Black cleaver on lucian is a thing now:  https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/4i5gw8/black_cleaver_on_lucian_why_are_higher_elo_adc/

"Black Cleaver got a huge buff in 6.9

It lost 5 AD (worth 175g) but is now 400g cheaper.

The Armor Penetration on BC works on all armor while Last Whisper/Lord Dominik's only works on bonus armor."

Part of that is moving away from building essence reaver as well.  Going to try this out.  You'll have to adapt mana greedy playstyle spam though.  

MSI has been really interesting. If this doesn't get you excited I don't know what will SKT 2-4 and CLG 4-2. CLG beat SKT last night. 

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IDK man...

hmm... best champs per leagueofgraphs atm

1. malz

2. skar

3.voli

4. amumu

5 ahri

Feeling pretty sub par at league atm.  I've noticed I kind of go through these funks in league for a little bit where I'm just not feeling on.  I think its probably directly related to spending a lot of time on my low elo account.  

Another thing I noticed - so my ping is lower by like 10 ms (down to 22) after swapping ISPs.  For some reason, now I'm getting hooked a lot more often by blitzcranks.  Now, I play a lot of support and at least was pretty good at dodging that crap.  Suddenly I'm not so good at it.  Not really sure what to make of that as I don't believe any hitbox changes were made.  The only variable I can think of would be the ping, but I'd think lower ping would potentially help my reaction time instead of hurt it.  

Toying around with some lucian builds.  Still not really sure. Trying to incorporate BC, but its not really fitting imo.  Also, lucian is the easiest adc to use imo and that's why folks pick him so frequently.  He has a 49.7% win rate globablly.  Nothing op there, but playing him feels good and you are able to reposition really well.  I kind of wish there were other adcs with similar mobility (I think they screwed kali a bit and I never cared much for that).  You've got kindred as well, but its just a utility ult.  

What else... scariest thing I've seen with the new patch - top lane graves with rift herald.  I get straight up MAD if folks aren't contesting that buff.  Absolute nightmare if graves gets it imo and experience.  

PDT's going through some super fun times with his main being banned 100% of the time.  Going to skip out playing with him for a bit/perhaps a very long time.  Think he unfriended me last night, which is probably for the best.  Don't need to be playing with folks I tilt or tilt me - not good for anyone.  

Let's see... I induced maximum karl rage the other night by playing cass support in a ranked in response to my adc picking teemo.  We actually did OK, but it was a dick move... prompted by some shitbox going teemo adc, but a dick move all the same. #5lpforadodge would have been the right response... but I'm reminded of office space and Michael Bolton.  Why should I change my name when he's the one who sucks.  Anywho, I'll doge next time and be a sport.  

last - streaming.  I don't care much about it.  Got all setup, seems like it works good.  Not advertising it and I don't really care if people watch or not.  That said, I keep the chat up so if folks see me streaming and want to interact, I do check that.  Stop by if you like n shoot the shite.  

I enjoy the stream. As I don't always have internet to really play, I like watching buddies. So thanks for the stream, sir. 

He went Teemo because you intentionally banned his first choice ADC when he declared it in pick intent.  So he counter trolled, then you counter counter trolled.  Which I did enjoy, yes.

So, I was reflecting a bit after some games last night and thought I'd share some of my super deep, incredibly meaningful, fantastic insights.  You are welcome, world.  

I'm going to talk a little bit about how some games went down yesterday - 2 games specifically.  Game 1 - loss.  Game 2 - win.

In game 2 - boaz was our jungler and forgot to take smite.  There were 3 of us grouped + 2 Puggers.  We asked boaz to mute those other 2 fellas at the start in case they trolled him (he was already leaning towards tilting after his 1st game).  Those fellas turn out to be nice and don't talk any crap (though they probably would have if things went to poop). Things did not go to poop, though.  Boaz/pacov/thunder all had a blast in this game.  We got thunder a 16 minute quadrakill and controlled every single drake, rift herald, baron (our lucian was a shitter and took RH for himself, but eyyyyyy w/e).  the rh buff is not as valuable unless you are solo and he did go solo a bit.  

Anyway, game 2, depending on your mindset, was an easy recipe for tilt, though.  Jungler f's up, forgets smite, and you are already andicapped.  But I don't think any of us really cared that much about it and just wanted to have some fun.  With my old mindset, this game could have tilted me, I might have gone on broken record loop complaining about boaz forgetting smite and being all pissed and how this guy just wasted my time by being absent minded, etc.  Which would have only succeeded in making one guy feel like shit that really just made a small mistake, make that guy upset having his nose rubbed in it, and I'd be really annoying/distracting to everyone else.  What a win, am i right?  

Game 1 - our mid is a pooper.  Dr karl gets abused by the enemy jungler a bit without help.  boaz gets crushed in top lane.  And we don't really get anything good going bot lane. In short, the game ends up being a bit a of a stomp that's not particularly fun for anyone on our team.  Not only is it a bad game, but its also a bad game that's played really poorly with more than a few questionable decisions.  This, however, is exactly where my updated mindset shines a bit, though.  I repeat my exciting mantra - this is lower elo.  I chose to be here by who I'm playing with and what account I'm playing on.  It's not right for me to expect platinum decision making (I mean plat ain't diamond, but its generally quite a bit better than gold decision making/plays).  So, then you might say, well, I should expect more of the folks I'm playing with.  Wrong.  I chose to play with them and I have good idea of what to expect - and that includes some good things and some bad, same as me.  Anyway, getting that in perspective, it helps diffuse the situation to me, which keeps me from tilting, etc.  

But, you have to go into games with that in mind.  And just skip out or minimize playing with folks that tilt ya.  So, if folks that have a tendency to making bad decisions here and there and that tilts ya, play with em less.  Then everyone enjoys their experience more.  blablhblsjkjdlsjdaksdjasd

 I did not have a good night 0-3. My trundle game was my fault, the other two were somewhat out of my control, but not saying I played perfectly either. I think i've been trying to play who I think is best for the game (ekko, soraka... never have played a lot as them) compared to champs I have more experience with (can do better). Probably will start playing the latter again: I usually go even with champs I don't normally play, but then I expect someone on my team to do well. This math hasn't proven to be successful. 

That being said... the tilt comes from blaming people. If we lose a game, it is never anybody's fault but our own. However, our pride does get in the way. People would rather blame all 9 of the other players than blame themselves. That's the way ego works. To remove tilt, you need to work on removing yourself from the blame game. I blame people sporadically (the lee sin in our second game who focused on taking enemy jungle camps and letting their trundle gank everywhere), but in the end I know I could've played better too. 

In summary, I think we can stop blaming everyone else (tilting), we can start improving our game and simply enjoy it as a learning experience. We will not win every game. We are not Challenger, and we probably will never be Challenger. I will try to start picking champions I have more experience with to simply feel better about my game. In the end, this is a game. We're supposed to have fun. I understand it is a competitive game, and don't want to ruin the competitive experience of it for anyone.

Sorry if I've tilted you,

Swan

Other stuff - I was thinking about my multiple account approach and trying to dissect the way I feel playing on 1 account vs another in ranked.

1st - I play ranked.  Period.  However, on the account I'm playing on now, I have absolutely no anxiety in the slightest.  Like straight up nothing, and that's pretty unique for me.  But, if I play on my main account with some of the folks I play with on my "carefree" account, I care a lot more and get a little anxious.  

So, on my carefree account, I don't give a rip because I don't really use the elo to evaluate my actual skill as a player (eg I could care less if this account is gold X - I know I can play at a plat level just fine).  And I know I'm using the games to get better at things I don't play as much.  So, its relatively stress free.  It's like a normal game where most folks generally care and don't try crapo.  That helps with me disliking non meta picks that often occur in norms anyway).  

This means I do still care about my elo on my main, though.  And sometimes I am hesitant to play on that as a result (eg some anxiety still present, but not as much in previous seasons anyway).  

Observations on my "carefree" account.  I pay little to no attention to my LP.  I think I'm gold 2 or 3 off the top of my head, but I actually don't know.  No idea how much LP I have.  I know that I'm climbing, but at a slower pace as I generally choose to play w/e role I'd like to try out vs doing what I'm best at (support).  I don't really think about elo other than the occasional hoping I don't gain too much (as dickish as that sounds).  In my mind, what I'd like to do is play with pals and slowly help elevate them to the plat level (AND elevate my skill level in other roles to plat level).  I can actually say I generally play on this account for fun the majority of the time, but do try hard when pals get to series, etc. 

All said and done, though, I really wish I felt exactly the same way I do about my "carefree" account when playing on my main.  There's a lot of agita (for me anyway) caring about your elo.  I think it would be much more fun to have the same attitude.  But, I cannot maintain plat IV/III with that attitude currently.  For me, that actually requires not playing with some folks, choosing to play my best role when possible, etc.  There's also a really rough impact to folks as well when I start playing on my main with my gold pals (some more than others, ofc).  When I do this and specifically because I believe my mmr is up a bit now on my main, we get some pretty big mismatches here and there - and not in our favor.  This mean as I do this on my main, games will get harder for my pals, which will result in more losses and less fun.

So, its like bite the bullet in 2 ways.  1 - play on my main, sacrifice my elo and try to mentally move away completely from truly caring about my rank 2 - make my pals games really fing rough for awhile while my mmr drops.  

That might actually be the healthiest approach, but the drawbacks are kind of rough.  I could keep things as they are (occasionally playing on my main when inspired, but mostly solo).  Start playing on my main mostly with pals (there will be pain for all).  Start playing w/e role i feel like on my main which will likely cause a slow mmr drop.  Also knowing that losing on my main a bunch will not exactly cause me to feel "carefree."  Anyway, just some of my nerd thoughts atm.

I tuned you out when you didn't say Challenjour.  

That's a really good point you bring up that I think can be a little difficult to balance.  I know I've had plenty of problems trying to balance that crap out anyway - maintain the competitive experience for folks AND have fun.  It's not fun for anyone to regularly have the crap kicked out of them (eg they can't compete at the level they are playing at).  That's where glorious mmr kicks in after a bunch of reps and one of the really nice things about playing with folks of similar mmr.  But when you get that big deficit between folks... now you are into a messy situation where you might have a high mmr top vs a lower one, etc.  That usually leads to 1 guy getting destroyed and then spill over.  

Re: picking champs you perceive as good without being all that good w/ em, I'd skip that completely.  I suck as a mid but trashed a malazhar mid while I was drunk over the weekend... and malz is OP with like a 55-57% win rate when he actually gets played.  I think its ok to make picks like that to try things out and for fun, but I would very rarely pick a champ just because I think its strong if I don't have much experience with it.  Just pick whats fun and something you feel like you can do well with and that's enough for me most of the time anyway.  I'm not bothered at all about our recent losses together at any rate though

It has become clear that I can't play ranked any more with pacov's groups in ranked games.

The combination where people don't care whether we win or lose and a ranked game is incredibly frustrating.  I honestly don't understand the insistence that we have to play ranked when the goal is to try new things out and not care about winning.  But there we are.

Of the last 7 games with pacov and his group, 4 have been complete troll fests.  It is simply not good.

We've had support Karma trying to backdoor inhibitors when they are pushing down our base (because hey, "who cares"?), we've had protobelt on support Janna in a close game, we've had the open trolling of the ADC just because he wasn't sufficiently meta.

I'd like to play with people.  But if I'm playing ranked games, I'd like to try and win.  If everybody is not trying to at least kind of win, then we need to be playing normals.  I thought that this was clear with this statement earlier:

but this is just not true.  Like every at least half the games are screwing around.  AT LEAST.  There are almost never serious games trying to get better.  I have to yell at people to not do stupid plays that they know are dumb, or to not intentionally troll in ranked, or not to build intentionally stupid items in ranked.  Why?  You can do that in normals, but why in ranked?

I'm happy to accept invites when people are going to try and win ranked games.  But please don't invite me if it is going to be yet another screw around ranked game.

I don't even care about ranked that much, but it is really frustrating when one team is trying and one team isn't.

@Karl I know where you're coming from. I believe we all try to win, but have different subjective opinions on what "ranked" means to us. 

I am in no way trying to say I know what you're thinking or that I know you better than yourself, but this is what I see and how I interpret that information. However, you're appear to be on the serious end of the spectrum. For example, when you get counter-jungled early and it isn't immediately remedied, you claim it's the end of the game for you ("I won't be able to gank this game"). I agree, there are always better circumstances, situations, and reactions. These kind of reactions set the tone for your game. When you say similar things it can create an anxious atmosphere. You play to 'win now,' and because of this your champions haven't diversified too much over the years due to wanting to win with champions you know. You're great at those champions btw. The game (Ranked) only seems fun to you when you're winning. IMO if I am playing a game, I want to be having fun 100% of the time. That is a recipe for toxicity, tilt, and an anxious atmosphere.  I am in no way saying what is right or wrong, as we all have our opinions. Again, read the first sentence of this paragraph. 

Pacov - I know you try, buddy. However, it is obvious that you try less when on cheesuscrust. You steal farm as support, you don't have enough ADC's owned to really do much unless you get lucian. Because you don't care about cheesuscrust, you make it a joke when it goes bad. That is perfectly fine, for what it's worth. I would much rather lose in happiness than anger. There is a problem with it for others: This feeds the serious players' (karl, probably hedgie if he were playing) rage meter. For you, it is more of an issue of empathy for karl. 

For myself, I align myself more with cheesuscrust attitude pacov than karl. I don't particularly mind losing, as long as I learn something. Which I do. I like improving. I don't tilt, and rarely blame. I do, however, get quiet when people are fighting or when I feel responsible for a loss. 

Overall, I'm not sure if there's a happy medium here. We all have different opinions of what this game and 'ranked' mean to us. In one hand we could deny pacov of the fun he's having on cheesuscrust, and his attempt to keep morale up by asking him to be more empathetic (only play support and not farm, or only play lucian ADC, and not joking when we're losing) to karl. On the other hand, karl can do what he like, and stop playing with cheesuscrust account (and by extension, others). Or karl can redefine what 'ranked' means to him. All of these are possibilities, but they are all extreme remedies. 

This is just what I see, and don't mind being 100% wrong (used to it). 

It's not about me being counter jungled.  I can handle being counter jungled.  The problem was that I was being counter jungled while my mid lane was 0/3/0, my top lane was down 34 to 97 in CS and had rushed negatron cloak into a darius (gotta get that zrot portal), and we started 0-8 against them in like 5 minutes.

At that point there is nothing that can be done, and there is nothing that is going to be learned from the game since its just a curb stomp.

I also don't mind losing ranked games if we gave it our best shot.  But if everybody was screwing around in ranked and we lost because of it, I don't have a great time.  That is correct.

I interpret ranked as the place where we try to win games.  Normals is a wonderful place to LEARN and try out new things and shrug our shoulders if things don't work out.  I play a much wider range of champions in normals.  Ranked is a place to implement what you know.

The problem is that we aren't really trying to win the ranked games, at least not very hard.  Pacov has adopted the exact normals attitude that he complained about when he insisted on switching to ranked (carefree, doesn't follow meta, weird items, trying lots of stuff out, etc).  We have a lot of people playing champs for the first time against people who are really experienced on their champs.  Etc.

The problem with treating ranked as a learning experience where some people don't really try and others learn new champions is that you are playing against people who are trying their best to win and playing optimally.  So its a stomp.  And you don't learn much in a stomp.  In a normal game things are a bit more open a relaxed, so you have the opportunity to take something from the game.

Karl takes Ranked games seriously yes but he doesn't get toxic about people's errors.  He points out situations and mistakes that I take in more of an FYI attitude.  He does get a little doomy n' gloomy sometimes and has been wrong about 'this game' being 'over' but that's usually cause he's just underestimated how bad my MMR has gotten and the type of opponents it drags in.

Karl is simply the rare individual who actually holds himself to the same standards that he holds others to.  

Edit:  And just to clarify that last sentence...

My last game of the night was as Veigar.  Someone took Gangplank.  And Zyra.  So I was kinda at a loss who to play.  I picked Veigar and was reading all his changes since I hadn't played him, even in a custom game since his rework.

Did really bad.  I think our Support Zyra did like 3X the damage I did.

Now I woulda been pissed if one of you guys had done that in a Ranked game.  Or a stranger on the internet.  But yet there I was being that jackass.  So yeah, I don't really mind at all when Karl wants people to do there best since I know he practices what he preaches which is more than I can say for myself.