New Factions Arc: Black Winter (custom game mode and community lore)

This is perhaps jumping the gun, as the new arc (our ninth!) only just launched, and we're still figuring out how to handle logistics with the new client, which lacks chat. Still, I decided there'd be no harm in tossing up a quick post.

http://i.imgur.com/vXhCceN.png Factions is a volunteer-run community game mode built around "faction versus faction" matches. We pick some factions, come up with something they might be fighting over, create Champion rosters for each faction, and then play custom matches. The outcomes of these matches determine how the story progresses. This format was inspired by Riot's "Noxus versus Ionia" tournament. Said tournament is the reason why Ionia beat Noxus in the war Riven fought in, and why we have Ionian Boots of Lucidity. (And probably why we don't have Innervating Locket anymore. Guardsman Bob Udyr OP.)

The current arc, Black Winter features Demacia versus Ionia. In this storyline, the Black Mist has spread across all of Valoran. Both Demacia and Ionia have solutions, but they're incompatible: Demacia wants to use holy magic to drive the spirits back from the mortal world, while Ionia wants to call upon ancestral spirits to act as mediators and restore harmony—an antibiotic approach versus a probiotic approach, as it were.

Anyway. Come join in! All skill levels are welcome.