Let's be real,Lissandra should win that war

My spin on it is that who wins depends on how long it takes this cold war to go hot.

actually has an edge if the war kicks off right now - She has the most legitimate claim and nominal Demacian support, and with her diplomatic collections it's easy to see her pulling Demacia into things as an excuse for Demacia to show off their military strength. Her tribe is also the largest and best-supplied at the moment, which means she has a lot more resources to throw at problems. She can exploit the Winter's Claw's small size, try to break bonds between Sejuani and Volibear, and try to direct Udyr against Lissandra. Lissandra's own forces consist mostly of cultists and trolls, and those trolls are not loyal to her. Trundle has shown himself to be a turncoat already, it's not hard to imagine he'll pound Lissandra to pulp if Ashe makes him a better offer.

is playing a longer game. She's the best leader, though worst diplomat, of the three and she's eroding Ashe's tribe slowly but surely, destroying some but also actively recruiting from them and expanding her influence at their expense. She has the best active military of the three and we know she can take down Lissandra in a fight - Voli's people blinded Lissandra in the first place and Udyr stomped her one on one. Trundle turning on her when faced with that sort of force is highly likely. If she's given time to continue leeching resources away from Ashe then not only does she gain more support but it makes Demacia a lot less likely to intervene since they won't want to enter a war on the losing side.

wins the longest game, though, because she can simply stay in her fortress in the most inhospitable part of the Freljord and outlive the other two. Once Trundle dies off she'll have an ironclad hold over the trolls, giving her a strong military presence, and she'll have all the time in the world to do her thing and summon the Watchers without interference from most of the other Champions. Without eyes that deep in the Freljord the other nations won't be able to respond until it's way too late and the only real obstacles to world domination at that point will be the Void, the Shadow Isles, and immortal champions like Kayle, Brand, or Azir.

Did I get that right?

Ashe seems to have the largest faction, if champions are a reliable indicator.

If it was just Lissandra, Ashe and Sejuani, then yes, Lissandra would probably win due to her experience and sheer power. But if any other region got involved, there'd be a lot of trouble.

Maybe the Poros are the trapped forms of the Watchers?

Didn't Rito stated that the lore would evolve dependening on which faction gained more votes according to icons? (which means that lissandra did wonnered). Or am I inventing things?

Lissandras Frostguard got most of the support during the Icon/Freljord event so....yeah

has as an ally. Your argument is invalid. http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Braum_0.jpg

I want to quote this:

{quoted}

Because no one really looks at Sejuani as a threat right now. She and her bandits really just go around breaking shit. Ashe, however, is already a pawn of Lissandra's. In the lore you find that Lissandra (not the Ice Witch) actually swore fealty to Ashe. Ashe thinks of Lissandra as an ally, exactly what Lissandra wants. Ashe isn't immortal, remember? Eventually, she'll die and Lissandra will assume power just as she did to the Ice Dervish.

She doesn't want to just "claim" it, she wants to rule it. She wants to present it all wrapped up in a bow for the Frozen Watchers when they return. Outright killing people doesn't make them like you. But taking the centuries to slowly corrupt them and make them work for you (like she did with the Frostguard) means she can make her enemies protect her.

The Ice Witch persona is basically reverse Batman. If she wants someone wiped off the map, she does it herself and no one suspects a thing.

Lissandra is f**king awesome.

There is no real "war" in the Freljord, Sejuani is nothing in comparison with the rest of the Freljord. No one suspects of the evil intentions of Lissandra... except, maybe, Quinn.

: : :

Looking at the line up of champions and considering what each of them is bringing to the fight I do believe Sejuani has the advantage by far.

Ashe leads a peaceful people, or at least more peace oriented then the others, and Aatrox wiped out Tryndies tribe a long time ago so he's not bringing any one else that Ashe isn't already. The other three are basically just coming on their own to the fight, not really bringing any more armies, they just support Ashe's ideology. They can act as generals and commanders though, so that could potentially sway the course of a battle if they're good at it, but only Anivia seems to have the potential for that anyway. She is however allied with Demacia so they could get involved, and they are one of the strongest forces in all of Valoran.

Lissandra has the Watchers so that gives her an advantage, as well as the Troll army lead by Trundle so she has two armies who alone could probably take on that of Ashe's. The downside is it's just Liss and Trundle leading everything, they have no generals or commanders or anything to lead in the field, and if I remember correctly in Trundle's lore he did swear that HE would rule the Freljord once he'd helped Liss beat the other two forces, so there could be some fracturing between those two armies. If another of the armies of Valoran, like Demacia or Noxus got involved it could mean trouble for them as was, since none of the other nations would support Lissandra's army. maybe except Zaun, they like to see new and strange things and tend to get involved in the most random of places just for the sake of experimentation, but they don't really have their own army.

Now looking at Sejuani, her tribe is bred for war, so they could potentially match the forces of Lissandra's and they far surpass that of Ashe's. On top of that Volibear is bringing the whole of the Ursine to join her, which together with the Winter's Claw would easily decimate Ashe's forces and could very likely stand up to Lissandra's and Trundle's. She also has Olaf who will most definitely be leading "troops" into battle, working as a field commander of sorts, which can easily sway the course of a battle against a force who lacks such a role. And ofc Udyr, who also can act as a commander, but is also friends with Lee Sin who is from Ionia so that could potentially pull that whole nation into the conflict. They however have had a kind of stand off-ish history, only fighting when being attacked, so I doubt it. That being said though should Demacia join to help out the extreme underdog that is Ashe's forces then Noxus would most likely join Sejuani. Sejuani and Noxus have similar ideals and Noxus would join any fight against Demacia at this point, and they would not side with the Watchers, cause no one would want to give Lissandra the chance to take over the whole of Valoran.

So yeah I see Sejuani taking the crown lore wise, Ashe's forces being irrelevant and Lissandra's not having the potential for any outside assistance, where as Sejuani has a couple potential reinforcements. The only thing that would change this is if Aatrox got involved, but he hasn't bothered with pretty much any of Valoran's current conflicts and now he's also made himself known, so I don't see him jumping in to sway the tide of battle this time. Not too mention if he did it would most likely be for Ashe, but then Tryndamere would definitely attack him and then Aatrox would have to fight him instead of helping Ashe.

It'd be awesome if won canonically. It'd be very reminiscent of The Scars of Mirrodin block in the Magic: The Gathering lore, where it started as an alien invasion of an already troubled world, and ended with the total annexing and renaming of it to New Phyrexia.

Even the hints of what possibly happened after the block rotated out made it super exciting to read about...The possibility of one of the main Praetors that was once helping to lead the invasion of Mirrodin being the one to help build and possibly even lead the resistance to fight and take it back.

I'm not sure who Riot could use really to fill that role, or any similar role, but a "the bad guy wins...for now" story would make the event and its effects on the greater story of Runeterra that much more interesting and engaging imo.

Ashe has what you call Charisma. Young princess and she has the aid of Tryndamere. Lissandra has a much worse Stigma about her.

Kinda like Mufasa and Scar.

Lissandra is a powerful to be sure, but she is also arrogant as all get out. She continually overestimates herself, and thus has considerable weakness. There is a reason that after hundreds of years she still doesn't rule the Frejilord. If she could not conquer when they were weak, why would she be able to conquer now? Ashe is actually building a society, and is advancing. She will win in the end. And Ashe does not consider Lissandra an ally (Lissandra is listed as a rival to Ashe, and Ashe has several taunts for Lissandra in-game) , she simply considers them at a temporary peace. Ashe is the only one of the three that accurately assesses her own strength as well as the strength of her enemies, and that gives her the clear advantage.

TL;DR: Ashe > Lissandra

"If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles... if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu

This is starting to feel like a debate on military theory. Thankfully this is one of my favorite subjects.

Who said Sejuani had to launch attacks in the winter? Hell, I explicitly said Ashe has the advantage if the war touches off right now but Sejuani will have an advantage if nothing happens for a few years and she's allowed to keep doing her thing for a while, whittling away at Ashe's powerbase. Thus my use of the terms cold and hot war. The war isn't hot right now, it's actually fairly cold. There haven't been any great clashes of armies, there's more low-level raiding and skirmishing and harsh nasty words that have no real immediate consequence. Until one of the three does something significant the war is going to remain cold, too.

You seem set on the idea that the war is immediately going to go hot, and if it did I agree Ashe has the advantage. But it's not going to because Ashe is overly nice and diplomatic and isn't going to force the issue. Sejuani knows this and is ruthlessly exploiting it. If allowed to continue, she will eventually gain the upper hand.

Now for more specific responses to more specific points.

• Yes, if Ashe goes all General Sherman on the countryside she will beat Sejuani. But both of them know Ashe isn't going to do this because that's not the type of person Ashe is. Ashe is the 'Good' in the Good/Neutral/Evil conflict of the Freljord. She wants to talk things out peacefully and help everyone. She's not going to go burning down farms and villages - Most of them hers - to deny resources. That would be militarily sound but politically, socially, ethically, and morally suicidal.

• Sejuani never actually needs to attack Ashe's capital. Like I said, Sejuani's advantage is the long game. If she can take control of the supplies she never needs to go after Ashe directly at all. This is how sieges work - Take out the supply lines and wait for the enemy to come fight you on your terms or surrender from starvation. Want a historical example? The Siege of Vicksburg in the American Civil War worked exactly like this. Big, massively fortified, nearly unassailable position... that had to surrender because they had no access to outside supply for three months.

• Sejuani doesn't need to fortify captured cities. She's the Neutral in the conflict. If it benefits her to loot the city and raze it to the ground then tell the people 'You're allowed to stay in this ash pile if you want, or you can come help us' then she'll probably do that. It's a dick move, but militarily effective. Don't give them a choice to turn coat and they won't.

• The sort of logistics disaster you describe isn't as inevitable as you make it sound. Sej may not be much of a farmer, but there's clearly something else to eat up there since her tribe has already been there for a while already. Hunters and fishers, probably. Perfectly capable of sustaining a tribe for a while, especially if they supplement things with raiding all those newly-filled grain stores hanging around all those undefended farmsteads and villages. She'll have to wind up dealing with farms eventually if the tribe gets too big - You can't sustain a huge population off hunting alone - but she'll burn that bridge when she gets to it. She's not there yet.

• So Sejuani is harsh and unforgiving. So was my history professor. That didn't mean he shot us if we gave a wrong answer. It's possible to be harsh and unforgiving without being Josef Stalin or Darth Vader, killing people for failing you. It's possible to be harsh but fair.

Boy did this thread get derailed.

Seriouly guys Lissandra is the most Powerful and only she must RULE . "This is but a battle. I've already won the war."