lil bit.  Still - always fun to see how you stack up to good players. 

You guys should try my new support jhin build out.  You take the adc role, but you just get assists.  

Anyway, summary of the night - got legit carried 1 game (always feels good to be carried - especially when the guy ahead is like 1v5ing).  Had to work the other games.  Had a few with boaz where it was freaking WWF stuff.  Just people throwing down like maniacs over and over.   He worked on his vlad a bunch tonight.  

Anyway, got in games with him, then later hunny/soup and a few solo.  Ended the night just hitting my promo series back to plat III - so I'll be playing that tomorrow.  Night all! 

hmm... zed is one the recommended bans now due to influence

https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4caogu/best_bans_by_tier_in_each_region_patch_66_a/

also... raka's winrate is a bit nutz.  Apparently the changes were pretty decent perhaps?  Haven't really played w/ her since the last change up.

Grats!  I'm hopefully about to get back into my plat IV to plat III series.  Still annoyed about losing the last 1 over crap then having to play several to get back to the here, but w/e.  

Been playing ranked a ton with hunny/boaz lately.  Having the fun.  

I think the hardest thing about evaluating a performance for me is when I play in solo queue I tend to make plays trusting my teammates to follow up and they do 75-85% if the time turn out well (stuff like flash ulting, flash pulls, invading for vision with 2 people, ping a dude and gank with a teammate). In scrublord normals I try to do the same things and a lot of the time I get half hearted responces or no follow up at all and I die and look like a goon. So it's hard to decide if x was a bad play or if my ADC held his heal to long or my teammates reaction time was to slow.

I think the support/adc synergy just gets better at higher elos. The AD's that I have been supporting know how to trade and not take poke. They also follow all my initiation even if they are bad. Usually the lane is decided by jungles/mid lanes ganks instead of just "oh my ADC fucking sucks".

I think that Boaz just probably doesn't know how to play against the new champ.  The new champ is supposed to be VERY vulnerable at close range since you can get inside the stars.  So if you can dash inside and stay inside the star halo, you can mess him up (since you can't insta proc the stun either).

I like the malphite "WTF" *ping ping ping* "can't land a binding" 

just don't mind me going in 5 minutes early and dying! lmfao what a twat. All he had to do was wait for amumu to come and RIP there whole team. 

Got some more games in with dr swan yesterday.  We got him up to a promo series and then got him a loss.  Think I'm on one of my last alt accounts now that can still play with silver.  Also, we learned the hunny has no variance when playing jax.  Its either 27 deaths or 27 kills.  There are no defensive items.  Also, hunny did not know about brooke candy.  Twas a sad day for the queen of italy.  

Played with lord dump truck again.  And my mind exploded a tiny bit.  He played a serviceable support.  PDT is back for a bit.  Also, we don't know if we got bouche to rage quit last night or what.  He played 1 game w/ us as shy top, didn't do so well, and then dropped off the planet mid game.  

Anyway, this patch = who care for me.  jhin feels a bit weaker - you get punished much more for any q farming in early levels and that was always a good tool for securing cs/zoning. Mana cost on E going down isn't even kind of surprising as everything I've seen in korean high elo play didn't even scale a point into it until late.   Anyway, I figure he's probably in a much better place now.  

Really looking forward to seeing how the new taric turns out.  Some interesting mechanics at least. Got some stuff to do so probably won't be playing tonight.  

Holy crap did I get sucked into the CLG vs TL games on Sat.  So much flip flop.  Last couple of games were great.  

On demand here if you didn't check out.  You can see how amped everyone got in game 5 though.  Tense one

http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/na-lcs/na_2016_spring/matches/na_2016_spring_playoffs/semi-final-1

Mixed results in ranked on my main lately.  

Some excerpts from that post.  I went through and reread it a few times now:

"Your teammates are four players that were chosen by the Matchmaking Algorithm to be matched with you, so that your team's MMR is more or less equal to the enemy team's.

• Your teammates are not your friends.
• But they are not your enemies.
• They are strangers that you share a game with.
• Their opinion of you doesn't matter.
• But your opinion of them doesn't matter either.
• You, as a single player, are playing to climb.
• You are not playing to make your team climb.

and its later...

Recap - so attitude you should have when you are solo queue and want to improve, be a non shitty human being, etc - already covered in detail here:  https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4eagut/this_wellwritten_guide_by_a_challenger_player/.  Easy to forget, but good to meditate on briefly before queuing up.  The 9 other people in the game aren't my pals and aren't my enemies; they are strangers I'm playing exactly 1 game with whose opinion of me does not matter in the slightest and my opinion of them means nothing - I will forget them all.  I am here to climb, I am not playing to make my team climb.

That leaves a few areas - finding folks to play with that you enjoy playing with, playing with folks you've just met (when you are looking to meet new people and develop relationships) and playing with folks you already know.

First, I think its really worth talking about what are you looking for.  By now you should already have a really good idea of who you like to play with, what game mode you enjoy best, etc.  For instance, like in the game I mentioned the other day, I really don't enjoy casual f-about games.  I don't like playing with an entire team that has no idea how to group, when to group, etc.  I don't like it when folks want to play roles I prefer.  I generally enjoy playing with the gold/plat crowd and toss in diamonds when I'm looking to really try to improve my game.  I also enjoy playing in lower elo games when I'm trying to work on champs or roles I'm smeh in.  But, very importantly to me, I very rarely just play games to screw around.  Whatever I'm playing, even if I'm trying out runes and masteries, I'm playing to win.  I want to play with folks who really desire to get better and are willing to work at it - not folks that are unable to adapt to their teammates, etc.  

I don't like playing normals.  It never really occurred to me until this season, but often in normals with some of our pals, I'm expected to play hard while someone else dicks around and plays TF top because they expect it will be an easy match for them due to lower elo.  Naw - let's play a ranked where you actually have to try if we are going to play. 

Anyway, I'm very specific with what I like/dislike - so, folks that I will most often want to play with are people that play roles other than adc/support in gold/plat that are passionate about winning.  Folks I play with will not rage quit.  They do and I'm typically done with them.  They will also have consistently reliable internet (within reason, ofc - i mean, do you really want to play with someone that will cause you to lose 1 out of 3 ranked games because they are dc'd for 10 min?).  On almost any given day I'd rather play alone or queue up for ranked than be in a low elo game playing my main role.  Last, and obviously very, very critical.  Who do you actually like as a person and enjoy hanging out with?  You don't have fun with them, stop playing with them - I'm not obligated to play with anyone and no one is obligated to play with me.  If there is enmity, just knock it off.  Everyone will be much happier as a result, folks lose their agita, etc.  All good.  Blunders like hopping into a game with some MC folks without checking their elo aside, I'm definitely happier moving on from some folks, as are some from me, so its a net positive for everyone.  

1 - see solo queue rules above

2 - evaluate who you currently play with and decide if you want to continue playing with those folks.  

3 - find new folks.

I'll briefly go over a little what I've done. It's a lot easier for me than it is for most of you due to the sheer number of smurf accounts I've made over the years (this enables me to play exclusively with certain folks on certain accounts, at varied elos, etc).  Also helps if you are feeling timid and just don't want to have to tell billy you'd rather not play with him.  

Some advice re: finding new folks.  Don't just play 1 game with someone new and bugger off.  Give folks a fair shake.  It's pretty easy to play 1 game with someone, they have a pisser of a game, and then you are like... nope... thx for the game.. cya.  I recommend playing a few games.  Get to know them a bit.  Now, if they are being an ass, etc, and that doesn't really work with your sense of humor, etc, then drop em and move along to the next.  There are a LOT of other folks playing league.

OK - so one easy way to meet new folks - check out the league connect subreddit.  I don't personally find this the best way to go about things, but its a good introduction to meeting new folks.  People will post their region and w/e other info they want to.  If you are interested you either reply to them or add them in game and chat them up.  w/e.  Here's a random copy/paste to give you an idea of a typical post:

NA looking for duo support main to climb back to goldself.LeagueConnect

Submitted 8 hours ago by bobbypepperman

Boom - just like that you probably ended up with someone new to get a game in with and you know what they are about.  It's a nice starting point and I recommend giving the subreddit a look anyway. 

I found the gaming communities I joined just by some basic google searches and then hopping in with folks.  Here's a snarky link which shows how I started:  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=find+people+to+play+league+of+legends+with#

As you can see, there are already a few tools out there that help you meet people.  Those are OK.  The gold mine has been in joining communities though and hopping in the LFG channels.  

/outoftimeagain