Data-driven decision making is the only way to go
Once upon a time I was actually good at this game.
A few weeks ago /r/leagueoflegends ran a contest for reaching 4 million subscribers to the subreddit. There were four categories, and four winners in each category. With around 2 days left on the submission deadline, I submitted a Loss parody for the category of “4 image description” and ended up getting first place, winning myself 1848 RP.
Here are some notes about the submission I made.1
Legend: Alacrity and Legend: Bloodline are two competing options in the Precision tree. When is one better than the other, and what do I personally prefer to use?
Between the upsets, close games, and clown fiestas, Worlds this year was among the most engaging yet. Granted things petered out a bit once things hit semis, but overall I’d still rank this as one of the most enjoyable Worlds viewing experiences there’s been, particularly as a western fan.
Amongst all of this, there’ll no doubt a great deal of analysis being done on each of the teams, their strategies, and their shortcomings. One less showy thing which I myself noticed while watching the games was the prominence of Sterak’s Gage during the course of the tournament. Intuitively it’s an item that you build in tandem with other HP items so that you scale its shield up, but at Worlds it was often built even when it was the only source of bonus HP in a player’s entire build.
This was a little surprising to me, so I began looking into answers as to why this might’ve been the case.
For armor itemisation, check out the previously written companion post covering just that.
Many a time a player has asked “What should I buy?”
Perhaps more specifically, you might ask “This Singed is dumping on me in lane; what should I buy?”, or “Corki is wiping the floor with me every fight; what should I buy?”
If you play tanks / fighters (bruisers), then fret no more! Consider this a guide made just for you. It covers any magic resist item you would or should reasonably consider purchasing in the game. If you don’t play either of these two classes, the article may still be of assistance, just somewhat less applicable.
For MR itemisation, check out the companion post covering just that.
Many a time a player has asked “What should I buy?”
Perhaps more specifically, you might ask “I’m against Tryndamere in a split-push and need some durability; what should I buy?”, or “Tristana is wiping the floor with me every fight; what should I buy?”
If you play tanks / fighters (bruisers), then fret no more! Consider this a guide made just for you. It covers any armor item you would or should reasonably consider purchasing in the game. If you don’t play either of these two classes, the article may still be of assistance, just somewhat less applicable.
A quick disclaimer: I’ve only analysed a single full Unsealed Spellbook Sivir game: SKT vs ROX, with Sivir played by Bang.
I am by no means the first person to write about this subject.
However, the writeups I’ve seen fail to adequately explain why you specifically use this setup on Sivir, not other champions that may at a glance also meet the criteria for this build according to those articles.
Taken together, these posts say that this works on Sivir because:
These points aren’t wrong (they’re very much correct), but they’re missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. It’d be like assembling all the ingredients for a pizza and then leaving it uncooked – you’ve got enough there to still call it “a pizza”, but the last step is needed before anyone’s actually going to eat it.
That last step? Sivir’s team fighting.
Continue reading “Yet Another “Unsealed Spellbook Sivir” Post”
This concept is applicable near universally: games, economics, computer parts, whatever. If the category exists, the things within it are almost certain to be roughly balanced.
For “quick and dirty” comparisons between two things, this concept is incredibly valuable to understand. When you just need to know roughly whether something’s worthwhile, you can save a lot of time by keeping the deep analysis for later.
Let’s use some examples to illustrate.
Season 7 has officially ended.
This year I didn’t reach Challenger – or even get within reach of it at D1/Masters. But I did learn and improve, and can carry what I’ve learnt into the next season. I also soared into Honor 5 despite it often being used as an “MVP award” – and I’m rarely a flashy player.
