What I've Been Up To

I've been playing some league with my room mate still I started smurfing on my girlfriends account that she never played on. He is up to level 11 or 12 now and I am up to 6 or 7 I tend to win more when I play on there without him though. I got White 2 on Saturday morning I am currently working on the 5th gym there are so many options of pokemon to use in this game. I am currently having some real trouble with Excadrill though. I haven't checked out whats coming out on Wednesday comic wise but I will certainly be doing so. I downloaded Heroes of Newerth too but its just way too over complicated and hard and I don't like it graphically as much as league.

What I've Been Up To in League

So I have not made a day in the League post lately, I haven't played much as far as "real" games go. I played a couple of blinds and some ARAMs yesterday. Mostly I've been playing Co-Op vs. AI with my roommate to help him level up. He is up to 10 already. I've been having a lot of fun bot stomping with champs I haven't played in a while as well as playing so fun builds, I played an awesome AD Lulu and a hilarious AP Warwick just to name a few. He so far has really liked AP Teemo and Fiddlesticks.

What I'm Looking Forward to 10/7- 10/13

Sorry this is a little late (its already Tuesday) but that doesn't mean I'm not still looking forward to things. So here's a rundown of whats up for me this week.

League of Legends: There are still tons of huge games this week the semi-finals for worlds (along with the CLG.EU vs. WE match) will be happening on Wednesday and the finals are Saturday also next Sunday is double IP all day so I will be there for sure.

Other Games: I just ordered Pokemon Black 2 so I'm hoping it might get here by the end of the week or next week for sure.

Comics: We've moved on from AvX so I'm interested to see some of the aftermath in the first few Marvel Now books coming this week.  AvX Consequences 1 is something I will totally be checking out a long with Wolverine and the X-Men 18. The big draw though is Uncanny Avengers I am so interested to see how an Avengers team works with the likes of Havok, Rogue, Cannonball, and Sunspot.

Weekend Recap

This past weekend was awesome. We had a big League of Legends tournament here at Penn State all day Saturday and Sunday. Our premiere team No Wombats took the grand prize with a 2-0 over Pitt B. I helped out in general and ran the clubs twitter account @PSUPeSports. We had Riot swag I got a wristband and a water bottle pouch thing. As far as other events TSM sadly was eliminated on Friday although recent cheating allegations have been aimed at their opponents Azubu Frost. Then on day three the whole tournament just died. It was absolutely crazy at least this way I should be able to catch all the games live now. Lastly Regi's retirement and subsequent Brett Favre I don't know whats gonna happen there we will just have to wait and see.

My Thoughts on AvX 12 and Uncanny X-Men 19

~SPOILERS~

So I guess I totally missed the fact that Scott killed Xavier at the end of 11 but it is much clearer here. Therefore Xavier won't be going on to lead what remains of the X-men along side Wolverine. The biggest problem I have with the Xavier death, IT WAS THE ONLY ONE. Scott is somehow still alive and I do not understand why. He is obviously being held prisoner and should stay that way for a very long time, but in that case would it not have been better just to let him go. I think its obvious Marvel doesn't plan to leave him behind bars for too long he has to have some role to play if it was worth keeping him alive. All-New X-Men might be a place to look for him to pop up. The fight between Hope and Scarlet Witch wasn't exactly as I expected, although I totally called the "No more phoenix" thing. I was also correct in my thinking that some of the other X-Men would go their own ways Namor, Emma, and Magneto all have gone missing (although Emma was in the last issue of New Avengers in captivity but she might have escaped). This story did finally bring to fruition something that has been expected since I would say Messiah Complex, the damage Wanda did in House of M is officially reverted so expect a heavy flow of new mutants to start appearing in all of the X-Men and maybe now even Avengers books. My favorite line from either of these books is probably the line from Uncanny when Cyclops gets really close to the White Hot Room (http://marvel.wikia.com/White_Hot_Room) he hears "a familiar voice" saying "You're and idiot" and "Tell Logan I love the school's name"

Sharing the Love of League

I got my roommate to try the tutorial of League on my account today. After the tutorial game he played a game as Volibear with all bots and got stomped then played a fairly decent game with all bots as Darius. At this point he started downloading League on his computer and came back to mine to play one last game this time doing fairly well as Olaf. After that I played 3 games with him with/against bots he was not a big fan of playing Nautilus, but did enjoy Hecarim. (I played a 40 kill Fizz and 32 kill 16 assist Blitz) Once he hit level 3 he bought Malphite with the free IP riot gives you. Since then he has played exclusively Malphite in Co-op versus AI and is grasping the game fairly quickly.

My Day in the League 10/1

So I saw a thing on reddit today that linked to a general discussion forum post where a Rioter set a challenge to see how fast you can win a 1v0 game on Summoners Rift. The current NA record holder was a Dr. Mundo who did it in like 6 minutes. I'm gonna give it a few tries of my own a record how it goes here.

Game One: Teemo: 12:23: So I went promote teleport which I think is the best summoner spell combo for this challenge. I chose Teemo because he has a decent movement speed buff, DoT on his E and mushrooms can kill clumped minions pretty fast. I started Dagger and went Malady then Stinger. The real issue was that I didn't think about the fact that all I really have to do is push midlane so I started by cutting off the top lane minions before they got to their outer tower which did lead to my top lane winning (they took first tower) but really was insignificant in the long run since I realized all I had to do was push mid. 89 CS

Game Two: Rengar: 10:04: So for Rengar I kept the same summoners although I am reconsidering Teleport because I never backed in this game and I'm not sure if that slowed me down or not. I started Dorans Blade and Q but maxed W first for wave clear and sustain. I was able to sustain all day so maybe a Amplifying Tome would have made more sense, I needed some CDR too which I didn't include in my masteries for some reason. 94 CS

Game Three: Kha'Zix: 12:03: So I went for Kha'Zix because any game I've played as him his evolved W has decimated creep waves, turns out it takes items for that to really take effect also turns out that if you're non stop spamming his spells then its damn near impossible to have the mana for w. I started Vamp Scepter for sustain, then after suiciding on inner turret I build a tear to try to help with the mana issues, and after dying to his Nexus turrets I bought a BF sword just to make sure I had the damage to finish it off. 82 CS

At this point I decided I was to try this for basically every champ I own so I am gonna set a cap that if it isn't over by 15 minutes I will forfeit.

Game Four: Shyvana: 10:56: I am really surprised Shyvana took so long. She was by far the quickest of the champions I've tried so far to take the first tower. I started Dorans Blade for sustain, on first death I added 2 more (I died first right after we killed inner turret and my TP wasn't even back up yet so that slowed me down a little I think I might stop wasting it in the beginning  but the pace one I got into the opponents base slowed me a lot I wasn't able to keep their minions off of mine as much as I would like. 104 CS

Game Five: Udyr: 10:06: Udyr's mix of attack speed buffs, sustain, and area of effect damage seemed like a pretty good kit for this I had inhibitor tower down by 7 minutes part of me thinks maybe a shouldn't have let nexus towers kill me allow adding the Rageblade to the Dorans Blade I started with did help a little in the end. 95 CS

Game Six: Master Yi: 10:35: I'm a bit disappointed it took so long with Yi and I might revisit him later. I went AP dunkmaster starting with a Dorans Ring then going back after taking inhibitor tower and getting a Fiendish Codex for some CDR and mana regen. 98 CS

Game Seven: Jayce: 12:25: Jayce seem like a really good choice early on but his problem came when in the end you are pushed up to the inhibitor turrets and forced to take on minions intended for all three lanes at that point his AoE damage is basically non existant and therefore slows you down greatly. I started Dorans Blade into Sheen Zeal. 102 CS

Game Eight: Alistar: 12:29: I'm begining to think that 15 minutes might be impossible because I thought Alistar was gonna fail after I managed to die to first tower had a lot of mana problems didn't get to pulzerize nearly as much as I would have liked to I'm gonna have to get mana regen into my masteries when I start true APs. I went Amplifing Tome into Sheen plus Phage and started a Zeal. 78 CS

Game Nine: Sona: 15:06: Well I tried my hardest but even with a Meki Pendant and Faerie Charm the mana issues were too much the Needlessly Large Rod couldn't really be as usefull as I would have liked 103 CS

Game 10: Hecarim: 11:15: I thought this was gonna be something that Hecarim could really excel at I probably build him dumb (I built boots which I haven't done on anyone else) I just wish his W lasted a little longer at latter levels. I went Boots Sheen plus Doran's Blade then Ninja Tabi because they were the only Boots 2 I could afford at the time. 93 CS

Game 11: Corki: 10:02: I thought I finally had my first game under 10 minutes, but I just missed, I think it counts the amount of time that it takes the nexus to explode. I was a little worried about AD carries being too item dependent and single target oriented but after Corki's showing I'm gonna have to give at least Graves a look. I went Doran's, Dagger, Dorans, Long Sword 71 CS

Game 12: Vladimir: 11:22: Vlad is another champion whose lane clear takes a little bit to kick in and I think I had a couple of dumb deaths that held me back. I started Amplifying Tome into a Regrowth Pendant and then a Revolver.100 CS

Game 13: Singed: 11:53: I really thought the push master Signed had a good shot I went back and bought a Chalice after second tower to make sure I wouldn't have mana problems and that worked pretty well but the nexus towers slowed me down a little.Started Doran's Ring for mana regen and AP. 124 CS

And my first champ under ten minutes is: SORAKA?

Game 14: Soraka: 9:53: Starcall OP enough said. Started Doran's Ring got a Sheen and 2 mana pots on my only back. Maxed Starcall obviously and then W second healed myself and siege/super minions. 97 CS

Game 15: Twisted Fate: 11:53: I went Surge instead of TP since Twisted Fate has his own TP but that came back to bite me when I accidentally died at level 5. Went triple Doran's, TFs AoE just isn't as good as some other champs. 96 CS

Game 16: Darius: 11:11: I don't know if Quadra Doran's was worth it or not. Darius didn't do so bad I wonder how his brother will stack up. 97 CS

Game 17: Draven: 10:56: If I would have gone back and bought I might have been able to do it a little quicker, I did the whole game on just one Doran's Blade, was going super fast but the nexus took forever because Draven can't quickly take out all the minions flooding out of the Nexus. 69 CS

What I'm Looking Forward to 9/30-10/6

What am I excited for this week? I have a decent amount of work to do but that's not gonna stop me from enjoying all the awesomeness coming this week.

Comics: There are some exciting things coming this week. First and foremost of course is the conclusion of AvX I gave my predictions for whats going to happen there in a post yesterday. Along with that there are apparently two issues of Uncanny X-Men being released this week tying up some ends of AvX. Additionally I'll be checking out Uncanny X-Force, Defenders, Spiderman, and what looks to be a fun issue of Avengers Academy. There's also a new Carnage series or miniseries (I'm not sure) that I'll be checking out the first issue of.

Games: This weekend is going to be action packed.  The season 2 finals begin on Thursday and run all the way until Sunday I believe. The actual grand final won't be until the next weekend. On top of that I will be attending a huge collegiate tournament here at Penn State with 7 teams from Penn State and 6 other teams representing other colleges attending. I will probably be posting pictures from that on here.

TV: I'll be continuing to watch Grimm and Revolution this week.

My Day in the League 9/30

So I decided after yesterdays happy go lucky day of ARAMs I would get serious today and play some ranked to try to claw my way towards gold ranking.

Game One The first game was a step in the wrong direction, I continue to be a terrible jungler in ranked losing this time as Kha'Zix it wasn't a horrible loss I would argue we were ahead most of the game but our Karthus dc'd for like 15 minutes and during that period of time we fell hard. I couldn't hold mid lane against Lux. Once he got back we started to look towards the upside again but two bad fights that started with us way out of position led to the end. I finished 6/7/6 tied for the second most kills on the team and was only 18 cs behind our AD carry Varus.

Game Two My losing streak continues I got counter picked hard I was Rengar top the opponent was Jax. Lee Sin ganked level 2 and they killed me easy Jax snowballed from there locked me out of lane essentially and Amumu (our jungle) never made an attempt to help. We had one small successful skirmish in the jungle where I picked up a kill and a couple of assists but that was about it for the brightside. I went 2/7/3.

Game Three So I got tired of getting stomped and I really wanted to get my first win of the day bonus so I did the closest thing to a sure bet you can do in League. I went into a blind pick game and picked Blitzcrank.  My internet for some reason blinked off right as the loading screen was about to end so I was a little late to the show but not too much. The enemy team had a Tryndamere top, Malzahar mid and Teemo bot, we hadn't seen their Darius or Gangplank yet but neither of them had smite. They both showed up in top lane and quickly pushed the tower down while I dove Teemo for first blood. They started roaming and caught us off guard at first. We did a much better job of grouping and picking them off though and since we were kind of down and they had a super bruiser advantage on us I went bruiser Blitzcrank after my Philostone and Ionian boots I went Manamune, Frozen Heart, and started my Trinity Force. Our teamwork overcame their bruiser comp and we went on to win my team was Rengar top, Sion jungle, Syndra mid and myself and Teemo bot. I finished 5/7/19

My Crystal Ball: Avengers vs. X-Men 12

~Spoilers Ahead~

This is going to be my predictions for the directions of the Marvel Universe during and following AvX 12. First off the issue itself. Not so bold prediction number one, Cyclops is gonna die. How could it possibly be more poetic, his true love Jean Grey was killed because of the power of the Phoenix Force corrupting her he will meet his own end for the same reason. Everything seems to be pointing towards a fight between Hope and the Scarlet Witch my guess is that once Scott is killed the full Force jumps into Hope overwhelming her immediately. Scarlet Witch uses her super-op powers to subdue Hope and exercise the Phoenix saving the world and redeeming herself for all the bad things shes done. The heroes of the Marvel Universe will realize that the isolation of the mutants from the rest of the world was a partial cause for this all leading to a much increased integration of mutants into the hero world. This explains the Uncanny Avengers team for example. Most of the remaining adult X-Men will return to the Jean Grey School under Wolverine and possibly Xavier. Some will go their own ways Namor will return to Atlantis and Magneto (as hinted in the most recent Legacy) will go off on his own. Magik has totally snapped as exhibited in her last interaction with Colossus I expect her returning as an enemy. Utopia will be destroyed if not in the battle then shortly afterwards. Any mutant children not already at the Jean Grey School will end up there with the exception of maybe a few joining the Avengers Academy (I believe it is continuing.) Overall I expect much more interaction between mutants and the Marvel U in the immediate future. 

Road to Black and White 2

In preparation for the upcoming release of Pokemon Black and White 2 I am replaying White version attempting to try out some of the Pokemon I didn't use in my few previous playthroughs. This started by choosing Snivy as my starter which I have decided is not a wise choice. The Snivy Panpour combo is not particularly helpful against the many early grass and bug types you encounter including the 3rd gym. I currently have 3 badges but am a wee bit stuck due to my teams complete inability to defeat N's Sigilyph. I just added Liepard to the team for this exact purpose. Here they are:  

 UPDATE: Went back to fight N and didn't even need Liepard, Sigilyph missed the air cutter and Scraggy killed him with a faint attack.

My Day in the League 9/29

I am declaring this ARAM Saturday!

Game One First game of the day I randomed Syndra a teammate asked me to trade for Ryze and I said eh, why not. We had a range advantage with Ryze, Syndra, Sivir, Anivia, and Nasus against Ahri, Fizz, Singed, Master Yi and Nunu. They all went pure AP and only Singed and Yi started buy defense items super late when we were already way ahead. I went 19/13/26 Sivir had the most kills with 25 and Anivia had almost as many assists (49) as the enemy team had kills (52).

Game Two In the second game I got Jayce which sadly did not end as awesomely as I had hoped. I cannot tell you how many times I canceled gate by hitting q too fast. I went 6/13/11 which means I was at least involved in 17 of our meager 27 kills. The comps I thought were fairly even, Jayce, Kha'Zix, Singed, Fiddlesticks, Anivia vs. Sivir (20 kills let the game), Warwick, Nasus, Hecarim, Ziggs.

Game Three I got back on the winning road in game number three, I rolled Varus but was offered Annie in a trade and I play a lot more Varus than Annie actually so I thought I'd take it. The enemy team had a pretty big range advantage having, Ashe, Ezreal, Anivia, Syndra, and Viktor to our Annie, Varus, Karthus, Hecarim, Nautilus. However I'm beginning to feel like any half decent Karthus in an ARAM is just an auto win ours surprisingly only had 18 kills (still the most in the game), I went 9/10/17 managing the most assists in the game.

Game Four In this game my team really didn't synergise too well Naut would constantly hook someone then I would jump in and Naut would run back and no one else would follow me so I died a lot. I was originally suppose to be the Naut but instead he traded me for Riven. Our comp was Riven, Nautilus, Ashe, Poppy, Galio with I didn't think was too bad against Wukong, Renekton, Annie, Ezreal, Tryndamere but they stomped us. I finished 5/12/12.

Retro Gaming

Spent my night playing a game that was a blast from the past, Dragon Warrior Monsters II. As a kid I was a big fan of the original but to be honest I never knew there was a number two although I played more recent sequels for the DS. My only major complaints were that they threw new monsters at you at a super fast rate, much faster than I remember in the original, also in the original when you fought boss monster they were like legendary monsters and if you beat them they would automatically join you a mechanic which is absent for the most part from this game. The game plays pretty quick and grinding ins't too hard. Here's a look at my current team. Walrusman is my heavy damage dealer, Beavern is a solid tank, and Floraman's spells are ridiculous  All custom bred.

My Day in the League 9/27

Was surprised today when loading up League of Legends to find that the new champion, Kha'Zix had been released. He is too cool to pass up on so I bought him. The first game I play with a champ is always a custom game with all bots just to get an idea of the basic mechanics. Kha'Zix is super fun I went 38/2 against the bots which isn't all that special. I tried to jump into blind pick to play him against some humans but was too slow the first game.
Game One I played a rough game as Jayce with a Soraka against a Teemo Rengar kill lane, went 1/2/2 before my team surrendered.
Game Two Then the next game I got Kha'zix someone went top though so I was supporting Ezreal against Vayne and Xin Zhao (I only cs'd while he was out of lane, at the end of the game he had 257 cs and I had 188 the two highest in the game), we got a quick 2-0 lead on them but the game drug on with both teams throwing it back and forth, we won in straight up 5v5s (even once when the other team had baron) but lacked the coordination to group we won in the end I finished 11/12/17 and Ezreal was 18/9/21.
Game Three The next game I was also a duo bot Kha'Zix this time though I was the carry because the last guy to pick went Shen at the last second and went top. We were against a Nidalee Draven, Nid thought she was some kind of poke master but my W actually traded with her very well and is harder to dodge than a spear in my opinion, we had two early ganks from our jungle Xin and took bot tower by like 7 minutes. I started roaming and they forfeited at 23 minutes finished that game 4/3/10.
Game Four My last game as Kha'Zix I finally got to solo top 1v1 against Jarvan IV, I'm not sure how strong of a match up Kha'Zix is gonna be against a tank because it negates a lot of his burst, I let him push and managed to stay even and eventually ahead of him in farm. My jungle was busy elsewhere and his couldn't gank me because he was always pushed. So laning phase ended us both 0/0 but our bot lane Fiora/Hecarim was stomping. I think in the end I was much more useful than Jarvan I went 7/3/7 our Hecarim went 16/0/7 and we won hard.
Overall my thoughts on Kha'Zix are that his Q is super bursty from an AD melee champ his W once evolved actually clears waves really fast if you hit it right, and his R is pretty good to close gaps especially with the CD refresh on kills and assists. I'm still not sure about his ult the invisibility is short so its not really a good way to sneak in on a carry like Rengars ult, the one this it is good at is refreshing his passive during a big fight.
Game Five I decided to get serious for a game so I played ranked, I was 4th pick mid and made the horrible mistake of picking Vlad into a Fiddle. That went terribly I went 0-4 in lane without their jungle ever having a successful gank. Our other lanes also had some difficulties of their own. Fiddle finished 13/2/9, I was 3/8/9 and dropped to a meager 1126 ELO. Atleast from now on I know to pick Fiddle against Vlad.
Game Six I decided for my last game of the night to play an ARAM. Definitely ended the night on a good note got Dunkmaster Jarvan the Fourth went 4/8/32 (I was involved in like the first 20 kills for my team) and we won without losing a tower despite playing most of the game 4v5 because Corki spilled water on his router before he could load into the game.