Stuff I miss about League...

Getting outplayed!

Getting outplayed -

I remember a time where there was palpable tension in the early portion of every lane phase. There was always a "feeling out" period when I'm taking measured actions to determine if the player im facing off against is any good.

Will they let me get away with this? Do they know what they can get away with against me? Do I know every condition where they can take an advantageous trade against me? Or even when they could go all-in on me?

It felt like a pair of apex predators circling each other, trying to size the other up as they looked for an advantage.

Some of the most vivd emotions I remember when laning came from the times where I'm facing off against someone that I grossly underestimated. Everything is going fine, and I think I'm playimh things out well and then BAM!

All of a sudden, I'm taking a double shadow slash to the face, into a deathmark, into double shuriken, and then POP! G-fuckin-G.

Here I was thinking I had this Zed figured out, when all the while he was setting me up for a brilliant all-in that I wasn't prepared for.

All I could say in response was, damn dude, you play a mean fuckin Zed. Pretty sure I have no business being in your elo man. Well played.

And the same went for junglers too. I remember having the means to set up vision set up in a way that kept our bot lane safe, only to be completely caught off guard by a jungler with really creative pathing.

In the post game. I would happily honor these at the end of the match, cuz regardless of the outcome, they earned some kind of props for their creativity and skill.

This experience for me was poetry, because sometimes I would get to see firsthand what champion mastery and smart map movements looked like. It felt good to be on the receiving end of an ass kicking, because it was either due to my need for a lesson, or their ability at piloting their champion.

I look back on this with a lot of fondness, because I cant remember the last time that I experienced this in League.

The last year has felt more like Im fighting against kits and stats, moreso than an actual player piloting a champion with skill.

Nowadays if I get killed by a zed, its usually because he got close enough to land two abilities on me. There really isnt much I can respond with, and regardless of the outcome, I have no idea how good he actually was with his champion, because every Zed is doing that now. All I know from the exchange is that he had enough stats to blow me up in .75 seconds.

Champion mastery is difficult to demonstrate when everyone is exploding in under 2 seconds. Did they use their abilities creatively? Or did they just hit you with a giant sack of stats? How can you tell right now?

What used to be a delicate and deadly dance, has now turned into a pitch black arena, where everyone is wildly swinging chainsaws in every direction.

Same feeling goes with junglerd. When a jungler ganks, they dont really have to think creatively about pathing through vision. They can just kinda bull rush from fog of war and get a flash out it, at minimum.