Level at the beginning of day 28: 23

At the end of last week, I purchased Tristana because I was looking for a stronger ADC, and she was the strongest in my price range according to the internet. I feel pretty ambivalent towards her but I really like that some of her abilities work on turrets. I then proceeded to not play her at all, but I just thought I should let you know.

A bunch of champions I have already played were on this week’s free rotation, but that turned out to be okay because the remaining ones were ones I’ve been wanting to try for a while, and I only had one day and a bit this week, so there was a lot to do. Happily, I did get to all of them. Here are my thoughts, in list format because I’m lazy.

Kalista – I played her once when I first started, and I hated her. However, I decided to give her another try for the sake of fairness. I didn’t understand much about LOL in general at that time, so I think I owe her another chance. After all, I hated Janna initially and now I’ve come to like her. I still don’t think she would ever be my favourite, but I did figure out how she works – she’s just the kind of champion who requires a lot of practice, and because I’m not actually interested in her (even if I could afford her), it seems unlikely I would take the time to do that when there are dozens and dozens of others I’d rather play.

Sona – is incredible. Her abilities contain a little bit of everything and I like that. She’s ridiculously easy, like almost unfairly easy considering that only one of her abilities requires you to aim at all and even that has a really wide range, but I kind of don’t care. She’s just so fun. And also she is so colourful and cute and I want all her skins. (That sounds really creepy.)

Shyvana – she can turn into a fucking dragon enough said. Seems like she would be a fantastic jungler and I know that’s what she’s meant for – I played her in a lane though because I have yet to work up the courage to jungle for real.

Rek’Sai – she’s not really my “thing” but her burrowing ability is really interesting. Most of my game with her was spent trying to figure out what its limitations were. I wasn’t sure if you would be protected from turret or champion damage while burrowed (you’re not, which is disappointing but also makes sense). I also never used her ultimate. In the end I did really badly with her but she still seems fun, would play again.

Teemo – for some reason people seem to have a lot of strong feelings about him? I don’t really know why. In my opinion there is nothing particularly threatening or annoying about him. My overall feeling was “meh”. Sidenote though, my boyfriend got my future-nephew-in-law (is that a thing?) a Teemo hat for Christmas (he’s a year old, it was adorable). Also his “romance” with Tristana  in his bio – hilarious

Aurelion Sol – so cool. I wonder if he and Soraka are friends? I wonder if he’s like Soraka’s boss or something – wait a second, is he the reason why Soraka got kicked out of the stars? Because if so, rude. I thought he would be really difficult to play because that’s what I’ve heard but I actually picked him up rather quickly, I felt. I think his orbit of stars is really cool – at first I thought they were just for show but all the kills I got in that game were from the stars, so I’m glad they’re not. Since his W is my favourite and it requires so much mana I think in the future I would buy more mana-related items for him…but considering he is so new, ‘the future’ is probably pretty far away.

Quinn – I like birds! The end. Just kidding – I really liked her, especially her E ability. I don’t like a lot of dash attack abilities because once you get there you’re so vulnerable – hers bounces her back almost to where she started. Her ultimate took me a while to figure out and I still think there’s a lot more to learn about her but unlike Kalista, I like her enough to be willing to work on it.

Aside from trying out the new champions, I played a few PvP games as support and top, as I’ve been doing.

I got another A+ with Soraka, which was awesome but also led to something really confusing. I played another game after that and did better, (or at least the same depending on how different accomplishments are weighed) but only got a B+. My numbers the first game were 0-2-9, and my numbers the second game were 1-2-8. My CS was about the same in both, and I got 1k more gold in the second game. I’m thinking that it’s either because the enemy team surrendered in the second game, or because I last-hit 3 turrets in the first game but didn’t get any in the second.

I had a minor unpleasant experience in a game with Janna – our team as a whole was not doing well, though I didn’t see any particular reason for this. About halfway through the game, my lane partner said something like, “you have to freaking support if you’re going to be useful at all” and so I said I was just trying my best. Which I was….Janna only has one ability (aside from her ultimate, which obviously is not always available) that protects others and aside from a few misclicks (which I thought were obvious), I was using her shield as best as I could.

I’m finding that I either love or hate support…and it all depends on how your teammates treat you. If they’re appreciative, it’s the best role ever; if they just treat you like a scapegoat for anything that goes wrong, it’s the worst.

There is such a difference between that type of person and the type of person that is supportive – that means that they cheer you on when you do well, and if you’re not doing well, they say something that actually helps you improve, if they can.

When I played as Kalista, instead of getting frustrated and snapping at me, my lane partner just said, “first time Kalista?” and when I said yes, they said something like, “don’t worry, she can be tricky at first, you just have to practice” and I really appreciated that.

Obviously that wasn’t a helpful tip I could use in the moment but it at least made me feel better (they also added me as a friend after, which I thought was especially nice – it sent the message that you don’t have to be a great player to be worth having around). It was empathetic. If my lane partner in my game with Janna had given me concrete suggestions on how to play her better, I would have taken that into account and appreciated it, but given that they were silent after I said I was trying my best, my guess is they just wanted to bitch.

I also tried Annie, who I puchased a while back. I’m not really a fan of her because I find her little girl voice irritating and I didn’t think she was that fun to play. However, she was pretty easy, and Tibbers is really good for taking down turrets quickly.

At this point I’ve purchased all of the champions 1350 IP and under that I think are worth buying at this time (for me anyway), so I guess now I’m going to have to start saving…which I’m so bad at (in real life and in LOL). This is going to take FOREVER.

Once I have 3150 IP, my first order of business might be Anivia (as much as I want Sona…) because I could use a stronger mid-lane champion and none of the mid-laners in my current price range appeal to me. I’ve been wanting to try Anivia for a long time and I know I’ll like her, because she’s a bird and, as we’ve already learned, I like birds.

But then again, this game changes so quickly that by the time I get there the entire landscape could be different.

Level at the end of day 28: 24

Games played: 14

Hours: 7.5

Champions played: Aurelion Sol, Kalista, Quinn, Rek’Sai, Shyvana, Sona, Teemo, Janna, Soraka, Kayle, Annie

Death snack of the day: Swedish Berries and Crispy M&Ms

P.S. I want stickers of all of the League Cats. I don’t know where I would put them…but I would find places.