So I've been watching a fair number of people play Civilization 6 recently--I'd never play that game because I like unit stacking and more importantly I hate hex movement squares (I much prefer the square grid where you can move all eight directions), but this does instill a deep-seated desire to play Civilization III.

I've been watching a fair number of people play Final Fantasy VII Remake--similarly, that's a game I'd never play because they turned it into a hack-and-slash, one of my least-favorite genres of all (I'm like pretty sure that it's up there with button mashers and first person shooters for being a definitive three least-favorite), and while the game does offer a "classic" mode, from my understanding, even the "classic" mode doesn't really change it from being nothing like the combat in the original version of the game.

...But it does make me want to play the original Final Fantasy VII, which I happen to own on steam!

I've been playing a little more League of Legends, and it's been going pretty well! I've been winning most of my games, though I've had this unfortunate situation where in games that I was performing exceptionally well, someone on my team either hard-ints or outright leaves the game (often both) leading to an inevitable loss, and the games I am winning I am getting hard-carried because I have a terrible K/DA, terrible farming, terrible stats, and am often underperforming.

Right now, on that front, I'm experimenting with running teleport instead of heal--this was initially an accident born of forgetting to change it back to heal after playing a One For All, not noticing it. But in the match, I ended up noticing that with how I played, I wasn't in a situation where I'd be using Heal. I didn't need it to save my life, nor need it to save my allies. And in the next game, got similarly promising results, though more recent results have been mixed where I've looked at that and went, "...this would probably have been livable with heal", but it's something that's still not definitive, still not sure of.

Other than that, mostly going the same. I start with cull because it gives better lifesteal than Doran's Blade, nearly identical attack damage, and allows me to get gold for my items sooner, which I often need due to being terrible at farming. (Yes, I know, cull is an item you'd normally expect to be taken because you're good at farming. But as a starting laning phase item, it can still help if you're dismal, because one extra gold per kill can mean the difference between an item or no item when you back.)

And then it's Manamune start, boots of Ionian Lucidity at convenience, and then I'm usually by default aiming for Runaan's Hurricane into RFC into Iceborn Gauntlet, except for when I need the tankiness of the Gauntlet to not die. Not that most of my games last long enough for that, of course. Win or lose, most games end within 25 minutes pretty much without fail right now it seems.

I also like to play Teamfight Tactics daily and am currently working on an annoying tft quest involving rerolling more than five times, fifteen times. Rerolling six times is 12 gold--not including any champions you'd want to pick up. Since by the time you're rerolling, there can be 2-3 champions on any given shop you want, costing 3-5 gold...if you buy any of them...well. You get the idea. It's hard to do.

I could of course brute force it. Level up to six, doable by about Krugs, then economize until 50 gold, wait a turn to get 62, and then ignore champions to reroll six times down to 50, but knowing me, I'll cave to the impulses. Get distracted, then end up not rerolling six times.

Another thing I've been doing more is minecraft. I haven't been playing much on my friend's server (though, there's no reason for me to not, that world has an incredibly good start to it, I love what I have there, I have just about everything I'd need), but I have been playing a ton on the server for Girbeagly, one of the streamers I love to watch a lot. (He's one of many inspirations to me that makes me want to do things with my life, knowing that even if he's not super-duper-mega-famous, he's still successful and also well-connected with celebrities as friends pretty much and that's basically the sort of person I could only dream I could possibly ever become if I got godly good luck on my side.)

And, yes.

I actually do want to make that book, now, about Sam Sidney Tailor, Projection. The superhero/supervillain who made the one key choice to differentiate the direction in their life. In spite of me knowing just how hard, how difficult, it would be to actually write that and make it work. I am not some genius who can write out in meticulous, realistic, detail a masterwork like Worm. I don't have the head for the logistics to, sayyyyy, write out how a supervillain would pull a heist on a bank or such. I don't do research like that, but I'd need to, and I wouldn't know how to make it work, and there's just all sorts of similar details, and yet that passion is still there. I want to do it.

And you know what's not on that list?
Phyrra and Cyrus.
Well.
It kinda sorta is, but in a different way than the above ones.
The above I have passion and active desire to do and know what I want to do in them, too. 
For Phyrra and Cyrus, I want to make it, but it's different--there's currently not the passion/active desire to, and there's the hardest of hard writers' block on how to make it, too. I don't know what to do even though I want to. There's the objective knowledge of knowing that, yes, I need to work on it, it won't get done if I don't, but I don't know what I want to do on it, and how to do it.

And there pretty definitively is not time to do all of these.
I'd be lucky to get one of them to the point I'd be happy about, yet alone, all of them.

​I suuuuuuuuuuuckkkkk.

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. 

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.

...But I haven't missed a day yet and I do have ideas. I am typically saving my work for later in the day and spending earlier time doing more of for fun stuff. Like Minecraft. Right now, I am in a position where I am incredibly happy with what I am doing. I have fixed the issues with every single minecart I had--fun as the semi-automated transportation was (they would stop due to collisions and have a maximum range from a player, past which they wouldn't continue until a player came in range), due to it being semi-automatic rather than fully automatic, it wasn't reliable enough.

I have now established a system.
Every single minecart railing system has a chest, with the minecarts stored within. (It used to be that every single minecart railing system had the minecarts already on them.) Whenever I need to use a minecart, I can take it out and then take it to the desired location, then catapult it back to the starting location if I'm not going to take it back, or leave it there until I do take it back.

It's a system that does require forethought and foresight, to know where I am headed, not to forget, etc., but it's easy enough (if annoying) to fix any broken railings that go semi-auto. (I do need to fix the infinite one in my mineshaft tho, and I didn't have the heart to remove the cow/sheep from the surface one.)

The makeshift wall around the village is complete enough I think, and the torches are mostly there. I still need to make more of them, but I at least have them there. I also need to double-check that the torches cover everywhere and go below the surface to map out the caverns there.

I believe the iron golems provide some level of protection and mostly, I am working on getting traders up to master level and getting the trades I want. I got my fletcher up to master, though need to buy a couple of those items. Got my stonemason to master, but I need to buy additional quartz and quartz pillars.

Beyond that...

I haven't confirmed, but I suspect there's a second fisherman who I need to train to master.
I need to get an armorer.
If I have a butcher, I need to get them to master. If I don't, that needs to be done.
I need to get my Cartographer to master. (Not to mention, map out some key areas. My house, the village, etc. And store these maps.)
I need to get a Cleric. (This I can't do right now.)
If I have a leatherworker, I need to get them to master. If I don't, that needs to be done.
I need to get a Librarian. (Possible, but requires a bit of effort. I've been lazy.)
I have a toolsmith, but I need to get them to master (which is a pain because all I'm doing is buying stone axes).
If I have a shepherd, I need to get them to master. If I don't, that needs to be done.
​I have a weaponsmith, but I need to get them to master.

So I am grinding emeralds, selling to my farmers, selling to the fletcher (wood farm and slaughtering chickens en masse, mostly), to get the funds necessary to level them up.
Work is being done, slowly, surely, but eventually I will have a village where anything I want is readily available. As I said already, I already have bows/crossbows available with enchantments (not that I use them), a sword with kickback (it does have one less attack than my diamond sword, but one less attack with kickback > the extra attack), and an infinite supply of fishing rods (even though my current fishing rod will never break).

Getting things done!

I used the moba builder, and came up with this abomination.
I wanted to see what Ashe, Caitlyn, and Miss Fortune were, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that, immediately, they had one synergy together--Sniper. Granted, Sniper looks like a useless synergy, but I also saw the Chrono/Celestial synergies and tried to build them up. In the process, I also accidentally activated the Valkyrie synergy and took the Blaster (read: set one gunslinger) synergy up to four. 

Space Pirates sound like a better version of the original pirate synergy and I expect that to just be a game-winning comp automatically, but I haven't played around with it yet. Rebel sounds pretty useless, since it feels like a weaker version of the Shadow synergy.

Infiltrators are basically a hybrid of assassins and the shadow synergy; the shadow synergy aspect is somewhat weaker but the change from focus on crits to attack speed is one I think is reasonable enough I suppose. Still don't anticipate using it much.

Not gonna lie, the new blaster reads as being weaker than gunslingers so building blaster 4 sounds kinda troll, but I can easily see building an effective comp around it depending on circumstances. Mercenaries depending on how they work seem like the ultimate scalers.

Valkyries as a synergy sounds pretty weak, not going to lie, but we'll see how it works. Chrono sounds ridiculously broken as a synergy; it sounds like a hybrid Ranger/Lunar on steroids. And Celestial is a very very slightly nerfed Noble 6 synergy and feels ridiculously strong.

So, in actuality, will probably be building a celestial and/or chrono synergy, but hey, this is just pbe, I expect things to be different come live.

Looking at the synergies, Chrono has no secondary synergy built in, whereas Celestial does, and honestly, Celestial/Protector sounds like an even stronger version of Noble/Guardian. From those six, probably max Protector for eight, and then throw in a mystic for nine? The alternative is three mystics and keep protector at two, though you could also do mana reaver (doesn't sound op but might be), which via Shen, gives you an in to Blademaster/Chrono, for a final comp of Celestial 6 Blademaster 3 Protector 2 Mana Reaver 4 Chrono 2.

So, Celestial 6 Protector 4 Mystic 2, or Celestial 6 Protector 2 Mystic 4, or the above; Celestial 6 Blademaster 3 Protector 2 Mana Reaver 4 Chrono 2. That'd be this comp.
What makes Celestial even more busted: there's a Celestial item. This Celestial item can turn any unit into a Celestial to get healing from the celestial. And there's an item for Protector. Hoh boy Celestial/Protector is definitely the way to go here, to at least 4/2 on both of those but ideally 6 and maybe 4.

You could theoretically get Celestial 6 Protector 4 Blademaster 3 Mana Reaver 4 Chrono 2.
Or Celestial 6 Protector 4 Mystic 4.
But like I said. This is the pbe content right now, and I'm sure I'm overlooking plenty.

When the changes go live, I'll expect many of the broken combos that seem stupidly obvious to be nerfed into oblivion, and I will need to play around with what works, what doesn't, what can work in specific situations, etc.

...Because I do have a lot to say, some big things there relevant to my recent games, but like.
I had a six-hour high-stress workday because I am overly paranoid that I might be a carrier for the coronavirus due to the possibility I was in the same building at the same time as the 43-year-old square dancer who died from it.

I got only about five solid hours of sleep.

I have an identical shift tomorrow, only worse due to extra patrons and thus less breaktime.

I am tired.

But I do really really want to talk more about something.

I may have found a refined version of my playstyle but it needs talking about.

I've noticed that in TFT, there's a weird pattern where after I complain about something in chat, I get the desired outcome. "Can I stop facing x", and I stop facing x. "Can I get x", and I get x.

...Apparently, it's not limited to TFT.

As I made a blog about how I was trash in League.

...But today, wasn't.

I mean, my Vlad game started in a way where I was pretty sure it'd be a terrible game. I was playing poorly because I couldn't get in range to auto and when I was deep in enemy territory, I couldn't kill anyone; they weren't taking any damage whatsoever, not from autos, not from abilities.

But by the time I got rageblade and gunblade, that turned around. I went from dealing negligible damage, to suddenly dealing boatloads, and went from really squishy, to really hard to kill. A teammate did flame me for my items saying, "Vlad, that build doesn't work!" (so glad they didn't see the bork build), but like...I felt like had the enemy team not surrendered, I would've been a monster that game.

I had enough gold for the stinger, building into a Nashor's. I was actually able to split-push with impunity. Nobody in a 1v1 was able to kill me. Yeah, sending three to kill me would get me dead, but like. I was just. I took multiple towers. I only backed off when I was low on minions, the enemy had champs nearby, and I had gold to spend. I was doing work.

But that was a Vlad game. Not an Ashe game.

So I played again.

And then.

Start to finish.

I had an amazing Ashe game.

I did die a fair amount--to a Tryndamere who I couldn't escape, or to being bumrushed by 3-4 enemy champions. Nobody, not even the Tryndamere (who was the closest to it), could have killed me in a 1v1. Now, admittedly. That game was four physical champions plus a Yuumi support, so I built tabis, my iceborn gauntlet, and then frozen heart. (From there, with my transformed muramana, I was planning on building mortal reminder because while I was dealing high damage to most targets, the enemy Shen was hard to kill especially in tandem with Yuumi. Armor pen + reduced healing = I would wreck them.)

And I made very clutch plays that game.

In a 1v4, I outplayed a Tryndamere Yuumi Jhin (and either Shen or Zed, forget which) tower dive, managing to kill at least one of them, save the tower, in a situation where I had every right to be massacred. (Admittedly, I think I died there and my team came in to clean up on it, but like...I held out much much much better than I had any right to.)

In multiple drake fights, I was clutch. Including getting the killing blow on Elder, against a Zed-Yuumi combo in the pit, with both junglers fighting elsewhere. I did have a Soraka to help me, and I did get my jungler ahead fairly early (I sacrificed farm to help him take an early drake, so I was behind compared to my counterparts), but that sacrifice actually makes my contributions MORE notable.

I was a full level and a half down on my opponents due to helping my jungler out. I very very quickly came back. Yes, to some extent, that's due to having a Soraka on my team, butstill. Yes, they had a full-AD comp, so my stacking armor build was far more effective than normal, butstill.

I know there might've been very good reasons for me to have performed well.

Reasons absent from your average game.

I will not perform that well in any game for a very, very, very long time.

Butstill.

I very.
Very.
Much needed this.

It might've had extenuating circumstances behind why I did well. Enemy comp being perfect for my build. Soraka on my team. Helping my jungler get ahead, with them being on-top of taking drakes (and me being in a position to help them secure them every time). The enemy team not contesting the first two or three drakes (where they probably could've killed us if they did try).

Doesn't matter.

I had a good game on Ashe.
And two good games overall.

After having been in a big, gigantic funk where I felt utterly trash and garbage at everything.

I feel good.
Not gonna lie, I didn't know that I would.
But oh man, this is so good.

...Mind you.

I am still a trash player.
I still had someone say "Ashe you need to change your build" in that game. (They were wrong, my ult was half-healthing the non-Shen members and my volleys did a quarter of the non-Shen health bars.)
And my good performances in these games, do nothing to make me suddenly think I am in any way competent.

I am still Iron II in skill level.

These games don't make me not be that.

But they make me feel like I'm not whatever would be somehow-below-Iron-IV.
I was feeling like the bottom of the barrel, worst of the worst, absolute garbage trash that couldn't be worse at the game due to how badly I was doing.

And then I got back to back games where I managed to pop off.

Now I actually feel like I'm Iron II.
That is to say.
I am not a good player.
I am still pretty bad.
But I feel like I am not the bottom of the barrel. That bad as I may be, I am not the worst possible. That while I am occasionally trash, I'm not bad enough to be utter garbage. That I am still in need of work, of improving, but that I can actually do these things.

I feel just...so...liberated.

Might as well talk about the planned next set of teamfight tactics and the plans for the changes involved.
Mind you, launching with those: a third set, forcing us to relearn everything again.

So maybe some of my thoughts will need to be recalibrated once I actually read up on those new set bonuses, units, etc.

But for now...

The changes to economy will strangle players. Their stated goal of making things strategic? Not gonna work. Quite the opposite. You need gold to be strategic. Limiting your gold boxes you in and prevents you from being strategic. If Riot doesn't realize this, they will be in for a nasty surprise when their change meant to increase strategy, instead just makes the game an RNG generator.

That said...personally. I am fine with this. Because while I think Riot won't achieve their stated goal of making things strategic, because while I believe the change they are trying to make is counter to that goal and is detrimental to it and limits strategy rather than opening strategy up...

...I am fine with this, because it more or less means that when you get a unit on the carousel, you're pretty much locked into the comp. This might not seem like something most people like--but I prefer it. To use set two champions as an example...if I take a first-turn Volibear from the initial carousel, I am taking that Volibear to run a Volibear comp and am incredibly miffed if (pardon the language) some fuck decides to randomly freakin' steal it from me.

This change to limit gold will help prevent them from doing so, meaning I'll be more free to run my initially-planned comp of choice uncontested--and if they do try to contest it, they'll be punished harshly for it and I, the person who had the initial unit for it, will have the edge in running the comp...as it SHOULD be.

That? That's probably not what Riot wants. But it's something I want, so I am fine with the change.

Like I said--Riot's absolutely bonkers if they think limiting gold increases strategy; it does the opposite. But it does limit the ability to steal a comp from someone, to rob someone of a comp they were planning on running. A change I fully endorse.

Riot's also insane if they think units were causing most of the damage from rounds. It was always the player damage dealing the majority of the damage. The change they are making won't keep damage at about the same, it will make rounds go much much much faster than Riot intended. This will...very very very rapidly become apparent to them though so I am confident they'll adjust the stats when they realize people are dieing en masse at stage 3 or sooner.

Morello on an AOE champion has always been OP. I actually think that what Riot needs to do is to specifically code in single target vs. aoe for grievous wounds; single target, apply at a greater number, aoe, apply at the smaller number. With this change, Morello will be worthless on non-AOE champions and red buff, already situational at best, will be even more worthless. But unless Riot does code in something like this, they'll always face that dilemma. Higher numbers, morello is OP on aoe; lower numbers, morello is worthless except on aoe.

I have always hated champions not having AP scaling so fully approve of that change and feel it is particularly important to have noted.

The removal of Hush is welcome; I never used it and hated it as an item always, whereas the new Chalice item is actually an item I'd love to use! I'd have a boatload of uses for it on the current champions, and I imagine on the new set there will be uses for it.

The reworked iceborn gauntlet is pretty useless except on a seraphs Ezreal or similar, so the change is a good one--I don't think Riot will be keeping the new item as-is though and expect it to be gutted because I expect it'll be seen as too oppressive.

Titanic Hydra was a worthless item so I think its removal is good, but Zrot portal is equally worthless and I feel like Riot missed the mark on its recipe. By what logic does "attack speed" (recurved bow) + health (giants belt) = "on death, generate tanks"? Health I can maybe kinda sorta see, but like...attack speed doesn't enter the picture at all. It makes no logical sense, so they're replacing a useless item which its components have better uses for, with a useless item which its components have better uses for.

Like, if I get a recurved bow, I want it to be on a unit that will be attacking a lot. Zrot portal is an item requiring the unit it is on to die. A unit who dies doesn't attack a lot. It's just counterintuitive so I won't be using much of it since Riot needs to realize it needs to make sense and right now it doesn't.

Deathblade and Giantslayer needed buffs but will remain mostly worthless, pending what the third set synergies/champions provide. (First set units had great use for both; second set units...not so much. Deathblade had one, and only one, unit it was good on, Olaf. Giantslayer went from must-build on Vayne in first set to never-build on anyone.)

Ionic Spark is still worthless post-rework, but this change will help it some.
QSS is going back to being worthless. 10 second immunity to CC at the start of combat, then never providing immunity again? Nobody's going to build that unless they have a unit who REALLY needs to be CC-immune but can itself provide aoe mass-cc to the enemy team.
Redemption's change is probably a buff overall given that the zones were worthless so making it board-wide is useful but is probably still junk-except-in-certain-situations.
Runaan's needed the buff, but is dependent on what champions will be around for whether it's useful or useless.
Zeke's is still worthless.

That's about it for initial thoughts.
I'll have more when I read what the third set provides, obviously.

But for now, going to continue to say.
I've been doing lots of work in Minecraft.
I've got a few projects to work on.
Netherportal, take three.
Glass bridges between islands to explore.
A stairway to heaven.

But mostly, I am working on trying to build up my nearby village. The village apparently doesn't have any cats in it. (So, I can't breed cats.) Since it has no cats in it, the village isn't safe against spawns by default. What it needs: enough torches to be visible from the moon, lighting it up, to leave no room for creeps.

I am achieving this by creating a makeshift wall around the village (this is a pretty gigantic wall), plan to torch up the wall inside and out and then systematically light up the rest of the village, then explore the caves beneath the village. (I am somewhat certain that they are probably mostly safe right now, with waterfalls blocking off the creeps from advancing, but it'd give me peace of mind to have them completely mapped out.)

As you might imagine.

This is taking a ton of resources. Like, I probably need...like. 2400 or so torches to complete this to satisfaction.

Not to mention, completing the wall and making sure any holes in it are appropriately handled and such, which will take a huge number of blocks. (I've got a ton, mostly dirt, to spare.)

I could of course go work on my cathedral plan some more.

But this is what I am working on right now.

The end goal should be easy enough to guess at. I'm trying to get my nearby village to have enough villagers in it to have every profession. (I placed items for almost everything--the village naturally has two barrels and two composters, but I placed one item for every profession except for a blasting furnace, brewing stand, and lectern.) I know that the real pro strat here is more or less.

"Have the villagers inside your base, and lock them up, so that you can trade with them at will", basically. Control, precisely, exactly what each of their professions is and what they offer you. And have it available in your main base.

...I'm not going to do that. At least, not yet. I could eventually pull that off, I guess, but it's not really something that appeals to me, at least right now. That would be pragmatic and convenient, but the setup, the work, just feels like...not something I would have made.

There are things that I'll happily accept "I didn't make this, but I will accept it'. When I make spider/etc. farms, they will be from videos and such. But this is something that I kinda want to just, work out a system to get it done on my own. I want to breed up the village to be a city. Beds everywhere, villagers everywhere, and every profession filled. With every profession filled, I'll be able to get access via trade to a ton of supplies.

For instance, one of the things I have for trading right now is unbreakable I fishing rods. Mind you, I fished up a fishing rod with Unbreakable III/Mending on it, so that fishing rod will basically never break ever, but I have an infinite supply of incredibly-durable, almost-never-breaking, fishing rods just in case.

I still want to get to documenting everything. Putting signs up on my fishing shack, putting signs up on my logging area, putting a boatload of signs up at the village, and to continue documenting the various areas of my mine in its infinite expanse. 

But this is plenty to work on for now.

In terms of League, bringing it back: I've been playing a fair amount, but...most matches...haven't been going so well. I've been playing like absolute trash. Worse than normal, except in rare instances where I popped off at times it didn't matter that I was popping off. When it mattered, I just was doing everything wrong and receiving fairly justified flame from teammates.

My average cs/minute in games is like 2/minute. I am low on damage, high on deaths, low on objective damage, low on everything good, high on everything bad. I've just been sucking a lot. Some of that can be attributed to playing ranked games--I am officially, with ten completed ranked games, Iron II! As in. Won one, lost two. Won a second, and then...lost all six games after that.

If that were just ranked, would be understandable.

It's not.
Even in Normals, I've just...been losing. And losing. And losing. And I can tell, I am performing significantly worse. And worse. And worse. I'm just, not playing well. I am not doing well in the game. Adding insult to injury, one of my only wins was...in a Vladimir game. Vladimir, when I wanted to play Ashe.

Granted, said Vlad game gave me a build idea to run on him and it seems to be good. Previously on Vlad I was running rageblade bork runaan's gunblade spirit visage beserkers maybe replacing one with death's dance or the like, or something like that. I've got it written down.

Here I decided to run something less likely to be flamed by my teammates: still rageblade and beserkers, but building gunblade, still spirit visage, but building before it Nashor's tooth, for rageblade beserkers gunblade nashors spirit visage bloodthirster.

This is still not a typical Vlad build.
It is, however, still a build with a fair amount of AP in it, which gives (via runes) 40% cdr, and is a largely Kaylesque (also AP Gnar and similar, such as some AP Kennen builds and the like) on-hit AP style where you're dealing mixed damage. Attack speed for hitting rapidly, but healing rapidly from these hits, with abilities still dealing reasonable damage.

It actually feels pretty good.

But it is not Ashe.

And even on the one game I ran it.

I may have won, but I did nothing to earn that win.
It was exclusively a win entirely off of my teammates carrying me.

And my only other Ashe wins were also the same. The first Ashe game, I did pretty good, but it was still my teammates carrying me to a win. The second time I was hard-inting the entire game, where we were even entirely because I was dieing so often and had I been playing as well as I was the game before we would've hard-stomped and my team was literally better off without me.

I've just been.

Utter. trash.

I have no clue why my skills are at an all-time low.

Like, I was doing fine a couple weeks ago or so. Doing really well! I won a bunch, and while I did lose about half of the time, I could look at those losses and go, "yes, I am pretty sure I am not to blame for those losses", where I had some of the objectively best stats on my team and the losses were mostly mid/jungle on my team inting and hard-feeding their enemy counterparts.

These losses?

No.

None of them are on my teammates.

They're all on me.

Like.

I feel like I do have a fairly good level of self-awareness.
When I am doing well, I know that I am doing well.
When I am doing poorly, I know that I am doing poorly.
When I win, I have a fair sense of, "this win was in large part due to my contributions" or "this win was in spite of me", and can gauge it fairly well.
When I loses, I have a fair sense of, "this loss wasn't on me" or "this loss I am fully accountable for".

For the last few weeks/months. It was largely the former. I could tell. Just tell.
I was doing good.
I was doing well.
I was performing just fine.

For the last week or two.
It's just been nothing but the latter.
I can just tell.
I've been doing utterly trash all the time.
I've been at an all-time low in csing.
I've been at an all-time low on coordination.
I've been at an all-time low on ults connecting at clutch timing.
It's just.

Nothing's been going well for me in the last couple of weeks.

Like.

Normally.
When something goes wrong.
Normally, when I am junk at one thing.
It has a tradeoff, where I do much better than normal at another.

Bad at csing, then maybe I'm good at vision.
Or some tradeoff of that sort.
Where, sure, I have a very obvious visible shortcoming, usually multiple shortcomings. Where I am very very very obviously, not performing well in those areas.

...But I also will have other areas where I am doing well to compensate for these shortcomings. Where I am performing above the average, to help make sure I am not utter worthless deadweight who's good for nothing.

...Except.

Right now.

Those good things aren't there.

The shortcomings are there.
But there's no good things to compensate for them.
None.
Nothing.
Not a one.
Not a single thing.

Everything, universally, just sucks.

I am sucking at things that I know I used to not suck on.

And there is no explanation for why.
There's literally no reason for why I should be performing this poorly all of a sudden.

Yes, I know.
I am not a good player. I never perform well. I always have performance shortcomings, performance errors, which mean my rating of Iron is justified because, like. I am not good.

But this is just.
A whole new level of suckage.
I am sucking more than I should.

Yes, I always suck.
But I shouldn't be sucking this much.

If 100% were a perfect performance, my normal levels of performance would be in the realms of 10-25%...
...And my current performances would be at most 1%.

Like.
I am at 1% of a 1% performance.
All time low.
Sucking.
Just.
Terrible.

And I don't know why.

Not different time of day.
Not different mental faculties; if anything, I'm playing while more awake, not more tired.
It's just.
My mind is just. For whatever reason. Entirely off.

Every player has an off-day.
But in every single day for the last few weeks, I've been having what feels like an off-day.

I wish I could just. Find my groove again.

I am perfectly fine, perfectly happy, perfectly acceptable, just sucking in general. But when I suck, I expect to suck in some ways and not in every way.

I'm not asking to get better in every way. I'm not asking to go from having the skills of an Iron player to having the skills of a challenger player. I am not asking to improve a tremendous amount to stellar levels I've never before reached. I'm not asking to be better than ever before.

But like.

Can I at least ask. That I can be as good as I was before?
Is that too much to ask?
Is that too much to expect, to think I should have?

I don't think so.

I am perfectly fine with having an average skill level that is an utter plateau, never rising, never falling. I am also perfectly fine with said skill level being an effective plateau, where sure it rises and falls but overall evens out, and the overall level is clear. Low, regardless. Where some things are better every game than the last, but other things are worse every game from the last.

That's fine with me! Even if my skills are Iron II, if those skills were more or less consistently Iron II, I would be happy with that!

But like.
Sucking at everything.
Constantly.
Neverendingly.
Having NOTHING good?

Where there's been a drop from a low plateau to absolute rock bottom where there's nothing possible it could ever go lower because I am already at the absolute lowest possible, where a beginner bot would perform better than I do?

...And speaking of that, sucking so bad that you can be killed by beginner bots?

I am in such a poor micro and macromanagement spot right now.
That beginner bots are proving to be challenging to me.

I cannot begin to explain just how bad that is.

Like.

How am I supposed to play well against a player, when a bot can consistently first blood me.
A bot.
Not a player.
A bloody BOT.
Can first blood me.
Because I cannot, for the life of me.
Actually play.

With any modicrum of competency.
In any way shape or form.
Even remotely at the level I was.

I just.

I'm just utter trash and I don't know why.

I know why my normal self is pretty dang trash. I always have poor macro, I always have poor micro, I always have poor CS, poor accuracy, poor combos, poor awareness, poor everything, but like. There's a difference between poor at the 20% level. The level I know I am at, can identify why I am there, what I can fix maybe, and such.

...And being at the 0% level. The level I know I'm not at but for whatever reason am currently at, and cannot for the life of me figure out why.

Like.

I had almost no skills before.
But it's like whatever skills I had, were robbed from me, taken from me.
And I don't know why.

I'm having to work harder and harder, for less and less of a payoff.