I miss League of Legends

I remember when I first started playing League in high school 4 or so years ago. An online friend that I used to play Yugioh with on Dueling Network (a site that was basically an online simulator for Yugioh for those who don't know) told me about it. We tried it once, and I was so entranced by everything that happened during that first bot game that I instantly fell in love. The way the rift looked, the foreboding opening lines of music at the beginning of the game that eventually melted into an encouraging and faster paced kind of music, the way the champions looked, the way the champions felt, the way the announcer shouted about me slaying an enemy. It was just...it's so hard to describe how perfect it felt.

Me and my friend started learning how to play the game by having our asses handed to us by our other friend, who had been playing since season 2 started (we had begun during season 2's post season/ season 3's preseason). I'll never forget him being able to 2 v 1 us, and us never being able to figure out why he wouldn't die even though his health was at 1 and we kept hitting him as he hacked us to bits and ran away laughing. As we got better, we discovered champions we loved to play above the others. For me it was Mordekaiser, (as many of you who have seen my rants about his current state probably know x.x) for him it was Kha'zix. We fucking LOVED our mains. I got to a point where I never lost with Morde, even being able to come out on top against his counters, and loving every second of it as I blasted AoD's song 6v4 while doing it (Yeah. Remember them?)

I used to lose sleep over League. I would stay up so late playing it that eventually my principal had to pull me aside and ask me privately if everything was okay at home, because I was falling asleep in class so much. I was that addicted. Why? It felt good to play and win, and even if we lost, more than often there was a teamfight that game that we shredded the fuck out of, and laughed about even as we stared at the defeat postgame screen. It was a...better time. Laning phases were much more forgiving and much less short. Nobody complained about how much damage tanks could soak because there was no ridiculous damage coming out of tanks at that point. Nobody complained about Mobility creep because at that point, Zed and Ezreal were the most mobile champions in the game (until the atom bomb that was Yasuo came in to nuke the playing field and set up Riot's standard for "Okay design."). Nobody complained about getting destroyed by mages in bot lane because supports were still the most important and necessary thing to an ADC (Yes, even the tank supports. Be honest, when was the last time you saw a Leona?)

What happened? When did the game shift focus from being about all the different ways you could enjoy the game to how many different ways can the game be won hard? What happened to a champion having damage inversely proportional to their tankiness? Yeah! Remember when you couldn't be both unless you had 0 mobility?! And even if you did have Damage, tankyness, and mobility (er hem, Renekton and Shyvana), YOU. FELL. OFF. ADCs reached their late game and it didn't matter how much you dominated the early to mid game. If you didn't play smart and push your lead towards closing the game, late game was on your ass and god help you.

Do you see how quickly people fucking melt in teamfights? Teamfights are so onesided now that you see teams actively fucking avoiding them most of the game! AVOIDING THEM. AVOIDING WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST PART OF THE GAME. What happened?! I'll tell you what happened. I've got a good analogy for you. Season 3 is to season 7, as is to .

I probably won't stop playing League. My friends still play it, and they mean the world to me, and we can still have fun playing this game when we look really hard for it. But I'll say this, Riot. I liked you a lot better when you saw us as players, and not bags of money. I liked you better when your focus was primarily on making sure the game was fun, not making sure LCS was stable. I liked you a lot better before you made it big. But I still love you.