AbilityPower.net

I haven’t been checking twitter or posting as often as I used to since I’ve been a little too focused on playing and watching LoL.  If you haven’t heard already, I’ve been practicing with EPIK in scrims to tryout for the 5th spot on their team since PGB has stopped playing as their main support player.  As far as I know, Curtoky and myself are playing against each other (alternating places in scrims) to see who the better player is for upcoming tournaments.  How are the scrims going?  While being able to scrim with EPIK, we won twice against the Korean team with rjsdndgod, won once or twice against REZ (without Tree), and won once and lost once against RS.  The one loss against RS was ours for the taking… but Jatt managed to out smite Dan for baron and we lost the game from there.  After playing those two games and watching two games Curtoky got to play against RS, I’m starting to understand their style a lot better.  I’m hoping we will get more scrims in but we haven’t been doing much for 4 days now…

My computer is supposed to be delivered today and I’m not sure when it is coming but someone on twitter messaged me a question that I thought would take up some time while I waited.  @Padrepablo asked me “@NHATN been reading your blog. I’d really like to know the advice Dan Dinh gave you about Rammus way back when” which is a question that comes from one of my older posts where I mention that Dan is one of the people who helped me understand LoL at a competitive level.  A long time ago before Season 1 had started (only normal games – about a year and a half ago…), I was a pretty avid 3s player and only played Twisted Treeline.  Eventually it got to the point where I was waiting 20 to 40 minutes for a game since my wins over losses got to be over about +100 and I started to run into the same high skilled players while queuing for 3s.  This is where I met Aznwiseguy, an infamous rager, and started to group queue with him since he was decently skilled.  He was difficult to play with since he would rage at how bad our 3rd teammate was or how bad the other team was but I put up with it because we would win 90% of the time (and I didn’t want to lose after wating for 20 to 40 minutes for a game).

One of the better groups of 3s players who were playing normals at this time were Sickmotion, Chaseonfire, and xxjagedxx.  They were probably my biggest competition on 3s back then since they would run a team comp of Janna, Singed, and Ezreal.  Janna’s shield was stronger back then, Ezreal’s ratios were higher back then, and Singed has been unchanged but he is still broken as FK.  Aznwiseguy and I happened to queue against them one night and we got crushed with a random 3rd player that matchmaking gave us.  Aznwiseguy, being the rager he was, decided he wanted to really beat these guys (and that they got lucky we got a bad 3rd player) so he invited Dan Dinh to play with us.  This is where I met Dan for the first time (u jelly?).  I’m pretty sure I remember our team comp to be Rammus (me), Ezreal (aznwiseguy), and Heimerdinger (Dan – he might have changed champions once or twice to adjust to them) but we got stomped 3 games straight.  Even if we were doing well or breaking even during the early game, Singed kiting with Janna and Ezreal behind him was just impossible to beat.  During the last game, Dan asked me what skills I was leveling up and I told him that I was focusing on Q and E (which are powerball and taunt respectively) and he was like “wtf” and told me to level up W (defensive ball curl) more.

Since I was curious about why he wanted me to level W I added him after the games and asked him. He told me that I was dying too fast by not leveling W and that I needed to survive longer.  Back then this blew my mind since all I knew how to do was powerball into someone to blow them up.  I never took the time to think about the most effective way a tank or Rammus was supposed to be played but focused on just killing the enemy team rather than my survivability.  Before this advice, I thought that leveling Q was an easy way to crush people since the damage was pretty good.  Back then, people didn’t really use many tanky dps champions but would use ranged ad carries like Ashe.  My Rammus would always smash ranged ad carries with Q and I never deviated from that.  So I took Dan’s advice and tried out leveling W and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.  I wasn’t sure if it was my fault or if Dan was wrong but I kept trying to adjust to make it work.  Maybe I put too many points into W and not enough points into E.  If I didn’t have enough points into E, my taunt duration was too short and the enemy champions got away and if I didn’t have enough points into W, I would die too easily.  Eventually, I got to a point where I understood situations enough to cheat and get lots of points into W or E as situations played out and became a successful Rammus player when Season 1 had begun for the 3s ladder.

Just like in my old post, I still think that Dan probably didn’t think much about giving me that advice but it was a great catalyst to how I think about playing LoL today.  It gave me the idea that champions can be played differently, where there may be multiple correct answers instead of just one.  The best examples I can come up with are the classic EU ad/support bottom, Warwick/Udyr solo top, and more recently RS assassin/bruiser team comps with non-sustaining supports or solo AP Janna mid.  I also never really messaged Dan after that day of advice but I would send him a GG once in awhile when he would get a good tournament win or ask when his next tournament match would be.  So there is your story @Padrepablo :P GL HF GG~

I plan on streaming when my new computer comes in on Tuesday :]

If you wanted to see more pictures of the tournament go to the bottom of this page: http://paxprime2011.leagueoflegends.com/article/needlessly-large-champions and click on the gallery.  There are a few good shots in there of us and other competitors but the lighting wasn’t the greatest.  Our team won $1200 total which gave each of us about $240.  Our checks should be coming in the mail “soon” :]!  We also earned the Triumphant Ryze skin for the tournament win but Hank, Patrick, Sam, and I already had one, so Garrett got his for the first time.  I also forgot to mention that we tried to push the award ceremony back on Sunday (day 3) from 1:30pm to like 12:30pm since Garrett had to catch his flight at 2:00pm.  Changing the schedule wasn’t possible so we were going to have to do the ceremony with the fake check without him.  I managed to remind Rara to give me his medal after dinner so that I could give it to him at the hotel before he left on Saturday night (day 2).

Day 3

While I was sleeping, Hank really needed to use the bathroom but Sam passed out in the bathroom with his pants off because he had a little too much to drink at the Riot bar hop.  Hank had a little too much to drink that night also and I guess my other roommates woke up because Hank was yelling “WHOSINTHERE!”  Chappyman woke up and had to take Hank downstairs to the lobby to use the restrooms and also get a paperclip to unlock the bathroom door in our room.  By the time I woke up in the morning, Sam left the bathroom and was sleeping but his shorts were on the bathroom floor with his cellphone open sitting on top of them.  Sam didn’t remember how he got out of the bathroom.  Anyways, I woke up around 7am again and got ready for another day of fun.  William was awake around the time I woke up and he was a little hung over from the bar hop.  After William and I got ready, we went to have breakfast because everyone was still sleeping.  We went back to the breakfast place we went to on day 2 and talked while we ate.  I had ham steak, scrambled eggs, orange juice, and breakfast potatoes and didn’t finish all my food again.  It turns out William knew a lot of my friends from my home town since they all went to college together.  I find it funny that William and I have had the same interests in gaming and friends for so long but we only met that weekend.  I wish I had met him sooner :P

Once we finished breakfast we came back to the hotel to hang out.  Our checkout time for the hotel was 12pm and Hank needed to drive Garrett to the airport at 11:30am to be back in time for the awards ceremony.  Around 9am Eugenia got dressed in her Nurse Akali cosplay and around 10am she headed out to check out Halo Fest for the final day.  Patrick, Garrett, and Chappyman went to go have breakfast around that time too and Hank and Sam were passed out on the bed still.  We woke them up around 10:30am to get packed up and ready to go  for the day.  Hank was hung over and asked us to shut the window curtains but I lol’d instead.  William dressed up as Blood Moon Shen and I helped him tie on his armor pieces.  The convention opened at 10am but I didn’t care too much because I wanted to help clean up our hotel and hang out before Garrett had to leave.  Once it hit about 11:30am we checked out and said our good byes to Garrett.  It feels weird to miss someone you’ve only known for 2 days… but I’m happy I got the chance to meet and team up with Garrett for the PAX tournament.

Since we were checked out of our hotel, we headed back to the convention around 12pm.  We were supposed to meet at the Riot booth around 12:30pm or 12:45pm so we walked around for a little while around the convention again.  I found Yuhn and Cliff and we stood around the Riot booth for a while until they went back to their hotel to get the rest of their friends.  Once they left I was off on my own again to wander the convention.  I saw a few booths that were selling plushies but I didn’t see anything I liked.  I forgot that they sold plushies at PAX or else I would have gone the first day to find something I liked.  Around 12:45pm I headed back to the Riot Booth and found Eugenia and William.  They got their pictures taken for a while and then Patrick, Sam, and Chappyman showed up and a little bit later Hank got back from the airport.  At around 1:30pm we had the award ceremony where we stood on the upper level of the Riot booth.  Rara introduced Yuhn and Pwndarz team as second place and then introduced our team as first place.  We were given PAX2011 medals before we went up and then presented with a fake check from PaySafe.

Me, Hank, Patrick, and Sam (Team Juice 2.0 without Garret)

We got to keep the fake check and Hank has the check right now.  Immediately after the ceremony, the cosplay contest was held but since Hank didn’t eat breakfast from waking up late and because it was well past lunch time, we went to grab some food and skipped watching the contest.  We went to Taco Del Mar and got some burritos (I finally managed to eat a full meal since I felt really hungry… maybe it helped that my anxiousness of the tournament and ceremony were finally gone).  After eating, Hank, Patrick, and Sam decided that they were going to go home since they were tired.  I said my good byes to them and I was on my own again to go around the convention again.  Hopefully we will be able to team up again since we played really well together, in team comps and coordination.  I’m glad I met up with Hank and Patrick again this year since they were so cool the last time we played at PAX and I’m also happy that they brought Sam along this year because he is a really good kid with a great personality.

I walked around the convention on my own again and didn’t really know what to do… so I got back in the line for Dominion at the Riot booth to try to play one last time before I left PAX.  This time the wait was estimated to only be 1 hour instead of being 3 and took my place at the end of the line.  Since I didn’t want to be an anti-social guy I tried talking to the guy in front of me knowing that we shared a common interest in League of Legends.  I don’t remember his name but I remember his summoner name Packy.  He told me he has been an engineer for three years at Raptr which tracks statistics for games like XFire.  He was here for the weekend to have some fun since his brother lives up in Seattle and made the trip up from California.  Another person I met was standing in line behind me.  He works for Haliburton the oil drilling company and was at PAX because he was on paid leave since he lost the tip of his finger doing a job (he showed me a picture too since his hand was wrapped…).  His goal was to take a picture with all the Rioters at PAX and was at about 52 pictures when I met him.  I think there were around 60 or 70 Rioters at PAX so I’m not sure he made it.

After waiting in line for about an hour, I am in the next group to play Dominion but I got a text message saying that my ride was ready to go home.  WTF? DAMNIT I STOOD IN LINE FOR NO REASON T_T.  At least I got to meet these two people I guess… which made me realize how real people are when you meet them in person rather than online.  I think everyone I met at PAX was really cool and had a great attitude whereas after playing three games of League of Legends you are bound to find at least one raging player.  So I got out of line and headed over to the hotel where the cars were parked at the hotel.  I thought I was getting a ride home from Eugenia but something happened where Jedd needed a ride to Portland and he ended up driving with Eugenia and Colin, and Steve is driving in his old truck with Ian.  Although I had no idea what was going on, I said my good byes to Eugenia and Colin since Steve and Ian left before I could say bye.  Now that my ride with Eugenia was gone, I was really confused on who I was riding with to get home.  Turns out I am left to get a ride back with William and his sister which probably ended up being the most enjoyable ride back from Seattle since William and I talked to his sister about our nerdy interests and glory to try to convert her to gaming a little.

After a good 5 hour drive back to Salem, they dropped me off and I left my PAX2011 medal and pass in their car.  William reminded me the next day when he found it and I got him to drop it off with my sister since they live in the same town.  When I got back home I told my mom that I had won PAX and she was excited to see the news post on the League of Legends website.  I forgot to mention for day 2 that my brother had texted me about my win and I didn’t even tell him I had won.  I guess Riot posted the news and picture like an hour after we had won so he found out.  After eating some food and sitting in front of my laptop checking the past three days of Reddit that I had missed, I finally passed out on my bed to end my last day of PAX.