Rage Against the Meta: Bard Jungle

First some background information about myself. I am currently only ranked bronze 4. My peak rank last season, however, was silver 4. That being said, the way I play League of Legends is not all that impressive. I like to believe that I know a decent amount about the game, but due to my poor mechanical capabilities and my lack of impressive hardware, I find myself unable to climb at the moment.

Now onto the good stuff. As a part of spreading my passion for League of Legends, I have decided to start a new video series I am tentatively calling "Rage Against the Meta." I personally enjoy playing a wide variety of champions, sometimes not in the roles they are "supposed" to be played in. That is exactly what I will be doing in these videos: playing champs that have either fallen out of meta or are not meant to be played the way I will be playing them.

In my first video I am playing Bard in the jungle. I will let the video speak for itself, however, I do think it went pretty well.

As with everything else, please provide feedback for me so that I can improve upon future endeavors.

TSM vs. C9: Playing Safe Can Only Get You So Far

As I am sure you all know, the first place match in the NA LCS was this past weekend, and once again it featured North American giants Team SoloMid and Cloud 9.

Game one was a typical TSM vs. C9 game. TSM won the early laning phase, but C9 used their team fight expertise to come through with the victory in the end. Overall, the first game was uneventful except for Meteos' beautiful Sejuani ultimate that snowballed the game heavily in C9's favor.As far as picks go, this game was very standard. Hai played Urgot, however, and LemonNation brought out Braum. This was not exactly unexpected, Hai has been known to play ADCs in the mid lane before (Corki), and LemonNation has played Braum a handful of times this split.

The remaining three games were not so expected. To start, TSM reverse sweeped C9 and won all three of the following games. It is my belief that this was largely due to TSM's willingness to introduce new picks into their strategy and C9's unwillingness to do the same. Playing safe is not a bad thing, but against a powerhouse team like TSM, C9 should have done more.

For me, the two deciding factors in TSM's victory were Lustboy introducing a pick from his home country: support Kennen, and Bjergsen's dominating performance on three different champions: AP Kog'maw, Urgot, and Cho'gath. Where C9 played it safe, TSM brought out unique picks reminiscent of a Unicorns of Love game.

As a C9 fan myself I am a little let down by their underwhelming performance, however, going into the Mid Season Invitational (MSI), I am happy that North America will be represented by a team that is willing to try new things and incorporate new champs into their players' individual champion pools.