tank.  You initiate a good fight, the carries don't follow up and somehow it's your fault as the tank.  Then of course later in the game when you don't want to initiate anything because you just die, it's your fault for never starting a fight.

I think my favorite rage part of that match was the idiots on vent early "Tanks will need to buy lots of wards so we can keep Fiddle in check and stop ganks."  Which of course makes sense, so we did that.  But then later in the match it becomes "Our tanks just die in the fight, quit spending money on wards and get some gear."  :uhrr:

ARAM Tourny Registration ends 9/26 (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=249046)

I'd be game totally depending on tournament time/date.

It will be decided on by the teams, which is why I'm reluctant as well.  I'm pretty time limited going to school, but I really enjoy the format.  Although a prize based tournament on a format that's by definition all random seems to be asking for trouble.  Not to mention self enforced rules to be broken.

I'd be up for a bunch of all random games. (Haven't I said that before ? )  :awesome_for_real:

Solomid 5v5 draft pick'up tourny TODAY @ 6:45PM PST sign up info in link (http://www.solomid.net/forums/index.php?/topic/3578-caddys-mini-tourney/)

I had a lot of fun tonight playing tryhard and Thrawn played some AMAR and can talk about it.

For those curious here were our team comps playing a modified draft (1-1-1-2-2-2-1 instead of the standard 1-2-2-2-2-1 for picks).

Game 1:
Evil bans Garen
Good bans Kog & Amumu
Evil bans Morg

Good picks MF
Evil picks Taric
Good picks Vlad
Evil picks Rammus & Annie
Good picks WW & Shen
Evil picks Trist & Udyr
Good picks Kayle (me)

We gave up 2 kills mid to their Annie (by MF) but then Annie got cocky and took majai and lost a ton of farm and xp trying to get ganks that didn't work out for her and we got back in it by getting first dragon and using Shen ult to turn a gank into a double kill + tower for Vlad top and from there we controlled the map to victory. They did a classic fail to push loss, they had the big lead early but didn't take any towers and since we got to dragon their 2 kills were outweighed and we got the first decisive fight.

Game 2:
Good bans Kog
Evil bans Garen & Vlad (in response to our Vlad who wrecked)
Good bans MF (their best player has a good record w/ MF in ranked)

Evil picks Amumu
Good picks Morg
Evil picks Kayle
Good picks Warwick & Ez
Evil picks Janna & Annie
Good picks Nasus (me) & Taric
Evil picks China

We all felt we were probably outpicked this game but we ended up crushing them despite losing fb again to Annie on a good gank from jungle Amumu + Annie on Ez. Our Ez rebounded with a sick hard carry and Warwick beat Amumu in jungle dominance to seal the game as we won every decisive team fight and took Baron early (19th min or so) to wrap it up.

Honestly I'd say that tonight improved my play and forced me to think harder and tryharder than any ranked game at the low starter elo ever does. I haven't played much ranked so I need to drag myself to at least 1500 just to get out of the shits. I really recommend anyone who wants to get a taste without the elo grind to look out for these free entry prize tournaments. I could give shit about a Riot Singed skin code compared to the L2P workout that I get from playing a game you are trying really hard to win.

PS I know the quality of this post is low but I'm like four old fashioneds in so my posting is a bit sloppy, sorry.

Sounds like fun, but I can never get a team of five losers together in time, and I don't want to drag a "real" team down with my characteristic "Determination and a can-do team spirit make up for turning with A and D!" gameplay style.

Still interesting to hear about this stuff, though.  Makes me pine for replays.

The free entry tournaments this weekend were randomly assigned teams both for standard 5v5 and 4v4 ARAM so it really was no barrier to entry. You really don't know where you stand until you play against people who are playing on the higher levels.