...In terms of League, not much that affects me. A mild unfortunate nerf to my legend:bloodline which is my favorite rune to run on pretty much anything, meaning that I'll need kills to get lifesteal, but since I needed kills for presence of mind anyway, this change just means that if I'm losing hard and not getting kills/assists, I'll just be slightly more useless than I'd already be.

There is a rather unfortunate buff to Lux, since she is very much a champion I don't think needs the buff considering how much she wrecks me already, but that's about it. Aphelios received some nerfs but he's still stupidly strong. Until I feel like he's weak enough that literally nobody wants to play him, he'll still be my ban every single game.

The main changes were to TFT, where glacial got a rework, which makes AP Volibear, one of my two favorite comps (the other being AP Neeko), even stronger.

Like, from just his synergies alone, Volibear can deal 850 damage per attack to a single target--plus his own natural attack damage on top of that, with 500 of that damage going to other targets as well, with his target stunned, with his ult instantly killing, and the chance with the right setup to increase crit chance, have his spell crit, and have him heal.

Gunblade, I believe, works off of the electric synergy--by which, I mean, even when he is receiving damage, if the enemy is critting him, he'll heal for the amount of damage dealt from the crit.

And there's multiple backup carries if you can't get the ideal triple-item combo on him (gunblade, jeweled gauntlet, and then something like infinity edge or deathcap or something of the sort). Ezreal with a Seraph's is stupidly strong. Olaf with rageblade and bloodthirster is stupidly strong. Zed with spear of shojin, redemption, and warmogs (as an example; the key item is spear of shojin with a second healing item), is stupidly strong.

The comp is, currently, ideally along the lines of:
Volibear, Ornn, Leona, Karma, Ezreal, Olaf, one of Warwick/Braum or both if you have a chance at getting a frozen mallet (to get glacial 6), Zed-or-Electric Lux. (You could also nix one of Warwick/Braum if you have a glacial Lux for Glacial 6 with no frozen mallet. Voli, Ez, Olaf, Lux, as five, so Warwick/Braum as the sixth.)

The main frustration:
While I invented it.
Other people seem to know it is stupidly strong.
And are running Ornn and/or Volibear even if they aren't using any other units from the comp.

Like.

I'm seeing people with Woodland/Druid comps that have ZERO synergies even remotely interacting with these.
No glacial, no beserker, no electric.
Running Volibear/Ornn.
Seemingly for no apparent reason other than to try and freakin' deny me my comp. (Which would be my assumption if they had those units on their bench--but no. They FIELDED T2 Volibears and Ornns, in spite of not having wardens, glacials, beserkers, or electrics.)

It is so incredibly frustrating to know that you basically invented a ridiculously strong comp.
That you ran it before literally anyone else did.
And that now that Riot keeps buffing it over and over and over again, more and more people are trying to run it.

It's also really really frustrating to start with a Volibear and then never get a T2 Volibear because literally four other people are building him--with only half of them building Glacial and/or Beserker comps.

Which, mind you, is still a pet peeve. People who didn't start with a Beserker unit and didn't start with Braum. Pivoting onto the comp that they KNEW I was running. For no apparent reason other than knowing the comp is strong, they can compete with me for it, and that they think they can out-Volibear the person who started with Volibear.

Tilting as can be, they were often right, but I did finally, finally get a game where I got the last laugh--I did have at least one or two people try to steal my comp, but they got eliminated before me because they tried to steal my comp from me while my comp was already online so they were running less-good versions of my comp and because their version was inferior, they lost as a direct consequence of their attempted steal.

Granted, I couldn't quite pull off a win, was one round short of getting my spear of shojin Zed fielded, but it was still second place finish with a ridiculously strong comp. (A t3 Ornn who was both a beserker AND glacial in a glacial 6 comp, T2 Olaf with a bloodthirster, T3 Ezreal with a Seraph's, my Volibear had his gunblade and jeweled gauntlet and was T2, so that was glacial 6 beserker 3 with every beserker being a glacial and two of them being electric, lunar 2, warden 2.)

Feels good to get that win in spite of the thieves.

And while there is much excite.
Was tilted tonight.
​So no blog, no games past the ones I played.

100 Thieves needed to win. They did not.
Cloud 9 did, but Zven taking a death might as well be a loss for them considering the only other death was to Dignitas--to have it be EG of all squads to hand him the second death is a bit of an insult to be honest.

Still, at least it wasn't a complete wash.
​Just...mostly a wash.

Like.
Dignitas versus Golden Guardians--Dignitas needed to win that. They did not.
CLG versus Team Liquid--CLG needed to win that. They did not.
TSM versus Flyquest--TSM needed to win that. They did not.
Immortals versus Evil Geniuses--Immortals needed to win that. They did not.

Literally every single match today, went the opposite of the way I wanted it to. Not a single match went the way I was hoping and it's just an utter disappointment on all fronts.

By which I mean.
Watching a ton of anime and when not watching anime, watching professional League games.
Yesterday was an anime night where we finished the first saga of Vinland Saga.
It was also the day where I finished Beastars.
But mostly it's been watching pro players play League of Legends.

I loved watching the Immortals win against TL, though in the 100 Thieves versus Dignitas, it's kinda heartbreaking when they face each other--both teams are two of the teams I root for, I want them to win it all, both are insanely good, and both really needed the win to stay at the top, with them having identical scores...but obviously, only one of them could actually win. I did think that, overall, Dignitas needed the win more to break their losing streak and put them into the mindset of, "Okay, we need to not get overconfident, but yes, we can win it all if we're smart", which I feel they are in.

I can only hope that 100 Thieves takes a similar mindset in spite of their loss.

That did spoil that G2 lost to Origen earlier in the day (I stayed up until past six last night, so decided to sleep and catch the rebroadcast of the LEC rather than watching it live), but that didn't do the game justice. I feel like G2 isn't really broken, and I feel like Shalke did really really well to earn their win and that game was a blast to watch, insanely close, and the casters said it best; you'd never know that it was a match between a team at the bottom of the standings and a team at the top of the standings--it looked like a game in the lines of the G2 versus Fnatic, a match between the teams playing at their best.

I don't think G2 actually inted, don't think they made uncharacteristic errors, don't think that they really played badly. They almost won, multiple times. I just think that it showed everything S04 are capable of, showing what they are when they are at their best.

Sure, yeah, with the number of losses they have already--they're not going to win, butstill. This game showed what they want to do and are capable of doing so it's more like, "they're going to get stronger, can't win now, but will be able to win in the future", is my prediction more or less.

Vitality was their lesser cousin in that regard--you can see them improving, you can see them doing better, playing better, making better plays and such, even though they are obviously not there yet.

I maintain that the LEC teams are all really really good, even the losers.

This is my life now.

Clutch Gaming last year became probably my favorite team of all my favorite teams--not just in the LCS, but world-wide. I loved to watch them play, I thought all of them were ridiculously solid players, and I thought that they had the potential to go very very far, maybe win a series, and to go further than they did last year at worlds.

I thought all of them were insanely good individually; I thought all of them were insanely good as a team; I thought they had killer coaching staff (aside from the occasional gamethrow in draft), just, all-around competency who even in their losses never dissuaded me from rooting for them.

And when I realized that basically no roster remained intact come 2020, Dignitas (the rebranded Clutch Gaming) included, it was devastating to me to be forced to reset and go. "I have nobody to root for. I have no loyalties." Because I felt a bit lost, apathetic, indifferent.

Dignitas, the old Clutch Gaming, might have only kept a single player from the Clutch Gaming roster I grew to love, keeping Huni. But in spite of only one of their four players remaining, I grew to love them just as much this year as I did last year. They have re-earned my love.

100 Thieves went from one of the teams that I was anti-rooting for last year, to a team that I am rooting for along-side Dignitas. I want them to win.

Cloud 9 was a team I rooted for a little domestically last year, but was apathetic about them internationally--yet this year I am already loving them a lot.

But today.
It occurred to me.

100 Thieves's botlaner is Cody Sun--the botlaner from Clutch Gaming.

Cloud9's support is Vulcan--the support from Clutch Gaming.

Huni, as well as presumably the majority of the staff of Dignitas, were from Clutch Gaming.

In other words.

The three teams that I am still rooting for this year.
Are all partially part of Clutch Gaming.

And I feel like it's no coincidence that a signature trait of Clutch Gaming has become the meta possibly world-wide:
The x-minute lane swap for rift herald. Last year it was ten minutes, this year due to the changes it's 8 minutes, butstill, that rotation? That rotation is something that Clutch Gaming honed to an artform, executing it pretty dang well. Even though teams knew about it, knew it was coming, knowing it was coming didn't stop them from still being able to perform it all the same.

But now, everyone is doing it. And I feel like it's because Clutch Gaming had the winning strat down, pioneers, ahead of their time, knowing where the meta of the game was headed before everyone else did. And I feel like it's thus not a surprise that the three teams that have a trace of Clutch Gaming, are all having some remarkably strong performances, albeit admittedly somewhat concerning/disappointing with their losses in the case of 100 Thieves and Dignitas.

I still have faith in them though and still want them to win.

So I guess instead of saying.
Go team Dignitas, go team Cloud9, go team 100 Thieves...I can actually still summarize all three by saying,
Go team Clutch Gaming.

Because their staff, their players, really do come in...clutch.

Played a little TFT.
Didn't feel like more.
Played a little League.
Didn't feel like more.
Played a little minecraft.
Didn't feel like more.
Played a little on Kongregate games.
Didn't feel like more.
Didn't feel like steam games.
Played a little mafia and did stuff there.
Didn't feel like more.

I did a little of everything--and then not feel like doing more of it.

I'm not sure what I want to do.
Well, right now, sleep.
​But not sure where I want to force myself to have 'fun'.

I've said that I am not really rooting for Golden Guardians, but like...when they're playing against Team Liquid, I'm obviously going to root for them, but more than that. When they perform this well and this solidly at every stage, from a smart draft to clean execution and stomping them.

I may just in general add them to the list of teams to root for. <3

...And in this case, the problem isn't that I lack the time.
It's that the things I want to do are mutually exclusive with actually functioning on my computer at the same time.
I want to watch a few streams.
I want to play TFT--this is mutually exclusive with watching streams due to lagging them.
I want to play League--this is mutually exclusive with TFT by nature and mutually exclusive with streams for the same reason, it lags them too much.
I want to attend to stuff, including preparing to run a game--in spite of this being on a text-based forum, traditionally a medium which instantly loads even when literally no other site will, this lags tft, can't be done with League, and also for whatever reason causes streams to not work. This never was a problem for years upon years, yet suddenly for the last month or so it has randomly been plaguing me.

What else?
There's kongregate games I want to play--too much lag.
There's minecraft to play--too much lag.
Basically everything I want to do, will lag when I try to do more than one of it.

I am sitting at a bit higher than normal cpu, 40% instead of like 20%. I do have like 60% memory. But like...I shouldn't be encountering these problems until like 80% for them, yet I'm having them now. 

It's just...really, really frustrating.
I'm being limited by whatever is lagging my computer, and I keep on checking for tasks. None of the tasks are taking an absurd amount of memory; none are taking an absurd amount of CPU. If they were, I could kill the task and if they were something I was doing, reload the page. But most of them have near nonexistent usages and even if not, are in normal ranges. (The typical stream, for instance, takes 400-800k memory, depending on circumstances, so that's normal.)

​I want to be doing more, but like...I literally can't.