Most fun in Weeks
just played the nastiest Alistar game in a while. I popped off, and unlike other wins I've had in a while, IT WAS SATISFYING, it makes me want to play another. It makes me want to play another 3 hours of solo queue. It makes me want a higher rank, so I can get these intense games more often.
The lane was Jhin Alistar vs Kogmaw Morgana. Morgana is a pretty safe champion, that punishes mistakes really hard and scales, so i went into the game thinking "Oh great another fun and interactive lane where I can't do anything, and then I lose the game cause I needed to do something" We took a risk, bush cheesed the Tribrush level 1, and killed morgana. Praise Bless.
We beat kog and morgana to level 3, and had a big wave built up. Crashed it into tower, and bounced it out towards our side. I then proceeded to land the nastiest series of comboes, fakeouts, bamboozles, dodges, and montage plays that you can expect in Silver 4. and do you know what happened, my Jhin was up 20 CS by level 5. This whole time, theres fights all over, I'm sweating bullets trying to keep my jhin safe in lane and maintain priority and get all over the map. Junglers are constantly fighting, it was insanity. We didn't get a first back off till level 5. In this time we got ganked by the enemy once. Thats it, never saw our own jungler. It was a hardcore 2v2 smackdown extravaganza until level 5, and then resumed until like level 8.
I've had plenty of similar games where I'm all over the place, and its a crazy fiesta lane, full of comboes, flashes, buring mana and CDs, just playing better than the enemy and winning lane, but heres the difference. When we won lane against this Kogmaw, it wasn't by 10 CS or maybe 1 kill on a failed gank. We beat them down with superior play by 35+ CS by the time lane ended, and it only got worse for them. After than first back, with Jhin up 1200 Gold from farm and a few kills we picked up, it was amazing. I could so clearly feel in each successive fight the reward of winning the previous fight. It wasn't some all in burst eachother out lane, it wasn't an afk farm lane. It was that perfect balance where we fight for every wave, and are constantly struggling to make sure we're in control.
The reason this worked: Kogmaw and Morgana didn't take resolve and Dorans. Thats it, neither did Jhin. I had resolve first, but Inspiration second. None of us used the OP runes, or unfun endless infinite sustain. We relied on our champions, and our skill. Our champions weren't broken, there were clear strengths and weaknesses on both sides, and it was about who could find and abuse the enemy weaknesses.
Riot's changes to the jungle were why we could lane this, them not having endless sustain is why it was fun, Clear champion identities is what motivated both sides to fight. Even if I had hard inted, and kogmaw got ahead and 1v9ed the game, I would have felt good cause man did I try. But I knew its cause I chose bad all ins, and didn't dodge the shots. I'd know it was cause he beat me, and I could move on and forget getting rolled.
Theres a difference between being defeated, and getting cheated. The broken ass high damage infinite sustain poor excuse for balance is getting cheated. I don't mind being defeated. Because I know there was a way I could have won. This game should be the model for games, hard carries, insane lane, edge of disaster, 2 carries just putting their team on their back and going head to head. Because losing that, is more fun than winning most solo queue games right now
EDIT: I forgot to mention, that the enemy Xerath was also going insane, but me and Jhin eventually just took over too hard. His team didn't given him what he needed to carry, and we were the better team. They were just hemorrhaging too hard, after we won bot and top was slightly ahead. Their graves wasn't terrible either, but me and Jhin were just too far ahead and were in his jungle chasing him out and killing his camps. It really was a carry vs carry game, and we were the better team.
