Category: News (Page 39 of 108)

      Fnatic wins the all-Euro Season One Championship Final/Patch Notes

      June 20, 2011 /

      Season One officially drew to a close this evening as Fnatic beat Against All Authority to take the Season One Championship. The game was an all-Euro match, thanks to some excellent play by aAa during the loser’s bracket semifinal round. aAa was able to win the match with a bit of an odd comp, thanks to some creative warding and incredible teleporting. It would be enough against Fnatic, though, who scored the final win in the second of the two game series against aAa.

      I was a little disappointed to see the North American teams drop early. I’m not a TSM fan, but I though Epik had played really well for most of the tourney. The wheels fell off today, though. I honestly thought they might have been throwing the game with that double-AD, no tank comp. They are certainly a much better team than was shown today.

      I haven’t yet had a chance to watch the Fnatic vs. aAa matches as I was in the car when they first aired. I’ve heard they were fantastic, so I’m hoping for some VoD action soon. In the meantime, Phreak and RiotEski put up a patch preview, which I’ve linked above. Lots of changes are on the way – check back tomorrow for a full roundup.

      Current Affairs, league of legends, News, Patches

      Season One Finals down to Europe vs. North America

      June 19, 2011 /

      The Season One Finals at Dreamhack continued today with some truly extraordinary matches. Most of yesterdays matchups seemed to be fairly one-sided, match by match. One team would gain control of the map and exploit that advantage to the end of the game. Some of the matches had exciting moments and there were a few upsets, but the games were pretty short and straightforward.

      Not today. Today the games were utterly insane. There were strange picks, odd bans, and epic, sprawling teamfights that ran from one end of the map to the other. There were Baron kills and counter Barons. It was a really exciting day, and we owed most of the excitement to the European teams, Fnatic (FN) and Against All Authority (aAa). Neither of the top two European teams looked very good yesterday – apparently Fnatic was missing a player and using a sub – but today they looked incredible. Fnatic showed up with amazing lane presence and some very smart bans against CLG, locking HotShotGG and company out of the tournament. Against All Authority dropped the first game in its series against TSM, but went on to steamroll to victory.

      It was interesting that the tournament turned into a Europe vs. North America event, and it looks like it’s going to continue down that path. Tomorrow brings us to the semi-finals and the finals. As you can see from the bracket above, Team SoloMid and Epik Gaming will be fighting for the chance to face the loser of the FN vs. aAa game. That winner will then go on to face the winner of Fn vs. aAa. We could be looking at Europe vs. North America for the finals, but if TSM and Epik are off their game, North America will be out of the race altogether.

      I hope you’ve had some time to check out the Season One Finals. I was really impressed with Riot’s streaming, as were roughly a million other unique visitors to the Season One microsite. I didn’t think I would get so excited, but it was really cool to be able to see the best teams in the world really showing their strength today. Seriously, if Fnatic’s Shushei doesn’t make you want to play Alistar, nothing will.

      Current Affairs, league of legends, News

      Season One Championships are underway

      June 18, 2011 /

      The Season One Championships are well underway at Dreamhack over in Sweden. I’ve been watching for most of the morning, though I did miss the super early games. It’s been interesting to see not only the different comps and bans, but also what Riot has done to livecast the event. At the peak, I saw some 180,000 people watching the games, which is really impressive for the first season of a video game.

      Riot was also pushing its Twitter presence. I think the company is hoping to get “#esports” trending, though I’m not sure what sort of community presence there is on Twitter. Most of the time the #leagueoflegends hashtag is pretty sparse, but I would love to see a more active dialog happening there, even just for link sharing.

      I think the best part of the tournament to this point has been the preview of Spectator Mode. It looks really nice, giving the viewer a ton of data about what’s happening on the battlefield. As we’ve seen from a few of the games, though, data isn’t everything. It’s true that at the end of the game the winning team typically has the gold advantage, but I thought Epik’s Doublelift was totally screwed when he got killed twice in the first couple minutes of the game against Fnatic. Miss Fortune also remained nearly 100 creeps ahead of Doublelift through the end of the game. Still, Epik somehow managed to pull a win (which, come to think of it, was Westrice’s Akali game).

      At any rate, I’m really impressed with Riot’s commitment to making the championship an event for everyone, not just the players in the tournament. Have you guys been watching?

      Current Affairs, league of legends, News

      Yorick ready for next week

      June 16, 2011 /
      yorick_splash

      It looks like I was wrong about the Yorick release schedule. We got the “champion approaches” post today, which usually means he’ll be out in the next week. While there certainly are a solid number of Rioters overseas, there are also quite a few on domestic soil, working to keep the game going. Hopefully that will translate into Yorick’s release on Tuesday.

      But enough of that – let’s check out the skills.

      Omen of War: Yorick’s next attack will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul that deals additional damage and moves faster than Yorick’s other ghouls. While the Spectral Ghoul is alive, Yorick moves faster as well.

      Omen of Pestilence: Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. While the Decaying Ghoul remains alive, nearby enemies continue to be slowed.

      Omen of Famine: Yorick steals life from his target and summons a Ravenous Ghoul that heals Yorick for the damage it deals.

      Omen of Death (Ultimate): Yorick conjures a revenant in the image of one of his allies. If his ally dies while its revenant is alive, the revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them time to enact vengeance.

      Unholy Covenant (Passive): Yorick’s attacks deal more damage for each summon that is active. Meanwhile, Yorick’s ghouls deal some percent of Yorick’s Attack Damage and have some percent of his total health.

      I mentioned the other day that I wasn’t as worried about Yorick as I have been about Mordekaiser, but I am a bit worried that his passive will allow him to snowball in lane the way that Mordekaiser does. If his ghouls get too tanky, too quickly, he’ll be able to zone just about anyone out of lane while sustaining himself with a healing ghoul. I am glad to see that the collision ignore has been removed from Omen of War.

      Watch for him next week!

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

      Riot gives us a Yorick mini-preview

      June 15, 2011 /

      Morello dropped by the announcement forums today to give us a mini-preview of Yorick’s playstyle and ability set. Riot also released the art spotlight, which you can see above. I’m actually very excited to see Yorick on the Fields of Justice, much more so than the other Tanky DPS in the game, and mostly because I think he’ll be a bit different. Granted, I still think he’s going to be nasty in lane, but his ultimate sounds kinda cool without being the mess that is Mordekaiser’s Children of the Grave.

      Yorick deals damage in lane by summoning minions that have both immediate and persistent effects. One minion deals damage in an AoE and slows nearby targets but also leaves behind a ghoul that slows nearby units. The ghouls have a limited life span that can be further shortened based on the damage they receive.

      Yorick’s ultimate, Omen of Death, allows him to create a revenant of a still-living ally. If the ally dies while the revenant is up, that player is revived for a short period of undeath, during which I can only assume that player has control of his/her character again for a short time. It sounds less punitive than some deaths to Mordekaiser can be – often turning a fight into a 6v4 – while still being strong enough to warrant its use. I’ll be interested to see the different shenanigans people find for this ult.

      Don’t forget, Yorick isn’t due out until Dreamhack is over, which I would assume means the Tuesday after next.

      Champions, league of legends, News

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