In spite of blogging yesterday, did zero Phyrra and Cyrus work yesterday and in spite of this pseudo-blog today, no work on it today either, so...back to January 3rd, 2023 we go.

Basically, talking a bit about pro teams. It's a little heartbreaking that Dignitas couldn't quite make it into the post-season because they fought hard and I think they are immensely good--so are the Golden Guardians, and so are the Immortals, and honestly it's disappointing that only one of them could make it in when all three were good enough to be worthy of it.

But, I was elated to see 100 Thieves make it through, even though they are currently as I am writing this, going into their make-or-break fifth game of the series. I'm watching pick/bans as I'm writing this pretty terrified because I really really want 100 Thieves to win. I don't want TSM to lose and it'll be sad if they do and if they win they'll certainly have earned it and I can't fault them for winning of they do, but I am just...I really really like 100 Thieves this year.

And as I have said before--this year, I can more or less say, "Go Clutch Gaming!" whenever Cloud9, Dignitas, or 100 Thieves play, because those are the three teams to have Clutch Gaming players. Casters keep on praising Vulcan as being one of the best supports in the LCS, if not the best; it's not like he magically got better in the off-season, so he was that good last year, too, on Clutch, he's just got an even better team this year to show off his skills.

And casters also keep praising Cody Sun, more or less saying that in spite of him being 'quiet', he amasses massive lategame power fairly silently and then slams the enemy team dealing massive damage, has good farm, good endgame k/da, doesn't die often, etc., and overall is probably one of the best adcs in the lcs--not as good as Zven, but better than most of the adcs around, almost always a bit of a stable rock for them to fall back on.

And the casters praised Ryoma, an Oceania import, from the OPL, expected to be losing against veteran midlaners as an lcs rookie from a minor region, but like. I am a big OPL fan, I legit think the region is majorly underrated and they have some really good talent, so seeing proof of concept in one of their star midlaners from that region popping off in playoffs...it warms my heart to see and I love to know that they're doing well.

...That being said, as much as I am cheering for them, as much as I love them, and want the casters' predictions of a TSM win to be wrong...as much as I hate it. Gotta say that TSM pretty much won the draft in my opinion, so I just don't think that they're going to win. I really really want to be wrong, I really really want 100 Thieves to win, but I don't see how they win this, not even with the first blood.

On the edge of my seat watching, tho! And hoping, and praying, they can pull it off. 

Back to January 5th we go. I did nothing yesterday and I'm doing nothing today and it was the 7th last time, so back we move.

I kept on touting how Muramana can do some serious damage.
I kept on saying, 'this does deal damage'.
When pairing muramana with presence of mind (and in my case, also manaflow band), mana = damage.

Turns out that I was right.

It was brought up in the LEC broadcast what the stats for it are--a completed muramana could deal 90 damage...compared to the 80 damage of an infinity edge, as the broadcasters said. (As in, did do damage--as in, the person using the muramana was dealing the most damage in the game at that time.)

So I was right.
I am right.
I knew I was right.

Muramana is viable.
​So I'll be continuing to make use of it.

...But I did do work on Phyrra and Cyrus today.

Mostly came to talk about, courtesy of the LCK, my current challenge:
Mordekaiser, Irelia, Kai'sa, Rumble, Jarvan, and Miss Fortune--how to build a TFT comp using them.

First, expand it to have Kayle, for valkyrie and blademaster.

Then, probably expand to Fiora, to finish blademaster3 and get cybernetic (2/3) undergoing.

If I were to actually keep this comp, then there are options for the ninth.
Gangplank for demolitionist and strong power.

Drop a synergy to field Fizz (infiltrator 2 with Kai'sa) and Annie (for the mech)--you could do this by removing one of the core units (jarvan or mordekaiser), or by dropping Fiora to get rid of the blademaster synergy. Very viable and doable.

Keep all and field one of Ekko (for infiltrator 2 cybernetic 3) or Shaco (for infiltrator 2 dark star 3).

Or drop the rumble and field both Ekko and Shaco (for cybernetic 3, dark star 3, and a chance at infiltrator 4 if you get the spatula item for it).

Basically, I don't think, barring a force of nature, there's a way to make the comp with all six be viable, but if you drop one of the six and keep the other five, should be incredibly workable.

And I do want to try, because I actually managed to run my last comp--granted, I got a very very very early force of nature that game (two spatulas dropped at the same time), butstill, the fact I finished second (and it was a close second) shows that I did theorycraft correctly that the comp was at least somewhat viable. (Admittedly, again, I lucked out. Buthey, I'll take lucking out.)

Not too hard to guess by the lack of blog, so back to January 7th we go!
That said, today I did some marginal work, so, not back to the 6th yet (it'll happen soon enough), and, hey. If you got the chance to do what I did do yesterday, you'd take it, too. (Not gonna blog about that, but suffice to say, every second was worth it. Even staying up until 7:15 am.)

I should mention; I really really really love the third set of tft, and it might be my favorite set so far because there's so so so SO many comps that are viable and fun to run. I found a few ridiculously good comps. Comps using celestials, a comp using chronos, a space pirate comp (albeit finicky), there's just so many good ones though I admit that if I am aiming to win, I just spam star guardian/sorcerer since you can get both synergies to six and just obliterate everyone.
(Get a locket on one of your third-row units to give them the shield. Focus on getting large rods and tears. Get a chalice on one of the lower-mana star guardians, ideally Ahri. Maybe with a Seraph's, too. Put items like morello, jeweled gauntlet, etc. on Vel'koz and if you can, make him a star guardian so he spams his death-ray. You obliterate everyone, even comps with mana reavers, even infiltrators, just...everything. You can't always pull it off, you need the right items and to get all of the key units, but if you get it, you just WIN.)

But, I still like to play around.

I have a bit of a bad habit; when I watch games of professional League, I want to run games using units from the pro game, as a comp.

And right now, due to the OPL, my challenge is to build a comp with Graves, Miss Fortune, Thresh, Jarvan, and Kassadin.

That comp has built-in blaster 2 mana reaver 2, so there were a few champions I thought would help build it up.

Darius, for an early space pirate 2 and mana reaver 2 (because Thresh is a tier 5 unit).
Kayle or Kai'sa, for the Valkyrie 2.
Rakan or Xin Zhao for the Celestial 2 (Kassadin) Protector 2 (Jarvan) synergies. (Side-note, I know that Rakan with morello and shojin is really really strong, but I've never managed to get the items/champions to pull that combo off, sadface.)

And then, options for the ninth.

Any Chrono unit, for Chrono 2. (Generically, this would be Wukong.)

Build Pirate 4 by fielding Jayce and Gangplank--this notably requires ten slots, so impossible without force of nature, so if opting into Pirate 4, it'd come at the cost of sacrificing either the Valkyrie synergy or the Celestial/Protector synergies. (Probably the Valkyrie one.)

Build Blaster 4 by fielding Ezreal (for Chrono 2) and then...uhhh, Lucian I guess? (I don't remember all the blasters, he's the only one other than Ezreal Graves and MF I can remember.) Same story--this requires sacrificing either Darius (removing the pirate synergy) or the celestial/protector synergy (probably just getting rid of the eventually-redundant Darius).

Build Dark Star 3 by fielding Mordekaiser (for Vanguard 2 in tandem with a Jayce replacing the Darius to keep Pirate 2 once you have Thresh for the mana reaver) and then some third Dark Star. (Shaco, Karma, Jhin, Lux, any work but might be Shaco.) Again, this comes at the cost of sacrificing something, by necessity, the valkyrie synergy (because Jarvan uses the Protector synergy so can't give it up, and you want the Vanguard so don't want to give up the pirate synergy).

Maybe even go into Chrono 4, with I guess. Wukong Ezreal Thresh and some fourth Chrono? But, this feels like it gives up too much, you'd need to give up two units rather than just one.

Basically, I like to theorycraft, off of League pro games' champions showing up in a game, "how can I make a viable comp using these champions?", and this is what I came up with today.

We'll have to see if something like it could work, probably tomorrow tho given how late it is now.

It's gone.

I don't know where it went.

I don't remember doing anything--yesterday I remember wasting time watching streams and then going into the minecraft server, but like...today I didn't really do much in the way of watching streams and didn't put nearly as much time into the minecraft server, and yet...the time's just...not there.

What did I do to spend all that time?

It's a mystery to me.

But, siiiiiiiiiighhhh.

Move one day back we do.
To January 8th 2023 we go!