Mayday, Mayday! TFN’s going down!

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards podcast. Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven, Jerks, and Velcaz. And you're listening to the Forwards podcast, here to help you move forward and lead. Hello, and welcome to episode 429 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host, Jax Omen, and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got crush you. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Of course we have four wards on the four wards. [00:00:52] Speaker A: It's true. We do. We also have slushy otter back. [00:00:55] Speaker C: Uh, your resident cunt is back on the podcast. [00:01:00] Speaker A: Sure. And we've got free shooter. [00:01:05] Speaker D: You have to censor that. You might have to censor that. Where do we put this up? [00:01:08] Speaker A: No, she said it. She's allowed. Okay. [00:01:11] Speaker C: I'm irish. I'm allowed to say it. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Australian would also work. [00:01:18] Speaker A: True. [00:01:19] Speaker C: And I don't mean irish like heritage. I mean born in fucking Dublin. [00:01:25] Speaker D: Oh, there you go. [00:01:27] Speaker A: There you go. Piece of slushy lore for the listeners. All right, guys, we are the Four Wards podcast. We're here to help you move forward in League of Legends. We have a new website. It's linked in the episode description because I don't want to read it out because the Trinity Force network is dead, but we aren't. We are working on a Patreon. Send us your ideas for what you want the Patreon to look like so we can build the patreon of your dreams that you'll actually want to subscribe to. You can send those ideas slushy otter. [00:01:56] Speaker C: Sussy content is not on the table for that. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Damn. Guys. You can send your suggestions for the Patreon or questions for the show to our new email address, theforwardspodcastmail.com. Several of you wrote in to this new email, and thank you. We're glad that you guys are using it. We're glad you listen and pay attention. We need more questions because we're probably going to get through most of them this week. The [email protected]. Write us. [00:02:30] Speaker C: You are listening to this podcast. You are obligated to send a question. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah. How simple it is. You have to send at least one question. [00:02:41] Speaker A: Yeah, just send it. We're. We're happy to answer quick questions. Guys, if you. Not everything needs to be an in depth. Spend 20 minutes answering this. You have a question. That'll take us two minutes. Cool. Absolutely. [00:02:53] Speaker C: Wait, dissertation is a word in English, right? [00:02:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:02:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Guys, we do stream on twitch I can be found at Twitch TV Jackson crush streamswitch tv crush you. Slushy streams at Twitch TV slushy otter and she's on TikTok at slushy otter and free shooter can be found at Twitch TV free eshooter that's right, there are three e's in free. Alright, we got all the plugs out of the way, listeners, I have one more little bit, which is to let you know that we've switched feeds. If you're listening to this episode right now, it means you subscribed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or one of the other places where the feed migrated over automatically for you. And that's awesome. We're glad to hear it. If you didn't, you'll get in your feed instead a like two minute message from me telling you to go and update your RSS manually, in which case. [00:03:47] Speaker C: You'Re probably not hearing this correct. [00:03:50] Speaker A: But the point of this is if one of your friends says, hey, what happened to the Forwards podcast? I haven't seen a new episode in a couple weeks. Tell them what to do so that they can go and listen to this shit. That's all. Alright, our topics for tonight, it's a patch week. Patch 1410 is here. We have a couple psas before we get into our usual patch coverage. First of which, as we mentioned in previous patch episodes, Vanguard is here. If you launched the game during the previous patch, your system probably ran a test to make sure that it was ready for Vanguard and would have told you if it wasnt. When you do this patch, it will install Vanguard. It is recommended you load up a custom game before you go and queue up for ranked or something. [00:04:43] Speaker C: I didn't do that, I jumped right into. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Fair enough. Some people have had crashes between champion select and loading that cause a client repair. You don't want that to happen in a ranked game, so let it actually get through champion select and load into a game in a custom so that you know that you're not gonna be one of the people experiencing that problem. [00:05:06] Speaker D: Particularly if you're in EU. It seems to be disprop. It seems like something with the like EU rollout was kind of buggy. [00:05:15] Speaker A: Yep. But just in general it's a good habit with anything that has this major of a changeover. Just load up a custom to be sure before you go jumping straight into ranked. Speaking of ranked, ranked split one ends at midnight on the 14th. I assume that's midnight Pacific time since Riot is based in the Pacific time zone. [00:05:35] Speaker D: Whatever your local server time is right. [00:05:40] Speaker A: I meant for Na. I don't think. Even though the server's in Chicago for Na, I don't think it's in central time. [00:05:48] Speaker D: I don't actually know that's a what it says. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it just says your server's local time. So whatever your server's local time is. [00:05:57] Speaker C: I think Na's is Pacific. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Yes. So for. Yeah, when it says servers local time, it means whatever. Like Na server time is. Na server time is specific. It doesn't mean Chicago versus la. No, it means na the region. [00:06:13] Speaker C: European Central time. [00:06:14] Speaker A: I think it is probably. [00:06:16] Speaker B: I think so. [00:06:17] Speaker A: At least for EU West, EU northeast might be different. [00:06:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I meant to us, if I say you, I'm not referring to Nordic east. [00:06:29] Speaker A: You know what? For european listeners, they probably appreciate the distinction. [00:06:33] Speaker C: That is fair. I will never refer to Eu nordic east as Eu it is. I will specify that one. EU west is my default. [00:06:47] Speaker D: If you play on EU Nordic east, direct your hate mail for slushy to the forwardspodcastmail.com. [00:06:53] Speaker C: Hey, look, I'm irish. EU west is my default. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. All right, one other quick thing is MSI clashes this weekend. Usually the tournament clashes are four rounds instead of three and 16 teams instead of eight. But they don't make any mention of that this time. So I don't know if that's the case, but clash is a lot of fun. Get your friends together and go play clash. [00:07:21] Speaker C: Also, Rita's coming back and rumble is giga buffed for it. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:07:27] Speaker C: I'm kidding. They just. They introduce it with, are you ready to rumble? So I assume that he gets like 100%. Damn it. [00:07:37] Speaker B: No, he doesn't. [00:07:38] Speaker C: He does not. He does not. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about the things we actually want to highlight on this patch. And I want to kick it off because I have the simplest, most straightforward change to highlight that is literally like 13 years in the waiting. Kennen God finally is allowed to cast his ultimate while moving. For those who haven't actually played Kennen, whenever you hit ult, you would stop moving. Cast the ability. It's like a quarter second cast time. It's not long. And then be allowed to move again. They're not removing the cast time. They're just letting you move during the cast time. [00:08:19] Speaker C: I remember season two, season three, when I actually played a whole heck of a lot of Ken and mid and top and being so frustrated with this because there's just enough time for people to react to it. I'd be coming in like a wrecking ball, but it would be like. There'd be like a frame of buffering on the wrecking ball. Can you imagine a wrecking ball coming in and then stopping and then coming in? Yep. Yep. [00:08:46] Speaker A: I don't know how much this actually affects balance. I don't think it actually affects much for balance, but it should be massive for making Kennen feel better to play. [00:08:55] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. This is definitely. It makes him feel more fluid, which, for a champion who's based around being fast, this feels good. [00:09:05] Speaker A: I wish this was in place when I played Kennen in that Aram, like, not long ago. [00:09:09] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Oh, my God. Oh, well, like you used. Okay, the way to get around this up until this point was to buffer it with Rocket belt. But thank God that's not necessary anymore. [00:09:25] Speaker A: Now you can just use Rocket belt because you want to get in on the enemy, not because you're trying to buffer the cast time. [00:09:31] Speaker C: You do it anyways, but, like, now you don't. Now if you fuck it up, it's not a big deal. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Yep. All right, who wants to go next? [00:09:41] Speaker B: I'll go next. I want to bitch about this. Okay, so Ari got a change. She's got two changes. I'm going to read the changes, then I also want to read what riot's reasoning for, and then I'm going to start bitching. So the first change is her W. Foxfire just does five less damage, period. I'm pretty sure that's per flame. So that's 15 less if you hit all of them. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Don't the flames do reduce damage on the same target? [00:10:13] Speaker C: So it is, yeah, it's not five per flame. It'd be like five. Two and a half. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Two and a half, something like that. I don't remember the. [00:10:21] Speaker C: I'm estimating it's very small. [00:10:24] Speaker B: It's per flame. It's pretty small. It'll have an effect, but not big of one. What will have an effect is the r spirit rush change. This cooldown was from 130 to 80 seconds, and the new one is 130 to 100 seconds. So they basically just added a bunch of time to all stages of her ult except the first. And the reason why they give in. The text says, as Arri players have embraced malignance for a strong synergy with spirit rush, her late game mobility has simply gotten too high as a result. So I have a problem with this. I have been saying it for a while that I'm pretty sure that ability haste as a stat probably needs to not exist. And this is a pretty good example of why and why they have to do all sorts of weird things because now if you never built malignants and never used that, now you're kind of forced into building malignants or just be significantly worse than everybody else. [00:11:31] Speaker C: Like, what if you build ludens for waveclear. [00:11:35] Speaker B: And like. And I don't like hard binding champions to statistics like that. Like, it didn't need to be malignant. Like, in this case, it was because malignants gave such a good heart. A good cooldown reduction to the ultimate. This is similar to nocturne with the experimental hex plate as well. I'm actually really shocked we haven't seen a nerf to nocturne's ultimate cooldown related similar to this. Maybe it's because he's getting a skin. I don't know. [00:12:10] Speaker C: It's definitely Malzahar's getting buffed. [00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah. But I really hate binding champions to items like that. More specifically to a statistic like that. I don't like it binding to items. But I'm kind of okay with it to an extent. Like, I'm fine with Ezreal having to build a tier and a manamune, that's kind of his thing. He's the ad carry that builds a manamune. That's his thing. [00:12:38] Speaker C: He's. [00:12:39] Speaker B: I'm fine with that sort of thing. I'm less okay with. You must build ability haste cooldown reduction on Ari. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Like, I'm okay with it on Ari. Like, I'm okay with it on mages, I don't think any other class should have abundant access to it. I think on mages it's fine because it's the only way to scale their DP's as opposed to just their outright. [00:13:08] Speaker B: Burst, I think it's better to just give them lower cooldowns and to not have item tied statistic at all. Like, not that they would do it, but if they were to just remove the cooldown reduction off of malignants and leave Ari's are cooldown the same? I'd way prefer that, although they never do that because now it's way too large for change. But yeah, that's my rant about I hate ability haste on items. I hate ability haste as a concept. [00:13:40] Speaker C: I like it on mage items. I don't like it anywhere else. [00:13:44] Speaker A: I did look it up because I was curious. So Ahri does 30% damage on subsequent flames. So it is a total nerf of eight on a single target. [00:13:55] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:56] Speaker A: It's literally nothing. And for those who are worried about this affecting her last hitting she gets double damage against minions below 20% health, which is still going to be less than 90 in the early game. So she still will guaranteed one shot minions below 20% health with foxfire. It doesn't change that either. [00:14:15] Speaker C: Fair enough. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Yep. [00:14:18] Speaker C: I don't know. I like ability haste as a concept on specifically mages. I don't think fighters should really have access to it. I don't think assassins should really have access to it. I don't think like it. [00:14:29] Speaker A: It's. It's supposed to be the analog for attack speed on ad carries to let mages be carries. [00:14:35] Speaker C: Exactly so. And I think there should be a sacrifice in ability power for them to be building this stat. That is, you have more dp's, less burst. But I think it's fine to exist on mages. Any champion who whose entire identity is hey, I'm gonna blow you up in one combo shouldn't have access to it. I think any champion who has access to meaningful auto attacks, which mages don't typically should not have access to it. I think only mages should have access to it. [00:15:14] Speaker B: So it was always meaningful amounts. It was always an awkward statistic back when it was cooldown reduction because there was a hard limit to how much cooldown rucks you could have. And that limit doesn't exist anymore. But that's because like, it now has diminishing returns. That it has diminishing returns. [00:15:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:32] Speaker B: So, like, it's actually cartoonishly easy to. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Hit the old cap we played. So on Monday, one of the arams we played, I had like 130 ability haste on Zilean, which is like 55% cooldown reduction when the old cap was only 40%. [00:15:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I've hit earth as real damage for that. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. But I was zillion. Who gives a shit? [00:15:56] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:15:57] Speaker B: The thing about my point, the thing about I want. I do kind of agree that mages should be able to access it. I just don't think it should be in an item. I think that mages cooldown should just be less when they scale, harder when. [00:16:10] Speaker A: They scale for level scaling kind of idea. [00:16:13] Speaker C: Yeah. It's fine for them to have access to it on items as a sacrifice in damage. It should be one or the other. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Great. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's okay. [00:16:22] Speaker D: Like, attack speed is generally more of an attack damage sacrifice than ability. Haste is an AP sacrifice. [00:16:29] Speaker C: And I think that's the issue is it needs to be a conscious decision where you get meaningful amounts of one or the other. [00:16:39] Speaker B: So, you know, one of the really funny things about the. There's there's an analog between ability haste and attack speed. However, there's one way that it's definitely not that way. Auto attacking is relatively difficult to do compared to hitting a button for casting an ability to get in range. If I keep hitting the Q button on the keyboard, if I just keep hitting it, as long as I'm not playing Hui, then it's going to cast the queue as soon as it comes off cooldown and I can keep moving around and other things I can keep right clicking and moving around. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Other than that, if I auto cancel your cast. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I can't auto cancel the cast. But with attack speed, if I'm moving around, I'm by definition not auto attacking. So a higher attack speed or the task classes that. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Yep. All right, let's move on. Before we do, I have one Ahri adjacent thing I want to highlight because it is a bug fix. Oh, Sylas got a bug fix where he will now actually gain stacks of Ahri's ultimate on takedowns while it is active the way Ari does. Slushie hates this because she doesn't like Sylas. I've had situations where that caused me to die or not get a kill because I did not get the reset that the ability is supposed to have. It's part of the tooltip of spirit rush, which means it's supposed to be something Silas gets. As of this patch he does. [00:18:15] Speaker C: Can we just nerf Silas to 20% win rate? So he's never, ever picked. Thank you. [00:18:21] Speaker A: All right, what do you want to highlight? Slush. [00:18:27] Speaker C: Let me start with Malzahar. Okay, so he's getting some significant buffs because they don't feel that he's performing well at high elo, which, I mean, fair enough. He's a little bit of a low elo terror and high elo. I'm gonna pick this just to neutralize Elaine. Call of the void mana cost getting reduced at early ranks. It's going from a flat 80 to 60 scaling to 80. But the bigger change is the e cooldown is being reduced heavily at early ranks, which will help significantly with his wave clear levels one to nine. Well, levels one to seven. So it used to be 15 scaling to seven. It is now eleven scaling to seven. This feels so much better. This is its primary poke tool. This is his primary farming tool. This is his primary. This is his bread and butter. Yeah, we love the space. Aids like, this needs to be if you're going to try to make him more relevant. Giving him access to this more often is how to do that. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Yep, this means he can actually use the e two trade and still be allowed to touch the wave. And combined with the mana cost reduction on early ranks of the queue, this means his ability to actually clear the wave with two spells and come out mana neutral or ahead is much higher. [00:19:59] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. And I think. I don't know if this is enough to help him in high elo, but it'll definitely pushes him and gives him more options. It increases his uptime, which on mages uptime is hard to come by sometimes until you get obscene amounts of ability haste. So I think this is a good change. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Sounds good. Free shooter, it's your turn. [00:20:30] Speaker D: I'm going to highlight a small one because it also kind of goes with the theme of I hate riot's justification for the changes they make. Because in a vacuum, seraphine getting 10% more ap scaling from 50 to 60 on her q. Yeah, it's a buff, you know, small buff justifying it as we're buffing support seraphine. Uh, what? [00:20:58] Speaker A: Huh? [00:21:00] Speaker C: Riot, I have said this so many times on the podcast. If you want to buff carry seraphine, you buff ap ratios. If you want to buff support seraphine, you buff face damages. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Yep. [00:21:16] Speaker C: Their logic is completely counterintuitive. What are they doing? [00:21:21] Speaker D: Especially cuz on support Seraphine cues her last max. [00:21:26] Speaker C: This is dumb. [00:21:29] Speaker A: It's freak doesn't play seraphine. He doesn't know what she needs to get a support buff versus a carry buff. [00:21:35] Speaker C: What's her win rate? Niche lane. [00:21:37] Speaker B: Right now that's just a general concept. Is buffing supports is buffing the base damages and buffing carries is buffing the ratios I don't like. The only thing I can think of is they just hit the wrong button and added ten to the ratio instead of ten to the base damage. I guess. [00:21:55] Speaker C: I think this is actually a good chance. Their justification is nonsense, but her weakest role right now is mid lane. So I'm okay with this. But. [00:22:05] Speaker D: Oh, hey, I just found good numbers. Granted, one day sample size. Last patch, seraphite support, 52% win rate. This patch, 52% win rate. Last patch, 50 last patch, bot carry. I'm looking at like Emerald plus. [00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah, global. [00:22:24] Speaker D: And then last patch, bought carry, 53%. This patch, bot carry, 54%. Hey, look what got buffed. Not support. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Wow. So shocking. [00:22:35] Speaker C: 51% for seraphine dispatch on support, 52 and a half on seraphine ADC and 50.3% on mid lane seraphine. So buffing her ap ratios, mid lane. I'm okay with this. [00:22:53] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [00:22:55] Speaker D: But it's funny. [00:22:55] Speaker A: I think we all agree. Good change. Just dumb justification. [00:22:59] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:22:59] Speaker B: Right? [00:23:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:02] Speaker A: All right, it's time for our second round of things to cover. Who wants to go first? [00:23:08] Speaker B: Evelyn. [00:23:12] Speaker C: Yay. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Evelyn's been strong. Evelyn's been actually one of the better junglers for a while now. I don't know if this nerf will do anything. The w slow got reduced from 65% to 45%. I'm not sure that does anything. The old thing matters. That's a buff. Yeah. Could you go closer to her? From the charm? Yeah, I agree. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:23:42] Speaker B: The ultimate nerf, they took 10% off of that ap ratio. That's a significant nerf. Because when. What's the threshold for her to get more? She gets more damage when you're low on health from her ultimate. So this affects that? [00:24:01] Speaker A: Yep. It is below 30%. [00:24:03] Speaker C: Based, I think it's percent missing health. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Nope. It is below 30%. She deals 140% damage. [00:24:11] Speaker C: Okay, my mistake. [00:24:13] Speaker D: Also, you say the w is a buff. That's assuming it works as intended. I've had charms send me backwards, and fears send me toward them. [00:24:22] Speaker A: I know. I do need to clarify, because I said 140%. That is the increase. So it does a total of 240% the original damage if you are below 30%. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Okay, I knew that her ultimate isn't technically an execute because I've seen people take the extra damage and still live. [00:24:40] Speaker A: Yep. [00:24:40] Speaker B: It's rare, but it does happen. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Let me put that in context for you. If you're below 30%, a rank three ultimate does 900 damage plus 156% ap. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. [00:24:55] Speaker C: Can I lick it? [00:24:57] Speaker B: Do not lick the science. [00:24:59] Speaker D: Do not. [00:25:01] Speaker C: But she's a succubus. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah, she'd be into that. She'd be into that. [00:25:07] Speaker B: You may not survive. [00:25:09] Speaker D: I've seen people survive from, like, seraph shields at the right time. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Death by snooze. Dude, there we go. Death by snooze. Anyway, that's allowie. That's a different kind of death. [00:25:27] Speaker C: Also acceptable. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Have you seen a laui? [00:25:33] Speaker B: Come on, sparrows, like, between thighs? Off of that. But no. This is an actual nerf to Evelyn. She will do less damage. I don't know if it'll actually impact her win rate at all. Significantly. She might lose a percent. But I'm okay with Evelyn Nerfs. It's fine. [00:25:59] Speaker A: I've decided to look it up. [00:26:01] Speaker B: I figured someone would when I mentioned it, which is why I mentioned it. Cause I'm not looking it up. I'm making someone else look it up. [00:26:07] Speaker A: She has gained 0.3% win rate according to op GG, however, she has dropped from 11th best jungler to 18th. [00:26:18] Speaker C: I assume play rate went down. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Uh, yes. [00:26:22] Speaker C: Yeah. That's why it's only the dedicated Evelyn mains that are playing her now. They see the casuals, see the nerf, and are like, okay, time to switch to kha'zix. Yep. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Yep. She went down by a whole percentage point in pick rate from four and a half to three. [00:26:36] Speaker C: That's why. [00:26:38] Speaker A: Yep. I really don't think this nerf does anything. [00:26:46] Speaker D: I can go next. [00:26:47] Speaker A: All right, sure. [00:26:49] Speaker D: I want to talk about karma, because karma showing up in patch notes is what I expected. Um, not a buff, though. I was expecting karma to get nerfed because I think is really strong right now. And then they buffed her, so it's only minor buffs. So her Q, non mantra, so regular Q, the slow went from 35% to 40%. Mantra Q, slow, still 50%. And then her mantra E, which, if you were gonna buff something, this is the thing that kind of needed it, because right now, if you were playing karma, if you're mantra e ing, you're playing karma wrong. [00:27:36] Speaker C: Most. [00:27:36] Speaker A: If you're mantra eing for anything other than giving your whole team run speed to make something happen. [00:27:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker A: You're playing karma wrong. [00:27:42] Speaker D: Correct. [00:27:44] Speaker A: You basically mantra E was, I want a second shurelyas. [00:27:48] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:27:49] Speaker C: Or like, I. I mantra e'd in a game the other day where malphite got a four man ulti on my team with an Orianna shockwave follow up. And the shield is why my entire team survived. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:06] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:28:07] Speaker C: It's like. [00:28:08] Speaker D: It's like, you know, 40, 40 ten was like, kind of the ratio of. [00:28:14] Speaker A: When you should blast it was that. [00:28:15] Speaker C: It's like 70 2010, I would say 70, 515 ten. [00:28:23] Speaker D: Well, it's the flow chart. Are you at full health? Mantra Q, are you not mantra W? Mantra W is. [00:28:30] Speaker C: Yeah, powerful. Maybe it's just how I play her. I play her like an artillery mage because that's how I play every mage. [00:28:40] Speaker D: Karma can. 90% of the time, karma can get in there and scrap. She is fun. But anyway, I'm aware mantra ws are. [00:28:47] Speaker A: So good at trolling people into fights they can't actually win. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Yep. [00:28:51] Speaker D: Mantra w is why people hate karma top. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Yep. [00:28:54] Speaker D: And why the five cmos subbing for three way flexed karma every game. But anyway, so the actual buff to huntra e is now, instead of the secondary shield targets only getting 90% shield value, they get 100% shield value. And the AoE bonus move speed went from 12% to 15%. So there is now more viable options for using your mantra e. Karma gets even better. Um, it's honestly kind of a similar problem of like, karma's problem is malignants. Like, no matter where you play karma, build malignant's first item. And, like, you can. If you hit a mantra q and then press w, you can mantra q again, like, it's ridiculous and it does. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Stupid amounts of damage. [00:29:51] Speaker D: Mm hmm. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Yup. [00:29:55] Speaker D: Karma, dumb. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Alright, let me talk about something else that's dumb. I'm gonna talk about some of the items real quick. They are reworking one of the fighter items and rebalancing some of the others. So let's get the rebalances out of the way. Death stance gained some ad and some healing on it, and the build path changed. So check the build path if you're building death stance. Sterak's cost went up and the cooldown went up. [00:30:25] Speaker C: Yay. [00:30:26] Speaker B: That's a significant nerf. [00:30:28] Speaker A: That is a significant nerf. Especially the cost. The cooldown is less of a nerf because you usually weren't proccing Sterak's on cooldown anyway. But the cost going up by 200 is big. Steraks is a lot weaker because of that sundered sky. And eclipse took minor nerfs. There's not a lot to say about that. They were just strong, especially together. [00:30:50] Speaker C: Yay. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Yep. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:54] Speaker A: So the big change here is they are redoing maw of Malmordius, kind of back to where it was a few years ago. Its cost is going up to 3100. It's getting ability haste back on it. It's ad is going up. The resistances it gives the mister are going down. The shield duration is going up, which rarely should matter because usually the shield is going to be consumed in a single hit anyway. And most importantly, the buff you get when you proc. The shield is being changed from 12% lifesteal to 10% omnivamp. Between gaining the ability haste, gaining more ad, and getting omnivamp, I think Maw is just going to become the default. I need anti burst for most ad champions that are not building crit against magic damage. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Yes, just wait a patch, then it'll become. Then you won't have that qualifier at the end. [00:31:58] Speaker C: Please, please don't build Maw of Malmordius against yone. It's not going to help you. [00:32:04] Speaker A: I mean, he does do a meaningful amount of magic damage, but yeah, he's. [00:32:08] Speaker C: Got enough physical damage to one shot you Maw's not gonna save you. [00:32:13] Speaker A: Yes, I'm being facetious. [00:32:16] Speaker D: Can I admit something? [00:32:18] Speaker A: What? [00:32:18] Speaker D: So I've always known this item was called Maul of malam mortias, and I've always known it's the purple sword. I never noticed the sword had a mouth on it, and that's why it's called Maw of Mel Mortius. Never noticed that. [00:32:31] Speaker C: I am only just noticing that now. Yeah, right. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Where the is it called the pommel? [00:32:36] Speaker D: Yep. [00:32:37] Speaker C: The hilt since Jax. [00:32:40] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker C: Pommel used the word. I had an ex once that for her entire life thought facetious was pronounced face tyous. [00:32:49] Speaker B: What? [00:32:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:55] Speaker C: I won't say who because I don't want to call them out like that, but, like, it was funny. [00:33:00] Speaker A: That is. That is very funny. [00:33:03] Speaker C: She had only ever read it in books. [00:33:05] Speaker A: That's. There are definitely words that I have horribly mispronounced my entire life because I've only ever read them. [00:33:10] Speaker B: The only reading in books. That's actually the reason why I don't make fun of people for mispronouncing words. Cause if you mispronounce a word, it means you've only ever read it and never heard it. [00:33:19] Speaker C: Mm hmm. Yeah. I was the same with Taoism for a long time. [00:33:22] Speaker D: I was the same with epitome. I heard the word epitome and read epitome. Thought they were two different words. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:33:31] Speaker C: I was saying Taoism. [00:33:33] Speaker B: I was also saying Taoism for a while as well. [00:33:36] Speaker C: Um, also, I want to start a bit of a new thing for patches. I I'd like to point out the most meaningless change of the patch. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Go for it. [00:33:49] Speaker C: And that would be the jinx change. Her ultimate cool is being nerfed. It is being increased by 15 seconds at rank one and 5 seconds at rank three. This does not matter. You are not using Jinx Ulti on cool down. It has competition, this patch from the ACeHL change, but it's the jinx change. [00:34:12] Speaker A: To be fair, at least in this one. They do specify that this is trying to specifically skew towards the stuff that matters more in pro play, such as her ability to throw out rockets in the early game, just to interrupt recalls. [00:34:27] Speaker C: Yes, it also does affect lethality. Jinx and Aram. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Yes, but also that Jinx builds cooldown reduction anyway, so it's not an issue. Anyway, we do want to mention that Jynx probably is going to get more nerfs, but they are holding off on major ADC changes because there's itemization changes coming. They just aren't here yet? [00:34:50] Speaker D: Next patch gonna be big, I guess. [00:34:54] Speaker A: Also, I just realized that this says it's patch 14 nine. And I put 1410 in the dock and said 1410 at the start. I'm sorry, I'm dumb. [00:35:02] Speaker C: Yeah, fine. So, moving on from Jinx, I'll talk about my second actual change that I wanna cover. And that is twitch. Similar to jinx. He's been rising in pick rate and win rate because of the changes to specifically infinity edge is how they justify it. So they're trying to nerf him and make him more vulnerable. Base health and health growth are both being decreased. And it's not a small nerf to the base health that hurts. That is a full spell cat. Like, he took poke. You take one spell's worth of poke right off the bat, just from existing. The slow on venom cask, the ap ratio on it is being. The ap ratio on the slow on venom cask is being increased. That doesn't matter. [00:35:55] Speaker D: It's being decreased by 1%. [00:35:58] Speaker C: It's being decreased by 1% from six to five. This does not matter. And, like, they don't even mention that they're nerfing the AP to or. Sorry, they do. We're also lightly tapping down AP twitch so it doesn't become his de facto build as it's already too strong. [00:36:16] Speaker B: That's not a light tap, that's a slap on the wrist. That's fucking nothing. [00:36:21] Speaker D: And yes, AP twitch is very strong. [00:36:22] Speaker A: By the way, it's. What's that? Free, I said. [00:36:26] Speaker D: And yes, by the way, AP twitch is very strong. Annoyingly strong. [00:36:31] Speaker A: It's not as broken oppressive as he was during the crown of the shattered queen era. But the slow on his w is still. Even with this change, going to be fucking stupid. It's basically nasus wither in an AoE, and he still does way too much true damage. [00:36:49] Speaker C: Let's actually talk about the meaningful change here. Sorry. The base health drop matters. The health growth drop matters. But the spray and pray bonus ad, especially early gain losing ten bonus attack damage when you activate spraying. Pray does hurt not so much in the late game, but that first ultimate. This can be the difference between getting the kill or them getting away or you dying. So I think that is a reasonable nerf, and I think that will accomplish what they're trying to do. [00:37:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:27] Speaker C: It remains to be seen if that'll actually like nerf him down, because the infinity edge change did benefit him pretty heavily. But we'll see what happens. [00:37:37] Speaker A: I think the combination of the ad and the base health will be enough to keep him down to, like, a tier. [00:37:43] Speaker C: Yeah, like, you can turn on twitch when he ults now and actually stand a chance of blowing him up. [00:37:50] Speaker B: The ten damage off of. Off of Ult is the same thing that took Vayne out of s tier, so, yeah, it's absolutely capable of taking Twitch out of s tier as well. [00:38:02] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll see what happens. Let me go see. [00:38:08] Speaker A: All right, couple, you have stuff left to highlight someone? [00:38:11] Speaker C: No, he's. [00:38:12] Speaker D: He's still very strong, cuz mines kind of quick. People kind of have to look at the patch notes to see if their champion was affected because they did a bunch of changes of champion radiuses, um, in two different ways. So the one that they changed on more champions was the selection radius, which is basically when you. It registers, your mouse is hovering over a champion, basically to target them with auto attacks or targeted abilities. And this is to, like, make it slightly easier on small models or harder on big models to, like, hover over and target. The more impactful one, though, is actual collision radiuses were updated on a smaller number of champions to more match the visuals. Like, just the one I'll call out because it's first on the list. And one of the bigger ones, Aurelion Sol. His, like, collision hitbox was increased by from, like, 65 to 80 units. Some of the big boy. [00:39:22] Speaker C: Yeah. And Darius had the reverse 80 to 65. [00:39:26] Speaker D: Mm hmm. [00:39:27] Speaker B: So my fun question here is, one of these champions actually really matters. The Warwick change from 55 to 65. [00:39:39] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:40] Speaker B: His ult throws him at you. Increasing the collision radius actually increases the radius of one of his actual abilities. [00:39:48] Speaker C: So, yeah, I'm gonna point out one more that also matters. And that's Yuumi. Cause it went from 65 to 55, which makes her harder to hit when she's jumping from one champion to another. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:40:02] Speaker B: That's fair. [00:40:03] Speaker A: It's a little bit more difficult to, like, blitz hook her out of her dash. [00:40:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:08] Speaker D: Yep. And for a couple of these, they also had, like, pathfinding radius changes, which just means the smaller champions. Actually, I think it's all. No, it's not all small champions. Cassandra went up, Cassante went up, and then a bunch of small champions went down. Which means they'll get stuck on minions less. [00:40:25] Speaker A: Yep. [00:40:26] Speaker C: Yay. [00:40:27] Speaker D: And Cassandra will get stuck on minions less. [00:40:29] Speaker A: They can stand closer to other units, but in practice, it basically means they should be harder to minion block, which small champions being hard to minion block, should be the case. [00:40:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah. For the most part, most of these changes don't really do anything. I think the yuumi and the Warwick ones are the only ones that might be noticed at all. And a couple other of the selection ones will matter as well because a couple of them were like outliers. Like bard, for some reason, had a selection radius of 88, and it's going to 130 to match his model. That explains why it was so freaking hard to hit bard, I guess, to click on bard. [00:41:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:11] Speaker B: Dude's chonky. [00:41:12] Speaker C: He should have a higher selection radius. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Basically, they seem to, if you just read the numbers, it looks. It reads a lot like the change they made a few, like a while back to mage auto attacks, where they just kind of brought everything up to a baseline. Like, the only things that are under 120 anymore are yordles. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Or Yumi or other tiny champions like Yuumi or Zoe. [00:41:39] Speaker C: Zoe. Yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Is Annie on here? [00:41:42] Speaker C: Veigar. [00:41:45] Speaker B: But yeah. So it's basically 120 is the baseline now, and 100 if you're tiny and 140 if you're big. [00:41:53] Speaker C: That said, there's a lot of champions that are excluded. I don't know their selection radiuses. So you've got brand, for example. Wait, he's on here. Never mind. But like, oh, re isn't on here. I don't know her selection. Radio. It might be 80. [00:42:08] Speaker D: They clarify in the thing. This was a normal radius. Should be 100 to 140. This was bringing in champions that weren't already in those bounds. [00:42:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:19] Speaker D: With the only exception being aurelian soul is still 150 because he's like the. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Biggest champion model besides chogath. Yeah. [00:42:31] Speaker A: All right. [00:42:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Cho'gath is not mentioned here. [00:42:34] Speaker B: It is not. That's because. That's because Cho'gath has a variable size. Has a variable size. And it's part of his kit. [00:42:41] Speaker C: Mega gnar went from 180 to 140. [00:42:44] Speaker B: I did notice that. I did notice that. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Yep. All right. Crush. [00:42:50] Speaker B: You had blitzcrank on your list. Blitzcrank. Blisscrank got a nerf. So one of the weird things about this patch is that we kind of had to hunt for things to actually talk about the things that we thought actually would change. Blitzcrank's nerf, the W. Initial bonus movement speed went down by 10% at all. Ranks was 70% to 90%. Now it's 60% to 80%. He moves a little less faster, if you don't know. Blitzfrink gets a burst of movespeed that decays over the time of the w and then becomes a negative movement speed as it recovers. That's a nerf he won't move as fast and won't be able to run up to you and punch you quite as easily anymore. The other change that I think is actually the real one is the passive. The barrier he gets at low health. The duration was 10 seconds. It is now 4 seconds. That's. I did not realize that thing lasted that goddamn long. This is a good change. [00:43:57] Speaker D: Yeah, that's way too much. [00:43:58] Speaker B: It does not need the last 10 seconds. It does not need the last 10 seconds. [00:44:03] Speaker D: So, I mean, yeah, for literally, like, his passive is serifs. Um, but yeah, like. [00:44:18] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:44:19] Speaker B: This was. This was a. This change is definitely good. This change definitely is a nerf. It will have an effect. It won't be huge. Good, good change. This is a good change. I had to find something that was good that riot did to talk about. [00:44:33] Speaker A: All right, slash, you had skins on your list. Do you still want to talk about the skins? [00:44:38] Speaker C: I do. I don't want to spend a ton of time on them. The empyrean skinline has always been one that is visually interesting to me, but at the same time, it is very difficult to tell them apart, both in the splash art and in game riot. These skins are very pretty. This needs to be the last set. You have a habit of taking popular skin lines and running with them for years. Stop it. Get help. This needs to be it because I cannot really tell just looking at them in game brand from Jin, I was. [00:45:16] Speaker D: Gonna say Brandon Malzahar brand is just Balzahar with a bigger column. [00:45:20] Speaker C: Yeah, like Brandon Malzahar, Brandon, Varys. So nocturne and Zed. [00:45:25] Speaker B: So this skin line reminds me a lot of the. The IG world's skin line where they are very visually similar, but you can still tell them apart by their weaponry, except for, like, two of them. In this one, it's branded Malzahar. One of them floats and the other one doesn't. That's the difference. That's. That's it. [00:45:46] Speaker C: But you can't tell them apart based on their weaponry. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Varus's. Varus's bow is fucking huge. If you can't see Varus's bow on. [00:45:53] Speaker D: Varus's bow is happy. [00:45:54] Speaker B: Something's wrong. [00:45:56] Speaker C: But you okay? It's hard to see in the game model. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:46:00] Speaker C: I'm not talking about the splash arts. I don't care about the splash arts because those are only visible while you're loading and they don't matter. Visual gameplay clarity is the issue I have with these skins. They're very pretty. I will probably be picking up one or two of them. I don't know which ones yet, but this needs to be it. Try it. Please stop. [00:46:21] Speaker D: I do love the giant face on the front of Eris's bow. [00:46:26] Speaker C: Yeah, that is very unusual. [00:46:28] Speaker D: I hope the mouse opens as he's charging you. [00:46:30] Speaker A: Here's what irks me about these skins. The aesthetic reminds me heavily of like the graffiti jynx does in arcane. Why is there not an empyrean jynx? [00:46:41] Speaker C: Yes. [00:46:42] Speaker D: Why is there not a hue either? [00:46:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. This would have been a great skin line for hue. Also for the varus skin, I hope that the bow's mouth opens up and then it shoots a projectile that also has a mouth and looks kind of like wolf in kindred. [00:47:01] Speaker A: I just want them to go full alien and have the mouth just shoot out a smaller mouth. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:47:07] Speaker A: All right. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:09] Speaker A: We have a trinket tip. [00:47:10] Speaker B: That's varus. [00:47:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the in game, the varus, is pretty easy to tell. [00:47:15] Speaker B: No, I found the end game, and it's super easy. But anyway, continue. Like, a collie is one that could be confused, like, because her difference is she has a ponytail, and that's not super easy to find based on. Because brand's hair also looks kind of similar. [00:47:32] Speaker C: As well. [00:47:33] Speaker B: I don't think so. [00:47:34] Speaker C: No. [00:47:36] Speaker A: There's a project which doesn't look that different. It's just not neon. [00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:41] Speaker A: All right, our trinket tip. If you are in briars blood frenzy, her w or the one from her ultimate and yorick cages you, you can't auto attack the cage to escape the cage. You're stuck in there until either you cast e to cancel your blood frenzy or the cage expires. [00:48:03] Speaker C: I found this out in an aram. I was very sad. This is, like, the fifth time I've played briar, and I'm just like, oh, I guess I live here now. [00:48:15] Speaker B: Sad. Briar is sad. [00:48:16] Speaker C: They didn't kill me almost ever while I was in the cage. They just killed the rest of my team. And I'm like, oh, all my friends are dead now. [00:48:25] Speaker D: That seems canonical for briar. [00:48:28] Speaker A: It isn't. Yeah, it does. It is important to note you can still use q to escape it if someone is in range. Yes, but that's. [00:48:36] Speaker C: They were not. Yeah, I think I managed to do that a single time. [00:48:42] Speaker A: It's a pretty brutal, just soft counter. [00:48:45] Speaker C: Yeah, soft. [00:48:47] Speaker A: Yes. She has tools, but they're limited in scope. If she couldn't queue out of it and couldn't cancel with her e. I would call it a hard counter. [00:49:01] Speaker C: I think since the cage becomes the only thing she can attack, I think riot needs to address that and make it the thing she attacks. [00:49:08] Speaker A: But I mean, I agree. [00:49:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause I definitely don't like. I definitely don't see, if you put a box around briar, she's not gonna just sit there and stare at the box. She's definitely attacking the box. [00:49:20] Speaker C: And, like, if you use a w while you're in the jungle, it doesn't, like, track onto the nearest champion. It's gonna attack the jungle monsters. [00:49:28] Speaker A: It will track to the nearest champion if there's one in range. Ignoring jungle monsters that you are currently fighting, which is really aggravating when you're trying to do grubs. [00:49:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So if I have only one viable target to attack, why is she just standing there not attacking? [00:49:43] Speaker A: Right. She's Briar. She should always be attacking. [00:49:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it's dumb. I don't like that riot. Get on it. [00:49:50] Speaker D: They should have a champion that just always attacks, like, whoever's closest in range. Like, you can't s on them. Just if you are near them, they are attacking you. [00:49:59] Speaker A: I mean, Briar is pretty close to that. [00:50:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:04] Speaker A: All right, let's get some listener questions, because listeners, you guys sent questions to our new email address. Thank you. Because the old one has died and I can't check it anymore. Uh, so our first question comes from frequent writer Codexninja, who writes, hey, wards snazzy new email. I found out recently that Flex Q is significantly different from regular ranked queue and even has a separate MMR. What are your folks thoughts for ranked flex in regards to newer players? [00:50:37] Speaker D: If you have five friends to play with, flex is great. If you're playing solo and flex, I have questions. [00:50:52] Speaker C: One year I did just go through Flex Q. I found it to be just slightly less toxic, at least that year. [00:50:59] Speaker B: That's true. [00:51:00] Speaker C: I liked it better. I might do that again at some point, but it also makes my solo queue MMR. If I'm not focusing on that drop to, like, bronze, and then I have to climb all the way back up, I do that again. [00:51:13] Speaker D: In terms of toxicity, I find it's either like. Cause sometimes a solo queue, it's like one or two people might be toxic. If you solo inflex, the group of three you're matched up with either won't be toxic at all or will be incredibly toxic to, like, the two that aren't with them. So it's very feast or famine in. [00:51:33] Speaker C: That regard that's fair. And like, maybe it's because of my playstyle, I'm very reserved. I tend to do low risk, low reward. So I don't tend to get flamed too, too often. So maybe that's why my experience is better. [00:51:51] Speaker A: You just get the people who are upset that the mid laner is just losing plates and farm and killing them because they're too stupid to react to the pings for the 30 seconds before they died. [00:52:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And if they're in call with, you know, two other people, then somebody in that call will notice the pings and tell them to back off, hopefully. Yeah. [00:52:11] Speaker D: And then, like, specifically in regards to newer players, I don't really see like an advantage for a newer player queuing to flex versus queuing for ranked. [00:52:19] Speaker C: I don't think it matters. [00:52:21] Speaker D: But also, like, fun fact you mentioned with a separate MMR, every queue has its own MMR. Like. Yeah, some of my friends, they play on fives teams where they, like, can't go above a certain rank or they get put into a different division. And so because of that they play like 90% normals. And whenever I play normals with them work and diamond master tier players, because that's probably what their actual MMR is, but they just don't play that much ranked. [00:52:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And the key there is your normal MMR will get snapped to your ranked MMR if they get too far out of whack. The reverse is not true. [00:52:56] Speaker B: When it comes to normals, blind and draft are using the same MMR, right? [00:53:00] Speaker D: Yes, I believe so. Who the fuck plays blind pick? Besides the day a new champion comes. [00:53:08] Speaker C: Quickly, the quick play, but yeah. Karina? Yeah, I don't think it really matters. The only thing I would say is pick one and focus on it. I wouldn't advise trying to split time between two unless you spend a lot of time playing this game. [00:53:26] Speaker A: If you're never playing with more than one friend at a time, play solo duo. If you're regularly wanting to play with two or four other friends, play flex. Alright. Codex Ninja has more questions though. Cause she also wrote hi awards. Recently I have been following a specific ritual to get my mind in the right space for my serious rank climb games. I make sure I get something to eat before and take a short walk between three games. What do you folks do to get ready for action on the rift? [00:53:57] Speaker D: Damn, that's better. [00:53:58] Speaker C: We've talked about that in the past and like, that is advisable. Do I actually do it? Fuck no. [00:54:03] Speaker A: No. [00:54:03] Speaker B: I double click on the icon that says League of Legends. [00:54:07] Speaker D: I actually. The one thing I do, I make sure I have water, because when I'm tilted or, like, annoyed, I'll just, like, grab my water and chug it, which makes me half and, like, it forces me to get up and go pee between games to get me away from the computer. [00:54:25] Speaker A: That's valid. I wish that worked for me. My bladder is too strong. Go ahead. [00:54:33] Speaker C: I usually go with a tiny bit of weed. Not enough that I'm, like, zonked out and my performance suffers, but just enough to make me just a little bit calmer and a little more resilient to people's toxicity. [00:54:46] Speaker B: They take some diazepam or something? [00:54:49] Speaker C: Sure. [00:54:50] Speaker A: My ritual before I climb my games is very simple. Sometimes I launch vc face, sometimes I don't. Then I launch obstacles, put in a stream description, make sure the correct device is active for either v tubing or face camming, and then I click launch stream, or whatever the button's called, then I'm ready to play. [00:55:09] Speaker C: Right now, I do tend to get a little bit more ragey on stream just because it does lead to more entertaining holiday. Yeah. [00:55:16] Speaker A: You're playing it up for the stream. [00:55:17] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't actually do that when I'm not. Yeah, but it's because I, like, feel the need to narrate everything that's happening, narrate everything that I'm feeling. So if I'm feeling frustration, I actually vocalize it when I'm streaming, and that just doesn't happen when I'm not. [00:55:39] Speaker A: Yep. All right. Codex has one more question, and it's real fast and easy, so we're just going to get through it. This one was actually chronologically not next, but I just wanted to include it, which is. Hey, wards might be a little simple, but does blue side always pick first? I was listening to a story when the pantheon rework went through. There was 100% pick ban rate for it in pro scene because red side would always pick second somehow. Is it not random? Correct. It is not random. Blue side always picks first. Red side always picks last. [00:56:06] Speaker C: Yep. [00:56:06] Speaker B: In pro, you will either they will have side selection where one team gets to pick blue or red, or it's randomized for the first game of a match. [00:56:15] Speaker A: Yep. Depending on the specific format. Um, like, usually when they do rub double round robins where every team plays each other twice, one team will get two pick sides on their first matchup randomly, which one is a coin flip, literally. And then the other team will get it the next time they meet up, and they get to pick. So you may get two games of cloud nine versus NRG where they're both on the same sides. Because that's what they chose. [00:56:46] Speaker B: Yeah, they both chose. [00:56:47] Speaker C: Also, this is the case if you're playing any sort of draft pick, be it normals or ranked. And as for which one is more valuable, it kind of depends on the meta. Sometimes there's a power pick that you want to first pick, and sometimes there's just heavily volatile matchups that the counter pick is incredibly valuable. [00:57:05] Speaker D: So it's actually slightly, it kind of. [00:57:07] Speaker C: Flips back and forth. [00:57:08] Speaker D: Sometimes it feels a little counterintuitive where like blue side tends to be stronger when there's less, like s plus tiers because. [00:57:17] Speaker C: Yeah, when they can just pick the one. [00:57:18] Speaker D: Yes. Cause more can get banned out and they can just pick the one. Whereas on red side, when you don't feel like you're forced to ban like, okay, these are like the most ops we have to ban these because you get like two picks right after. You can kind of leave some open to be like, okay, you get this. But then we get these two real strong. Like, really, you can be strong. [00:57:37] Speaker A: These are the three best pick. One, we're getting the other two. Fucker. [00:57:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:57:42] Speaker D: Exactly. [00:57:42] Speaker C: So it's a lot of mind games and it's very meta dependent as to which side is actually stronger. But the only, it is consistent as to which side gets. [00:57:54] Speaker B: I would say the only constant is that red side, because of the nature of. They always have the last pick. They will. They're always guaranteed to be able to take a powder pick in at least one matchup. It's not guaranteed. [00:58:07] Speaker C: No. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't always choose to do that. Or sometimes they take the support last for some reason. [00:58:16] Speaker C: Yeah, there's sometimes that Alistair fucks people up. [00:58:20] Speaker B: There are some valid reasons to take your support last. I. Anyway, it's almost always better used on a top or mid lane because the counter matchups matter so much more in those two lanes. But so red side always has that advantage. Blue side always has the advantage of picking first. There's also the fact that dragon is easier to access for red side and easier to steal for blue side and swapped for baron. It's an interesting meta thing. [00:58:50] Speaker A: And also that varies somewhat depending on which baron you get and which dragon pit it is. If it's mountain Drake, for example, it changes the pit a bit. Yeah. [00:59:03] Speaker C: Okay, one more before we end. [00:59:07] Speaker A: Sure. Let's get one more slushy. Which one do you want? [00:59:10] Speaker C: Uh, let's just go with the next one in the dock. [00:59:12] Speaker A: All right. This one comes from Favicon. Favicon. I'm not sure. Let us know how to pronounce your name either way. [00:59:20] Speaker C: I don't care how to pronounce their name because I'm obligated to hate them. [00:59:25] Speaker B: I was gonna ask you how you felt about the English. Um. [00:59:29] Speaker A: All right. So Favicon writes, hi wards. Greetings from York, England. I love the show and hope you're all well. [00:59:34] Speaker C: I'm obligated to hate them. [00:59:36] Speaker A: You regularly chastise your audience for our collective idleness and not providing enough questions. You're quite right, of course. But I wonder whether providing a topic or two in advance each week might help people think of questions to ask. To that end, what do you think about adding a regular champion? A to z segment on the show, a weekly deep dive into one champion to help listeners understand how to deal with them in games. You can explain abilities, combos, trading patterns, how to deal with them at each stage of the game, and any particularly good or bad matchups and synergies. Perhaps you could find someone in your discord who struggles with or against each week's champion and bring them back on the show as a guest for the segment. Or see if Chris Cross would like to come back regularly and have you explain champions. Just luck with your respective climbs and falls. May the trolls be ever on the other team. [01:00:15] Speaker B: I actually kind of like the idea of having Chrissy get. [01:00:18] Speaker C: I do, too. Hang on, I'm messaging Chrissy. [01:00:22] Speaker B: So I have actually considered doing something like this where we go through all the champions and honestly, there's too many fucking champions. [01:00:31] Speaker A: Yep. It would take us even if we did this literally every week. That is over three years of podcasts before we would get through the whole roster. [01:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:40] Speaker A: That's the biggest barrier to something. [01:00:42] Speaker D: It sounds like banger Patreon content. [01:00:46] Speaker C: True. [01:00:46] Speaker A: Yes. [01:00:47] Speaker C: And, hey, there is a specific champion you want us to cover? [01:00:51] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. I know we've done. I know we've done Shaco in the past because someone asked a bunch of questions about Shaco. We talked about Shacob for a lot. [01:01:03] Speaker C: We've also done it on Azir, just because we like. Or, sorry, not Azir, Acel. Because we like talking about Acel. [01:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember there was a caveat. We talked about Shaco because none of us play Shaco. [01:01:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [01:01:16] Speaker A: And spoon, who does play Shaco. In the rundown, discord, was immediately upset with our analysis. [01:01:22] Speaker C: We should have brought him on. I mean, maybe we bring him on for the next one. [01:01:28] Speaker D: And, like, that's the thing. [01:01:29] Speaker A: I'll message him. [01:01:31] Speaker D: That's what they do of, like, if there is a particular champion you struggle against, just put it in as a listener question. We love those questions. Like the simple short one sentence questions that we could just go on for a year about, like, yeah, that's great. [01:01:48] Speaker C: If you want a deep dive in how to kick the shit out of Lux. I have been. I've had my teeth kicked in on her so many times, I can tell you. But, you know, the champion that we need to do a deep dive on every week is Luciantop. [01:02:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. [01:02:06] Speaker B: You don't need a deep dive. You just pick it and you're done. [01:02:09] Speaker A: Deep diving is what Luciantop does. [01:02:11] Speaker B: You don't. [01:02:12] Speaker A: He dives deep, you panic. [01:02:13] Speaker D: That's the only way. [01:02:16] Speaker C: No, no, no. You just let him lose the game to himself, like, vitality. [01:02:22] Speaker A: Oh, dear God. Okay with that. This has been episode 429 of the Forwards podcast. I've been Jack Soman for crush you, for slushy otter, and for free shooter. Have a great night. [01:02:35] Speaker B: Buh bye. [01:02:36] Speaker C: Bye bye. [01:02:41] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards podcast, part of the Trinity Force network. If you'd like to leave questions or feedback for the crew, send us an email at four wardsrinityforcepodcast.com. You can also find us on Twitter at podcast with the number four. [01:02:56] Speaker B: Finally. [01:02:57] Speaker A: You can also find us at four awards dot trinityforcepodcast.com. [01:03:01] Speaker B: If youd like to check out all. [01:03:02] Speaker A: The other great podcasts that are part of the network, head on over to trinityforcenetwork.com. Thanks for listening and well be back next time with more ways to help you move forward in league.