Shanco

"If you went baron, I would have gotten your inhibs...I was waiting for you to do that" I like this guy.

This just might be a bug, but I dunno. When you click on the post number of a post (at the top right) it should open a little window where a link appears to the post in question (this is for sharing). But clicking on that...takes you to a thread's OP for some reason. Though I have found something of a workaround - search for a certain keyword in the post in question under "This topic" (for example, let's search workaround) and doing that brings up the post in question, albeit with a different number. Clicking on that wi go the post's location within the thread which thus allows the URL of the post in question to be copied from the browser.

Yeah, it's really bad to call C9 out of it as of yet. Though granted, if they keep Hai off his comfort champions (or just straight up dump on him like in game 2), that'll be big for Liquid's success. EDIT: Yep, game 5. Oboi.

Don't worry, there was someone I knew indirectly that entered McSmashter for his first tournament and got matched against Armada in the early rounds.

Soooo, taken up Nunu have ya? Good, good, at low levels a good Nunu will steal everything the enemy jungler holds dear in life, by stealing their main source of income which means they usually resort to taxing laners (in turn, that may put laners behind, cuz let's be real, Nunu's ganks aren't fantastic). Getting familiar with jungling early on is also a boon, but beware when switching to another jungler (say, Amumu or Pantheon) as they don't sustain nearly as well or clear nearly as fast. They will have much greater strength in other areas though; for example, Pantheon has the early ganks, and Amumu has an awesome teamfight presence.

The strat in the one teamfight we had was send in Malphite and watch the entire team blow absolutely everything on him. Ultimates, flashes, everything. I don't think my ADC was in any grave danger.

I see what you did there. But yes, they would play on a local server (separate from the NA, LAN or Tournament Realm servers).

A huge front line doesn't mean anything if you can just slip to the back line and stun-lock the enemy ADC for half a century.

Get tanky - nautilus doesn't really have much damage, it's all about his crowd control keeping people locked down. For a first item, I'd get Rod of Ages, which gives Naut a little bit of everything - health, mana, a bit more damage for fights later on. Top Naut players (they exist in high elo) like getting Righteous Glory first, but that requires the trust of your team...which at low levels I wouldn't count on having.

K so. Been playing with the Ryze rework, spectated a few games (and played a couple of my own), I have some possibly aimless banter about everyone's favorite tattooed blue man. What the heck is this new passive? So the quick explanation of the new Arcane Mastery is "power spike with a build up" (think Renekton or Gnar). Ryze can't do his notorious machine-gun-spell slinging without a build-up first, but when he does, his bursts are much bigger than old Ryze since during this spike, W / E / ult all reset Overload's cooldown, making for much bigger bursts and bouts of DPS. We're talking up to 6-7 spells in a normal bout post-6, and 3-4 of them being Overload. It also makes Desperate Power's cooldown extremely low in teamfights. The shield also makes for a great baiting tool, since you don't even have to hit your spells to set it off. Overload's huge mana cost reduction also helps a lot with this. Sample build I saw someone else on the PBE building Ryze this way. Spectating a game of his (and a few others), I noticed that the damage that he did with it was way higher in the late-game than builds that included more mana / tankiness (traditional Ryze stuff), which is what I and a couple others were doing. That said, I tried out the build you see above and it's the real deal. Thanks to the AoE damage between Spell Flux and Desperate Power, any two targets who stood beside each other would get dropped almost instantly, with me healing up almost 2/3 my max health when all was said and done with that Spell Vamp (which will probably be nerfed before it goes live). AP wasn't a staple with Ryze before...why now? Well since Overload actually has decent AP scaling now (40% => 55%), and you'll be hitting way more of them, don't be afraid to give a little more AP-ish build a shot. Of course, the main focus in your build should still be mana, although Frozen Heart probably won't see much use anymore due to the 30% cooldown reduction Ryze gets passively with a rank 3 Desperate Power, and masteries, runes or the blue buff will bring you to the cap. Lich Bane? Yeah, it was a niche item on Ryze before, and it still seems to be one. But if you have the opportunity to weave autoattacks in your spells (as you have access to Lich Bane proc pretty much whenever you want it now) you may come to appreciate the extra damage it offfers. With the changes to Overload it makes a more viable item than before as, of course, it gives you a Sheen proc whenever you want one, that can be handy for sieges and even for splitpushing (Ryze isn't too bad at waveclearing without his ult now thanks to his new passive). Is Ryze going to stay a top lane mage champion? Dunno, but if I had to say yes or no, I'd say probably yeah. Overload's changing to a skillshot makes for a safer laning phase where Ryze can be free from oppressive upfront damage that some solo laners can dish out. Of course, he also remains a fairly solid pick against highly mobile top lane champions (Fizz, Riven, Hecarim, etc.), but then again that's an argument you could make for taking him to the mid lane as well, where there are things like Yasuo and Zed. What will change in his playstyle? Not a whole lot, really. Though Overload becoming a skillshot does bring safety in lane, it also can work against Ryze in teamfights as it can be meatshielded by a tank if he's trying to reach someone in the back line. That's where Desperate Power comes in though; grouped up enemies will take damage from each other, while Ryze has the movement to get around larger obstacles such as those pain-in-the-ass tanks.

The LAN server is located in Miami, that might be why your ping is so much lower.

Smite/TP top lane leaves you without Flash, which means that mistakes such as overextensions and bad trades (surprisingly, I've discovered Shyvana can have those) can be punished, hard. If you're not totally sure of what you're getting into and what you can and can't do up until the point when you get the items you need, then either the enemy laner is going to out-CS/otherwise destroy you, or you're not going to get much done as the jungler will probably camp your ass.

You could always compromise and build Shyvana full tank, that is a thing.

The one each of melee and P:M tourneys I went to, I went out without a single win. Finished second in my last smash tourney (smash 4, of course). Hopefully I can repeat said performance when I go to my next one...whenever that is

It might just be your connection. Usually doesn't take too long to update, maybe 10-15 minutes or so. Less for some people. Though granted, the DJ Sona and Karthus VU patches were monstrous (the latter thanks to the sound engine update). That can happen sometimes, but 5.7 isn't too bad in terms of stuff - on par with a regular patch with the exception of a new voiceover (Omega Squad Teemo) which can be pretty big sometimes.

My not so strange addiction: Mage-supports that aren't named Janna

It wasn't anything too special compared to the last few PBE cycles. That change to the Black Cleaver is really eye-catching, though.

Mewtwo's dash attacks while holding swinging weapons were batshit insane in melee

Cinderhulk is the obvious cool thing (whether that remains so after the nerfs has yet to be seen), but all in all the jungle enchantment you should get depends moreso on your team composition, how well you're doing, what you plan to do (fight or splitpush?) and the composition and builds of the enemy team. For now, I'd stick with Cinderhulk as sort of a cover-all enchantment as it, too, deals magic damage and is handy for splitpushing.

Shulk does have some major issues against ranged characters, especially those with ranged grabs. Toon Link and Samus top the list (outside the top characters) as the best matchups against Monado Boy.

Been a while since I've indulged in support. Been forever since I last had so much fun playing said role.

That feel when landing all the hooks as Thresh and flaying all the right things, but it's all in vain if no one takes the damn lantern.