Do you like lists???? Well I HOPE SO because I played 11 free champions this week, many of which were completely new to me, and I have thoughts on ALL OF THEM.

So let’s just jump right into it shall we?

Fiora

Oh, Fiora. If you’ve read this whole blog, you will know how much I hate her French accent. Well, I still hate it, but I usually have my laptop’s volume down so low because now another person is in the room that I can barely even hear it!

The first time I played her, many months ago, I felt like she was cool but too complicated for me to use. I still think she’s complicated, but I figured her out well enough this time around. The first time, I was so confused about the vitals thing – I thought you had to literally hit the enemy on a specific point on their body and I was like HOW. Now I understand that you just have to hit them coming from a certain direction and that it’s very clearly indicated for you on the ground.

I had a lot of fun with her and her new skin is amazing so she has moved WAY up my priority list. Tect says it’s possible to play her mid, too, so that’s cool.

Rammus

Ok.

No, I’m just kidding – I mean, ‘okay’ IS kind of what I took away from the experience overall, but I also have other thoughts. One thought is how hilarious it is that Rammus Bots in bot games just spin in place when they try to use one of his abilities sometimes (Q I think?). Tect told me that’s kind of a glitch they just never bothered to fix. Now, I guess that just makes things easier for players, but I actually had a really negative opinion of Rammus because I thought that was what he ACTUALLY does. So I was like, um….he seems kind of useless??

But it turns out that his Q is actually really fun to use! Doing a U-turn while spinning really fast is now one of my favourite things to do. That’s not really, like, useful in the game though, so…I probably should not buy him for that reason. Aside from that though, I like his instant taunt and the fact that his ultimate damages towers. Because of course I do.

Elise 

*shudders* *shudders 8 million more times*

I finally forced myself to play Elise because like, I NEED to understand what she does. Especially if I want to avoid her. Which I very much do. I also did this while tect was out of the house, which was dumb. I was like, “Okay, okay. How bad can she be?? She can’t be THAT gross, right??? Right??” And I also thought that you only turned into a spider very occasionally.

NOPE AND NOPE. It had been a while since I’d seen Elise without a skin and in her original form SHE REALLY IS THAT GROSS. Also, she is basically spider Nidalee so she has to be a spider A LOT. So I kind of wished that I had tect here so that he could make me feel less terrified.

For the majority of the game, I just refused to turn into a spider at all and miraculously, my lane partner didn’t call me out on it (they got honoured, that’s for sure). When I realized the game was going to end soon, I finally worked up the courage and tried out each of her spider abilities a couple times. Her Q and W aren’t bad (aside from the fact that she is a giant fucking spider) but her E KILLS me. Even if she WASN’T a spider that would scare me.

I mean just…what the fuck, Riot??? Am I alone in this? I feel like arachnophobia is relatively common so…why????????????? To make matters worse, I actually really liked her. A lot. IF ONLY SHE WASN’T A SPIDER. My suggestion – make a skin where she is something…else? Maybe a ladybug? Then I could buy her and just only ever use that skin.

Hecarim

Overall, I still like him and I ended up doing okay with him in an ARAM, but I find some aspects of his abilities very difficult to use. 90% of this problem is that I just cannot visually determine what my range for anything except his W is, and I also can’t tell what my range is for my basic attack. It’s something about his attack animation and the fact that he’s holding a long weapon that just throws me off. That said though, I enjoy his abilities and he is a very aesthetically pleasing champion. I feel like that sounds like I’m sexually attracted to him and pretending not to be, but I swear that is not what that means. He’s just like, glowy and stuff. Arcade Hecarim is also possibly my favourite skin in the whole game so I really want to buy him just so that I can have it.

Kassadin

I was really underwhelmed by Kassadin, AKA Octopus Face, the first time I played him. He felt very similar to Syndra to me with his Q and his E. This time around though I didn’t feel that way as much. I definitely still see the similarities but Kassadin has his own identity and I enjoyed playing him!

Initially, I didn’t understand how his W combined with his other strong abilities don’t make him overpowered. After thinking about it some more though, I feel like it just makes it so that you can even use his ult to its fullest potential without having to buy a zillion mana items.

However, my new question is – the combination of the costs/cooldowns/restrictions on his W, E and R seem like a very complicated way of balancing him out. Why didn’t they just do something simpler and give W a mana cost and lower the mana cost of R? Or make his W have a longer cooldown? Or not do the weird 6-spells thing with his E? Basically, why didn’t they just approach the issue the same way they would with literally any other champion? Tect says that it’s because they consider the 6-spells E thing to be essential because he’s meant to be a counter to mages, but I think there are still ways of keeping that and NOT making everything so complicated.

Side note – the amount of ‘she can’t say no when she’s silenced! lolololololol’ Kassadin memes out there is disgusting. Rape/sexual assault is literally never okay to joke about. If you don’t understand that, please try to educate yourself via the internet as to why not.

Wukong

I wasn’t really expecting to like Wukong, and I did not. However, I was expecting to absolutely hate him like I do Shaco, but I don’t feel that way. I just feel like he’s not for me. I felt like his clone ability was kind of troll-y and encouraged unsportsmanlike behaviour but having actually played him now, it’s really not that bad. It just happens to really confuse ME a lot when I play against him because I have poor observational skills. Also, the first thing my lane partner said to me was, “I feel like Wukong would look cooler if he wasn’t wearing a dress.” Thoughts??

Kha’Zix

Man, I did not realize that I had forgotten so much about how Kha’Zix works. Like, I forgot literally everything except for the fact that he alters his abilities with his ultimate. The first time I played him, I thought that was just so cool. And I still feel that way, but now I know that there are also other champions who do that that I like more. He’s still cool though. And I like how he changes colours when he alters his ultimate.

Ziggs 

Bombs are fun. Basic, but fun. I really liked that his W can take down towers with less than 25% health (or something like that) though. Did not know that.

Side note – all the racist Ziggs memes are ALSO really fun! Can people stop being so shitty? Please?

Talon

I liked Talon a lot more than I expected to. I can’t remember why now, though. I felt like he dealt lots of damage while still keeping himself relatively safe and I am ALL about safe. I also like that he has abilities that are useful at both close and far ranges.

Fiddlesticks

I loathed Fiddlesticks before I played him because he is weird and creepy and I hate playing against him, but playing AS him is really fun a long as you don’t, like, look at him. Again, Riot, why the creep?? I would really like to try playing Fiddlesticks as a support, which I’ve been told is a thing that people occasionally do. He has a fear and a silence that both seem pretty reliable so I’m not sure why he WOULDN’T work. Thoughts?

Ornn

I finally got to play Ornn! I really like him – I think his abilties are pretty unique and he’s actually pretty cute. However, I feel like he’s underpowered at the moment and I also think that the second cast of his ultimate is difficult to execute.

Longtime gamers will probably not think anything of this, but you have to do it pretty quickly compared to other abilties that have two casts and that can be hard for people with slower reflexes and/or hands. In addition, the timing of it doesn’t really make sense. You would think that he would redirect the ram when it arrives at its first destination, but if I’m remembering correctly, you have to do it before. It’s not like that’s completely implausible, I just feel like it’s not the first thing that a person would think.

That said though, if they want Ornn to be a champion with a high mastery curve and not someone for new players to play then that makes sense (also his item-forging thing, which would be difficult for new players to take full advantage of because they don’t even know what all the items are). While I of course wish that all champions were new-player-friendly, new players still have plenty of straightforward champions to choose from. I mean, there are 138 of them.

And there you have it, MY THOUGHTS.

In other news, I’m going to stop playing SO many ARAMs for a little while and try to practice in normal draft games for my ranked placements in a couple of weeks. Right now my plans are to focus on Soraka, Sona, Nami, Karma, Leona, Blitzcrank and Maokai for support, and Anivia, Lux and Lissandra for mid.

I would pretty much always choose to play Soraka, Sona, Nami or Karma in a support role but I feel like I should also be able to play a tank support should my team request one. As for mid, Anivia has become my go-to – I’ve gotten a lot worse at playing Lux because I hardly ever do anymore. But I’m still probably better at her than the rest of my mid-lane champions because I’ve had even less practice on them, save for Lissandra. I haven’t had that much practice with Lissandra, but because she was one of my first-played champions back in January, I feel more comfortable with her than I do with some others even though she’s definitely not the easiest. I’d like to add a tanky mid-laner to that list…maybe Diana? But I just feel like that would end poorly for me. What do you guys think?

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on that collection and if you have any particular tips for any of those champions! If you want to see me do my ranked placements, I will be doing most of them on stream during the first two weeks of October. We’ll announce on social media what exact date I’m starting if you want to make sure you catch the first one. Bronze 5, here I come!

Death snack of the week: Cheddar cheese and Breton crackers. Close second – Elk Crossing President’s Choice Ice Cream. It’s like Moose Tracks, except…with elks. Or ‘wapiti’, in French.

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P.S. Anyone get anything awesome in ‘your shop’? I’ve been so sad to hear from some of you that you were disappointed! It makes me feel bad because A) I was one of the players to get two ‘your shop’s because I opened it early on the first day when there was some kind of glitch, and B) Most of my skins were amazing. At least, according to me.

I ended up buying 9 – Reaper Soraka, Celestine Soraka (which I don’t love but once I got Reaper I just wanted to have them all), Sweetheart Sona, Silent Night Sona (again, don’t love those, but I wanted more Sona skins and also, Christmas), Order of the Lotus Karma (which has been at the top of my list for a while now, so thanks, Riot!), Conqueror Karma, Snowday Bard, Challenger Ahri, and Firecracker Jinx. So that was amazing. I spent $100 on RP a little over a month ago and because of this and the other sales, I’ve purchased 16 skins for that with ~400 RP leftover. NOT BAD.

I honestly have no idea why I got skins for Bard, Ahri and Jinx over skins for champions I play way more like Anivia and Nami, but I’m not complaining. The skins I ended up not buying were Bewitching Morgana, Steel Legion Lux and Spellthief Lux.