I will be away from the computer until Sunday night. So don't wait up for me to play ranked games. Have a nice weekend!

streaming some ranked duo w/ bryff atm

So I had some extra time tonight so I spent some time updating the look of my stream.  Anyone have any thoughts?  Do me a favor and take a look if you have not.  I have a new out of game setup, a new loading screen setup, and a new in game setup.  I'm also looking for feedback on volume levels.  If you get a chance, please take a look at the latest archive stream or check it out live tomorrow at some point.  Thanks!

Should perhaps remove the One Piece GIF on the lower left. I want to see death timers >:

Good point.  Made that change.  Thanks - didn't even notice it was covering the death timer. 

Made a new/updated out of game page. 

Hi everybody!  I love/miss you.

Been watching a bunch of LCS today.  Audience is super annoying.   Obv a bunch of younger folks attending, but I'd think they would be able to at least ask the folks not to cheer like twats when wards are taken or anytime "balls" is on the screen.  Would like to punch 1 guy in the throat in particular...

BUT HIS NAME IS BALLS!?!?!?!?! LOLOLOLOLOLOLoLolololoo oh.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Anyway swan update?  He popped on yesterday in the afternoon for a min, but apparently had a really small window where he could play.  So, you sort out where you are staying, etc?  Anyway eta on when you will reappear again?

lots of champ changes in this upcoming patch.  Read up here:  http://cloth5.com/pbe-roundup-patch-4-13/

So I open a pack of cards in Hearthstone and check before I flip the cards what they are, cause I like to open the rarer ones last right?

2 Commons, Rare, Epic, and a Legendary.

The Rare was dust, Epic was a Hunter card that I don't use in my "I have a thsseeeeecret!" deck.  Oh well.

But the Legendary!  My first gold Legendary... and it was...

wait for it...

Millhouse.  

omg lol. The Millhouse really does plague us! i got Prophet Velen - hard to say if that is better or worse than Millhouse. 

That said, Millhouse will be better once Loatheb comes out since if you play Millhouse then Loatheb, all enemy spells cost 5 and you get a 4/4 and a 5/5 for 7 mana. Not to mention Millhouse is a super-good tech card against super-aggro decks. Soulfire already costs 0 mana!

Prophet Velan got dusted a minute after I drew him.  Millhouse is at least so bad, he's swaggy.  As the kids say.

That Loatheb combo would be fun and if 47.4% of all decks are Zoolock right now, he could be pretty sweet.  And as soon as I craft my Loremaster Cho, he can be the golden king of my ultimate troll deck.  Loremaster, Millhouse, and King Mukla all in the same turn.  Free nanas for everyone!

Hmmmm.  

Re: Patch Notes

I wonder if the new Rylai's will be good on Swain.  He don't like getting bursted... we'll see though.  

Also, I really really hope that this is the new way of doing things and not a patch before championships special occasion.  Seems like commons sense that you'd just make sweeping changes to a lot of champs all at once, especially when you have a PBE sandbox to test things out in.  I think every champion besides Urgot and Poppy and anyone else relegated to Useless Till Reworked status will at least have some secondary adjustments.  Your favorite jungler not buffed?  Oh yes he was.  FU Lee/Elise!

WOOO BRAND GOT BUFFED! TY RIOT (rylai's indirect buff) 

Anyway swan is going to be on in 3 hours. 

i think that they are going to have one more big patch like this, and then 4.15 is what is going to be used at worlds (so it's going to be damage-countrol for any really broken OPs that are created in 4.13 and 4.14). i also don't think that there will be many competitive games on 4.14 (if any), and so that means that there should be some big surprises at worlds!

After that it's pre-season so there will be a few big patches... i think it's safe to say a good 75% of the remaining patches for the year are gonna be big 'uns. Oh, and Urgot is getting buffs in 4.15!

i think that the new Rylais is just so good. The huge hp was nice, but, it was just so frequently overkill on HP if you weren't Rumble or Elise. But all the other Rylais users tend to be more heavy on the AP-stat side of things, and really just bought the item for the kiting potential (Vlad, Cass, Karthus, Brand, Velkoz, Swain).

Velkoz might actually be really good next patch assuming the assassin meta doesn't come back full-force. The range buffs are pretty huge! And his level 2/6 has always been incredible if you can hit stuff (highest damage potential for a mage at both those thresholds except a 20 second Annie bear, 7 second Viktor or 5 second Rumble).

oh, and i, for one, am really excited about the WereYordle! i'm hoping it'll be like Rengar and Fizz <3 Stitch!

Glad you added that.  I was like - wut.. how'd he get buffed. 

also - missed swan again if he did show up tonight.  sad panda

@hedgie - i think you are right re: patches.  I think braum is going to be at an ok place after this patch and people will slowly remove him as ban worthy.  Lucy's prob close to sorted as well.

Played games with MC folks tonight.  Just a few mixed skill cap games.  Anyway, I had fun.  Super long day.  Had a leak in our upstairs bathroom shower and had to have a plumber come out to sort.... which cost a bit of scratch and pretty much ate up 80% of my day off after being on call.  Ah well.  Night all!

I think that Riot might have been drunk with this whole Gnar thing.

I mean, you can read their description of Gnar's weaknesses.  Supposedly Mega Gnar is weak against ganks when in lane.  Um, Mega Gnar is supposedly really tanky, has a ranged AoE slow on his Q, a stun on his W, an untargeted dash/slow on his E, and a knockback combo'd with a slow/stun on his R.  In what world is that a "considerable vulnerability" to ganks?

Then there is just the overall design.  Gnar looks to be fairly low damage, but he has a TON of slows, quite a bit of movement speed, and some % max health damage.  Thats a kit to counter immobile, tanky champions.  Why the hell do we need a champion that counters that introduced right now?  Immobile, tanky champions are marginally viable AT BEST right now due to mobility creep, but Riot introduces a champion that gives them the middle finger.  Really?

I guess that Riot has decided that the only choice is to play high mobility, high damage champs, and if you don't you are just wrong.

Patch notes http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-413-notes

Forgot to read yesterday...

I think the elise repel change will be fairly punishing.  Graggy's sustain/wave clear's taking a hit.  That should tone him down a bit in top lane, but not a huge amount imo. 

I think the lee changes cripple (hue) him a bit.  No more AS slow is kind of rough.  Don't really care that much about the shield duration drop.

olaf = still crap

I don't really think shy needed a nerf, but she got one.  dps output down. 

lulu changes seem appropriate

I dig the lux buff to passive

Velkoz buffs are decent.  Nothing super changing, but good changes.

Yasuo nerfs are good... enough to get him off cow's must ban list?  prob not, but I think this is going to hurt him pretty hard.  Also, more counter play possible due to reduced shield duration.

ziggs nerf is dumb imo.  less ults are possible now on a ss ult. 

graves burst potential is up a bit, which is something he needed. 

jinx change is kind of wierd.  I'm fine with it, but I don't know why that seemed necessary (passive procs on destroying an inhib).  Good potential to get in and out or to reposition for kills in the enemy base.  Just don't know why she needs the buff on that exactly.

kog nerfed for early/mid game.  Nothing much.

The lucian change is welcome.  He can no longer remove slows with his dash.  This is very welcome, but lowers the skill cap a little bit when playing against him.  For instance, early/mid, you had to time when you'd use exhaust to make sure he just couldn't remove it.  Now, you don't.  I think the increased cooldown will start to move lucian back into a consistent nonban... once people get used to it. 

trist - nerfed a smidge

Varus got a nice buff to his ult related to CDR (at level 3 it shaved 20 seconds off). 

sona - rework info:  http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/champion-update/sona-maven-of-the-strings

braum - more nerfs. Think he's pretty close to a good place after this.  Still think it would have been best to add 1 more hit required to proc his passive.

janna - minor buff

nami - minor nerf

sizable thresh nerf - shield only shields thresh + target.  his ult can only dmg a target once

change to team builder

• Players can now unlock new role-themed summoner icons by playing 5 games in Team Builder as a specific role

other thing

Fixed an Undo feature bug with activatable items

After taking a small break last night Karl, Bryff and I played two Twisted Treeline games.

We ended up playing vs a Silver I team trying to promo to Gold in back-to-back games. We definitely ended there promo dreams. We beat them both games without breaking to much of a sweat. After reviewing there solo queue ranks it was pretty obvious why we won so handly. They were low gold players. So I guess you get a little bit of everything in Twisted Treeline. Challenger teams mixed in with really bad teams.

Anyway we are one win away from getting promoted to platnium in Twisted Treeline Huzzah!

Once this patch hits the LCS here are my predictions:

• Ziggs will no longer be played over Syndra, Xerath (they just do it better now)
• Lux will see play with the buffs and the meta favors her play style
• Vel'Koz might be seen once or twice  
• Tanky CC junglers will make a come back (Mao, Nautilus specifically)
• Jarvan, Xin, Pantheon, and Kha will be played while the new jungle meta is being figure out
• Rengar has a strong chance to be the top jungler pick
• I am going to take a gamble and say Udyr will be played in the LCS
• ADC meta will more or less remain the same with maybe a few more Caitlyn games and a wild Ezreal here and there
• Graves will be played in the LCS again
• Leona/annie might resurface as supports
• Morgana will be the highest priority support pick, expect her picked or banned in 100% of games
• Shyvana will never be played in the LCS (she is pretty rare as it is)
• Ryze will be played more over lulu
• I also think the gragas "nerfs" are a buff he will be just as popular as he is now. Most likely 100% picked or banned.

I predict games going even longer than usual do to jungle pressure being reduced from the shift away from the big 3. Hyper late game ADC's will still dominate.

I feel that Nunu could also be huge in the jungle on this patch. He is already very popular in Korea but I would expect him to start being picked up more often in the NA and EU scenes. Meteos and Kez already play him for Cloud 9 and Complexity Black.

well... maybe.  I really do enjoy playing him as a support jungler.   I find him to work well enough in many comps as is.  Not really sure how much of a difference the nerfs to other junglers will make to him.

edit - oh I missed the janna change.  Whirlwind (q) starts cooling down when you start the initial cast.  That's an ok buff for her imo.

Also - want to highlight team builder a bit as I expect I'll be grinding out there a bit more. 1st, you play 5 games in a role, you get a new summoner icon.  So, 5 roles, 5 icons to grab, 25 games total.  Getting icons for free is fun, so join meh... also..6 roles apparently?

The other new thing is this:

"We've been experimenting with other features in Team Builder for a while now, and we've added one of them that we think will help make Team Builder even better. With "Suggested Players," you'll see a box in your Team Builder lobby filled with players we believe you'll have a positive experience with. A one-click invite adds them to your team before you start searching for solo players. We'll expand this feature over time, and could possibly go into detail on the algorithms in the future if there's enough interest."

Looking forward to seeing how that works