The One Year Solemn Update

Wow. I can't believe it's been a year. If you're reading this, I can't describe how much it means to me that someone actually reads this. Thank you.

There has been many positives of this blog for me. Especially the day when I got ~30k views on a single article thanks to Reddit traffic, the AMA I did back in September where I got a lot of good questions, and hitting platinum (not diamond) while playing against Destiny. It's been a very encouraging year for me, especially given the state of things a year ago for me. I still have a lot of things I want to write about, lots of articles I started and haven't finished, and a web series I would really like to find time for in Season 4. 

However....

I'm not going to try to hide it, i've been really slowing down my posts for the past month. I didn't write anything for the month of October and I didn't write anything for Season 3 Finals. What a shame. However, nothing is without good reason. Unfortunately, like many people who find their hobbies aligned with eSports I have been dragged back into the real world.  School, work, social life has really taken its toll on me. Furthermore, the disbanding of my team has removed a lot of my competitive drive that pushed me to write for this blog. Unfortunately, again, I don't have the time to work with another team.    

This doesn't mean i'm going to stop blogging. Unfortunately, the prevalence of my posts are going to be seriously hindered (I doubt anyone is even going to care). Which might mean my popularity is going to go to other bloggers like, oh god forbid, stonewall the rambling, concept-less machine. However, I hope to continue three things in particular: Understanding series, State of the Jungle series, and, begin, my web-series. Of course, this is actually a daunting task for someone who aims to maintain Diamond division, finish his last year of university, works part time, and wants to retain a social life.    

I wish everyone the best of luck in securing their Season 3 rewards. Hopefully I will meet a reader of mine in Solo Queue one day. I think I can successfully say that I have been a "real terror" this season. 

Site Over-haul & Update

One of the best League of Legends videos I have ever seen

This is yet another small update post as I finally get settled and decided on what I want to do with this blog in the future. If you have visited my blog before you will recognize that it has been changed, hopefully, to something more visually pleasing. I finally got rid of the disgusting title at the top of the blog after a couple hours of working on the banner, and the HTML. I hope my readers find my blog more pleasing to look at now.

There are three main things I want to clarify here:  

1. I will be continuing with my 'understanding series' which will now all be clumped together as jungle guides along with champion guides. I will, hopefully, release my ganking guides that I had incompleted for several weeks now in the near future.

2. I will be continuing my State of the Jungle series with the latest one covering the current competitive state of the jungle as we enter Season 3 Worlds.

3. I will be working on two new series. First, a jungle tier list which, for some odd reason, many viewers find to be fascinating. Second, a new video series named 'Mind of a Jungler' which follows different game modes of Summoner's Rift from Solo Queue, to Duo Queue, to Arranged 5s where I explain my mindset and thought-process of a jungle game.   

With that said, I hope anyone who sees my blog will be happy to know that I will be getting back into the groove of things starting next week! Until next time, summoners!

Skill Caps & Update

I have finally beaten the 50 ELO / LP barrier that has plagued me in the past!

This is just another short update post. If anyone has been wondering why I have not posted anything in a while, it's because I have been desperately laddering to diamond. It has been a rough path, but I feel like I can finally do it. The past week I have played ~80 solo queue games with almost 60 of them irrelevant. I felt that I reached a skill cap that I couldn't overcome at Plat II ~0-40 LP. Eventually, I dropped down to plat III after several losses in a row after playing on tilt.

I was completely devastated, I felt like I was in the same situation as last season where I tried to get into platinum and was 14 ELO away. However, after taking a small break and discussing mentalities with a close friend, I managed to pull myself together. I told myself that I might be stuck at a certain tier like last season, but I wasn't going to give up until the very end.

Today has been incredibly motivational for me. I feel like I have defeated the skill cap that I hit at plat II. After watching several of Cloud 9's games, I paid close attention to what Meteos did and followed his more 'farm' heavy jungle mentality to some degree of success. Although I tried Meteos' style of jungling, I still played very aggressively and managed to snowball several of my games. Mostly all my games today have given me incredible KDAs as I made sure to prioritize avoiding death over anything else.

This is more of an update than anything. I will resume my regular posts probably after I hit diamond or the season ends. However, with this break in skill cap I feel like I have a real fighting chance at hitting the diamond club. What joy it would bring me if I could overcome two tiers in one season!

Edit: I am now plat I! Yay! Time for elo clamping and the final road to diamond!

Post-Vacation Update!

I haven't been posting a lot recently, even with all the changes in the current LCS jungling meta due to patch 3.8, because I have been trying to get myself up to speed on my planned road to diamond. As you can see in the picture above, I have been climbing slowly over the past couple days with Elise and Lee Sin in the jungle to great success (66% win rate in the jungle).

Those looking at my blog can look forward to the upcoming articles!
- Understanding Ganking Mid Lane
- Understanding Ganking Bot Lane
- Understanding Counter Jungling
- Understanding The Jungler's Mirror
- State of the Jungle Article Series Continuation

I have wrote many of those articles already, they just need to be edited and posted. However, I have not had the time. Please look forward to these articles in the impending future!

All-Star Weekend and Update

The Shang Hai All-Stars Weekend confirmed, once again, Asian teams dominance on the international scene. However, what was most surprising was NA's triumph over EU. I initially predicted that NA would come last; however, my predictions proved wrong. While the EU team, arguably, had less practice than the NA team, results cannot be disputed. Hopefully, the NA LCS All-Star's team practice regime and experience on the international scene influences NA teams to advance to the same levels of Asian teams. Moreover, Riot's production and the games played were of extremely high quality that even surprised me. I commend Riot's amazing commitment to eSports that has been set at an unprecedented level.

While many things didn't surprise me, what surprised me was Madlife's amazing Thresh play. Asian teams are stronger than Western teams; however, Madlife's play was truly inspirational. Without a doubt, Madlife is  the best League of Legends player in the world. Take a look at the plays Madlife managed to accomplish, truly insane. I was equally impressed with Shy's top lane play.

It seems, that EU teams are still playing the older style where teams coordinate a time and group up for objectives to acquire a global advantage; control of lanes and minions dominate this style. NA teams are now doing the older Korean meta of lane swaps and early grouping that was popularized during the break-out era  culminating at TSM v. Azubu Blaze. The NA meta is dominated by early game control of camps, towers, and objectives through grouping and lane swaps with champ select. The Korean meta now consists of early game pushing, tower control, and a ton of team fighting which utilizes their superior communication, training regime, and coordination. Koreans tend to group a lot and immediately move towards any small skirmishes. When Koreans kill a tower, they never go back to the lane and farm; instead top laners would roam to gank and push lanes to apply more pressure and create skirmishes. The Chinese meta, is completely influenced by the emergence of Team OMG who have been dominating the previous Chinese scene of Team World Elite and Invictus Gaming. The Chinese meta consists of generally passive lane swapping and farming in the early stages to ensure players make it to mid-game where a highly aggressive team composition looks for picks where champions thrive in quick engagements to catch and burst a single target as a team, over walls and terrain. As such, champions like Hecarim, Thresh, Zac, and Graves are highly fought over for. The composition, named the 'freight train' composition was designed by Team OMG and implemented by the Chinese international team. As the name 'freight train' implies, the composition is designed to swiftly eliminate picks by the team with the force of a train and force easy objectives in 4 v 5 situations.

With the first All-Stars weekend over I look forward to further international tournaments, probably the next World Championships. I am interested to know if NA teams have learned from this international experience and will implement serious training regimes to keep up with the Asian scene.

As for a personal update. I will be heading to the Eastern Hemisphere for Summer traveling. I hope I will have time to post more for this Blog; however, I may not be able to. I will also not be playing League of Legends for upwards of a month which I worry for the deterioration of my Jungling decision making. Furthermore, my team has folded due to my long-term vacation. Hopefully, I will be able to work with some of my old teammates or a new team in the near future.

Until next time, ChaiPod out!

Anti-Bullying Day & Small Update

Pink Taric says bullying is truly outrageous

This is a short update post.

Today is anti-bullying day (last wednesday in the month of February), so make sure you wear pink on summoners rift! Pink Taric is the best Taric skin! On a more serious note, eSports has always suffered from the social stigma of being a "geeky" interest which aligns itself with aspects of bullying in schools. As many of my readers are more likely to stand on their victim side of bullying, I just want to remind you to keep strong, report bullies, and stand up for those who are being bullied.

As for what this blog holds, I am proud to declare that yesterday I have hit an all-time record on view counts a day. I hit a grant total of 14,278 views in one day thanks to traffic from Reddit and the League of Legends forums! Thank you for everyone who took their time to read my State of the Jungle series as it is extremely encouraging for me.

As for my post on ganking the three lanes which I mentioned almost a month ago, I am still working on part 1. This article is turning out to be extremely long, and detailed. I keep finding more things to add and extending the time it takes for completion. Regardless, I look forward to the release of this article series.

Lee Sin Compilation & Small Update

Short post on one of my favourite Lee Sin Compilation's of all time. I am a pretty avid Lee Sin player myself; however, some of these clips are, quite frankly, insane. Enjoy.

Courtesy of Nathanielbee.

Also, a short update on what I am currently working on. I am currently trying to complete an in-depth 'understanding' three part series on ganking the three lanes. Look for the upcoming posts!