Becoming the Jordan of Teamfight Tactics

[Radii]

Friday Part 2

Took a break for some Diablo and to clean a bit but honestly today I'm really feeling like spamming a bunch of games so lets keep going.

Game 1:

I had a strong early win streak but I made a very awkward item (Runaan's Hurricane) and it threw me off badly. I was strong going into stage 4 but I tried to play some hybrid Shurima comp with Azir/Akshan carries because of my items and it backfired badly. Good lesson learned there. I sacraficed too much for that specific item slam.

Composition:

3 Shurima/4 Strategist/2 Deadeye/2 Juggernaut (instead of the usual sorcerer with Lux)

Azir/Akshan (carries)
Nasus/Shen/Jarvan (tank)
Urgot/Teemo/Swain (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Ornn's Forge - get an ornn item
2-1: Buried Treasure 1 (silver) - components/gold
3-2: You Have My Sword (Gold) - get a sword, team does more damage
4-2: Well-Earned Comforts 3 (Prismatic) - Units gain health & attack speed for each item equipped

Key Decision: Making Hurricane to win streak. It worked but messed me up in the late game.

Result
6th: -22 LP (Current: D3 53 LP)



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Game 2:

The Shifting Sands portal is pretty unique. There are two items that you can cheese at the start of a round. Usually you can only do it once, when you first place the item. Zephyr will knock up an enemy in the same hex on the other team's board. Shroud will "mana reave" everyone in a line. The cheese comes in where you can place the item for about a half second after you see your opponent but before the fight starts. A magnetic remover allows you to remove the item and place it again. So in this portal if you make a zephry or shroud you can "cheese" it every single round. It seems no one really knows this, as no one seems to take advantage of it but me.

I commit pretty early to Invokers - it's a comp I've done very well with. It's a very very tight lobby and my items are a bit less than ideal. First has 39 health, last has 12, I'm in the middle around 22. Two people hit 8 void and Baron and I got stuck playing them back to back at one point, and we're playing for 4th barely at this point. Once down to 5 we get matched into another baron team that we can't beat, but we get lucky, so does the other guy on one life, and we lose a little less badly, 4th!


Composition:

6 Invoker/2 Targon/2 Bastion

Karma 3/Soraka (Damage/Healing)
Shen/Galio 3 (Tanks)
Taric/Lissandra/Cassio (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Shifting Sands - if you don't have a remover at the start of a round, get one
2-1: Buried Treasures 2 (Gold) - Components and Gold
3-2: Tiny Grab Bag (Silver) - Component and Gold
4-2: Mana Burn (Gold) - Gives a shroud (one of the cheese items), shrouded enemies take damage until their first spell cast

Key Decision: Committing to Invoker I guess, though I could have always pivoted if i hit 3 kaisa's in one shop or something. This one didn't have a single turning point so much as many other games.

Result
4th: +10 LP (Current: D3 63 LP)



-----------------------------

Game 3:

3 Noxus opener but we can't 2* anything and only win 1 round, so we're getting out of this ASAP. We end up in a Shurima/Noxus hybrid for stage 3 and commit to azir/lux. We hit everything but Jarvan 2, but we have to stay level 7 forever to stay alive at all. It's the lobby where no one will die. Going into 6-1 1st place has 18 health and 6th place has 3 health. Every single person can die. And, I get matched into the person that counters me the hardest. Of the 5 other people left I would beat three of them, and lose to 2. Really frustrating.

Composition:

4 Strategist/3 Shurima/3 Demacia/2 Multicaster/2 Sorcerer

Azir/Lux (Damage)
Nasus (with Demacia Spat)/Jarvan (Tank)
Swain/Teemo/Taliyah (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Yorick's Graveyard - when someone dies, everyone gets to choose one of their items
2-1: Buried Treasure 1 (silver) - gold/component
3-2: Shurima's Legacy (Gold) - adds significant damage when playing Shurima, which we've now committed to.
4-2: Long Distance Pals 2 (Gold) - furthest units apart gain stats

Key Decision: Committing to staying 7 forever and rolling, though I think this was an easy call for me at the time.

Result
6th: -22 LP (Current: D3 41 LP)


-----------------------

Game 4:

Inconsistent start, win/loss/win/loss forever. We commit to a challenger spat and a 6 challenger board on 3-2. This is risky as there's a lot of ionia out there and this might be crazy contested. I get smashed through stage 3, another reminder to roll more on 6 most likely. I'm last place coming into stage 4 and can't win any rounds until 4-3. I do start winning but with Kaisa 1/Yasuo 1 I assume it's just a matter of time unless I hit both. A challenger spat on Gwen 2 is helping a LOT. It feels like we're playing for 6th though.

Two big wins get us out of 7th and kill off one challenger player, but we run into someone strong after that and I was indeed playing for 6th.

Composition:

6 challenger/4 ionia/2 shadow isles

Gwen (Challenger Spat)/Yasuo(Shadow Isle Spat)/Kaisa (Ionia spat) (Damage)
Shen (Tank)
Kalista/Warwick/Irelia (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Glasc Industries - making items gives gold
2-1: Buried Treasures 2 (Gold) - gold/components
3-2: You Have My Bow (Gold) - Bow + Attack speed for team. We make a Challenger Spat
4-2: Defensive Dash (Gold) - Challegers shield at the start of fight and on kills

Key Decision: 3-2 we had gotten a spat on Krugs and chose to make a Challenger spat and to commit to that comp here.

Result
6th: -22 LP (Current: D3 19 LP)

[Radii]

That's turning into a real rough stretch. I felt myself getting frustrated a few times in the last two games so it's definitely break time.


Strategy Thoughts

I think I've identified two things that I need to pay attention to in my next few games:

1) I'm not rolling much on level 6. A big part of the bad games today was being very low health already going into stage 4. I need to roll more on 3-2 when I go 6 if I'm weak.

2) I noticed that I was committing via augments to comps very frequently on 3-2. I need to be a little more careful about that. Twice today I ended up stuck 5 way contested (once Azir, once Kaisa). That's just the state of the meta, it's going to happen. But I can do a better job of opting into it a little less when it's *that* bad.

[Radii]

Aegis Master/GM League Week 1

These are definitely the toughest lobbies I've played in months, as the entire lobby is full of players who have hit master and grandmaster in the past. I had a couple friends in twitch chat so I wasn't really making any notes during the games.


My results for my 4 games:

7/4/7/2

7th with 6 Invoker - the tempo was faster than I'm used to and I all-in'd too late
4th with Azir/Lux
7th with Aphelios - took Think Fast on 3-2 which was a huge mistake, griefed my game hard
2nd with Kaisa/Yasuo - took Sentinel Spirit on 3-2 and played into a strong Ionia board, very pleased to end the day on a 2nd after the rough first 3 games.

That's 16 points for week 1. Slightly below average but a good week 2 could see me shoot up the standings easily.

Set 9 Aegis Marauder League - Google Sheets


EDIT: Standings are up - I'm tied for 29th out of 48 players. Top 24 will make the playoffs. For an opening week with two 7th's that feels great honestly. I'm right in the mix.

[Radii]

I played some Saturday and Sunday without documenting anything, basically trying to hard focus on getting the lux/azir kaisa/yasuo flex down, I watched the rank 1 player's stream, talked to a friend who recently hit master and just couldn't piece it together myself.

Over a 12 game stretch I bot four'd 8 games and 3 of the good ones were just 4th. I went from D2 43 LP to D4 65 LP, so about a two division drop.

These things all happen, but I was starting to get frustrated with these two dominant comps.


Strategy Update

Someone in one of the discord's I'm in posted about a Jinx/Zaun/Gunner comp they've been spamming and I decided to try it out. I finished off last night going 3/3/5/4/3 and got back up to Diamond 3. Since I'm finding the lux and kaisa comps so frustrating, I may just hard force this for a bit and see how it goes, I was having fun doing it yesterday.


I have a travel day today (gotta go to Indianapolis for some stuff, about 2 hours away) and work resumes tomorrow, so we'll see how I feel tonight to try to get some games in.

[Radii]

Surprise Patch

Normally patches are every two weeks, but this one is going to be 3 weeks due to a summer break/week off that Riot has. So we weren't expecting anything until next Wednesday. But there were a couple bugs and a nasty exploit that popped up that they were motivated to fix ASAP, and while doing so a couple balance adjustments were made as well.

The bugs/exploits have never been relevant in any of my games so we can ignore them.

Ezreal legend - his augments give less gold or no gold, just items in most cases.

Kaisa and Lux both received mana nerfs.

That's it, but it's enough. This went live last night. It seems like rerolls are currently dominating the meta with the dominant 4 cost units being nerfed a bit.


Strategy

Noxus Opener -> Noxus
Bows -> Jinx (gunner zeri if no jinx 3 (?))
Swords -> Zed or Akshan (Yasuo/Challenger if not hitting the other two)
AP Items -> Multicaster or Lux/Azir


Try to default to reroll comps but have a 4 cost backup in mind based on items/units

I know the comps I'm mentioning are viable, but time will tell if I can navigate this at all. From the past few days I'm all the way down to Diamond 4, 0 LP, and I usually am slower than the average player at adjusting to patches unless they land perfectly for me.

My legend for now is Master Yi. He offers augments that boost attack speed on 2-1. Most of the comps I have listed benefit heavily from that. Challenger and Sorcerer/Multicaster do not, so I'm hoping to lean into those a little less often.

[Radii]

Tuesday

Game 1:

We hit Jinx and Piltover during stage 2 and commit to Jinx reroll. Jinx is a 2 cost, you roll for her at level 6. We have good odds of hitting b/c in this reroll meta lots of other two costs are being taken out of the pool too - Zed reroll is extremely popular.

Absolutely wild game - I got a second gunner emblem that let me go 6 gunner which is pretty darn strong. I didn't try to reroll jinx b/c I needed levels to play 6 gunner, so I moved items to the 4 cost, Zeri, and that worked well. In the end I hit Urgot 3, but my opponent hit Shen 3 and Kaisa 3 - all of these are 4 costs that shouldn't happen quite that often lol. I out positioned him, he never moved his shen, and whenever I zephyr'd shen I won.

Composition:

6 gunner/3 piltover/4 zaun

Urgot 3/Zeri (Damage)
Sejuani (tank)
Heimer/Senna (very strong 5 cost utility units)
Jinx/Ekko/Jayce (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Dreaming Pool - Gain a champ that fits your team once a stage
2-1: Pumping Up II - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Gunner Crest - Gain a gunner emblem (Jinx is gunner we're committed to Jinx already)
4-2: You have my bow - Gain a bow, team gains more attack speed (comp needs bows and I didn't have a single one yet)

Key Decision: Giving up on Jinx reroll to go 7 ASAP for 6 gunner.

Result
1st: +43 LP (Current: D4 43 LP)


-----------------------------

Game 2:

It looks very strongly like some kind of AP game so I don't take the master yi augment. AP could mean Kaisa, or multicaster/sorc. We win our first 8, losing a close fight to an Akshan on 3-5. I end up losing most of stage 4 with 5 Vel'Koz and 2 Lux. By the time I 2* Lux other people have hit very hard and I just lose out. It's a 5th by 1 unit. One guy went out at -1, and I went out -3 on the same turn.

Composition:

6 Sorcerer/3 Demacia/2 Strategist/2 Multicaster

Vel'Koz/Lux (Damage)
Jarvan/Swain/Taric (Front Line)
Sona/Orianna/Malzahar (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Ornn's Forge - gain an ornn item at some point in the game
2-1: Transfusion 2 (Gold) - your units gain 80 health + 3 more for every tactician health I lose
3-2: Gifts From the Fallen (Gold) - gain stats, gain more stats for every teammate that dies
4-2: Overcharged Manafont (Gold) - sorcs gain mana at the start and mana on kill

Key Decision: Committing to 6 sorc insted of 4 multicaster or trying to roll for Kaisa and transitioning.

Result
5th: -10 LP (Current: D4 33 LP)


--------------------------------

Game 3:

Great opener that pretty much sets us on the Jinx path immediately. Like last game, we win our first 8 before losing on 3-5. We lose 5 straight before finally hitting Jinx 3/Warwick 3/Vi 3 all on the same round. Even once we hit, others have just hit too hard, once again, and we find ourselves losing about half our fights. This keeps us from bleeding out badly, but it's another 5th.

Composition:

6 Zaun/3 Piltover/3 Gunner (needed to go 8 for 4 gunner)

Jinx (Damage)
Warwick/Ekko (Front Line)
Heimerdinger (5 cost utility)
Urgot/Zeri/Jayce (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Ecliptic Vaults - Gain extra gold on every augment stage
2-1: Pumping Up II - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Battle Ready 3 (Prismatic) - Deal 8% more damage, take 8% less damage
4-2: Zaun Crest (Gold) - Gain Zaun emblem

Key Decision: I don't know if there was a single decision point here that cost me a top 4, but being unable to go level 8 was the biggest factor I think.

Result
5th: -10 LP (Current: D4 23 LP)



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Game 4:

At some point I decided to turn this into a piltover game which isn't really the way I play well, so this could be a super fast 8th. Piltover involves a deep loss streak into a win that gives you an immense amount of power. If it doesn't work you just die 8th. I manage to lose 10 straight rounds into a win on 4-2 with 22 health left. The reward is a big ol mechanical dinosaur with a lot of power called the "T-Hex". Mine has 45 points, which is a hell of a lot, and I hope that lets me win streak hard.

In the end I do streak rather well, but thre's a couple comps I can't quite beat, it's good enough for a comeback into 3rd place though! Here I moved items from Jinx to Zeri when I 2* her.

Composition:

4 Gunner/4 Zaun/3 Piltover/2 Bruiser

Zeri (Damage)
Vi/Sion (front line)
Senna (Strong 5* Utility)
Urgot/Jinx/Ekko/Warwick (Traits)


Portal & Augments:

Portal: Hearth-Home - turn one of your items into radiant on 4-5
2-1: Pumping Up III (prismatic) - Gain 10% attack speed and 2% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Battle Ready 3 (Prismatic) - Deal 8% more damage, take 8% less damage
4-2: Gifts From Above (Prismatic) - 4 items are given to units w/ the least items. I dislike this, a lot.

Key Decision: committing to loss streak Piltover

Result
3rd: +19 LP (Current: D4 42 LP)


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Game 5:

A very rough stage 2 is saved when I get a gold orb on Krugs (2-7) with a Zeri and Urgot. I've got 4 zaun/3 piltover without hvaing found a single Jinx yet. This is definitely a Zeri game, we probably don't win streak off that but we're solidly stable - or so I thought - I take a couple awful losses in stage 3. We roll tons at 7 here. On 4-3 I've 2*'d everything but Zeri. I think I can go 8 off that. I'm in 2nd with 55 health at that point, but 7th still has 35 health. Just a couple bad losses separate almost of us. By 4-6 we natural a 2* Zeri (natural meaning - didn't roll down for it, just lucked into it in our shops) and this is looking like a strong game all of a sudden.

Strong, until we go 8 and don't hit heimer, sion, or senna. We lose 4 of 5 rounds in Stage 5, but we get lucky and match up gainst the ghost on 6-1 and win, securing a 4th.

Composition:

4 Gunner/4 Zaun/3 Piltover/2 Bruiser

Zeri (Damage)
Vi/Sejuani/Ekko 3 (Front Line)
Senna (strong 5 cost)
Jayce/Jinx/Urgot (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Ornn's Forge - get an Ornn item on 2-5 or 3-5
2-1: Pumping Up II - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Know Your Enemy (Gold) - do 25% more damage after killing the first unit
4-2: Chemtech Enhancements (Gold) - units holding mods (Ekko/Zeri) gain 500 health. Units adjacent to them gain 100 health.

Key Decision: I'm not really sure, this felt like it played itself a bit.

Result
4th: +10 LP (Current: D4 52 LP)



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Game 6:

Sometimes your game starts bad, and only gets worse. Rolling on 6 without hitting, rolling on 7 without hitting. That was this game. I only got defensive items, a key carousel on stage 3 where I needed a sword or a bow had 5 gloves, which I did not need at all. Just an immensely frustrating game. Somehow I hit 3 Azir's and a Lux on 4-2 and I managed to win a couple rounds and someone else died before me. Getting 7th here felt like a monumental victory.


Composition:


Portal & Augments:

Portal: Glasc Industries - gain gold when combining items
2-1: Pumping Up II - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Battle Ready (Silver) - do 3% more damage/5ake 3% less damage
4-2: Contagion (gold) - poison an enemy, causing them to take more damage, every 5 seconds poison more enemies.

Key Decision: Committing the second we found a Lux. This was seriously an 8th 90% of the time and salvaging it to even a 7th felt like I did the best I could.

Result
7th: -40 LP (Current: D4 12 LP)




Really disappointing final game b/c we had decently solid gains until then, and that game felt absolutely hopeless the entire time. But still, we started at 0 and we aren't zero now!

[Radii]

Wednesday

Yesterday was decent other than ending the day on a 7th, lets see if we can move up a bit today.

Game 1:

I have 3 noxus after the first orb, so that's going to be happening. I have 6 noxus and a 6 round win streak early - but two other people seem to want Noxus as well, so this is going to be an issue. I'm still 100 health going into stage 4 and on 4-2 take a Noxus augment so we're just going to contest all the way and see what happens. I should be able to get an easy top 4 since I'm still 100 health, 3rd place is 55, 4th is 38 at this point.

Oh this ended up crazy. We were down to 2 people on 5-6, so very early. It was me vs an Akshan reroller, I ended up winning after 6 rounds of 1 v 1's, super fun game. I added Azir and Nasus for Shurima and the Yorick's Graveyard gave us enough items to itemize 3 carries.

Composition:

6 Noxus/2 Juggernaut/3 Shurima

Darius 3/Katarina 3/Azir (Damage)
Nasus/Swain (Tank)
Heimerdinger (5 cost Utility)
Kled/Cassio (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Yorick's Graveyard (gain an item when a player is eliminated)
2-1: Pumping Up II - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Unified Resistance I (Silver) - Armor and MR when you put 3 units on the same row
4-2: Total Domination (Gold) - Noxus units execute enemies below a certain health threshold.

Key Decision: sticking with Noxus even though it was contested. I was by far the strongest one and outlasted the rest and was able to hit my 3*'s

Result
1st: +43 LP (Current: D4 55 LP)


--------------------

Played game 1 at the end of the work day, ended up napping and eating dinner before any more games

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Game 2:

A slow start, but one clearly angling us towards Jinx. We get Jinx's best Zaun mod (Robotic Arm, gives a chance for one extra attack every auto). Jinx is pretty easy to hit since there is always a Zed reroll taking other 2 costs out of the pool. This was a prismatic lobby so it wasn't easy, but we did position very well and played around some non standard traits for the Jinx comp to pull a 2nd.

Composition:

4 gunner/3 piltover/2 zaun/2 freljord/2 bruiser

Jinx/Zeri (Damage)
Sejuani/Jarvan (Front Line)
Ashe/Ekko/Vi/Jayce (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: The University - 1st augment will be prismatic
2-1: Pumping Up III - Gain 10% attack speed and 2% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Unified Resitance 2 (Gold) - 3 units in the same row gain armor and MR
4-2: Gunner Crest (Gold) - gives a gunner emblem

Key Decision: playing ashe/sejuani for freljord which weakens armor, something I didn't get until a very late Last Whisper (and usually get from Heimer but I never found him)

Result
2nd: +32 LP (Current: D4 87 LP)


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Release night at work mandates another lengthy break - ended up calling it an early night

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[Radii]

Thursday

Game 1:

We have a Jinx, Tristana, and Warwick on 2-1 and the Zaun Mod is the OP Robotic Arm. We commit to Jinx reroll and expect a very easy top 4 from this position. The Gunner Crown on 3-2 feels perfect, gives me 4 gunner very early. We got piltover in on 2-6 as well, which isn't ultra powerful when mostly winning, but it helps a bit. I didn't really want Golden Ticket on 4-2, it's better earlier, but my other choices sucked and I had committed to re-rolling for Jinx and was behind.

It took me all of stage 4 to hit 3* Jinx and I lost all 5 rounds, putting my "free top 4" in Jeopardy. 1 Unit losses on 5-1 and 5-2 drop me to 22 health, but a 5-3 win gives me a 39 power T-Hex and hope for a top 4, but boy have we made this difficult. We do barely hang on for a 4th, we'll take it. I could have all-in'd on 4-3 instead of waiting all of stage 4 and probably made this a bit easier.


Composition:

4 Gunner/4 Zaun/3 Piltover

Jinx/Zeri (Damage)
Sejuani (Tank)
Heimerdinger/Senna (key 5 costs)
Ekko/Jayce/Urgot (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Petricite Forest - Units are larger and have 150 more health
2-1: Pumping Up I (Silver) - Gain 8% attack speed and 0.5% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Gunner Crown (Prismatic) - Gain Emblem, Jayce, and Hurricane
4-2: Golden Ticket (Prismatic) - 50% chance of a free roll every time you roll

Key Decision: Deciding to re-roll for Jinx on 4-1 instead of pushing levels The existance of a Zed reroll taking other two costs out of the pool convinced me I'd hit even though I hadn't found many Jinx's yet.

Result
4th: +10 LP (Current: D4 97 LP)


-------------------------------

Game 2:

We have a 5 component opener, which usually accellerates the lobby similar to a prismatic opener. We take an extra full item with the deathblade. This wants very badly to be Akshan reroll, IE + DB + Hurricane (we don't have that yet) would be perfect for Akshan. We hit Trist and Jinx in stage 2, I still prefer Akshan but it could just be Jinx again with not quite optimal items.

There's a zed reroll, as always, which increases my odds of finding Jinx, there's also an Akshan forcer (took Shurima augment w/ an IE on 2-1), so we settle in to Jinx, not feeling great b/c the circumstances only half fit.

We 3* Jinx on 4-2, having the sense to all-in very early this time. This is a lobby where two people are streaking and everyone else is dying. At stage 4 carousel I'm in 3rd with 39 health, 7th has 22. Absolutely anything could happen here - except winning lol. But 2nd-8th, sure.

In the end it's a very well deserved 5th.

Composition:

4 Gunner/3 Piltover/2 Zaun/2 Bruiser

Jinx/Senna (Damage)
Vi/Sejuani (Front Line)
Heimer (key 5 cost)
Ekko/Jayce/Zeri (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Unstable Rift - gain an temporary item each round - it's random
2-1: A Cut Above (Gold) - gain a deathblade, getting a kill w/ the unit with the deathblade has a 50% chance to drop 1g
3-2: Battle Ready II (Gold) - 6% Damage/6% Damage Reduction
4-2: Portable Forge (Gold) - Gain an Ornn Item - we get an Infinity Force, bleh (wanted Eternal Winter)

Key Decision: Every moment that I stuck with Jinx instead of trying to roll for something else.

Result
5th: -10 LP (Current: D4 87 LP)



Post Game Thoughts - So obviously I was never for a moment happy to be playing Jinx. Why? My items were not good for Jinx. She wants attack speed via Rageblade and Hurricane that amplifies the innate damage from the Gunner trait. My Zaun mods sucked. I checked out 4 zaun and had nothing I could put on Jinx, so I ditched it and dropped back to 2. I didn't get piltover til very late, so I couldn't even gain a small advantage from all the losing I was doing by powering up the Dino. Everything was wrong for this comp.

But I still got 5th. The question is whether that is the best I could have done this game, or whether I could have transitioned into another comp that was not Akshan that could use DB/IE, probably Yasuo/Kaisa with Yasuo being the carry. I'm not sure. But I'm happy with 5th, that's for sure.

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Data Review

tactics.tools does a great job of laying out all kinds of data. It gives stats on all of hte traits I've played over the last 50 games and how much LP I've gained/lost with each one. Lets take a look at that and see what we can learn. There's lots of traits so we're going to be skipping around a bit:


1. Technologist: 8 games - +109 LP - This is Heimer. This makes sense, Heimer is expensive, you slot him in to power up an already successful comp. He comes in on the Jinx comp whenever I find him, but also in Challengers and other things when there's room.

2. 4 Gunner: 10 games - +106 LP - This is the core of Jinx. It's noteworthy that this is way better than 4 Zaun or 2 Gunner. When I have the option I should prioritize 4 Gunner. Got it.

3. 2 Juggernaut: 9 games - +94 LP - This is interesting b/c 2 Juggernaut is just a splash trait. Where am I splashing it in that it works so well? 6 Noxus would sometimes add this, and lately when I play Noxus I do prioritize it. Azir/Lux can add this but doesn't always. I'll have to pay attention to this in games.

4/5 Piltover/Redeemer - Redeemer is Senna. A lot of the 5 costs get their own unique trait. Piltover just gets added to the Jinx comp. Nothing much to say here.

7. 6 Ionia - 5 games - +67 LP - this goes more back to the last patch before Monday. But it still might be more viable than I'm giving it credit for.

8. 4 Zaun - 10 games - +48 LP - I'm gaining with this but it's very clearly less important than 4 Gunner. The Jinx comp usually ends up here but not always.

We skip a LOT here:

6 Zaun - 3 games - -16 LP - we're losing with 6 Zaun. 6 Zaun requires an emblem and is hard to get and is usually insanely strong, or at least was in an earlier patch. Maybe it's just not synergizing with what the Jinx comp wants to do and I should ignore this unless the spot is perfect.

4 Strategist -39 LP, 3 Strategist -71 LP - Azir/Lux. Man I sucked at that comp. Interesting.

2 Sorcerer - 14 games - -115 LP - this also typically indicates Azir/Lux. I *really* sucked with that haha.



So the main thing we learned here given that I'm playing a LOT of Jinx reroll is to prioritize the hell out of 4 gunner and not to get baited by Zaun. Most games wll end 4 gunner/4 zaun, but when something is different, it's all about the gunners.

I'm going to keep playing but lets post this now.

[Radii]

Thursday Pt 2

Game 1:

We take Shadow Isle Crown on 2-1 which commits us to some kind of thing, there's a 4 Shadow Isle/4 Challenger comp we can probably figure out. I took this b/c we had a 2* Maokai and a Viego, allowing us to open with 4 Shadow Isle and hopefully win streak hard. That did work, I took an augment on 3-2 that gives two strong AP items, I believe this comp can use infinite damage items. I end up hitting a Senna at level 8 and play 6 Shadow Isle/4 Challenger to a top 3 in a chaotic lobby given the double prismatic and the House Lightshield thing.

Composition:

6 Shadow Isle/4 Challenger/2 Slayer

Kalista/Kaisa/Gwen (Damage)
Yasuo/Maokai/Senna/Irelia/Viego (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: House Lightshield - gain an item that makes a unit stronger. If that unit dies the fight ends immediately. Possibly my 2nd least favorite portal. Ugh.
2-1: Shadow Isle Crown (Prismatic) - Gain a Shiv, Kalista, and Shadow Isle Emblem
3-2: Unleashed Arcana (Prismatic) - Give a deathcap and jeweled gauntlet
4-2: Long Distance Pals II (Gold) - two furthest units apart share stats

Key Decision: Taking the Shadow Isle crown on 2-1. This isn't a comp I play and it's not a top comp, so it was high risk, but it turns out I was right about the ability to win streak and play from ahead.

Result
3rd: +17 LP (Current: D3 4 LP)

Promoted Back to Diamond 3


--------------------------------

Game 2:

We have a 3 noxus opener, and an early Warwick 2. We could play Noxus or Jinx pretty easily. Noxus does great with an emblem, so we'd love to be able to do this. It seems uncontested early but we're paying close attention, and we'll also check our Zaun mod as soon as we're able. Noxus is a stronger comp if uncontested.

On 2-5 Two Katarina's and a Swain in a shop have me ready to commit. We're strong and in 2nd in stage 3, but our econ is really bad. It's going to be slow getting set up to roll for 3* Darius/Kat. On Raptors we're down to 40 health but that's good for 3rd. 1st/2nd are knocking everyone down.

I hit Darius 3/Kat 3 on 5-3 but am playing the strongest player in the lobby. We lose but have 4 health left. A top 5 wouldn't be the worst, but we'd like better. We manage to get a key final item on Kat and 2* Nasus and go on a nice win streak. Settle for 5th? Not when 2nd is an option! We lose to Akshan 3 but it's a great result.

Composition:

6 Noxus/3 Shurima/2 Strategist/2 Juggernaut/2 Invoker

Darius/Katarina (Damage)
Nasus (Tank)
Kled/Swain/Karma/Cassiopeia/Azir (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Placidium Library - gain an emblem of your choice on 3-5
2-1: Pumping Up II (Gold) - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Know Your Enemy (Gold) - After you kill 1 unit, do 25% more damage the rest of the fight
4-2: Tons of Stats (Gold) - team gains 55 health/5% AD/5 AP/5 Armor/5 MR/5% Attack Speed/5 Mana

Key Decision: Committing to Noxus makes the rest of the game play itself.

Result
2nd: +30 LP (Current: D3 34 LP)



--------------------------------

Game 3:

With two piltover, Jinx and Trist and a hurricane on 2-1, we're committed. Our Zaun mod sucks, but we get Piltover early on 2-3. It's decent enough. We hit an Akshan on 2-7 and may switch if we 2* Akshan before Jinx. Though Akshan does appear to be contested. Never mind, 3-2 Dueling Gunners gives me 2* Jinx and gives gunners much more power.

There's a lot of 2 cost reroll this game and we hit Jinx on 4-3. Unfortunately we had to roll a lot more than I wanted and with the bad mod and some other folks hitting earlier, we're on a 5 round loss streak and this might not work out after all.

JUST HIT - we hit a 1% chance at a 5 cost on level 7 and it's Heimer. A Senna off carousel + Heimer get me a 1st despite a lot of suboptimal components to this version of the Jinx comp!

Composition:

4 Gunner/3 Piltover/2 Zaun/2 Bruiser

Jinx (Damage)
Vi (Tank)
Heimer/Senna (Key 5 costs)
Jayce (key utility items)
Sejuani/Ekko/Zeri (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Warlord's Palace - Instead of Raptors on 4-7 we get a "treasure armory" where we can spend gold to roll for the items we want
2-1: Pumping Up II (Gold) - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Dueling Gunners (Gold) - Gunners gain additional stats at the start of the fight
4-2: Harmacist II (Gold) - Heal for 15% Damage done, if overheal, convert that extra healing to true damage on next attack

Key Decision:

Result
1st: +43 LP (Current: D3 77 LP)






-- ended up chatting with a friend about that last game for a good while, and am taking a break so we'll post here and see if we play anymore later. Good progress!

[Radii]

I played one additional game last night and got a 6th so our start is a bit lower

Friday

Game 1:

Jinx/Trist/Vi start with a bow makes this very easy. We find an Akshan on 2-2 and may swap to that. A second Akshan on 2-3 and we're going for the stronger re-roll, we're not obviously contested yet. We have 4 pairs and no 2*'s on Krugs, 80 health, not a great start. Our shimmerscale item generates 13 gold in stage 3 which is absolutely insane.

2* Akshan is amazingly stable in stage 4. With duplicator help from our Portal we 3* Akshan on 5-1. We're solid the rest of the game, we can't beat the Darius reroller in the end, but it's a good 2nd place.

Composition:

3 Shurima/3 Freljord/2 Bruiser/2 Deadeye/2 Invoker

Akshan (Damage)
Sion 2/Ryze 1/Heimer 1 (key 5 costs)
Sejuani/Nasus (Tank)
Ashe/Renekton (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: The Summit - gain lesser duplicator on stage 3 and 4, full duplicator stage 5 and beyond
2-1: Pumping Up I (Silver) - Gain 8% attack speed and 0.5% additional attack speed every round
3-2: All That Shimmers (Gold) - Gamblers Blade for Akshan wil be good once we econ up
4-2: Contagion (Gold) - Infect the highest health enemy, they take 20% more damage. Every 5 seconds infect 2 more.

Key Decision: Our timing with rolling was good I believe. This is better than the Jinx comp but is often contested and can't really support two players well, but two early Akshan made this an easy call.

Result
2nd: +31 LP (Current: D3 86 LP)



-------------------------------------------

Game 2:

We have 5 Noxus units including a Darius on 2-1. But someone else has taken Noxus crown. We get a lot of AP items and are not going to try to contest Noxus, we're going to likely play Yasuo/Kaisa... but three people are playing challengers of some sort, ugh. We hit no challengers on 7 and end up trying to make some AD/AP Shurima hybrid'ish thing with Azir holding AP and Akshan holding AD. My expectations are LOW.

We get a few wins as it seems like everyone struggles to hit (probably b/c half the lobby decided to play yasuo/kaisa like it was last week or something), but the best we can do is a 5th. Which honestly feels okay.

Composition:

4 strategist/3 shurima

Azir/Akshan (Damage)
Nasus/Shen/Jarvan (Tank)
Swain/Teemo (Traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: The University - first augment will be prismatic
2-1: Buried Treasure III (Prismatic) - no gold, but 5 components through the rest of stage 2
3-2: Harmicist I (Silver) - Heal a bit, if you overheal deal some true damage
4-2: Cybernetic Leech (Gold) - Everyone w/ an item gains Omnivamp

Key Decision: Committing to Azir/Akshan on 4-1 rolldown.

Result
5th: -10 LP (Current: D3 76 LP)



-----------------------------------------------

Game 3:

We get a Sona and Vel'Koz in our opening orb and would love to angle into multicaster if possible. By the end of stage 2 we're about 99% sure we're playing reroll multicaster (3* Vel'Koz). We're strong throughout. We 3* Taric, Sona and Vel'Koz and have 74 health left when we hit the top 4. We're hard countered by rogues though so a 3* Zed beats us.

Composition:

4 Multicaster/4 Sorcerer/4 Strategist/3 Demacia

Vel'Koz/Lux (Damage)
Taric/Swain/Jarvan (Front Line)
Sona/Taliyah/Teemo (Utility/Traits)


Portal & Augments:

Portal: Yorick's Graveyard - Whenever someone dies, gain one of their items
2-1: Silver Spoon (Silver) - gain 10 XP
3-2: Infusion (Gold) - units gain 20 mana every 5 seconds - especially good in this comp
4-2: Strategist Heart (Gold) - count as having one more strategist (we play 2, this gives us 3)

Key Decision: committing to multi-caster, even though it wasn't a tough call really.

Result
2nd: +30 LP (Current: D2 6 LP)

Promoted to Diamond 2


IIRC D2 about 50 LP is the highest I've been this set so far.

---------------------------------

Game 4:

Jayce and Ekko in the pening orb. That's two piltover, this is almost certainly a jinx game from here. We get a Jinx on 2-1, Zaun mod is meh. No Piltover on 2-1, sadly. LOL No Piltover by Krugs. We just need an Orianna (1 cost) or Vi (2 cost). A game of just not hitting, after a Jinx on 2-1 we don't see another until 4-1.

We drop below 40 on 4-6, we get a Senna plus a couple components, we go 7 because we're never 3*'ing Jinx. We get a gunner emblem off carousel and 6 gunner, and honestly we're thrilled that this is a 6th and not an 8th.

Composition:

6 Gunner/4 Zaun/3 Piltover

Jinx (Damage)
Vi/Ekko (Front Line)
Senna (Key 5 cost)
Warwick/Jayce/Tristana/zeri (traits)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: Targon Prime - gain loot when you hit 40 health
2-1: Pumping Up II (Gold) - Gain 10% attack speed and 1% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Contagion (Gold) - Infect highest health enemy, they take more dmg. Every 5 seconds infect two more.
4-2: Infusion (Gold) - gain mana every 5 seconds. Not good here. Other options sucked.

Key Decision:

Result
6th: -6 LP (Current: D2 0 LP)


We didn't consider a lot of other units after the Jinx opener. It took me so long to 2* Jinx that I should have considered a pivot.

---------------------------------------

Game 5:

Absolutely horrid start, especially for a prismatic opener. But for some reason like 4 people are trying to lose streak and we end up 80 health. If I wasn't playing against what seem like morons I'd be 65 health instead. A Void Emblem on 3-2 gives me direction, we're trying for 8 Void and Baron. The second prismatic just accellerated thigns too much. 4 people were below 10 health on 5-1, but I was the odd man out, I didn't have time to get to 8 and to luck into Bel'Veth.

Composition:

7 void (need 8, or dead)

Portal & Augments:

Portal: The University - first augment will be prismatic
2-1: Pumping Up III (Gold) - Gain 10% attack speed and 2% additional attack speed every round
3-2: Void Crown (Prismatic) - Void Emblem + Rek'Sai + Zz'Rot portal
4-2: Long Distance Pals 2 (Gold) - the two units furthest apart share stats.

Key Decision: Committing to Void.

Result
7th: Demote to D3 (Current: D3 75 LP)



We'll take a break after that one, one of the strangest games I've ever played, but hopefully right back to D2 later today.

[Radii]

Incredible week for me in league play, especially given my struggles in diamond on my main, knowing that this league is filled with master/GM players (from previous sets, not all are at that rank now of course).

Game 1: 1st with Jinx 3, Robotic Arm mod is OP

Game 2: 1st with Aphelios 2, was trying to play Akshan, hit 2 Aphelios to 0 Akshan on 4-1 and went with it. Freljord Heart for 4 Freljord helped a ton, this was a big shock

Game 3: 1st with Akshan 3 - he's OP and I hit hard

Game 4: 8th with Jinx 3 lol.

Still, 1/1/1/8 are absolutely incredible results and will move me far up the standings.


EDIT: My 1/1/1/8 was worth 25 points, which was the 3rd best performance out of all 48 players on the week. There are bonus points for the top performers and I earned a bonus point. Coming into Week 2 I was in 28th out of 48th. I'm now in 15th out of 48, halfway through the regular season. The top 8 earn a bye, while the top 24 make the playoffs. By next weekend we'll be on yet another new patch and likely a new meta, so we'll see how things shape up for that.

[Radii]

I played a small number of games over the weekend, but a little distracted b/c I was watching the tournament that was going on Saturday and Sunday. Lost a bit and am Diamond 3 - 0 LP. The patch preview for the big patch on Wednesday is out and I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably take the next couple days off and be ready to watch streams/play a good bit starting Wednesday to learn the new patch.

[Radii]

This is from Wednesday:


Patch Day

Invokers - overbuffed
Taric - overbuffed

the patch doesn't nerf a whole lot, and attempts to buff things up to the level of the strong comps. The early returns seem to indicate what I said above, they buffed 4 units related to the 6 Invoker comp and it seems like they over-did it.

There is the hope for a return to a 4 cost meta. I would love to be able to flex AD between Zeri and Aphelios, and AP between kaisa and lux, as opposed to all of the rerolling.

Games - I'm watching a stream but going to go ahead and play some too. I usually am not ahead of the meta on patch days so expect a drop to Diamond 4, that's ok.


Game 1:

We'll mostly be taking Cait's augments for early game strength, but here we take Invoker heart to force the new hotness. Probably a little less detail on games as I'm chatting w/ a friend while playing. Invokers feels insanely OP. 3 of us forced it, going 3rd/4th/6th, none of us 3* anything despite this being a comp with 2 and 3 cost carries (soraka/karma) that should need to 3*. This feels like it needs a hotfix, we'll see if other games feel the same.

Result
4th: +10 LP (Current: D3 10 LP)


------------------------

Game 2:

I was expecting to play Lux/Azir with an early Cassio with lux items, but cassio is an invoker, and I got 3 other invokers at krugs/3-1 and an invoker crest on 3-2, so we tried it again, my board was much stronger but it was a much stronger lobby overall, and I eneded up 6th. The biggest problem is that invokers are a slow killing stall comp, and this lobby had a lot of backline access.

Result:
6th: -10 LP (Current: D3 0 LP)


------------------------

Game 3:

Prismatic opener, which with Caitlyn gives us a 4 cost unit on 2-1, and it's been buffed to get us a 2* 4 cost on 4-1 once again. We get Aphelios and play him as the carry all game and manage a 2nd. An A-Sol with level up went 9 very early and made an unbeatable board.

Result:
2nd: +31 LP (Current: D3 31 LP)


------------------------

Game 4:

We play an "old" standard, 6 challenger with carry items on Kaisa, Kalista and Yasuo. We ride a good early game to a 2nd behind Akshan 3.

Result:
2nd: +30 LP (Current: D3 61 LP)

[Radii]

I didn't play any on Thursday, there was a hotfix patch for two serious bugs and they also nerfed Taric and Invokers at the same time. Should be playing a fair bit today (Friday).

[Radii]

Friday

We're going to write up less info b/c I think trying to track more stuff was making me scout a little less, etc, during games. We're a ways into this to still be figuring out the format

Game 1:

We get a Jayce (gunner) and Akshan (deadeye) out of our opening orb. I keep both but end up playing Jayce b/c I can get Piltover in on 3-2. We're not in a reroll meta anymore so we're not like hard committed to Jinx right now... a bad Zaun mod goes on Jinx and probably means we look to play Zeri this game with 4 Zaun - or would be fine transitioning over to Deadeye.

On 4-1 at our level 7 roll we only hit Aphelios, no Zeri's, so we transition over to Deadeye, but it's contested and we never really finish off the board, and bleed out to a 5th.

Result
5th: -10 LP (Current: D3 51 LP)


------------------------

Game 2:

Instead of taking Caitlyn's augment which guarantees a pretty good early game, we take Freljord Heart, with a pair of Poppy and pair Jhin, 4 Freljord seemed amazing the last time I had it and I decided I would just hard force Aphelios... and I didn't hit any of my pairs and just lost infinite. I roll a ton at 6 but am still just 38 health at wolves. I recover a little but nah it's a terrible result.

Result:
7th: -40 LP (Current: D3 11 LP)


------------------------

Game 3:

Cait augment gives me 3 2*'s on 2-1, including a Jinx, and we only win 2 rounds in stage 2. Okay... We also set up for a Zeri or Aphelios game only to get full AP items on krugs, so we're gonna try to make it an Azir/Lux game instead. Our stage 4 is bad, my rolling is slow, a few days off has an impact I guess. But we manage to hit our comp and as of 4-3 start a nice win streak. With Social Distancing and Unified Resistance we have pretty strong combat augments. We win 6 straight but our board just doesn't seem to cap high enough and we take yet another 5th.

Result:
5th: -10 LP (Current: D3 1 LP)


------------------------

In game 3 it was VERY noteworthy that I was just incredibly slow rolling for my board on stages 4-1 and 4-2. It took me 3 rounds to do what I should have been able to do in 1. That's the difference between 5th and 3rd in that game.

------------------------

Game 4:

We get augments that aren't the best, commit to Akshan reroll off of them, and never hit Akshan 3.

Result:
7th: -1 LP (Current: D3 0 LP)




4 bot 4's in a row, time for a little break.

[Radii]

I ended up staying in low diamond for awhile and deciding to take a break until set 9.5, I plan on making another serious effort at the start of 9.5, trying to learn from some of my mistakes at the start of this set that made for a very slow climb at the outset.

I'm not sure about the dynasty, sometimes I felt writing down game info was distracting me from playing, and then writing down less felt pointless to post, so if I can find a way to make documenting my play be a positive thing that helps me learn/grow as a player, I'll be back, but perhaps not, we shall see!