...Albeit, very very very slowly. It's very much two steps forward, 1.8 steps back. I've continued to find a lot of success spamming Hellnomicon, but I've actually had Hellnomicon fail me a couple of times. (Granted, there were extenuating circumstances behind those failures. Once again, deja vu from last time, a combination of hard-contest on the comp, having a one-star Kennen, not having the full build, not having the right support, and when eliminated it being a situation where 3 players were in critical condition and I was very very close to winning but a combination of bad targeting and bad luck screwed me over.)

I'm currently in Gold II, so it's looking like I can climb about one rank a day.

Disappointing, as I have seen that there is in fact someone who has broken out of Gold into the next rank (I got matched with them), meaning my dream of being in the top tft players on Oceania is pretty much dead.

But I still feel that I can climb if I keep at it.

And, hey.

I devoted like 7-9 hours to it today.

​I'm clearly having fun trying. So if I can climb one rank a day and I'm not getting burned out (and it doesn't seem like I am). Then I can get pretty dang far!

I haven't done tft today but today has been largely productive. I did search for an arm brace in my room for an hour, but sadly was unsuccessful in locating it. (My right arm is hurting at the base of the wrist. I know why; I am positioning it poorly and overusing the mouse. My hope was that if I could find the wrist brace, I could immobilize the wrist to force it to always be in the correct position to let it heal properly.)

Still, wasn't a complete waste. I plugged in my old laptop with a charger that I found that fit. It may or may not do anything, but it gives me at least a chance of booting it up and potentially transferring things on it onto my newer laptop.

When it came to tft yesterday, I maintain that Hellnomicon is busted. However, climbing is two steps forward, 1.8 steps back, because while the Hellnomicon combo is incredibly easy to force and incredibly easy to place high on, I can't force it literally every game (if I don't have a shadow rod/belt by 2-2 and/or I don't have the Hellion units by ~3-1, then I can't get it), the build can fail if it is contested (I've been eliminated in like 2-3 games from being unable to get a two-star Kennen in spite of hard-rerolling), and it can take too long to get online with bad rng and bad matches (facing an undefeated player when low on health) can screw you over.

So while it's easy to spam and easy to get right, it's not invincible. I still think it's the most busted combo and one easy to pull off for climbing, it's just that while it is very strong, too strong imo (I literally won like 5 games in a row using the combo, top-4 finishes with at least one top-1), it's not completely infallible and climbing is thus slow especially since I've got like a 20-33% winrate when not using the combo. (Granted, I use the combo in like 75% of my games, butstill.)

Overall, I've probably lost my chance of being the first to get to a higher rank. I peaked at being a top-20 in gold with nobody above me, but too much time has passed and I've been too slow. But I'll continue to play tft ranked and continue to climb and hopefully for the first time ever get out of gold and go higher. I previously had never gone above gold because I climbed in tft to gold in the first week of ranked then got bored with ranked and stuck to normals for the rest of the set.

But this set is so fun and so interesting that I genuinely think that I want to keep going.

I am firmly of the belief that I can get much higher than gold. Probably not challenger, maybe not master, but I think that diamond is actually doable for me. I just need to put the grind in for it.

As it turns out: not in fact a loss. I had back to back (with a third close by) Hellnomicon wins. And, again, this was with someone contesting me on Hellion, and me being creamed by them early with them having a massive lead in the comp. They got it online pre-3, and yet they finished with a loss and I finished with a win.

The strength of Kennen with a shadow Morellonomicon (More-evil-lonomicon), in a Hellion comp (thus my name, Hellnomicon), cannot be understated.

It is ridiculously spammable, it is easy to force, and it is ridiculously broken. Because More-evil-lonomicon applies a 100% max HP burn to all hit by the caster's spell, Kennen applies damage to basically the entire field fairly reliably (and his stun only makes this stronger), and the comp allows you to have the sustain to wait it out and have the burn do its work, by and large.

I'm pretty sure I've discovered something Riot is going to nerf fast. Justifiably so. But hey, until they do...freelo is mine, I am legit able to climb ridiculously easily with it.

It remains busted as I have gotten two further wins using it since my last blog post--and in both, I had at least one other player hard-contesting me and mostly out-matching me on Hellion comp units. They literally had much much better Hellion comps. What they didn't have was my item combo. They didn't put a shadow Morello (Mor-evil-lonomicon I believe is the full title) and because they lacked it, they lost and I didn't.

As I am writing this I am a top-70 in Gold IV...with nobody in Gold III Gold II or Gold I. I'm in a match as I'm writing this, probably a loss since I don't have the key carry unit of Kennen but I have a good start to Hellion otherwise and the right item, so gonna try another game and see where it gets me.

For the last two days on teamfight tactics, the strategy that I've most consistently won with is what I call the Hellnomicon:
It's a comp that uses the More-Evil-nomicon on Kennen (ideally with a shadow shojin spear), running ideally Hellion 5 and Skirmisher 3 (to give him protection and sustain), applying the 100% hp burn to the entire enemy team ridiculously easy.

I literally invented this tactic and I expect others will catch onto it and start copying and abusing it.

​But I want it put on the record I was the first to develop the tactic, and I even named it last night, shortly after my blog entry.

And it is ridiculously fun. I've been playing it for basically 12 hours, albeit not quite nonstop. (There were 3 or so hours spent on a stream.) It's incredibly addicting.

I jumped straight into ranked, and have been climbing fairly decently. As of this post (I'm not going to bed yet), I'm Silver III. I typically have exactly three game outcomes:
1: A close 5th, where I lose LP but the score is deceptive in how close I was to winning,
2: A win where I place top 4,
3: Or a literal bottom of the barrel dead last 8th place finish.

It is exactly those three, and only those three, because if I get a comp that I know how to navigate (which at this point is most of them, I picked up the mechanic for this set ridiculously quickly), I will do quite well, either winning or falling just short of a win (thus the two).

But if I get nothing but utter junk in terms of items and/or units not getting a unit that is a carry to tier two or not getting the key unit to complete a synergy or being spammed with literally 5 chain vests in a comp that needed literally anything except for armor, well, then, if my reaction is (pardon the minor profanity and obvious substitution for a major one), "What the eff am I meant to do with this crap?!?", chances are it's gonna be a dead last finish.

...But today is an extra-tired day, so I'll be going to bed much earlier than normal.
​Ah well, probably for the best.

It was definitely a day that could've been better, but it also was a day that could've been worse. I did alright; I was okay. Ideally I'd have done more, but I am fine with what I did do.

I'm actually feeling much, much better.
More on top of things, more at ease.
Mentally and emotionally better, and while I am tired, it is at an appropriate rather than relatively early time. (4:20 ayyyy, but yes, that's the time right now and yes it is indeed appropriate to be tired at that time.) And I wasn't tired earlier. And I ate a good amount. (Didn't quite devour the entire lasagna I had for dinner but got pretty close, and it is a BIG lasagna that I only have a 50/50 record on devouring/saving for leftovers. It's meant to be eaten on multiple days, being eaten on only one night is the exception to the general rule honestly.)

So all in all, today was about as good of a day as it gets for me.

Prolly won't last until tomorrow, but hey, I'll take any victory I can get.

Mentally, low.
Emotionally, low.
Physically, both hungry and tired.
​It's getting worse by the minute so I just need to sleep until tomorrow to hopefully wash the pain away overnight.