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. 

League of Legends Season 4: Hopes & Suggestions

Magma Chamber? A dream or possibility in Season 4?

With Season 3 coming to a close in the near future, I reflect on the season of the past. I can't believe it's been a whole season since I have started this blog. I have definitely achieved my goals, which is actually nothing I would argue this article, this season and am looking forward to playing and writing about League of Legends in the future. However, with Season 4 not quite here I thought I would write an article about my hopes for Season 4 in regards to this game, personally and technically.

See my hopes for Season 4 after the jump!

Solo Queue Smurfing & Reddit AMA

With the end of season 3 coming to a close, there are many individuals out there who are trying to make it past the Gold V border to get the victorious Elise skin. As I have already secured my Diamond rewards, I have been, errr.... (awkward, riot pls), smurfing to get gold rewards. I have always been very adamant about denying ELO hell, as with many popular bloggers, however, I think it's safe to say that in the short-term there are just some games that are absolutely un-winnable. This is especially relevant when players get to the DivisionX 1 -> DivisionY 5 border where many of the DivisionY 5 players don't really care about solo queue anymore. In addition, currently there is an influx of DivisionX 1 players who really don't belong in DivisionY 5 but still play a ton to get it; also, an influx of smurfs in this border. Regardless, I still hold to the fact that players who deserve to rise will eventually rise.

LolKing Statistics of my Bronze I to Gold V climb

As a player who struggled his way up from Bronze (1100 ELO) to Diamond V, I thought it would be a little more difficult than it actually was to bring accounts from Bronze / Silver to Gold V. Instead, I find it very easily climbing the ladder, even skipping divisions in between because my MMR was so high. Ironically, when I was playing solo queue I did not play jungle, my best role. Instead, I found it incredibly easy to carry from mid lane. Games would usually be over at the twenty to thirty minute marks when I would be incredibly fed and all the other lanes would be snowballed to all hell. Generally, I played Kayle because I found that her kit lets you presure lanes, clear waves, do consistent DPS, roam swiftly, and help your teammates who get caught out of position. I found it a little more difficult to carry from the jungle because players don't really know how to accommodate ganks and you don't necessarily get the same amount of farm as a mid laner. I remember one game specifically where I was laning as Kayle against an enemy Veigar. I was able to secure first blood within thirty seconds of laning just because of the raw mechanical skill disparity between the laners, then able to turn two versus one jungle ganks into one for nothing trades multiple times. At the end of the game, I feel like I violated the Veigar's confidence as a player (the Canadian me says sorry). Unfortunately, that is the true skill disparity between a diamond player and a silver player regardless of me being an absolute terrible laner. Albeit, even with the skill disparity in many games I did manage to lose 3 games on a specific climb from Bronze I to Gold V. Furthermore, I did not have a veil of invulnerability that I might be giving off as I did manage to lose lane or die to ganks several times; however, my superior mechanics, decision-making, and game flow knowledge managed to turn a losing game around frequently.

A closer look at the lolking graph shows my progress of two days in solo queue

Anyways, those are just my adventures and general thoughts on solo queue for silver players. Seriously, a good player would never be stuck in low ELO for long. It's only for those who are only a little better than their current division that would be stuck for a bit longer than usual. With that said, I managed to get approved for an AMA on r/summonerschool. I will be answering questions on jungling, arranged 5s, and solo queue which will be posted on Thursday, Friday, or the weekend. I will provide the link when available.  

Also, here is a shameless plug to my friend's stream. He is a Diamond 1 support main who constantly appears on popular streams. I also played 5s with him from back when we were bronzers to when we became diamonds. He is a great guy and teaches proper supporting  (not the solo queue shit) and has a great attitude. Check him out here.

Reddit AMA: Click here 

Update: I had a great time answering a lot of the questions on my AMA! A lot of players were very responsive with my answers and took the time to really try to get to the core of their issues instead of focusing on circumstantial issues. I actually had a lot of people encourage me to keep doing things like this. Most surprisingly, some people offered to donate to me and ask me for lessons. I do not take donations, nor do I charge for my advice. My only hope at the moment is that I am able to help others with their jungle journey!  Check out some of the cool responses I got from some friendly people, below!

Sorry! I'm here to help you not take your money; knowledge should be free

Glad to hear from the same person that my advice actually helped!

Nope. Not going to take your money. I'd be glad to help when I have time though!

Season 3 World Championship Thoughts - Fall of the Olympians, Birth of the Titans

This article is going to quickly highlight my thoughts on the 2013 Season 3 World Championship Tournament where there has never been so many new teams playing and old teams disappearing. While I am aware at the time of this post there has already been two days of play, I feel like it is irrelevant to my post as I will be, most importantly, going over the reasons for my thoughts and not just calling it as it is. With that said, click the jump to see what I think of the S3 LoL WCs.

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!