Ooooh Vlad you little bloodsucker...

Laning against Vladimir in mid is a pain in the ass, just as much as laning against Miss Fortune and Mordekaiser (will post guides on these guys later). Whenever you see a Vladimir on the loading screen in the opponent's team, you might have felt a chill in your spine, praying your carry in mid won't get sucked dry like a pig. If Vladimir gets fed, he can be compared to the final stage of Cell in Dragon Ball Z; the more he drains, the stronger he gets. Too bad there are no Senzu Beans to save your ass.


But he doesn't have to be a such a headache. Vlad is overrated in terms of his laning ability by most of the community, thanks to the usual torrent of sheep rants crying "OP NERF PLS" on the forums. Yes, he is a very strong laner, but can be shutdown easily if you know how. In this post, I will briefly give you some pointers on how to counter this constantly poking troll.


(In this post we assume your average Vlad player isn't a noob or a Pro)

Do you belong in your ELO?

Ever since ranked games have been introduced, I've been seeing countless rant threads posted in the forum complaining about how "ELO hell" is impossible to get out of, thanks to feeders/leavers/etc...Although I have not been to the deepest end of the so-called "ELO hell", I can tell you one thing: you belong in your ELO, no excuse, no exceptions.


Most players that complain about being stuck in "ELO hell" simply don't understand what it takes to carry themselves to a higher ELO. Because they don't truly understand their weaknesses and playing style, blaming others for losing is much easier. Think about it this way, if there is such a thing called "ELO hell" where its impossible for GOOD PLAYERS SUCH AS YOURSELF to rise to a higher ELO, then how did hundreds of other players do it? Do you think Riot is purposely fking with you by putting all the feeders, leavers, non-english speakers and trolls in your team for shits and giggles? To put it in an even more humiliating way, how the hell did Milkfat climbed to 1750 rating when he has only been playing LoL for 32 days? (I don't care who he duo-queued with).

Congrats Reginald, you are NUMBA ONE

Congratulations Reginald for becoming the #1 solo queue ranked player! He achieved this today after announcing his goal to reclaim the number 1 spot. The three games he played during this journey were live-streamed. Here is the link for Reginald's livestream: http://www.solomid.net/livestream.php

original thread here: http://community-na.static.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=365121 

Reginald is one of my favorite LoL players. I actively watch his livestream on Solomid. In one of his games, he destroyed the other team under 20 minutes with jungling AS karthus + daggers. Absolute hilarious game and since then I fell in love with his interesting gameplay. Sometimes I get annoyed by his constant use of "bro" though.

Watching pro livestreams is one of the best ways you can improve in League of Legends. I learnt how to play many champions and in game strategies just by watching pros. I suggest you guys check out Solomid and Own3d TV livestreams -IMO one of the best ones out there.

No, your turn to buy ward.

For most games, warding has always been the determining factor in winning and losing a game. We all know the importance of buying wards, but most of the time for one reason or another, we forget. By reading this, you can understand your teammates' (and your own) frustration when it comes to warding and take necessary actions.


Lets start with an example.
typical argument for ward buying (player A,B,C,D,E):
You are player A.


player C: HOLY FK GUYS, we are getting facerolled lololol wtf.
player B: ya cause u noobs dont call mia, i keep getting ganked in mid -_-
player C: guys get some wards...
player D: na man i cant afford..no gold
player B: i just bought a ward kk someone else do it plox
(silence...notice how player E never said anything. Apparently farming in the bottom lane requires tons of concentration)
(game ends 20 minutes later after getting aced 5 times due to failure of knowing where the other team was)


I am pretty sure all of you have encountered this situation before. So, what are the problems here? How could have you responded and led your team to victory? 

[cool stuff bro] A look at custom skins

No, I am not talking about RP skins that you can purchase from the Riot store; I am referring to the hundreds of excellent custom made skins created by players like you and me. For these custom made skins, it will only be shown on your screen, not on other players. But hey who cares, the overall quality from these skins are A LOT BETTER than the ones Riot made, and most importantly, they are FREE. Skins are easy to install and cause no game-play problems.


Where can I get them? You can find tons of skins of all characters on Leaguecraft's website: http://leaguecraft.com/. This community features not only skins, but also player made guides/strategies, champion builds, forums, and tons of other cool stuff constantly updated for your daily LoL needs. Be sure to check it out!


Today I will be featuring the Starcraft Ghost Nova Ashe skin created by KradisZ, one of the famous player made skins out there for download. The Ghost Nova Ashe skin is well-made and make Riot's Ashe skins look like MS Paint kiddie drawings. Tired of your boring Ashe skin? Get this one for moar pewpewz! Heres a sample:

Video can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW7BJ1vr_aE


Original link + instructions for installation
http://leaguecraft.com/skins/2727-starcraft-ghost-nova-ashe-full-remodel-retexture-p.xhtml

Bros of Brolaf, bros

Supz Brosssss!


If there is one thing Riot is getting good at, it would be creating new skins that appeal to the community. Riot did an excellent job creating the Epic Winz Brolaf skin. Not only would this skin appeal to thousands of players out there that just want to be bros, Brolaf is a sure-fire cash magnet, netting $20 (or more!) from each sale.

Brolaf is an excellent follow-up to the just as crazy release of the Corporate Mundo skin. Riot does pay attention to the forums and know what the community wants. When the one word (spam) reply, "mundo", is commonly used in threads, Riot responded by releasing the legendary Corporate Mundo skin; now, when the term "bro" is used commonly, Riot releases Brolaf. Perhaps Trundle the troll is going to be released due to the increase amount of "trolls" on the forum? We can only guess whats next.

Riot trolls...with Trundle

The latest addition to the champion roster has already been announced: Trundle, the Cursed Troll. Aside from the fact that he is a troll and almost as ugly as Urgot, some LoL players have noticed that his name closely resemble the word grundle, which I would gladly not post its meaning on this blog. One thing we do know for sure is that, sadly, his chest will be flat :( Does this mean Riot will switch the trend of designing champions from horny female champs with F-cups to ugly, male humanoids? oh noes...

Trundle's abilities are listed here, thanks to a post from LoL EU council member.

Abilities List

• Rabid Bite: Trundle bites his opponent, dealing damage and sapping some of their attack damage.
• Contaminate: Trundle infects a target location with his curse, gaining attack speed, movement speed, and crowd control reduction while on it.
• Pillar of Filth: Trundle creates a plagued beacon at a target location, which becomes impassable terrain and slows all nearby enemy units.
• Agony (Ultimate): Trundle immediately steals his target’s health and a percentage of their armor and magic resistance. Over the next six seconds the amount of health, armor, and magic resistance stolen is doubled.
• Decompose (Passive): Whenever an enemy unit near Trundle dies, he heals for a percentage of their maximum health.

full-link here:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/24/exclusive-lol-champion-reveal-trundle-the-cursed-troll/

From what i have gathered, Trundle seems to be a self-empowerment/CC, AP but Melee focused champion. He has some skills that are brand new in design, which i think Riot is getting better at after exposing to some public dissent about the lack of creativity of LoL champions compared to DoTA. Without a doubt Trundle's difficulty rating will be at least medium, likely hard, and mastering him would take some time. I have also heard that currently he is a cool champion to play in PTR, but requires adjusting. we will have to wait 2-3 weeks to see what he is capable of. in the mean time, i have 7k+ IP ready in my piggy bank =)


In this regard, Riot seems to follow a new trend when designing champions. As we can see starting from Irelia, a new line of CC-reduction/Melee hybrids will be released. The reason for this new trend could be that Riot wants to give players the opportunity to counter the current metagame, which players identified to be teamfight, AOE, and tanky-based style. Although Irelia has not proven herself to be a great counter to this metagame, whether it be tank killing or raping in teamfights (fail in comparison to the release of Xin, who was nerfed), be certain that this is only a part of Riot's trial-and-error process. In other words, Irelia is just a prototype for many more to come.


The next patch also shows Riot's attempt to continuously adjust the game play. Without going into details, i can say that currently its not the time to pick up a jungler :)

Getting you connected

Whether you are a beginner, an experienced player, or simply a 1337 pro, you probably go on forums every now and then to see what is going on in the world of Runeterra. The forum is a lot like the newspaper- all the latest information released by Riot are available for you to catch up on., except it is followed by an endless amount of rant threads


So what is the purpose of this blog, you say, if the LoL forum provides more than enough information for the average player? Without a doubt, the usefulness of general forum is deteriorating from a friendly and loving place of discussion to (here it comes)- 4chan. There can only be so many threads about Garen, Elementz, and kama Toki before we all get sick and tired of it. Whether you want to filter out drama/trolling, or want to know whats going on in the forum, you can find out by reading this blog.


LoLinsider will:
1. present the latest patches, releases, and changes to LoL with the addition of my personal opinion.
2. help you catch up to the current trend, opinions (drama) of the forum
3. the latest scoop from other useful sites (mobafire, leaguecraft, etc.)
4. interesting things i found about LoL (videos, screenshots, etc.)
5. and...daily rant on nerfing Garen! (kidding)