[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast.
Hey, what's up?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz.
And you're listening to the Four Wards.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Podcast here to help you move forward in league.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Hello and welcome to episode 482 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Soman and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: I'm still here.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Appreciate your consistency. We've also got back from a long, long flight, Codex Ninja.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: I'm still flying high.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: That must be the jet lag talking, guys. She's still flying.
All right.
That's right. We are the Forwards podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come chat with us, ask us questions, talk about your. Your bad games, your good games, all that fun stuff. The link is in the episode description.
We appreciate you and we look forward to seeing you there.
Now some of us do stream on Twitch can be found at Twitch TV jacksoman where it's a mixture of super Metroid failures and ranked league failures. But such is life.
Mike can be found at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames where we will bully him into streaming something soon.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Oh, there's gonna be something soon because the Elden Ring Night rain comes out in three days and I'm planning on playing that and if I can get, I might be able to get a couple of other previous hosts to play with me because they love Elden Ring.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: So go follow Mike on Twitch TV MikeOfManyNames so you'll know when he goes live and join the Discord. It announces when we go live in the Discord.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: If you've been trying to get him.
[00:02:21] Speaker C: Yeah, we still haven't managed to bully Codex Ninja into streaming.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Gotta get more questions, yo.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: But speaking of bullying Codex Ninja, we gotta give a shout out to Codex Ninja, Pillow Pet and Robegon for supporting us at the shoutout tier on the Patreon.
Thank you. We appreciate you guys. We could not do this without you. Quite literally. You are paying to keep the show on the Internet.
It is greatly appreciated.
Now if you want to support the podcast and get that shout out at the top of every episode, head on over to patreon.com theforwardspodcast just $1 a month will just tell us that you love us.
$5 a month will get you access to a pre show before every episode. We record behind the scenes audio. Sometimes it's actual prep work and sometimes it's just us bullshitting for 30 minutes talking about fire emblem and plane trips and fun stuff.
So yeah, come come support the podcast. And if you want that shout out, of course $10 a month gets you the exclusive feed and we shout out your name at the top of every episode.
Last but not least, listeners, I put out a call for help, a plea to you listeners last episode to send us
[email protected] I was hoping maybe we'd have two or three quick questions, something we could have as a We'll figure out a topic and then we'll answer some questions and it would be a great episode.
We also let you put questions in the discord and thank goodness for that because not a single one of you wrote into the email address with questions.
But we did get one from the discord.
So Moonmoon, I hope you appreciate it. This episode's dedicated to you.
Moonmoon sent us a big old wall of text and we're basing the episode on it.
So listeners, again please Write in theforwards podcastmail.com and ask us your questions.
Who knows, you might get your question turned into a whole episode if we feel like it.
With that said, let me introduce Moonmoon's question and we'll pause at each of the like actual topic points that we're going to discuss.
So Moonmoon writes, you keep wanting questions every single week. How needy are you? Come on man, very needy. Very, very needy. Please send us questions.
Alright. JK JK hi, I'm a new player. I played a year casually. I tried ranked and I'm liking that people don't surrender quite as easily. I got ranked in EU west of course, but I don't mind it. I have lots to learn.
I'm maining Ahri mid. My secondary pick is Illaoi Top.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: I think I'm stronger as Illa in EU West. That's a little bit thing that missed it there.
[00:05:32] Speaker C: Okay.
Iron in EU West. Okay.
I think I'm stronger as Illaoi but I'm liking Ahri more and want to get better at matchups. So question one.
Do you have any tips of how to learn matchups? How to think about how to build against different matchups, what runes to take or items to buy, how strategies against them differ, etc. Ranged versus melee, ranged versus ranged when you're outranged versus when you're not. I guess another angle is also what champion to pick. In my case I'm one tricking, but maybe One should find out what matchups you have a hard time with and maybe pick a counter to them and learn them as well.
And then he lists a site that I'm not familiar with that he uses to look up matchups. So I have no comment on the site, but we're going to talk about learning matchups.
So other than just play a lot, because that's. That's the easy answer is just if you just play a lot, you'll eventually get to play all the matchups and experience them and you'll get better over time. But that's a lot of time investment and it's a lot of misery and it's not the fastest way.
So, Codex, you have a lot of opinions on learning matchups. Talk to me.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Alright, so the main thing is that we're going to start the conversation assuming that you know what all the champions do, which I know is not case for a newer player.
We'll get to that. That's a separate.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Since that's the premise you want to base it on, let's actually answer that question first then, because that is actually the next question that Moomoon writes.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:13] Speaker C: So we're going to bounce around a bit. We're going to answer this the second question and then we'll come back to matchups. Okay, so question two is what do you recommend doing to learn what all the champions do? Ability wise, I'm getting the hang of my matchups better. But there are other roles when grouping. Knowing who's got stuns or gap closers is kind of important.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Very.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Yep.
So I am a remedial one trick pony. I played Bard on release in 2015 exclusively for three years. Like exclusively. I only played Bard and it was a great time. Well, not really because he released without any damage and that sucked. But he was an amazing champion. Just an amazing champion.
In like 2018, I got like my first league group and they needed an ADC at the time, like we already had a support.
So I. There was this new champion, Aphelios that had just come out. So I played Aphelios for two years. Like nothing else, just Aphelios. So you have to realize that like I've played the game for a very long time, but I haven't actually played a ton of champions.
Like I know what they do because they kill me all the time, but like I don't know what they do. Right.
So I call it remedial OTP training is that I kind of have a general sense of what I call the tier one abilities. So Morgana Q Bind. She throws out this big thing. It goes for a million miles, and it roots you for 800,000 years like that. And it also deals some decent damage, but it deals infinity.
It roots you for infinity. Like, you will never. You will never get away from the queue. Right. Ever.
So I know what.
[00:08:58] Speaker C: To be clear. To be clear for new listeners, this is hyperbole. It feels like an eternity. It scales up to three seconds.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: It scales up to three seconds, but in three seconds. And it's an eternity in league time. Especially when you're playing a Squishy. A Squishy adc.
But anyway, so I know all of the super, super. Like, that thing stuns me. That thing roots me the really obvious ab.
So Aatrox, I believe it's the E.
He has this ability where he makes this big square and then he pops you back to the center of the square if you don't escape the square.
[00:09:36] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: I never actually, like, don't get me wrong, I played against Aatrox for literally, literally 12 years. I'm not joking. 12 years, guys. And I did not actually know what the E thing did.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Well, it's changed since that time.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Well, then there's also that, like, we've got reworks. You got a ton of stuff. Right. So what I created.
So I always had this nagging feeling that what was holding me back was actually the fact that, like, I'm remedial otp. Right. So there was actually this wonderful podcast episode on a separate podcast, the BBC, where they're talking about each different ranks and why people are where they are. And they talked about iron folks and how a lot of iron people are iron because they don't know what all the champions do.
And I suddenly was like, oh, shit. Maybe that is what's keeping me back.
That's interesting.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: And it varies from champion to champion. Some things you can learn what the champion does just by seeing someone play it.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yep, yep. You can.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Like some. Some champions, you can be like, I understand that champion from playing against it once or twice.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I know what Amumu does.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Champions. And I'm going to use an ad carry as an example.
Ezreal. How the fuck are you going to learn what Ezreal's W does if you don't play as Ezreal? Because it's the skill shot. He shoots at you and it latches onto you, but you don't know what the hell it does while it latches on to you?
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Yep, yep. No idea.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: To be fair, in the case of Ezreal, the Answer is pretty simple. It makes the next ability he hits you with do bonus damage and refund his mana.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Right. I say I didn't even know about the mana.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Right. But that's what I mean.
How are you gonna know about the mana refund where he can cast a lot while extremely oom if he's landing the W?
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: If you don't play as Ezreal and if you. You're just playing against him, you're like, oh, he hit me with this skill shot. I don't know what happens next.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: Or things like Nidalee hits you with a spear. All of a sudden she can pounce farther. Her cue does more damage. None of that's clear.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Also, that trap hit me with a spear.
[00:11:53] Speaker C: And then she jumped on me and killed me. You don't have a way of really intuiting playing against her that those are conditionals that then cause each other to be doable.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So.
Right. And. But there are 170 champions. That is not a minor ask. It's the reason why it's very hard to shepherd new. New players into this game. Yo. Other than playing with us because we're awesome, amazing people. Come and join the discord. Anyway, sorry. Sorry, Plug.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: We will do our best to shepherd you into this game.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: We will.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: We will.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: So, like, so. But. But so we have this gigantic problem that I'm facing. Right? So I have to figure and go through all this remedial, like, study. Right?
There is one thing I realized I could do in a weekend. Like, and I think it technically took me like four days. But not. Not poll, but like, you know, 30 minutes here and there.
I made a spreadsheet of every single champion in League of Legends and I wrote out what I thought their abilities were. That like, that's literally it.
And so you might think, oh, man, this isn't a paper test. Like, what. What is this? Like, what is this even doing it? What it allowed me to do is that I could suddenly see where all my holes are.
Like, dude, I know what kog' Maw does. I've played kog' Maw. I know what Aphelios does. I've played Aphelios for two years. It's just kind of weird. It's more like a party trick because most people don't actually know what Aphelios does. Or actually I do.
But, like, all there's certain champions that I actually have amazing competence with.
Another thing that was actually really great.
Out of all, like, it was 168 when I started the thing but out of all the champions, none of them were total zeros. I just didn't. I only knew like one or two things out of certain ones of them.
So once I had my spreadsheet down and again I was just really quick. Just like, you know, like with Morgana Bind, it was just long range skill, shot big root last, long time, infinite.
No, it's only three seconds.
But. So once I had all of like my reds because I labeled all the ones that I didn't really know very well as red. I then sorted the reds based on how often they are played. Because like, again, don't get me wrong, I probably should know what Nidalee does. I know that she has like a flip flop with. Based on her old. She's kind of like karma sort of a bit.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: So Jace. She's more like Jace.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Jace Jayce. But Nidalee is not played a lot in bronze and iron. It's just. She's just not. There's just no point in learning what Nidalee does other than like generally speaking, the spear, right? I can just glide on my Nidalee knowledge, right? So. But I actually did not understand what Akali did. Like hardcore. I did not understand that the altar had a static cooldown between and with the. With the. With the thing, right?
So like I said, it's a little try hard, but actually going through and actually just listing what you know, finding your gaps, arranging those gaps in a place where you can see like, okay, Akali's picked a lot, Nidalee's not.
So all of a sudden you have like, okay, you have a list that you can slowly work towards through like, like little by little, just once in a while. And that brings us to point two. Arams. When play. If you want to know how the champions do, play the fuck out of Arams. Because you will get a very good understanding of play. And it's like what, 15, 20 minutes. You're just quickly cycling through them, like figuring out kind of what they do, that kind of thing. You don't have to play at like challenger level. Also another thing people don't. I have only like out of 50 games, you'll see someone flame in an Aram. Like people don't try hard in Aram. It's great.
It's so great.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: It's definitely a lot more often than once every.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: It's more often than once.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Everybody. I wish I had your Arams.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: I wish my Aram people are chill, yo. I'm not saying that I haven't seen like dark Sit and That I play really well, but I just feel like Arams are chill.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: I definitely agree that Arams are chiller than Summoner's Rift by far.
So I still see flavor like that of every five.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: I'm going to say a lot of this is a lot of work intense. This is a lot of things where you can maybe figure out a lot of information in a short time if you're willing to put that kind of work in.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there's work involved. There's no. There's no.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: There's no way around learning the work.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: But I think.
I think the easier way to learn a champion, just what it does is spend first thing in the day, every day when you play for a while, go and do two, three custom games or bot games or something, and go down the line of champions and play them.
Because nothing will tell you what a champion does better than playing it.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Yep. Nope.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: That's what I was gonna say is don't be afraid to play bots. Or like, right now we have Brawl available. Just play brawl.
It's like 10 minutes. Ish for brawl. Who cares if you lose? You're here to learn what the hell this champion does, and you're not going to learn the ins and outs, minutiae of how to execute on the champion. But that's not the goal. That's what you learn when you've picked who you want to main and now you want to master that champion.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: What you're going to learn is, oh, this ability lets me dash to an ally. Oh, this ability makes this other ability better in some way. Yeah, the ways things interact, the functional parts of the kit.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: You're going to learn threats of every character, what this character is designed to do, and what you can do against it. Because, frankly, you won't win every game.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah. No, no, no, no. This is not about winning.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: You're gonna see. Yeah, you're gonna see a lot of the problems with characters, man. This doesn't work that well into this.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: And also, you'll be able to read the fucking tooltips of all the abilities. Like, that actually helps a lot if you're just.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: We need to go back on that. That is one of the first things I think everyone should do. Expanded tooltips.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: Just read the expanded tooltips. Because this is where you're going to learn things. Like, for example, when SETT pulls you, if there's people on both sides of him that he pulls, it stuns. If he's only pulling from one direction, it does not.
That includes minions that's why you'll see good sets. Yes, that's why you see good sets. Walk past the minion line so that the minions are behind him and you're in front of him and then he pulls you all together. Now it's a stunning.
But if you've never played set, all you know is set pulls you and it's a stun. You don't know the conditionals behind it. And when you're safer and when you're.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Not safer, one other thing that as a small other point, whenever you are profoundly confused as to what happened, that's a good time to go. And just like, especially if you lose, like, hey, you know what? I think that I should actually learn what Lee Sin does. And so you just sit there and go like, okay, let's just learn what that champion does so that, like, I don't get surprised.
A lot of this will help you immensely in bot lane and support because you'll get weird things like support Heimerdinger or sorry, Kennen support Kennen support Akali support, like assassin type people. And all you just need to know is just what they do once you know what they do. And also vision. Usually they play around vision a lot. If you get those two things done, you'll win every time because you know what they do and they can't surprise you and you just knowledge check them.
The final, like final little point I wanted to say is, so I use a site called LOL Rewind. They're an amazing resource.
They're a huge stat site. So I don't know. Again, we're in tryhard land. I kind of bring up LOL Rewind, but what it does is.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: This is one I haven't heard of. I'm gonna go check it out.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: It is super cool. Oh my God. I can nerd about stats forever on this site. It's one of my favorite charts.
So it's very good at showcasing over all of your play history. What champions do you have the lowest win rate against?
And that can really help, like, figure out like, hey, I got this gap.
So I found out that I had a gigantic gap against Ash.
And I used to call it Ash Mold.
Like Ash would just always just win games.
I'd cream her in Lane, but she would just kind of mold up the entire game with her Ash mold.
It was. It was awful.
So I had a sub 40% win rate against like every single champion I played against Ashe.
And so I went and I decided to play ashe for like 45 games just to really get to the point where I kind of understand what does Ash want to do in lane. What does Ash want to do with the game? Like, like, really understand, like, the ranges and, like, how she. She does her thing.
And don't get me wrong, I don't like Ash. I actually think that Ashe is the worst carry to teach people how to carry with.
I think that she muddles up damage and crit, and it's very, very confusing. I do agree that she does teach people how to kite and she also teaches you about vision, which is amazing.
But what happens?
[00:22:31] Speaker A: She's a shortcut champion.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. She does, however, I know, have like, a close to 50%. Like, I have. I have statistical average. Again, like. Like, substantially more statistically average match rate against Ashnow. Because I played 45 games with her, and, like, now I have, like, kind of closed that. That gap in knowledge.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: All right, so now that we've talked about learning the champions, now we can go back to the first question and talk about learning matchups.
So I'm going to hand it back off to you because you were about to go off on learning matchups when I interjected and we decided and we pivoted to learning champions first. How do you learn matchups for each role?
[00:23:27] Speaker B: So, matchups, matchups. So the most important thing in bottom, the matchup is determined by the support, not the carry. In most, I'm sure that there's an exception, but, like, and there is nuance to the fact that if you're positioning well and you're doing all that stuff, you can, you know, eclipse a bad support, but the support is the one who is, generally speaking, determining the pace of the lane, if that makes sense.
So the primary thing we're looking at when you're looking at archetypes of supports, because it's always nuance, right? Leona versus karma is a specific. Like, there's a specific interaction point, right? So you gotta know that. But if you go higher level, you can say ranged versus Melee, right? And ranged and Melee have kind of general boxes of things that they want.
Leona, the Melee champion, wants to not have her health bar go down before levels two and three.
She wants to be at full health. That is her goal.
If she is at half health by level two, she has failed, like, hard failed her mission, Right? Because she can't go in and attack the.
And go all in, try and get the people and survive. Right? Like, she's going to be selling her life and, you know, maybe that's worth.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: I'm gonna argue with you on that one.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Leona is a Level two champion, so.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: She might be Level two specifically, but I was going more of like, Melee in general wants to wait. Melee does not want to go in generally at Level one.
Leona at Level one has to spend flash in order to engage from range.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: No, she rushes. She starts E, not Q.
She should.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: In any case, she should start E, not Q.
[00:25:32] Speaker C: Why would she start E? E is useless.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: He's fucking useless.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Q. Because Q lets her actually fuck people if they face check into her.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah, if you face. Check into a bush into a Level one Leona. Dude, no, you take. You always take Q.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: You generally, because you don't care. You're facing the support. In that case, you go E so that you can get on the data carry.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Mike, if you start E, great. You eat on the ad carry. Now you just get your ass beat because you don't do it.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: You don't have a stun.
[00:26:00] Speaker C: You have to start Q because you have to start.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: You're not a Level one champion. You're not meant to be fighting there.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: That's why you don't start the go in button at Level one.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you start the Q button.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: I'm sorry, you are emphatically.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: You have been overruled in it, regardless, so.
[00:26:16] Speaker C: So, again, emphatic, unequivocally wrong on this. You start Q, you start Q.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Anyway, so.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: And staff sites back this up, by the way.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: For.
That being said, the archetype, however, Leona does not want to go in Level one.
Leona wants to stay away and Rell and even pike, to a certain extent.
Nautilus doesn't super want to go in Level one.
Not a lot of these engage.
All these engage champions are hardcore. Like, nah, fam, I want to stay back. And there's always nuance. There's always, like, specifics if you get, like, deep. But broadly speaking, the ranged champions want to deal damage to the Melee champions. That is their goal is to either get the carry to have or the Melee support to have by Level two, because then they have succeeded. Then they can't go all in. Right?
So also, another thing that the ranged champions generally want. They generally want to get the push in order to get their level 2 spike first.
Right?
Now, the Melee champions want the same thing. They just don't usually have AOE spells because they are not ranged. Leona does not have sufficient wave clear to outdo a brand.
Right?
So, like, generally speaking, the. The in bot lane, when you're learning matchups, your first part is like, again, you have to know the, the minutiae between the two champions. But generally speaking, what are the two. The. The learning the archetypes of ranged versus melee and, and playing it correctly. For example, I actually win most of my lanes for the simple reason that I'm going up against a ranged champion. I hit the wave really hard early and I get level two generally in 60% to 80% of my matches. And I just win because I got Level two first and they just decided not to take it.
Like, it's really just.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: It is.
[00:28:26] Speaker C: Depressing how often just you get level 2 first wins bot lane because the ends.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Bot lane. Yeah. I just hit the minions harder than you did.
Yeah. Like you.
[00:28:35] Speaker C: I wish that still worked where I'm at.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah, no, no, it doesn't work the higher you go. But like, damn, dude. Iron and Iron and bronze, it's good until you start hitting silver. So like, good luck.
[00:28:47] Speaker C: It works a shocking amount of the time.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: One other thing, just to throw it out there. Knowing key, key level spikes for ADCs is also important. I would say you, you need to know it for all of your supports as well.
But for example, a Samira or a Nila, you need to beat the shit out of them. Level 1. Beat the absolute motherfucking shit out of both of them. Level one, do war crimes.
You go do war crimes against those two champions because they aren't level one. And people will just like, oh, did you want to just get your level two?
No.
You do war crimes against those champions because they are weak then. Whereas with Lucian and Aphelios, their level two spikes are absolutely, astronomically huge.
So you have to be very careful against a kill lane like Lucian Nami, Lucian Leona, anything that's level two focused. Yeah, yeah, you gotta be careful about that. Right.
And, and, and again, like getting into the details and knowing those key level spikes are, are important.
So I, I don't know like, as far as, like other lanes. Do. Do you have. Do you have similar.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yes and no.
It's a big thing on top lane.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:13] Speaker C: I'm gonna talk about jungle first and then me and Mike can. Can share talking about the solo lanes.
In Jungle, there's really only two Spike points.
There's Level 2 Spike and Level 3 Spike.
You either are getting to Level 2, as in taking a single camp and going and doing something immediately, while everyone else that's not a jungler is still level one.
You are taking exactly three camps and then going and doing something with that because you're level three and everyone else is level two, or you're doing a full clear coming out of the jungle at level four when everyone else is level three.
Those are the only real things right now in jungle.
So where that matters for matchups is if you're playing a champion that spikes hard at Level two, such as, for example, Jarvan.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Mmm.
[00:31:11] Speaker C: It's not so much about the immediate, oh, who am I up against in the jungle? It's about which lane do I think I can use my power on, taking the first camp and immediately just win that lane for my team, and do I think the enemy has a way to play against it?
So as the Jarvan, you're not going to want to go make a play against a bot lane that has an Alistair, because he's just gonna headbutt you away. Because that's usually what an Alistair is gonna take first because it denies plays at Level one when he's at his weakest.
So you're gonna go in like, oh, I'm a strong Jarvan. I'm level two spike, let's go. You're gonna flag and drag in, and then he's gonna go, boop. And then you're gonna be sad, and you're gonna have wasted your power spike. While the enemy jungler is now level three, you're still level two, and then they're going to invade your ass and kill you.
So that's where the matchups come from in the jungle, is knowing, do I spike at 2? If so, how can I use that?
Or if not, get to three as fast as possible. If the enemy spiked at two and failed their spike play, take advantage of them. And if none of the above applies and there's no opportunistic ganks, just get to 4 off your full first. Clear.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Would you say that a lot of jungle has been, like, taken Level two cheese ganking away? Like, it's very.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: There's only a few of them that remain.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Okay, so that. That is pretty unusual. That's interesting.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: It's not that it's less common. It's that the champions that are good at it are not very popular at the moment.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Oh, okay. So, like, J4 is just not okay?
[00:33:04] Speaker A: J4.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: J4 is like the. The preeminent level two. Just blow people up.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Jungler Shaco has a tendency to be very early too.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: Right. So Jarvan is like, fine, he's not bad, but he's not great.
Shaco, not bad Right now, he can be a Level two Spike Champions.
But then most of the other popular junglers, they just. They need their Full kit to really make a play.
Generally, if you don't have CC on your best two clearing abilities, you are not a level two Spike champion.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:33:43] Speaker C: The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Twitch.
And Twitch Jungle is just bad right now.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Twitch Jungle is a cheese.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
Because everyone else, like, the level two Spikers are, like I said, Jarvan, Cuz, Flag, and Drag. You're taking those as your first two abilities, regardless of whether or not you're ganking at two. So you just. You spike hard at two.
Shaco, you're taking your boxes level one. Level two is your stealth, and then you just go gank. It's fine. It's not meaningfully slower than taking your 2 Shiv poison at level 2, because your boxes are doing the heavy lifting for the clear.
The other one that comes to my mind is Pantheon.
You start level one with your Q, the spear, but level two, you're learning the stun anyway because it's a better clear skill than the shield.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Skill is the shield. Yeah.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: It's because of the empowered W that it's just way better.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: Exactly. So you have everything you need to be a level two Spike. So those are champions. That would be an example. And right now, I think Pantheon is by far the best of the level two Spike Junglers.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: The level three Spike is very potent.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: Yes. Everyone else who fits that level two Spike archetype right now just kind of sucks in the first place, regardless of whether you're trying to use a level two Spike or not.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Brand can Cheese. Level two?
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Oh, I wouldn't do that for a skill shot.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: It's not Brand in Zyra. It's Zyra.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Who's Zyra? Zyra would. No, no, no. Like, that's different.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Brand can. Because he still takes his stun second because it's on a lower cooldown than a Z. Yep.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: But the Zyra route is way wider.
[00:35:21] Speaker C: Compared to the stun first on Brand. You're wrong.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: That was literally a patch note.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: They changed that Brand, it's just his.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: Q has the shortest cooldown@ rank 1. And most of your jungle, most of.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Your damage is from your passive. Yeah, we could. We could go through these and check them. Like the. The. The actual. Like, there is one champion that is a level one champion in the jungle, and that's Zyra. That's it.
Because she all. She uses her E, and she just gets passive stuff there.
Every other champion is level two, Level three, or Farm till six.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Farm till six, yeah.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Because there's still a couple of those Nocturne being one of the best of them.
Someone whose alt really makes an impact.
But like, these are.
These are champions, where a lot of them are. The. The dangerous ones aren't common, but that's where we. We see things. I have no idea what things are like in low elo anymore, because as we noticed, one of the things that's no longer popular in our ranking is leashing, and that is significantly more prominent the lower you go down.
Changes the jungle makeup.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: And I don't know. I. I think if. If you're in bronze, you aren't leashing anymore, which is great because leashing is an old thing.
Yeah. So an iron. You'll see.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: Because people are leashing doesn't mean they should be.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You should not be leashing in 98.5% of your games. There. There is a couple. There is a couple weird ones, but Go. Go. Just win your lane.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: The. The main reason to be around your jungler when they are level one is if you think there's going to be an invade.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Pretty much there's that.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: And that was one of. That was one of the main reasons why the jungle shifted so heavily towards invades early on this season. Last season.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Feats became hugely prominent.
[00:37:38] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: And a lot of people are still just in that. That mindset.
[00:37:42] Speaker C: So let. Let's. Let's shift gears. It's a lot more jungle talk than I thought we were going to get. How do you learn the solo lane matchups? Because I feel like these are the most, like, volatile, but also completely under your own control as opposed to, like, bot lane can be really volatile, but you're only half of the piece of the puzzle.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Right. Right. There's a lot of variance.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: You're just fucked outside of anything you did because your partner was an idiot. And now it's hard for you to learn what you did wrong because you didn't. They did.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: So solo lanes mid and top are very, very different.
Very different.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: The lanes themselves are different. But actually learning the matchups, I don't feel really is.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yes.
Matchups is going to be similar learning style.
[00:38:30] Speaker C: Right. And that's what we're talking about right now is just how do you learn matchups? So in solo lanes, a lot of learning matchups is just playing your champ against the enemy champ.
Because it's literally just your abilities against their abilities and figuring out when spikes happen.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: And the first thing you need to know. Fuck up the first. The first things you need to know immediately in. In Lane.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: Are.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Is there a mana on this champion?
Am I gonna be trading abilities with them? Are they. Is this a melee matchup or a range matchup or a melee into range matchup?
[00:39:07] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: And realistically the. The last major thing like those two are the first things. Because meta is really important to know for most matchups. That's one of the main reasons when people go back knowing the melee versus range is knowing what you can take.
And then the last one is do they have like. You'll see the abilities. Is this a poke heavy lane? Is this something that's big aoe?
You're going to have to start seeing abilities being cast.
Some people have very bad aoe but very good single target kill pressure.
And these are things that you will not find until you face them.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: So why does like energy versus Mana. Like is it just like a. Are they gonna be able to sustain?
[00:40:03] Speaker C: Yes. It's literally because mana is a resource that is hard to get back until you return to the fountain.
Energy, Rage and every other secondary resource limits you in the short term but not the long term.
That's the difference in a nutshell.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
Anything that's just pure cooldown based.
They're. They're not caring about ever going. They only ever care about their health bar.
And so now they have free reign to play the fight. And you have to worry about two resources as opposed to one.
If you're a mana person. Especially in mid and top lane. Because your mana bar is how you get farm most of the time.
Auto attacking is not consistent enough to do.
Especially in mid lane. It's not consistent there. In top lane your mana is usually traded a bunch with health fights you're fighting more often than.
But it's shocking.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: And this is because of the lane itself. It's because of the champions that are common in these positions.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: You'll also find generally speaking stockier champions up top lane. Healthier champions.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: With more sustain in their kit.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: So things tend to be drawn out long fights as opposed to the bursty. It trades in mid.
Not always the case. But these are. These are like the main things you need to focus on. And then can my melee matchup beat this ranged matchup? There are plenty of melee matchups that just win. Fizz is a premier example of a melee matchup. Who doesn't care about ranged half the time.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: So I am curious.
So my understanding of top lane is that a huge amount of top lane is wave management.
Like. Like. Like understanding that wave management.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Wave management does not exist pre gold.
It's Basically throwing waves at each other.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: So. So the intricacies of top lane don't exist pre gold. What you're doing in top lane is fighting the other person in in lower level. So you are jockeying for health and you're jockeying for mana. Essentially you are just trying to force the other person to lose their resources.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Okay.
In mid, my understanding is you can't really, especially this season, you can't really freeze as much. It's just a very loosey goosey lane.
[00:42:48] Speaker C: All right?
You can. The reason freezes are less effective in mid than top is the length of the lane. You can freeze a wave or two in mid lane.
You can't just sustain a freeze forever the way you can in top lane, because it reaches your turret too quick.
In top lane, you can get it to where the wave is killing all of your minions and there's still four of theirs alive every single wave. Because you're durable enough to tank those minions for five seconds while the next wave comes, you're stronger than the enemy, so they can't fight you and you just repeat ad infinitum.
Mid lane champions tend to be squishier, so you can't tank the wave. There's no bush to drop the aggro over and over on the wave as the bushes are farther away and it's much shorter. So freezing exists, but it's like, oh, I denied like a minute worth of farm. Not like they are permanently fucked until they get help.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:43:54] Speaker C: That's the difference. Top and bot, you can just be frozen out until help arrives.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:44:00] Speaker C: Maybe you just can't because of the size.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: I will say in the last this season, it's a lot harder to freeze.
And to be honest, like, I don't think it's actually worth.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they changed the minions. Yeah, they did change the minions actually deal more damage. So they made it so that a freeze is no longer possible.
Once you get three full waves having gone through.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: It will always go. Yeah, it can't. You can't self sustain a freeze. Once three waves have gum, it's going to push and it will hit that tower.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: It will hit the tower.
One thing that I really kind of just to also mention for a newer listener, you should not freeze in bot lane. Post like 6 to 8. Like somewhere in there you need to stop freezing. Like, it's okay to slow push, but you should not attempt to freeze later levels.
Yeah.
[00:45:02] Speaker C: Generally there are always exceptions to every rule.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: There's always exceptions, but do not attempt freezes, especially Late.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: So have we talked about builds when it comes to matchups at all? Because I think this plays a lot more in top lane especially than it does in the other roles.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: This is a hugely important thing in top lane because ad carries have a standard build for the most part. Maybe one or two items will be switched out. Mid lanes for the most part will have the same build. Maybe one or two items switched out.
[00:45:35] Speaker C: Mages and assassins tend to be pretty. This is my build plus or minus.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: This Top lane is the most volatile matchup dependent and the most volatile build setup because of the champions played there. Bruisers tanks.
These champions have wildly different build variations.
[00:46:00] Speaker C: And sometimes this is as simple as I'm playing a tank, the enemy does physical damage, I'm building Sunfire first versus I'm playing a tank, the enemy does magic damage, I'm building Hollow Radiance first. But if you don't know the enemy champion and what damage type they do, you don't know which item you should be building first. I have literally seen top lanes lost because the player just followed the build guide that said build Sunfire first and they were against a rise or a Vladimir or a Kennen that does magic damage and they got cut through like they were paper because they had no magic resist against the magic damage champ.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Straight up. If you have time and you don't recognize the champion in champion select in your first couple like the minute before the game start starts. Even like while the game is going, Google the champion. If you don't recognize it, Google it, figure out what it is, figure out what it does. Like, does this do magic damage or physical damage primarily? Is this a mage? Is this a tank? Is this whatever you need to know what you're facing in top lane more than anything else.
[00:47:08] Speaker C: Do they have CC that is reduced by tenacity.
I've also seen a lot of people build merc treads when the only CC on the enemy team is knock ups which are not red by tenacity.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: So I would agree that builds on Crit Marksman are very stock standard.
I will say though, every once in a while you're gonna see a little bit of a different build and it's usually pro influenced.
And the thing about those things, you need to figure out what the most boring like, like bread and butter build is and which one is the pro one.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Because don't trust pro builds.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they're, they're solving very specific pro problems with their builds. Whereas like, dude, I just need to do damage.
I'm not currently running Crit Marksman. Right now I'm playing Kai' sa.
So like build is already a little bit weirder but with crit marksman like right now, if you're a PTA user into an infinity edge like you should be following the boring build, not something funky.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: So we will give a great example of a pro build that you should not follow.
Jax Jaxson Pro builds a Zhonyas don't.
[00:48:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Are you in coordinated 5v5 play where you trust yourself to press the zhonya's button at the correct time to block incoming damage or CC what you're not. You're in solo queue then you shouldn't build a fucking zhonyas because that's why they build it.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they have a very specific reason why they are trying that they're trying to solve for in a coordinated team where they, they play like eight hours a day, every day.
As a professional, if you're going to.
[00:49:09] Speaker C: Watch pros play more than eight and.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: And check pro builds, watch their streams because when they're streaming they're doing solo queue for the most part and that's when they're going to be doing.
That's part of their job. Their job is to do solo queue. They're going to be playing more normally than elsewhere. They may still have more pro oriented things because they like practicing for the game they play, but you are more likely to see things correctly from there because they're. They're going to try and win.
[00:49:44] Speaker C: Exactly.
Okay, we have any more to talk about matchups or should we move on to the other questions Moonmoon wrote in?
[00:49:52] Speaker A: I think that's good.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Sounds good. All right, so Moonmoon has two other questions that are kind of tied together.
Which Moonmoon writes ranking up or winning has a lot to do with carrying. I find it hard. It's not just getting fed. Winning is much more about making the right calls. What tips do you have for carrying, pinging and making calls, winning lane mid game, etc. I find when you don't try to be the carry, you just let it be a coin flip. Did you end up on the better team or not?
Very true me about it. Oh my God. Quite literally you will win more games if you ping on my way to things that you want to happen.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: Yep, I'm going here.
[00:50:46] Speaker C: Let's fight for Dragon on where you want to go.
Because here's the thing.
Whether or not that fight for Dragon is the right call or not, if someone pings it, even if it's a caution run away ping does not Matter.
Two idiots on your team are gonna wander over there.
So you now have a choice of are you gonna let two idiots die because they wandered over to the team fight they shouldn't have been at?
Are you gonna commit to the team fight? Ping on my way. Ping, help Try to get everyone to collapse on it.
Maybe you win the fight, maybe you lose the fight, or are you gonna do nothing and leave it up to fate?
That's the actual choices you have available to you because again, it does not matter whether the dragon is the right call in that moment or not.
I have learned this. If you've watched my streams at Twitch tv, Jackson, you will know there are so many games where it is a doomed dragon. There is five people there, we have two dead, and I am pinging frantically warning on the dragon, hoping that the idiots don't walk there because it is literally an impossible fight. We are 3v5. If all of us show up and inevitably one or two people still wander to the dragon and then die, and then they flame me for not being there and I'm like, hello, this is. This is. We're not in low elo, by the way. I'm in gold right now. This happened to me in plat. This happened to me in emerald.
You just have to be the team captain every single time to herd the four idiots around. You got some orange cats on your team. They're sharing one brain cell. You need to guide them if you want to win games.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: So this does lead us partially into the next part of your question as well.
[00:52:47] Speaker C: And sometimes you will be blessed. You will get a team where so someone else on your team is being the leader.
Part of winning those games is understanding, oh, I don't need to be a hero. I'm gonna back off and follow this guy. He seems to be doing it right when you get those.
Because if you try to be the guy in charge giving commands when someone else is doing it now you got two sets of instructions, and anytime they differ, you're gonna have a clash and it's gonna cause team cohesion issues.
Just be willing to be like, cool, someone else did step up. We're gonna follow.
Okay, any other tips for carrying before we get to the last question?
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Make sure like it is in a solo queue environment. If this is what you're trying to do, pick a champion that has carry capacity, something that you can win on.
That's.
That's gonna be a real big thing to help with.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say stay away. Like in weirdly off of that. Stay away from Tanks, generally speaking, do.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: Not try and carry with tanks that can carry.
[00:54:06] Speaker B: Yeah, there are, but I would say that by and large, the tankier you are, the more usually you are not carrying.
And I'm not saying you aren't setting shit up and all that stuff, but Skarner, Ornn, all of those characters.
[00:54:22] Speaker A: That's the wrong one.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Orn is your jam. Is that your jam? I get it. But you are generally not carrying with those characters.
[00:54:30] Speaker C: See, here's the thing. Here's what Mike is getting at.
Tanks cannot solo a carry if that carry has helped.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: Yes. If you are a fed Ornn, a fed Maokai, a fed Cho' Gath, whatever tank you want.
If you're allowed to just walk to the ad carry and fight them, you'll kill them.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:54:56] Speaker C: Comes out of 10.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:58] Speaker C: Unless they're a vayne who's particularly fed or something like that. Or you're extremely late game.
Because every ad carry should be able to duel you when you're both.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Super late game. Yeah, but they only get one flash generally, so.
[00:55:11] Speaker C: Yes, but that's not the actual state of the rift. Most of the time, they're gonna have someone trying to keep you from killing them. Whether that's an enchanter, an enemy tank, a bruiser, a mage, someone.
And because you are a tank, all it takes is one person, and you are never killing that carry and will die.
That's the difference. Because if you're playing a bruiser or an assassin or a mage or a different marksman, and you're strong enough to kill them, and you get an opportunity to fight them, you can often kill them before people can react.
If you're set and you get an opportunity where you just flash on top of the ad carry, pull them together with their minions, and then ult them into oblivion and punch them to death, they're dead in two seconds flat.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: They're popping up out of a bush. QE's old. You're dead.
[00:56:11] Speaker C: Exactly. Their team has to be able to prevent you from getting to that point in the first place when you're in one of those champions.
Whereas a tank, they have time to react.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
So there are champions that are definitely. This is. This is why we're talking about both of these things at the same time. So winning condition and champion, it needs to be.
[00:56:36] Speaker C: Did I actually read the win condition part, or do we just kind of roll into it?
[00:56:39] Speaker A: We sort of rolled into it. You should read it.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: Okay, let me read it.
The last question that we're already in the middle of answering is which leads into another question. How do I determine my champions win condition? Matchup win condition in a lull state, what my win condition is when I'm in the game. Like if my bot is 031 versus my dot being 2. 01.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: So a champions win condition is 90% of the time the same as the team's win condition.
[00:57:07] Speaker C: Usually. Yes.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: A couple of champions who have a separate one.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: So the one thing I would say, be very careful about kda.
Okay. It's about items.
This game is about Golden Towers, yo.
So if you see a 0 of 031 ADC and they have four items, that person is your win condition.
[00:57:34] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:57:34] Speaker B: Because if they got four items and I mean full, like the full fancy ones, like. Nah, that, that is. That is your win condition right now. It doesn't matter.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: As a person at Iron, you may not know this. When we talk about four items, we don't include boots.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Yeah, they do not include boots.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Boots is not considered a main item.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: It is not considered.
[00:57:53] Speaker C: This is like using an ad carry as an example. This means they have like their Yoon Tall, their Phantom Dancer and their Infinity Edge. Something in that vein. That's three items and then whatever fourth item their character builds, they've completed it.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:10] Speaker C: This might be Lord Dominic's regards. This might be SHIELD Bow. This one varies a lot.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And like I said, like, look at. Try to get a little better at items. Count items. Not, not, not deaths. I know it's really easy to do KDA because it's generally a good indication of. Especially in Iron because again, none of us down there are farming. Right.
[00:58:36] Speaker A: So like I actually think it's even worse to check KDA in Iron because sometimes people just have more farm and you don't notice it. Yeah, you need to look at items always.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: It's always in items and levels.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: Levels matters a ton.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Yeah, levels. Yeah.
[00:58:52] Speaker C: Levels are huge. I was going to say. I remember a game that I played recently with a listener and a former host of this show where they had a really useless Kayle who eventually hit level 16, hit death cap and Nashors and then literally made the game winning play by ulting her teammate at the right time while she cut us down.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:59:20] Speaker C: Because she's level 16 useless for 25 of the 28 minutes of that game. And she won the game for her.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: Team and she was like 08, I bet.
[00:59:30] Speaker C: Yeah, no, she didn't die much. She just didn't do anything for most of the game. She was just passively a trueing Gold.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: We talk about win conditions. There are champions who are scaling champions and we'll say these things. You'll. You'll hear us talk about these a lot. There are scaling champions, late game champions, etc. Champions that hit break points at levels and suddenly it doesn't matter how weak they are, they are now a win condition.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: Cassidy, Kale, Akali does it at level six.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:00:05] Speaker A: But just things like this. These are. These are champions that. They're not doing anything. They're not doing anything. Oh my God. I've been able to destroy them. Click. I can't touch them anymore. What the fuck happened?
[01:00:17] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Well, they hit the break point.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: They hit their break point.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Doesn't matter how weak they are. They could be 00:20. That's why there's something called the 00:10 Yasuo power spike.
Yeah.
[01:00:29] Speaker B: One thing. Because you are an iron, number of.
[01:00:31] Speaker C: Items, he beats you.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
So because you are an iron Ahri, this gets a little stickier.
But I did want to bring up the fact that like you have specific break. Most mages have specific break points around like a level 11. It's usually 8 to 11. When your Q ability can kill the back minions in a single, like single spell rotation. Can you blow up a wave? Like, that's a key breakpoint that you need to identify with Ahri. Because when you can do that, that means you can shove a wave and run and move to something else. Right. So those kind of learn those break points on each mage. Like, you know, is it level 8? Is it level 9? Is it level 10? Is it level 11?
One other thing with Ahri specifically, Ahri's kind of like, Ahri's a malleable champion. She can do a lot of different things.
She can win the game by like looking at the winsay, looking at the carry, going, ah, this carry is a 10 0. Kai' Sa, this carry is going to carry me.
And she will position herself that when someone's trying to eat the carry, she will walk up and charm that like, nah, nah, this carry is my carry. You do not get to walk up on them. That. That kind of peel mentality sort of thing going on.
Another thing she can build into kind of like a more of a bursty mage is my understanding as well, where like she's like one shotting folk as opposed to playing it more like a little bit more supportive.
But yeah, so. So you kind of got to lean into the identity a little bit.
I do know that she can be a little bit more control. She can be a little bit More burst.
Unfortunately, she's no longer a tank, so.
[01:02:26] Speaker C: Fortunately, she's no longer a tank. The correct build on Ahri right now is Malignant into Horizon Focus. Please build that. You will win more games than if you're still building the fucking Rod of Ages.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: Liandry's, which again, was a pro thing.
Just. Just so we're aware. It was a pro thing.
[01:02:48] Speaker C: Yeah. The Malignant builds were already better in solo queue when those were the best builds.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:54] Speaker C: They are now just wrong. Please build Malignant's Horizon Focus on Ahri. Seriously, just so we've.
[01:02:59] Speaker A: We've danced around it a little bit and. And I've. We've mentioned it briefly. Way past.
The best way to learn all of this. Every single thing you've mentioned is to come in the discord and talk with us.
Send in questions like you do.
Every single thing. You learn something new. You see a new champion. Hey, I'm not really sure what this champion does. Let's. Let's give a question on it. I want to know a little bit more about what are late game champions? Why are they late game champions? Boom. We can work on that and talk to us or your other friends who play.
[01:03:34] Speaker C: And to be clear, Moonmoon, we appreciate you writing in this novel so we could turn it into an episode.
Listeners, you do not need to write a novel for your question. Like, two sentences is plenty if it means you'll write in a darn question. Please don't save up the, like, 10 questions you've got because you're afraid of just sending questions. Just send us what you got.
We'll answer them. When you have more questions, we'll answer those.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah. As we said, this is four questions all in one. You could have done any four of the. We could have given short, concise answers on multiples of these, and there are multiple questions built in here.
[01:04:18] Speaker C: We appreciate you, Moon Moon. We're not chastising you. You answered the call.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: You, everyone else, you've got a reward. You got an episode for your answer.
[01:04:29] Speaker C: Yes. We're telling everyone else, you don't have to do what Moonmoon did. You don't need to step up and be the question novel baller.
You just want to write us a question and be like, how in the hell does Aatrox.
[01:04:46] Speaker A: How does Aatrox. What is Ari's biggest counter?
Who's the strongest late game champion? Things like this. Those are simple questions that we can answer quickly.
[01:04:56] Speaker C: Preferably not that last one. I. I don't want questions that are effectively boiled down to what is meta right now.
[01:05:05] Speaker A: You're right. I mean, maybe not the single. The single most meta. But like, what are. What's a good example of late game carries?
[01:05:12] Speaker C: Yes. Or like what makes a champion a good late game carry?
What makes a good counter to Ari? Because the specific champion will change as the meta shifts. But as long as Ari does what she does, she will have types of champions she sucks against and types of champions she's good.
[01:05:29] Speaker A: Again, there's a condition that counters this thing. What is it?
[01:05:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:05:33] Speaker A: As opposed to the kinds of questions.
[01:05:35] Speaker C: That I love, we.
[01:05:36] Speaker A: We do talk meta because we talk patch notes. We talk about power. Character power. Yeah, so we tangentially mention meta, but guys, no one of us really care.
[01:05:50] Speaker B: About meta that much Also, I'm sorry, it's different down. Down in Bronze at Iron.
There's a different meta down there. I just want you to know quite.
[01:06:02] Speaker C: Oh, we know quite literally if you are in Bronze or Iron, you should not give any shits whatsoever what stat sites say is good and bad.
Stat sites, generally, depending on the specific site you're looking at, are looking at either global trends from Plat plus Emerald plus, or maybe you're on a site that lets you pick a region.
But like, unless you are very deliberately digging down to just actual relevant stuff, like if I go to OP gg, which is a long time popular site, you can go and look at what is Iron NA and figure out stats for there. And that's going to be relevant to you if you're an Iron on na, but you have to do it purposefully. You can't just go to OP GG and say who's the best Jungler?
Because if I just leave it on the defaults, it's Emerald Global, it gives me Nocturne, Kha' Zix, Jarvan, Warwick. If I go to Iron and I go to na, it gives me Amumu. Nocturne and Warwick are still there. And then Briar.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: It's different. It's totally different.
[01:07:20] Speaker C: Your meta is not the global meta, it's the one you're actually experiencing.
[01:07:24] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:07:26] Speaker A: But of course, who really cares about meta when you can just take Lucian to the top lane?
You'll always win. He's just gonna smash the lane. And you don't even have to worry about matchups or stats.
[01:07:40] Speaker C: We've been doing this Lucian Top meme for so long, most of the listeners weren't even playing League of Legends when Huni played Lucian Top against ts.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, it was beautiful.
[01:07:52] Speaker C: Listeners, seriously though, please write in we need more questions. The four wars podcastmail.com or drop them in the Question Submission channel in the Discord.
We greatly appreciate it. We need more questions. Next week will be a patch week, but that doesn't mean you guys get to slack. We need your questions.
I've been Jack Selman for Mike of Many Names and for Codex Ninja. Have a great night.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: Bye. Good night everybody.
Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: If you want to support the show.
[01:08:30] Speaker A: Directly, consider checking out our
[email protected] the Four Wards Podcast.
[01:08:37] Speaker B: And of course, send your questions to the Fourwards podcastmail.com so we can answer.
[01:08:43] Speaker A: Them live on the show.
[01:08:44] Speaker C: That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.
