kind of wish the current tourney was played on the preseason patch.  Finding things pretty boring.  Really excited to see what pro teams do with it.  

One thing to consider is that Red Trinket doesn't counter Vayne anymore.  I think?

So you won't ever be able to not have a slot open for pinks in some games.  Pink ward, boots, SS, support GP item leaves two slots open for building your aura items.  That should be enough most games but combining the SS and GP item might be nice sometimes.  Even in games that don't last an hour.

So, what I saw on PBE (not sure if this is the way it works on live), you could use the upgraded red trinket to see the location of stealthed champs, but your could not attack them during the stealth.  So, it would still have some value in determining where to attack when the stealth ended, but would not directly counter them like a pink or the old upgraded red trinket would.  

As far as I was aware there is no current interaction with either red trinket on live against stealthed units. In addition, IMO, Vayne really isn't a PITA to deal with anymore because of the substantial buffs that some of the ADCs received (because hold your own 1v1ing against Vayne when she hits 6 rather than having her mow you down). In addition, you can always pick TF against stealth heavy champions, e.g. Rengar, Kha, Vayne, Twitch, Shaco etc.. And if you have good perception it's not too hard to scout people out with Lee Sin Q / E.

Patch notes out:

http://eune.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-523-notes

SNOW
DAY
BARD

Well I won't be on at all for pretty much another week. Have a date tonight and then traveling for the holiday. See you guys in December :/

Taking cow out on a date tonight.  Wish me luck.

See you in Dec and have a good Thanksgiving!

New champ is out, patch is out, and poppy rework with details announced.

I like that Riot's balance team just gets drunk sometimes and nerfs random champions.  So they are deciding that they need to nerf Brand, Hecarim, Anivia, and Swain next patch.  Some of them with big time nerfs that will result in substantial winrate drops.

Really?  Was anybody banning Swain?  I get that some of those champions had high winrates on players with lots of experience on them, but thats a sign of a decent champion that nobody knows how to play against because its unpopular, not something with massive inherent strengths.  I mean, how many people are really practice in playing against Swain right now?

If you nerf unpopular champions into the ground, that means that like half the roster never gets played because they were never popular in the first place AND they suck.

Should just nerf the Deathfire Grasp mastery \: A lot simpler than nerfing everyone who uses the mastery "too well". Plus, didn't they just nerf it? Or are nerfing it?

i'll freely admit that Anivia has been in a favorable meta for a few months now (good against Juggernauts, TP midlane has always been decent on her, most recently: Deathfire Grasp OP), and planned tweaks that will make the games a little slower will benefit her as well. She's clearly not weak if she's being played occasionally at Worlds

That said, i would rather see reactionary nerfs to the single-thing that is causing these mages to be crazy, rather than wholesale nerfs to the entire class of mages that abuses it.

It's possible that it is a "small" preclude to an Anivia kit-tweak: If they sped up her E projectile speed while nerfing QR durations, that would make her equally/slightly-more effective in short-medium fights, but getting hit by max-range Q won't give her enough time to get a double-damage E, reducing her 1v1 catch potential (which is already really high mid/late-game with wall). 

Some info on the crafting system in a roundabout way..

http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/24/9793694/league-of-legends-crafting-loot-system-toxic-players-hextech-2016-update

All DOT champs will be horribly broken so long as the mastery stays at all useful on non DOT champs, since they decided to make the per second application just as strong on them.

One thing I'm annoyed about with masteries is that they aren't making any changes to some of the shite ones.  

One that stands out to me the most just bothers me because its so god awful clunky.

Strength of ages - "Large monsters and siege minions that you or nearby allies kill grant you 20 and 10 permanent Health respectively (300 max). After reaching the max bonus further siege minion kills restore 100 Health."

Maybe its an ocd thing, but this drives me a little nuts.  So its a mastery that is OK for tanky junglers, but they get pretty much nothing out of the siege minion kills get you 100 health (unless you are someone getting those... as the tanky junglers typically do during ganks or mid/late...).  But then its also kind of crap on top laners as by the time you'd be able to max it out primarily on siege minions for the health stack, you really don't get much benefit from the 100 hp heal. 

Anyway, what gets me is that the second component (100 health heal) is straight up garbage as you very, very likely can't use it on any champ that would want to take the mastery over something else.  So, on the jungle, that is completely useless (unless you get the team to let you last hit creeps for the health... which they won't unless they know its like a 1k HP heal... which it isn't.  On top, it could be nice on a split pusher, but again... it takes a LONG time to get stacked on siege minions.  

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww that brand nerf. He already has really bad mana issues. Looks like I will be rushing rod of ages and delaying the rest of my build but it might just be a knee jerk reaction on my part. W is so important for pretty much everything brand does though.

screwing around - i have a 6,719 hp sej atm at lv 17