Gank Tax

Got to play her two times tonight, both times vs. melee-range champions - Vi and Nasus, respectively. The first game got pretty messy as I was able to rebuff pretty much anything that Vi threw at me and pulled ahead in CS easily, ending the game with a 100 CS advantage over her. I still have to work on being aggressive and gauging my own damage potential, as I probably could have gone all in on her a few times and picked up kills, but to her credit she played very cautiously and disappeared from lane a number of times, I assume to farm golems to try and get some sort of income. The enemy jungler (Nasus) only tried ganking me once, but Quinn is very slippery and even with Vis ult, I got close enough to my turret that they couldn't finish the job. I ended up rushing a Static Shiv and just split-pushed the lane as hard as I could, leading to a 3/0/2 game.

Second game I was vs. a Nasus who was able to give me a much harder time, as he caught me playing cocky and was able to use a combination of Wither, Ghost and his Q to get me early on. I feel my build was a mess in this game, however, as I started working toward a Static Shiv again, but then got a Last Whisper into a Blade of the Ruined King. I think if I were to play this game again, I would look to get a bigger damage item first, before I picked up the Last Whisper. I think I saw Nasus building an Aegis on top of his Doran's Shield and jumped the gun, but I failed to notice him working toward a Triforce and I feel if I had built an Infinity Edge, I could have done far more to split-push and deal with our frequent tussles. I was pretty proud of myself early on by shutting down an Aatrox gank attempt and popping his passive and ended up 3/4/6 overall, mostly due to under-estimating how slow I was getting from Wither, even when I had my ultimate available.

I played two more games tonight, both as Zyra, going 1 and 1. I have a real problem when it comes to playing Zyra and being completely over-aggressive for no valid reason. I realized early on that my Jinx was relatively passive, but instead of trying to play passive as well and just peeling and warding to try and setup a safe environment for her to farm, I foolishly tried desperately to setup kills for her, which failed repeatedly. She and I had poor communication and our Jungler (Vi) had a rough time with our lane as well and we gave up several kills early on. I ended with a horrible score of 2/8/5, but most of the rest of the team did equally bad, so it eased the sting a bit.

My second Zyra game went remarkably better, as the enemy team botched a level 1 invade which went 3 to 1 in favour of us. I managed to get one of those kills, so I ended up heading to lane with a Philo Stone, wards and health pots, while the enemy Sona came to lane with strictly consumables, which didn't work out for them very well at all. Our Corki did a great job of keeping the harassment early on, even after the enemy Tristana got a kill on our jungler and snagged herself a red buff, we just played around it and punished her for being over-aggressive and jumping on us early on. I ended the game 1/3/8 with Corki going 6/0/11 in a relatively quick game.

...or at least that's what I'm telling myself :P

Played 2 games tonight, both ended up in losses but I picked up a few lessons for myself - namely I need to seriously work on my ability to communicate with my teammates and I have to re-evaluate my champion picks.

First game I ended up first pick and since nobody else wanted it, I got to jungle. Nautilus is visually, mechanically and thematically my favorite champion in the whole game, and I haven't played him in ages, so I jumped on the chance. Enemy team ended up with a goofy comp that included a jungle Heimerdinger, Diana, Akali, Ashe and Leona whereas our team seemed to be a bit more standard: Nautilus, Vi, Caitlyn, Sona and Veigar. Unfortunately, even though our Caitlyn was pretty awesome and did some serious work in botlane, our Veigar and Vi kinda seemed overwhelmed with fighting highly mobile AP assassins.

I was able to get off a couple of decent ganks, but there were a few issues that I would like to think could have been avoided if I laid out my plans going in, such as me and Vi using our ults on the same target at the same time, or missing out on a kill by seconds, as Vi would back off a sure thing tower dive when I already had tower aggro. In retrospect, a quick "I'll ult first" or "I'll tank tower" could have kept things rolling smoothly in our favour.

When it came to later on in the game, Akali ended up roaming a great deal and racked up kill after kill as I just wasn't able to peel enough or keep up with their gap closers. As much as I love Nautilus, I feel like Nasus or Elise would have been better picks overall, as the CC didn't seem to do much against their gap closers and they usually were killing and getting away with very small amounts of health so Spirit Fire's armor shred along with Wither or Elise's executes and skillshot stun may have allowed for more control over the game, as well as the ability for Akali and Diana to assassinate a single target and then run off.

The second game started off decently well with a completely uncontested invade on the enemy red, but then quickly turned around on us (I was Thresh) as the poke out of Varus and Zilean were far too much early game pressure for our Kog'maw to handle easily, so he was zoned quite a bit in the early part of the game.

As for the game itself, it was very back-and-forth and even though the enemy team got off to a decent start, we ended up holding our own and stretching it out a lot more than we probably had any right to. I ended up getting a few early kills, which slightly irked Kog'maw, but they were hardly intentional on my part, and I feel like I kept us well warded and stocked up on aura items (Shurelya's, Locket and eventually Zeke's Herald). I think the real problem with this game was a lack of focus in fights and we got caught several times by Malphite or Orianna ults and although our damage output was overall pretty good, the combination of jungle Jax and toplane Rengar ended up diving into the enemy backline, but leaving a Malphite and Kennen in the way, preventing us from an effective follow-up.

At one point, a fight in mid turned well in our favour and landed 2 towers and an inhibitor for us, but we played it poorly after that and tried to Baron instead of just taking other objectives from their jungle and pushing the other lanes. This ended with us having a horrible fight in the Baron pit where we got the buff but were almost wiped as a result, which let the other team take our mid inhib in retaliation and they had a better siege than we did, particularly with Orianna (who ended with a ridiculous 17 kills). Another fight went our way and (tooting my own horn here) a Flash/Box got an Ace for us, so we pushed into their base again, got their inhib and both Nexus towers but adrenaline got the best of us and Rengar/Jax took turns facetanking the towers leaving us pretty low, where a respawned Orianna completely wiped us out and cost us the game.

If I take anything from this game, I feel like I should have been more communicative with Jax and let him know that the enemy Zilean wasn't warding very well and their constant pushing could be abused. I also need to work on my peeling in teamfights, there were a few times where we were running and I'd turn around and hook an enemy and pull them closer toward us, when instead I should have moved on a diagonal and tried to pull them away from my teammates. Thankfully the team was pretty good about it, pointed it out to me in a (mostly) non-confrontational way.

I’m getting really tired of the “carry" junglers like jax, Yi, riven, fiddle who just seem to play like regular laners, disregard team composition, and have no sense of buff or map control :(

I managed to play some games with my old team this past week, they may not have gone as well as we had hoped, but they were really fun. It had been 2 weeks since my last games, so I was pretty rusty both in terms of map awareness and my focus in teamfights.

Game 1 - Zac (jungle) - Defeat 1/6/10

I was initially on the fence about Zac, but I am so very glad I picked him up. We had a bit of miscommunication over my initial clear, but Zac's regen is so foolish that I was able to save smite on blue while only getting a bit of a leash. Dangerous choice on my part as I did get really low, but it sped up my jungle like crazy. I feel like I was able to put out some early pressure and even though it only resulted in one kill, I felt as though I could feasibly stay in the jungle for multiple clears before going back. This is something I noted in both games and something that I've got to fix up going forward - having high regen is no excuse to not back, as it doesn't really speed me up any and in this case it made me miss some gank opportunities because enemies had the chance to go back and shop while I was still just running around with a Hunter's Machete, making it tough to reliably gank.

As the game went on, the fact that I hadn't played with the guys in so long really started to show and we began missing more and more queues and bungling more and more engages. I always found that when I played with them frequently, we'd have the best luck when I would spam the same jungler game after game and we'd all learn as a team how we'd approach situations, but in this case, I was new to Zac and that really started to show. We held our own for a while, but it ended up swinging more and more in the other teams' favour and they took the game home after a few bad teamfights on our part.

Game 2 - Shen (jungle) - Defeat 1/8/6

I jumped on Shen when he made it through picks & bans, but in retrospect this was actually a bad choice, I believe. The rest of our team was Renekton, Nami, Miss Fortune and Ahri so I often found myself following Renekton in and going for their backline, but then the rest of our team would get walked all over. This falls back to a communication issue and while there were some obvious engage issues on our end, I can't help but feel that picking Jarvan, Nautilus or Amumu would have been far better for us - pretty much any jungler who can cause mass disruption for the other team to allow MF, Ahri and Renekton to do their thing.

This game was another example where I stayed in the jungle far too long off my initial clear, I had almost 1,400 gold on my first back. If I'm able to play with the guys more often going forward, I'm going to make sure this is something that I correct. Our overall communication was better in this game, we ended up with a lead fairly early on in the game, but as time ran on we ended up throwing it away with unsafe initiations and falling for baits.

Overall, despite two losses and pretty terrible KDAs, it was a real pleasure to play with my old team again and although it sounds and feels horrible to say, I hope their new jungler is sick more often...If I am able to play with them a bit more going forward, I'll need to take more time thinking about my jungler choice as it works with the rest of the team and try to avoid knee-jerk "Shen's open, get me Shen, get me Shen!"

Things to work on for my next games:

Avoid staying in the jungle so long early, pick appropriate times to shop

Learn to use Zac's rebirth passive in more offensive ways

So a while back I posted about Rammus and foolishly made assumptions without actually playing him first, which is a very bad habit.  Since then, I was made aware of a different way of looking at everyone's favorite ball of pain and death, and I've been lucky enough to put that into practice, so I wanted to share the experience for anyone interested.

In a nutshell, it's freaking awesome but not without risks.

After all the nerfs several months ago, Rammus has lost a lot of the tankyness that he used to have in the jungle, and sadly, his largest issue is that even with items, his clear speeds don't ever increase, they just become less damaging to him.  In order to make the most out of the current incarnation of Rammus, I wholeheartedly agree with Lautemortis and believe he should be played like jungle Alistar, exploiting his CC early and often.

My games with him so far have been pretty consistent, starting off with W -> Q -> W -> E and then gank.  Early ranks of Puncturing Taunt are fairly short duration, so I tend to try and save this ability until the last possible moment.  Similar to Maokai, you want to initiate with your gap closer (in this case, Powerball) and then try to move behind them while they are suffering from the slow effect so that they have to walk around you to get to safety.  Early in the game (assuming your teammates are paying attention), this will often result in a Flash and it's up to you if you want to follow up with your own Flash/Taunt and try to net the kill.  Rammus has very little damage early on, as well as somewhat high cooldowns, so saving your Flash for a follow-up gank may be better worth it.

After the first few levels, maxing out Puncturing Taunt is your best bet, along with picking up Boots of Mobility, Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold.  I've had a few different build paths, however my next step is to upgrade the Philo into a Reverie and then usually picking up an Aegis of the Legion if the game is going well for my team, otherwise building toward a Glacial Shroud if I expect things to stretch out.

The most important part of the game for Rammus will be around the level 9 mark, when he should have Puncturing Taunt maxed out, and Boots of Mobility.  At this point, keep your buffs timed (and don't be afraid to use your ultimate to pick them up faster) and otherwise aim to pressure enemy laners as much as possible, very similar to what you'd do with Alistar.

Well, another case of me having to put my foot in my mouth, apparently - I had previously predicted that the suite of nerfs to Nautilus (damage and cooldowns) wouldn't end up affecting his strength level or his popularity, but it would appear as though I was wrong.  Out of 3 recent, large tournaments (ECC Poland, MLG Summer Arena and IGN Face Off), Nautilus was picked a grand total of 5 times across all three events, whereas Maokai was picked a whopping 33 times.  So, what happened?

In a nutshell, the jungle meta has shifted slightly and these nerfs just put Maokai in a better position than Nautilus.  Where Nautilus' cooldowns were nerfed, Maokai's were left untouched, and as Maokai's cooldowns are all static (with the exception of his ultimate), he just became a more desireable pick for early game when his incredibly powerful initiates can win games.

There were two patches in August (so far), but going to merge them all into one list since they've both been out a while now.  A few comments to follow after the jump:

Amumu

Cursed Touch (Passive)

Duration reduced to 3 seconds from 4

Tantrum

Mana cost reduced to 35 from 50

Bandage Toss

Ability Power ratio reduced to 0.7 from 1.0

Curse of the Sad Mummy

Ability Power ratio reduced to 0.8 from 1.0

Cho'gath

General

Magic Resist per level increased to 1.25

Attack Range normalized to 125 from 130

Rupture

Cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds from 0.672

Delay normalized to 0.625 seconds from 0.5 - 0.75

Feral Scream

Cast time reduced to 0.5 seconds from 0.6417

Vorpal Spikes

Width now increases based on Cho'gath's size

Feast

Now grants Cho'gath up to 50 additional Attack Range, based on Feast rank and amount of stacks

Cast time normalized to 0.5 seconds from 0.43

Range increased to 150 from 100

Evelynn

General

Recommended items on Summoner's Rift now include Boots of Mobility

Shadow Walk (Passive)

Restealth duration reduced to 6 seconds from 8

Dealing periodic damage (ie: Ignite) no longer prevents her from restealthing

Agony's Embrace

Cooldown reduced to 120/100/80 seconds from 150/120/90

Hecarim

Devastating Charge

Now more responsive when colliding with opponents

Initial Movement Speed bonus increased to 25% from 0% (still reaches max speed at the same time)

Onslaught of Shadows

Enemy flee speed is now higher based on how close the enemy is to Hecarim

Rammus

General

Now gains 1.25 Magic Resist per level

Xin Zhao

General

Base Attack Damage reduced to 55.3 from 59

Attack Damage per level increased to 3.3 from 3

Audacious Charge

Damage reduced to 70/110/150/190/230 from 70/115/160/205/250

Shyvana

Dragon's Descent

Fixed a bug where Dragon's Descent would hitch on initial use when using skins

A few changes of note, mainly with regard to the somewhat popular AP Amumu, a tweaked Cho'gath and an already-buffed Evelynn.

A high Elo jungler by the name of Azingy had popularized an AP Amumu build in the late spring/early summer and it ended up being quite strong.  Typically, Amumu would build mostly tanky and rely on the enormous initiation from his ultimate to allow his teammates to get kills, while his AOE abilities were mainly just for flavor.  Fact of the matter was that he actually had extremely high AP ratios, which lead to a build with a few Doran's Rings, Magic Pen. boots and Abyssal Sceptre that reduced Amumu's tankyness but made up for it with a dramatic increase in overall damage out of the Sad Mummy.  These nerfs don't make AP Amumu completely unviable anymore, but it's a gentle shift back to where he "should" be.  The mana cost reduction in Tantrum is fantastic for those of us who still run Amumu tanky, as it does help considerably in dealing with being counter-jungled.

Cho'gath is another champion who was occasionally used in the jungle, but not terribly often, and most likely because of how difficult it could be to land his Rupture and actually get in to initiate.  With these changes to normalize the time between when the spell is cast and when the effect happens, he's going to find a more frequent home in the jungle.  I think he's situational and still has a high skill cap if you want to land those clutch Q's to secure kills, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see him show up in one of the big upcoming tournaments.