Lolzor here!

Hey guys....its been awhile. My bad <_<

I've been very busy with work and school and generally life but its high (tide) time for me to get back into this. Im sure you all have questions about the site and Bangchuckers and a whole bunch of stuff...well lets get to it.

The Site:

As Baal mentioned before we are moving away from strictly MtG. We are a scattered bunch over here with me playing every game under the sun and Bit lost to WoW and Baal playing league like he is a pro...we are not exactly magic experts unless its our current game of the month. that being said its not disappearing either.

As of right now we have no set schedule on posts but one of us will be trying to post at least once a week about something. I know we have some things in store like game reviews and some classic things like MUCmonday and Interesting plays.

Bangchuckers!

Ok so the comic is hard since we are all over the place...major discussion is happening about the future of it but for now we are on hiatus...ill try to get something out for a giggle or two though.

Streaming:

Did you guys know we stream now?

Baal much more often than I but I usually show up and play with.

http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem
http://www.twitch.tv/lolzorinator

Check us out...maybe we will start a regular thing



Anyway sorry about the inconsistency we are back guys =)

Season 3 Masteries

The best and worst of Season 3 Masteries:

The Worst:

Offense - Destruction: In season 2 masteries there was a +10 damage to turrets. This was useful in early game dominating team compositions. The 10 damage was added after armor reduction, effectively being true damage to turrets, albeit little. The new mastery you need 200 damage for the crossover point for that a turret with 160 armor BEFORE armor calcuations. It does so little damage early game and is not even close to worth it later.

Defense - Safeguard: The other tower mastery. 5% damage reduction to turrets is not going to be the reason you won. Another trap mastery just like the trap item Ohmwrecker that can easily be fixed through good tower juggling and team comp.

Defense - Defender: +1 armor/MR for each nearby enemy champion. While not bad, it almost doesn't make the cut for "good" masteries. Absolutely amazing in ARAM and level 1 teamfights, specifically for 1 mastery point. It's worth atleast the same value of T2 masteries, and you can't really go wrong with one point in it.

Defense - Legendary Armor: This mastery is pretty bad. It only scales off bonus armor/MR. So it may be good on those champions with tank steroids such as Leona, Galio, Rammus, Jax, but it is really not worth the three mastery points that could be put into Tenacity and %hp.

Defense - Good Hands: While not a bad mastery, it is saying that you intend to die. Which is perfectly acceptable in this game. In ARAM it is particularly powerful, but in a real game it may only apply to close games. 4-6 seconds off respawn is when it is at an "optimal" power level. Way better than it's previous 3-point incarnation of Season 2.

Defense - Reinforced Armor: -10% Critical Strike damage. For one point I suppose it's okay, but the people who take this would be selective to the enemy team if they have 2 ADCs like Kayle in top lane, any ADC bot lane--or maybe even the rare support Ashe. It reduces crits to 180% damage, but after Infinity Edge you are still taking 225% damage from crits. Probably more considering the Lethality mastery. Once again, good but not worth the point you could be putting into other masteries making it subpar.

Defense - Honor Guard: to be honest this mastery is meh. But since you are already this deep, it's okay when compared to it's 3-point Season 2 version.
Utility - Improved Recall: I can't believe they kept this mastery. It's a waste of a mastery point and will totally not be the reason you won the game. Odds are you are probably spending 800% more time in the shop than this mastery will save you if you take it.

Utility - Scout: I'm glad they did something to try and fix it from last season but it is still not worth the point.

Utility - Expanded Mind: It no longer gives +energy for energy champions and is no longer a prerequisite for Meditation. Not worth the points.

Utility - Strength of Spirit: It's back, but still too deep in the tree to consider taking over any other decent mastery. Maybe if you were expecting a siege game in ARAM it would be good.



The Best: (in short, everything else--but the BEST of the best:)

Offense - Penetration: Obviously better with the %pen coming before flat now.

Offense - Spellsword: helps in last hitting when combined with Brute Force. Mid game when you have 300-400+ AP, putting 3 auto attacks in a teamfight will raise your damage output by 45-60+, possibly more. That could be the difference in teamfights.

Offense - Havoc: Still pretty meh. Will not matter on ADCs as much but on APs it will matter a lot considering how high base damages are.

Offense - Archmage vs Mental Force - Switching points between these two if you want. The crossover point-by-point is 200 AP.

Defense - Unyielding + Block: Particularly annoying how much damage this thing will prevent. It prevents it after armor/MR making it even stronger and then it stops spellsword making it EVEN STRONGER. This combined with Doran's Shield will be amazing in top lane tanks.

Defense - Vertan's Scars: No need to say anything about this. It has been the #1 contender for best mastery since preseason 1. It's extremely cost efficient and you don't have to delve deep to get it.

Defense - Tenacious + Juggernaut: Easily one of the better masteries. Consider maxing both of these out. Even tenacious against cc-light teams.

Utility - Mastermind: Absolutely absurd that this came back from season 1+2 and so early in the tree. It's three points, though but it's still worth it.

Utility - Biscuiteer + Explorer: Could make and break level 1 teamfights. Super potion + 60 second ward when it matters.

Utility - Pickpocket: Considering that the average good mastery point is worth about 40g in in-game stats, YES THIS IS TOTALLY WORTH TAKING. AP Mids should already considering going deep into the utility tree for 21 points, sustain, ward, biscuit and this mastery.

Utility - Nimbleness: With all the movespeed getting removed and base movespeed increases, this got a lot stronger. AP Mids benefit the most from this.



Well that's all I have for this article. I may write another article talking about which of the new items are must-haves. (Hint: Sightstone is OP)

The Tweaks Ziggs Needs

Copypasta from a thread I made:

I've been playing a lot of Ziggs recently. Nothing too much but learning his mechanics.

I am concerned about the similarities between other champions and how they function differently when they shouldn't.

His passive needs to be function identically with Twisted Fate. In case you didn't know Twisted Fate's blue card, E proc, and sheen/lichbane. Are on a set priority.

If you would kill a minion with Blue Card, you keep your sheen and E proc.
If you would kill a minion with the damage from Blue Card and Sheen, but E would be overkill, you keep your E for the next attack.
If it takes Blue Card damage, sheen, and your E to kill a minion, all three will go off whether it kills it or not.

Similarly, Ziggs passive needs to work like this.

If killing a minion with sheen would kill it, you keep your passive.
If killing a minion with sheen and passive would kill it, both will go off whether it kills it or not.

Applicable to towers too.

Because the current way it works is you lose your passive's extra damage if it would kill the minion. Even TF gets mana back if the minion dies before it reaches it hitting air, why should Ziggs lose his passive for 12 seconds if the same happens to him?

Q - Well done, no need for tweaking and not buggy.

W - It needs the Gragas barrel/Lux treatment/Riven Q/etc.

The way it currently works is the CD is counted when it goes off, not when it is planted.

Gragas Q is on a 7 second cooldown, a 4.2 second cooldown with 40% CDR. He can choose to leave the barrel for zoning purposes for 3 seconds. Once the barrel explodes, the CD is 1.2 seconds because it is counted down in the background when he throws it, not when it explodes. This same thing applies to Lux and even rivens Q. Abilities like this need to be function identically across the board--Ziggs is not the only one.

E is fine, the potential damage from it is a little absurd but is a closet case scenario and they are likely to never hit more than 4.

R is great. Nothing buggy about it.

I hope you take my input/feedback seriously as the last time I made one of these for Lux, they actually took what I said and digested it. Thank you for reading.

IPL5 update and Regional Distribution

League of Legends IPL5:

As a follow-up to my previous update, the brackets have been updated as we are now out of the group stages. The losers bracket continues to be enormous and lengthy despite most of the games finishing 2-0 in a best of three.

But this article will instead focus on the Regional distribution between teams.

For the purposes of simplicity, all North American teams will simply be "American" even though many players are from Canada.

American teams:
TSM, CLG Prime, FeaR, Meat Playground, Curse, Team Dynamic

European teams:
Moscow 5, CLG EU, Curse EU, Fnatic, IceLanD

Asian teams:
World Elite, Taipei Assassins, Azubu Blaze, Black Bean, Singapore Sentinels

Originally, Let's look at the qualifications: 6/5/5 for 16 total teams. (TSM was IPL4 defenders and did not need to qualify, hence the weighted distribution.)
Now let us divide this into upper bracket directly after the group stages:
Upper Bracket: 2 American, 4 European, 2 Asian
Lower Bracket: 4 American, 1 European, 3 Asian

Clearly there is a skill desparity between regions. What is interesting though, was the "panic" that happened after the Season 2 championships, where American/European/Asian distribution went through the Quarter-, Semi-, and Grand-Finals as follows:
3/3/6
1/2/5
0/2/2
0/0/2

Many players began to worry that League of Legends was becoming an "asian" game of competition, such as StarCraft 2.

Let's get back to IPL5 though. As we advance into round 2, the distribution begins to shift a little, as Meat Playground pulls an upset to knock FeaR out of the tournament, and a second upset of Fnatic--a team that would not be in IPL5 if it weren't for Team Alternate dropping out--beating Taipei Assassins. After the first round of losers the following teams were knocked out: FeaR (upset), Team Dynamic, IceLanD, Black Bean. Most of which were expected. So with twelve team remaining it changes to:

Upper Bracket: 2 American, 4 European, 2 Asian
Lower Bracket: 2 American, 0 European, 2 Asian

However, as the day progressed, so did the winners bracket:

Upper Bracket: 1 American, 2 European, 1 Asian
Lower Bracket: 3 American, 2 European, 3 Asian

Maybe the regional disparity is evening out now, but it is still showing that Europeans are the top runners in tournament still.

Just throwin out my two cents about the regional distribution so far in this tournament, please continue watching the tournament at the official site!:

http://www.ign.com/ipl/league-of-legends