GG IMHO

Earlier I promised I’d get into some nice League of Legends discussion regarding my newly found team, Finding Teemo Inc. as well as talking about how the competitive scene of the game is going as of now.   The way teams are being made in League of Legends is always changing,  just when some form of team combination seems overpowered an innovator comes up with a way to counter the general way things are done causing the whole system to change yet again.  This is actually one of the reasons I enjoy League, it makes things very interesting when building a team.

Right now teams are being built in an almost MMO kind of style, with a tank, support (someone who can heal and help set up kills), a ranged attack damage carry, a caster ability power carry, and a jungle to fill out whatever the team is lacking in(Jungle being someone who doesn’t enter a lane and instead levels up by killing neutral creeps and ganking).  Generally the top lane is a tank or a caster, dictating the jungle to take up that other role.  Middle lane is usually a caster, since they have the most burst damage and are generally capable of securing a kill whenever the jungle ganks well. Bottom lane is usually a support with the ranged attack damage player, which allows the ranged player to farm up gold while being babysat and fed by the support.  This practice is starting to fizzle out a bit in tournaments it seems though, with a lot of top teams choosing to change around the top and bottom lanes to counter each other and dominate the laning phase of the game. For example, if you have an aggressive support ranged combo up top against one player, they can keep him pressed down and unable to farm or gain experience, and if the champion you stuck at bottom by himself can handle the support and carry they have bottom for a while, then the champion by itself will begin to outlevel them and soon be dominating them back as well.  Since the game mode for competitive play is draft, most of the lanes are typically decided in the pick and bans, teams trying to counter pick each other every time, and since there’s really no cookie cutter combination of champions this makes a lot of matches rather interesting.

But rather than talking about all that crazy meta stuff, I’d like to take the time to talk about my new team! Finding Teemo Inc. is a group of my friends who I’ve known and gamed with for a while who decided we’d shoot to be a big team in season two, and hope on doing well. We’ve been practicing quite a bit when we can and are improving as a team. In bottom lane we have my friends Chris(Stuffed Crust) and Zac(Young Typhoon), doing the usual support carry combo.

Our usual bottom lane players

Then we have Shane(StarMight) who’s usually mid and playing a mage character.

Star beating up small children

Then to finish we have Bobby(lolwtfpwned) in the jungle, and me(Zeramus) tanking solo top.

Poor Annie can't catch a break

Now I’d like to walk you through how a typical practice match goes for us, at least the gaming parts of it.  The fighting really begins at the pics and bans, trying to get your team setup crafted while taking overpowered combos and options away from the enemy team that could ruin your setup.

The Loading Screen before the match

From this picture you can kind of see how we ended up building the team in response to how the bans and picks went. We actually put Star on the bottom playing Tristana because we got the first pick option of Twisted Fate, someone usually banned for his ability to gank and pull off ridiculous burst as a mage.  We gave this to Young Typhoon simply because he practices the character and plays him well.  Of course they took their free two picks to secure Taric and Vayne, a very aggressive and powerful bottom lane combo, which is why we ended up choosing Soraka to be our support, her being very defensive in nature to negate bottom lanes aggression, and her ultimate ability that heals every ally on the map is a perfect counter for the Karthus player they had on their team(his ultimate damages every enemy on the map).  Me choosing Cho’gath came from our teams need of AoE damage and crowd control, the same reason we chose Fiddlesticks to be our Jungler.  Star played Tristana because she does very well late game if farmed, which is pretty much all she be able to do very well against Vayne and Taric with Soraka as her support.  The game plays out from there, our team paying close attention to the map and trying to secure early game objectives like killing Dragon and taking down enemy towers, while of course trying to get as many kills on enemy champions as we could.

This early team fight was rather close.

The Push that won the game!

Just a few seconds later...

Victory!

I’m rather proud of how the team is progressing, and I hope to post more about us as we continue on!  I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our team and the competitive game of League of Legends!