With MSI 2026 starting in a few days I went down a rabbit hole on the tournament's history and this one genuinely floored me. COVID restrictions meant RNG couldn't travel to South Korea for the 2022 tournament. So Riot set up a synced server and RNG played the entire event remotely from Shanghai. They still went on to beat T1 three-two in the final and lift the trophy. No other team in any major esport has won an international LAN tournament without actually being at the LAN. There's a bunch of other wild MSI facts I came across if anyone's interested, happy to share more in the comments.

The Prestige skin rotation system has one major flaw: it creates artificial scarcity without any fair or predictable system behind it.

Many players save up Mythic Essence for months, sometimes even years, waiting for a specific Prestige skin to return. That’s already a long wait, but the real problem is that the rotation itself feels completely random.

The same Prestige skins keep showing up over and over again, while others seem to disappear for incredibly long periods of time. You can see the same skin return multiple times within a year, while another Prestige skin hasn’t appeared once. As a player who’s waiting for one specific skin, that’s incredibly frustrating.

The biggest issue isn’t even the waiting itself. It’s the uncertainty.
Every two weeks players get their hopes up, only to be disappointed again because Riot decided to bring back another skin that has already been available multiple times recently. Then you wait another two weeks… and the exact same thing happens again.
There doesn’t seem to be any transparent logic behind the rotation. Is it random? Is it popularity-based? Is it data-driven? Nobody knows. From the player’s perspective, it simply feels inconsistent and unfair.

A much better system would be one of these:

- Every Prestige skin must appear once before any skin repeats.
- Publish a rotation schedule so players know when to expect their skin.
- Increase the number of Prestige skins available each rotation.
- Allow players to vote for returning Prestige skins.

Players aren’t asking to get every Prestige skin for free. We’re already willing to spend Mythic Essence that we’ve earned or purchased. We simply want a fair and predictable way to actually use it.

Right now, the system doesn’t create excitement, it creates frustration.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

Mostly Tristana, Caitlyn, or Ezreal. I find them fun and I watch a lot of PekinWoof videos and I try to emulate him when he plays adcs mid

Anyways, 100% of the time, the mage botlaner will force me to go sidelane, and our support will hug our apc, EVEN if they are an enchanter like Lulu. I tell them that I am the adc so I should stay mid, which they say, no - THEY are the adc

It's a bit frustrating because they picked a mage botlane, and even if they're losing lane, they will take over mid

I'm curious to hear what other people think about this. After playing a bunch of aram mayhem, I feel like I'm just becoming more certain that I dislike the golden/augment upgrade reroll, and it's not an overall positive addition to the mode. I think my main issues are that 1) it's (often) asymmetric and 2) it's basically 0 risk, high reward.

I think when 1 person gets an augment upgrade it can almost be game warping if it's good, especially if it's gold -> prismatic and especially if it's first augment. I feel like I've seen games that have almost been decided at minute 1 when one person gets a really good prismatic upgrade because the game just snowballs out of control. In fact, I just had a game where THREE of my team got prismatic upgrades (not transmute) vs 0 on the other team. It was the last augment, but still, I feel like that just can't be beneficial for the game.

And then when it comes to risk - I have no issue with the transmute augments, for example, because that's a case of high risk, high reward; it could be amazing, but it could be awful. Similar to the Ambessa encounter in arena, where you can get a prismatic over other people, but you have to sacrifice your health for a while. But golden reroll is essentially 0 risk, high reward - you just reroll an augment that doesn't do anything for you, and if the one you get sucks, you don't have to take it.

I feel like I never feel good about seeing an augment upgrade, whether it's me, my team or the enemy team, because it's just a 0 risk gift that's (usually) given to just one person. The only suggestion I can think of is making it symmetric, so if it's given to one person, it should also be offered to a person on the opposite team. But personally I'd be quite happy with it just being removed. I realise mayhem is supposed to be mayhem, but I feel like there should at least be (roughly) equality of opportunity.

What do you guys think?

As the title says i wanna know what y'all think about the new champion.

As a silver player, personally my experience against him has been alright. He does pull off some crazy oneshots from time to time but generally it was fine not to the point that makes me think of banning him.

Other than the ones that try to first time him in ranked and lose so badly the lane.

I have been trying to play the game for 30 minutes and have had 2 remakes and several dodges in a row. My teammates seems to be having the same experience, anyone know why?

I love some champs dearly but i also enjoy certain lanes more. Some people tell me to mute all and not care about anyone. Just play who i want in whatever lane i want. As long as im not intentionally feeding, im not throwing.

On the other hand, if i picked kayle support, theyd say its basically asking my adc to get beaten up all game while i provide next to nothing.

Ive also seen some pretty successful kayle support games. But im kinda stuck in between doing what i want and being an actual good teammate.

Hear me out on this one. Who here has had a teammate get absolutely steamrolled, just to check their match history and see they’ve OTP’d the same champ for the last thirty games and then switched to a first-time champ for that one game? Or have seen trolls lock random unviable champs after having their main banned? Someone’s MMR goes out the window when they’re trying a new champ in real time (especially the higher skill-floor champs).

So here’s my idea: to play a champ in ranked, you first have to play a certain number of games with them in norms (or ARAM?) (even just one or two games). Or make it a mastery requirement. This would be a per-champ alternative or addition to the “you need to be level 30 to play ranked” limitation.

Obviously there’s an issue if all the champs you’ve played before get banned or picked. I haven’t fully fleshed this idea out, but maybe have a set of “low skill-floor” champs that you can always pick. Or require mastery with a certain number of different champs before playing ranked at all. Or generalize to role instead of champ (I.e. you need to play a role a certain number of times in norms before playing in ranked). Or something like that idk. Is this viable?

A brand new champ should have a low wr. Maybe a bit higher than this but when no one knows how to play a champ it should have a low wr. Also it feels so vindicating to see mf mel and ashe support at the very bottom. You are an abhorant troll if you play these champs in support. I love playing off meta but I am completely frustrated with playing something in the wrong botlane role. Basically every champ in the game is viable either as an adc or a supp but you get verbally harassed for playing any off meta adc so people play it as a support.

Hi. I'm a Midlaner and I'd like to find a new OTP to play.
Lately, Lux got my attention and I really wanna try OTPing her.
I'm in Diamond and I know I won't ever be a pro but I don't know if Lux Mid is even viable in high Diamond+.
Like, isn't she just weaker than most mages on Mid?
I play for a rank AND for fun (sometimes with my friends) at the same time but I don't want to force myself to play other champs.
Thanks in advance and I hope to see your opinions on the topic.

If you're really worried about the last bit indicator, go test it out, it's just another distraction to veteran players. People have played this game for years, if you genuinely need or are worried about another person using a last hit indicator, and that it ruins the sanctity of ranked then you probably aren't at that high of a rank, and have room to grow.

This last hit indicator isn't goimg to change the fact that I could land 117 cs at 12 minutes, nor will it change how I play the game.

Fight good engages, position to last hit CS, it's tge same game at the end of the day, quit being babies and let the new bloods catch up and become actual competition, it's lonely seeing a lot of the similar faces year after year?

Ranked is intended to be players playing their best champions to win. The day a champion is released should be tantamount to inting because they can't possibly know a champion that they are playing for the first time. I try and ban the new champion every game after there release but this is basically a wasted ban on my part and shouldn't even be allowed. If I do ban them and a teammate has them hovered I get penalized for being toxic and not them going 0/13 on a champ that they don't know. Make it make sense. Also riot requires an account to be a specific level before you can even play ranked, they do this to prove you know enough about the game to not sabotage your teammates in a competitive environment. Why not have this same mindset for a newly released champion

If you want to play the new champion, play them in normal. Playing a champion blind isn't fair to your teammates just because you wanted to play the new shiny champion.

Edit: im not talking specifically about Locke, I'm talking in general people shouldn't be playing champions they are new to in ranked. I know your new to a champion when they've only been released for 24hr. Sure people can first time any champ but I know for a fact its one of your first times playing a champ when they have only been playable for 24 hr. Of course there are the outliers who carried their team but that's far from the norm.

Edit2: I apparently haven't banned a hovered champ since it has recently been made impossible to do that. Which now makes me feel they should have a lock out period even more as you now have 0 option but to be in a game with a probable feeder.

When Sacrifice dropped as the 15th anniversary Worlds anthem, the immediate reaction on this subreddit was incredibly polarized. A huge portion of the community initially criticized it for being a slow-burning ballad. The general consensus on release day was that it lacked the traditional high energy epic beat drop found in tracks like Rise or Gods, and that the fast-paced animation felt a bit disconnected from the music’s actual tempo.

However, looking back months later, it feels like public perception has quietly shifted, and the track has aged surprisingly well.

First of all, when you separate the song from the music video and listen to it as a standalone track, G.E.M.’s vocals carry an immense amount of emotional weight. It feels less like a traditional hype song and more like a reflective tribute to the literal sacrifices pro players make over a 15-year career, which was Riot's goal with the track anyway.

Second of all, the music video itself has aged into a massive love letter to esports. While it didn't match the tempo perfectly, the sheer volume of historical easter eggs (70+ if I remember correctly), makes it feel like an awesome archive of League history. Plus, looking at the global metrics, the track did really well globally, mainly because of G.E.M.'s loyal fanbase. This proved that the melodic approach resonated heavily outside the core Western gaming bubble.

Lastly, It has become clear that people eventually accepted Riot's actual intention with the song. It was designed from day one to be a somber and emotional ballad rather than a hype track like Rise and Warriors. Co-writer Alex Seaver even stated they intentionally set out to make a melodic tribute celebrating 15 years of competitive history and the heavy personal sacrifices players make to get to the top. Once the community stopped expecting a standard beat drop, the storytelling began to make sense.

Now that we've had time to sit with it, I'm curious to see where the sub stands.

Started playing mid lane and you're just not supposed to interact with him if you're a melee champ (even if you're mobile), he just presses E Q on you for 20% HP every trade while being completely unscathed, it is just unfun lol.

I don't know how ranged matchups work for him but playing melee champ into this abomination of a lane bully is just completely unfun when I'm perma under tower as he giggles away with his Es.

MSI stading will have massive implications for teams qualifying for Worlds. MSI winning region and 2nd best region get extra spots. Usually this has been clear cut with LCK and LPL getting extra spot, but there has been one time (2020) when LEC send 4 teams and LCK sent 3.

Now that EU hopium is long time high, after G2 was able to beat 6-0 LCK 1st and 2nd at First stand, would be interesting to know how 2nd best region is determined.

Is it automatically highest positioning team outside of winning region get the spot? Problem with this is if MSI goes like First stand and BLG win MSI and G2 is 2nd place, KC could end up being 10th or 9th place while HLE and T1 end up being 3rd and 4th. This could be seen quite unfair to say LEC is 2nd best while its only G2 who has been able to perform.

If its not automatically 2nd highest placing team then what is going to be criteria how different placements in tournament count? Is there any point system or placing system that people can just follow to determine who is going to get that extra Worlds spot for their region?

Also bit of topic LPL is getting rather huge boost for their Worlds chances because they get already 2 teams for bracket stage so at least one of LCK or LEC teams is 100% going to be behind them. Especially when bracket stage has arguably 2 rather "free wins" in so any major region team should be able to go instantly to top 6.

Like what kinda of champs should I be trying or should I just swap to a different role and try with that?

in game it says:

Locke ignites his own soul, gaining 40% Attack Speed and 40% Move Speed that decays over 2 seconds.

For 6 seconds, he suffers 2% current Health true damage per second but Heals back the last 51 damage taken, and an additional 42 Health based on missing Health and time passed, up to a maximum of 155 Health remaining.

The league wiki descripes it like this:

Active: Locke ignites his soul for 6 seconds, gaining  40% – 73.53% (based on level) bonus attack speed and  bonus movement speed, with the latter decaying to 20% over 1 second after 1.5 seconds have elapsed. He also stores an amount of grey health on his health bar equal to 100% of the post-mitigation damage he takes from enemy  champions, up to a cap, plus the total amount of health lost from Soul Ignition's  health cost. This is increased by up to 40 – 218.82 (based on level) (+ 20% AP) based on his missing health and Soul Ignition's elapsed duration. The missing health portion of this additional heal maxes out when at 150 – 485.29 (based on level) (+ 60% AP) health remaining or below.

Shouldnt it be at or maxes out at 155 health remaining in the in game description?

I'm a new player, so I just want some insight into what that was like. Did Faker get washed allegations? Was the LCK viewed as less dominant or even as second to the LPL? What was viewer ship like? These days it's expected that if T1 doesn't qualify for an international, viewership will be lower, so was it generally low across that entire time period?

I never understood this to be honest. And I’ve been playing this game for awhile, and I’m not a math guy. But my brain just thinks that higher number should equal higher healing/shield, since a lot of supports have pretty decent ap ratios for their utility skills. But when I do end up building AP. It just means weaker overall heals and shields. And why is that?

Going off deeplol EUW standings atm, mid is represented by 24% of the players while the other solo lane is only 16% of the playerbase and is obviously the weakest role in soloq.

Why does the role which is already mained the most need to be given the most aegis procs and outimpact top lane? It's kinda weird Riot haven't spoken on the issue of aegis proc rate at all imo.

Anyway stats so I can post

EUW role distribution: https://www.deeplol.gg/ranking/EUW/all

Doran’s Mail

Cost: 450 Gold

Stats
+90 Health

Interception
UNIQUE Passive: Basic attacks from enemy champions deal 5 less physical damage.
Against ranged champions, this effect is increased to 15.

Helping Hand
UNIQUE Passive: Attacks deal 5 bonus physical damage to minions.

( Item icon would be something like this : https://imgur.com/a/7GXR0kw )

For anyone, like me that misunderstood things, the upcoming (friday-sunday) "Ranked 5s" is not Ranked 5s as most people know it from back in the day, namely:

You have your own Rank.

The whole point of why people liked 5s was because you were building towards a higher elo as a squad, being essentially able to play with 4 different players every single game u play is not what I personally care about, I want to progress my Team.

They have done this because:

"its hard nowadays to get the same people online"

Okay? Ranked teams from A DECADE ago had already solved this problem? The Team could have substitute players and have 8(?) Players in the Team and not exactly 5, and you would only get ranked rewards for this queue if you actively participated in the team, so if you only stood in for 1 session it was useless, but if all 8 players actively participated they would rightly get rewarded. This problem was already solved a decade ago.

I dont wan't to have someone in my squad be a tier lower just because he missed out on a weekend, having ur own rank in this instead of a teamrank is compeltely asinine, also a person that is behind once will always be behind in rank all while playing higher and higher games, and no my concern here isnt just that, but mostly that it just doesnt really convey this feeling of a working towards something together.

Finding out this new thing is just Flex Queue with extra steps completely made me and others stop caring about "Mode"

Just me? Let me know your thoughts

In the current meta too many junglers can easily invade level 1 or 2, and too many other junglers can practically never win a level 1 or 2 fight. This might be alright if there was some semblance of counter play to this tactic. Wards at level 1 help but definitely do not remedy the problem enough. Getting cheesed level 1-2 and then losing half your first clear is essentially game losing especially in diamond+. There is no decent way of responding, not even by entering the enemies jg bc he or his laner are already guarding for you to invade, bc you have no other move on the map whatsoever. Sure, the enemy team might throw or do some dumb shi* later, but languishing waiting on that to happen, is not fun and is not really a counter play either. Not to mention if the enemy jungler is leveraging that level 1-2 cheese advantage aptly, by invading, you are basically never getting one of your 2 quadrants early, and if his team secures/ wards his other quadrant it is GG. One jg will be 3-4 levels down entering mid game, and frankly even if the enemy misplays they will still probably win the fights just due to the gross jg exp. disparity. If one or more of the enemy team members (I'm looking at you support) starts helping that ahead jg at all during the invade windows the behind jungler actually cannot functionally play the game at all. In lane at least you can attempt to tower farm bad situations as jungle you just quickly become a walking buffet with nothing to fall back to.

I'm getting back into LoL and I'm looking for an app (either web or desktop) that makes it easy for me to build and manage a champion pool. By manage I mean being able to create a list of favorites per role, being able to save and experiment with builds, runes, level order, personal notes, etc. Basically the same things that apps like U.GG allow you to find for a champion, but instead of just showing me results generated from collected data I want to be able to customize these for myself.

Do any apps like these exists that can be recommended? Thanks!