In any game with ranked competition, the player distribution should naturally form a diamond shape. The top-tier and bottom-tier players will inevitably be rare.
You lose when you meet someone better than you, and win when you meet someone worse. There are complex factors like team luck, but generally people find their appropriate rank following that win-loss formula.
Recently, people say the team luck factor has become too strong, making it take longer to find your true rank. There are even suspicions that the League of Champions developers intentionally created a matchmaking adjustment system to increase playtime by degrading match quality. But fundamentally, that's how it works.
So what this means is that as you climb higher toward the top, you start encountering more and more familiar faces in your matches.
[Team] ChallengerAscentInProgress: I'll type out everything from map reading to jungle pathing in chat...
[Team] ChallengerAscentInProgress: Please help me out, brothers
That player was one of those familiar faces. Someone I'd started meeting surprisingly often since the beginning of Master tier. And now we've met again here.
I felt somewhat nostalgic. It seemed like just yesterday we were bickering about cheats and whatnot in Master tier. Now both of us were climbing, approaching Challenger tier.
- BeltRipper: Haha, there's ChallengerAscent again
- SpellShield: But isn't he being too honest? Lol his inner troll is about to surge up...
- MajorFreshman: Those guys probably won't troll because they care about their points, right?
- QueenLexia: Sometimes when someone on your death note talks like that, people subtly troll them and push them to their deaths to prevent them from climbing lol
- Dedica: Judging by his chat, he doesn't seem hateful, but he does seem like someone who'd have many enemies lol
And there were our viewers, expressing mild concern for ChallengerAscentInProgress. As they said, this kind of situation happens frequently when playing games where tier colors change. Especially in what people commonly call promotion matches.
I personally tend to quietly do image training when starting a game. But I've heard many players search their teammates' match histories and check their tiers.
Some do it out of pure curiosity. Others, like ChallengerAscentInProgress, search everyone's match history to identify carry positions on their team to support, or to find weaknesses in the enemy team to exploit mercilessly.
Conversely, some players try their hardest when the enemy team has someone in their promotion match, or intentionally throw the game when that person is on their own team.
That's what the viewers were worried about. After hearing ChallengerAscentInProgress's words, those dormant desires might start stirring in the other players.
[Team] HiddenTroll: Haha
[Team] ChallengerAscentInProgress: Why are you laughing nervously, brother?
[Team] HiddenTroll: ? I'm just laughing because I want us to do well. Are you picking a fight? Should I throw?
[Team] ChallengerAscentInProgress: I'm sorry, brother. I'll gank mid diligently
[Team] HiddenTroll: Good. Do 3 camps, hit mid, finish the bottom camp, then come mid again
[Team] HiddenTroll: I can be generous if you take kills, but I won't forgive you if you don't support mid
[Team] ChallengerAscentInProgress: Thank you, brother
[Team] EnlistingAug12: That username makes your laughter terrifying lol
It might seem a bit scary in some ways. But in the harsh world of League of Champions chat, where messages about killing mothers and violating fathers run rampant, jokes of this caliber were merely meant to be humorous. So I just needed to ignore it and focus on my own gameplay.
Since Jackson was banned, I decided to pick Torbeir first, a champion that structurally has difficulty facing Jackson. The enemy top laner countered with Camilla.
She has a useful long-range movement skill with good hit detection for engaging and retreating. She can also recover health and has a passive that generates a shield during combat. She's even a versatile character with a skill that traps someone in an area, dealing fixed damage plus damage proportional to maximum health.
Her character is an elite spy from the start, with stats befitting a character who weaponized her entire body with magical engineering devices. Thanks to this, she's been cursed at countless times since her release.
But no matter how much she weaponizes her body, a human is still human.
And this side has a bear. And bears tear humans apart. No matter how overpowered a skill set might be, melee champions fundamentally have weight classes.
Unless you have a skill set that allows you to one-sidedly beat down opponents, when skills are exchanged in head-on collisions, the lighter weight class always loses in damage trades. And Torbeir, true to being a bear, is a champion that can devour Camilla.
Of course, since they picked Camilla after seeing Torbeir, they must have some strategy to deal with him.
- Dedica: Noel, why are you playing a tank for once? Don't you usually play assassins?
- BeltRipper: These days Torbeir isn't a tank, he's a damage dealer
- TCR: Sometimes people go tank when things go wrong... but going damage-tank is pretty good for carrying these days
"Ah, as the others said. I'm not planning to go tank. Of course, as a melee champion, he can tank to some extent, but I didn't even take tank runes."
During the brief, meaningless exploration phase before minions spawned, I briefly communicated with viewers. I made my bear face the nimble cyborg, and calmly delivered the finishing blow to the minions.
Knowing she'd lose if she stood still and fought at level 1, Camilla kept her distance from Torbeir. She probably took her slightly longer-range harass skill to annoyingly chip away at my health.
At level 1, you can only choose one of three basic skills. I moved backward appropriately, then immediately learned Storm Summoning and called down lightning, predicting Camilla's movement direction.
[The storm is coming!]
Torbeir raises his hand and chants a spell. Why a bear can call lightning? I don't know. But hey, it's a fantasy world, so lightning bears can exist.
Naturally, seeing that motion, Camilla predicted where the lightning would strike and backed away. But I had anticipated that when I called down the lightning. It might be annoying for her, but the lightning, which hurts quite a bit in the early game, hit Camilla.
Since I chose to damage Camilla instead of killing minions, Camilla, though annoyed, quickly attacked our minions to gain the initiative. She seemed to be planning to kill more minions first and reach level 2.
As you level up, you can use more skills, and the champion's basic stats increase—health, attack power, attack speed, and so on. She seemed to be planning to gain the advantage and continue to lead the fight favorably.
But I had anticipated that as well. I'll concede the early level 2. Then she'll want to fight. Having reached level 2 first, she'll try to gain an advantage in health percentage through damage exchanges.
As I predicted, just as I tried to collect a minion, she reached level 2. Camilla advanced, sweeping a fan-shaped area in front of her with her leg. I deliberately gave up distance and allowed myself to be hit, becoming slowed. Camilla approached me with menacingly glowing red eyes.
She seems to have immediately taken a skill that enhances basic attacks at level 2. Since most powerful skills have visible animations, viewers expressed concern.
- SilverPanthea: Ah... he's going to lose Flash
- Feast: He might lose some health, but I don't think it's enough for a kill
- Dedica: If he keeps taking hits like that, it could become a kill opportunity
- QueenLexia: Wasn't that first thundercloud used too much as a harass skill? Should've used it to kill minions, grabbed level 2 first, and taken the initiative smoothly
But even if she reached level 2 first, Camilla is still human. And no matter if I'm level 1, a bear is still a bear.
Pretending to be upset about just taking hits, I returned basic attacks while retreating, matching Camilla's attacks.
But even if we're exchanging basic attacks equally, her side has basic attacks enhanced by her Q skill. My side just has a bear's paw swipes. Even though Camilla started this skirmish with slightly reduced health from the lightning, Torbeir's health was depleting faster. Especially since I took damage traits instead of tank traits. Naturally, viewers were getting anxious.
- BeltRipper: Huh, if he had just backed away, he would've only taken one hit
- QueenLexia: If he had just placed E on the ground and backed off, he might have lost some CS but wouldn't have lost the damage trade... Camilla would've been slowed and couldn't follow
- Gafes: Noel is only good with assassins... with tanks like this, he'll break if he plays like he does with assassins...
- Sistato: Maybe because he's been crushing everyone on his way up... seems like he's underestimating his opponent
But even this damage exchange was within my calculations. Now that the thundercloud cooldown had returned, I called lightning to our battle position and continued fighting with Camilla. Since Torbeir's health had decreased significantly, Camilla continued fighting, determined to kill me.
At that moment, lightning struck our battle position. Camilla's health dropped sharply, and Torbeir received a shield from the power of lightning.
A shield is also temporary health. So momentarily, our health percentages were reversed.
Additionally, Camilla's skill cooldown at level 1 is quite long, while Torbeir's passive makes his attack speed increase with each basic attack, adding lightning damage after 5 stacks. Naturally, the longer we fight, the more my DPS becomes superior.
Thanks to this, the arrogant Camilla, who brought Teleport and Ignite spells, had no means of escape and had to continue fighting me reluctantly.
[Noel has slain Shatterer and achieved first blood!]
[DragonGateYasuoMaster has slain HiddenTroll.]
[ChallengerAscentInProgress has slain DragonGateYasuoMaster.]
[ChallengerAscentInProgress has slain Vlask and achieved a double kill!]
[Team] HiddenTroll: Nice
Just as I managed to kill Camilla on my side, news of victory in a 2v2 skirmish in mid lane rang out. I muttered contentedly on my victorious battlefield.
"Bears tear humans apart."
A good start.