"One trick ponies" often have thousands of games just this season. Thousands! On one champ!

Annie Bot (Master - Annie): 2200 games on Annie just in the past 11 months.

Mister Oink (currently Diamond II, formerly Master - AP Sejani mid): 1050 games on Sejani this season.

Lily Lancer (Master, Shaco support): 950 of shaco this season on just ONE of his FIVE accounts

Now, part of playing the game is having fun. i think we can all agree that there is a certain amount of weight to be put into playing champions you enjoy, rather than solely champions that have the highest PBW.

But until you start putting in hundreds of games of support Shaco, this guys success isn't something that you can use to support your own argument. You aren't at all like him.

These people are clearly mechanically strong. You pretty much have to be in order to play that much. If the point was to climb, don't you think that they would have hit Master Tier much faster playing meta champs? What do you think was the "win % penalty" for his ADC going on tilt because "fuck this shit. i got troll support shaco in my promo series". 1%? 3%? 5%? That means he has to be good enough at the champion to overcome a negative teamstart before the game has even started!

i'm going to make a statement here that has no statistical basis. i've never kept track of these records, but my own support evidence is this:

Even the best players in the world, on their mains, have only a ~55% winrate.

This means that, even the best players in the world, have, control only about 10% of their total number of games won (assuming the vast majority of players fall within a 45-55% win rate when playing against similarily skilled opponents).

My claim is the following:

There are 5 types of games. Each make up about 20% of your overall games.

First, you have games you are almost always going to lose. Aced in the jungle. 3-11 at 8 minutes, etc.

Second, you have games where you're somewhat behind at 20 minutes, but there's hope. You tend to lose these games more than you win, but you still win them sometimes. You're a few towers/kills/dragons behind a team with better scaling.

Third, these are the close games. Objectives are traded, nothing earned for free. Kills are close. Both teams contest vision and have similar scaling.

Fourth, are the games where you are reasonably ahead. You'll probably win these, but you can always throw.

Finally, are games you have no business losing. It happens still, sometimes, but it really shouldn't.

Some champions are better in certain kinds of games (except champs that are just mega-OP). Stalling mids like Anivia and Ziggs, as well as safe hypercarries such as Trist and Ryze are really good at turning around #2. Assassins and high damage mid-game ADCs like Corki and Lucian are really good at closing out #4 games.

Some champs are really bad in #1. Like jungle Tryndamere. Some champs are incredible at #5.

Now, you're a programmer so you should be familiar with Amdahl's Law and the Optimization problem.

Let's say, as an example, there exists a champion who is just incredible at turning around games of type #1, and average-at-best in every type of other game. This champion would probably be the most OP thing ever, because they'd be able to win, probably, 70% of their games.

On the other hand, there exists a champion who is incredible at closing out games of type #5, but average at everything else. They'd probably still "only" have a 50% win rate.

Since i don't think there are any champions that are able to turn around #1s that aren't going to be retarded OP, and making #5 games from a 98% winrate to a 100% winrate doesn't really mean anything, you really should only be focusing on game types #2, #3, and #4.

You said you lost one game because of a "retard mid". For argument's sake, let's classify that as a #2 game. Let's look at some supports that are able to fulfill some of a mid's functions: Zyra, Lux and Sona (as an AoE initator). Annie is a mage-like support, but she tends to struggle when behind. These champs have some sort of ranged CC that allows them to make a pick, offer some auxiliary waveclear. Sona and Lux both have shields to prevent poke from the enemy fed midlaner. Zyra and Lux both have safe "reveal the bush" abilities, preventing fatal facechecks.

The fact of the matter is, Shaco is going to be really bad in #2 games. He doesn't have the ability to consistently CC a fed target that is munching up your team. AoE mages are going to be out of range. Fed assassins have multiple juicy targets (everyone but top lane), and you can't keep them all safe. You can't assassinate a fed Tristana.

Luckily, he has some benefit in #3 and #4 games. Deceive allows him to ward much safer than normal supports. Boxes contribute additional vision and make him less dependent on the team doing their part of the warding. Boxes provide good zoning potential for dragons, and hallucinate can tank objectives such as towers. In #4 games, a fast DFG allows him to clean up after fights, and enhance his teams damage .

Of the 3 supports i listed above, plus Annie... also are really good in #3 and #4 games. Sona, Lux, Zyra, and Annie can all do incredible 4 or 5 man ults that instantly win games. Zyra in particular can have massive damage with just a Liandries. Tibbers can tank towers, Sona can heal up baron damage, Lux and Zyra can do some great roots against enemy facechecks.

Of course, Sona is not-so-good in #5 games, espiecially compared to support Shaco.

So, the way i see it is:

- Shaco is really bad in #1 games, but those don't matter.

- He's also really good in #5 games, but those also don't matter

- Nearly all supports have a consistent power curve in #2, #3, #4 games.

- Shaco is not significantly better than most supports in any #3 game. He does not have the same teamfight support, but he does offer very unique vision advantages. So we'll call it a draw.

- Shaco is worse in #2 games

- Shaco is better in a #4 game, assuming what your team needs is more damage. Most teams do not need more damage, since we are already in a squishy, damage-focused meta. AoE initiation is extremely powerful and is typically only found on tank junglers - not particularly popular atm - and supports. If your team needs AoE initiation, then Shaco is worse than other options.

- Shaco support will put some people on tilt, causing an instant 1-5% reduction of winnable games.

It's interesting when top level players have success specializing with alternative champions.

A similar situation was when there was a Diamond Sejuani only player doing well with her going mid every chance he got.  Did he discover a secret OP Mid champion?  Is/was AP Sejuani Mid our ticket to Diamond as well?  Most likely not.  Unless you were sitting around thinking to yourself "Golly I love playing Sejuani... wish I could play her all the time but I hate playing Jungle." his accomplishments wouldn't be much use.

That player knew how to play every matchup.  His opponents didn't.  They probably didn't realize who their opposing laner was for sure until the laning phase actually started.  Pretty big advantage.

But maybe Support Shaco is way better.  So what happens now?  I can think of some possibilities:

-Is totally OP.  Shaco is now permabanned.  Why bother learning?

-Is really good.  People learn how to play him.  And play against him.  That's already starting.  I've got some ideas who I'd play and how I'd play against him now, where as before facing him woulda been an auto loss for me.  You used to play Shaco a lot and still you've just learned something new about him because of the hype.  That's going to start eating away at the "Shaco Support?!" advantage he has.  Becomes just an okay, situational Support.

-Is Low Elo Fool's Gold.  Master Tier players have a different level of skill than you and me and their meta is probably a bit different.  Shaco might end up being like Lee/Elise:  Great in high level games with high level players... but not as wonderful for the rest of us.

Anyway, if you're having fun with him great but there is no need to go to the trouble of linking Teambuilder statistics in the future.

Edit: Hedgshenned!

Still making clips and will read stuff later.  Made a few highlights.  1st game I'm with an unranked adc up against a diamond 5 adc and a gold V support. 

This last one was just fun

Oh - and let me stop the secret op bandwagon.  I don't think this is.  I haven't found magical candy land.  Just having fun and thinking through the realistic pros and cons. 

now I want to play him some more... smeh.  Think I'm going to try ign/exh support

i think that there is a bit of miscommunication in exactly what is happening here and why those videos don't really mean much (for us - maybe they mean a lot to you because it allows you to gain some insight on your play):

i don't think anyone here is trying to convince you that you shouldn't play Shaco ever.

We are all saying: You won't see the results that you could more easily obtain on another, more conventional support for a wide variety of reasons. Until you play hundreds of games, of course. But don't let that stop you and it's totally fine if you play that in Team Builder because that's what those suckers get. TeamBuilder is about playing more relaxed games on newer champions. But we are going to take what you have to say about support Shaco with a grain of salt until you play dozens of games in Ranked. And, until then, we probably would prefer if you did not inflict it upon us.

We aren't saying: It is literally impossible for you to win a game with support Shaco. Or, "you should quit support Shaco".

yes - I don't feel attacked. I feel like discussing shaco as a support.  That's all.  That's why I'm saying things like I don't think I found the magical op champ, etc.  Let's just chat eh.

That said, I had 1 lag free game tonight.  I played shaco in it... HORRIBLY.  Played another as support shaco and the lag started.  Played adc after restarting my router, etc - AWFUL packet loss.  Adc unplayable.  Won because of other peoples and had zero fun.  Last game of the night had minimal packet loss, but still there.  Mostly really disappointing games because the lag was completely unpredictable.  Good 1 game.  .75 seconds between clicking and things happening another... followed by frozen for 10 seconds... followed by kinda normal... followed by dc'd from game... sigh

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what's going on.  I know people have been going on about the packet loss on reddit.  I did not have any prior to tonight.  I also had my lawn aerated today... so I'm wondering if something happened to the line.  Really not sure in the slightest... lots of weird stuff today.

Oh and my vids only purpose is to show support shaco playstyle here and there.  Unless, of course, you all are familiar with it... which I'm sure you are... what with it being a common thing. The vids are just in case you peeps are interested. 

Check back later, but I'm uploading a couple more vids now if you are interested.  I think I provided a little commentary on these.

No link for the other vid.. but it SHOULD publish when done.

I only had a chance to skim some of the posts.  Karl made some really good points re: why not to ap shaco support.  talked about in some detail on stream.  I reply some after I read these things tomorrow. Night all!

Here's the 2nd vid for anyone that is interested - looks like the clips are super short. 

and now reading through all the comments:

re: hedgie's "There are 5 types of games" bit.  I think that classification makes sense (going to reiterate it below concisely).  I think it would be more interesting to see how we compare other supports w/ regards to the list.

• Games you should lose
• Games you should lose, but there is hope
• Games that are even and could go either way
• Games you should win, but its close
• Games you should win

Now that I think of it... its actually pretty difficult to classify supports like this because it really depends on overall team composition and what you need at the time.  Does my team need a support that can disengage or force an engagement?  Do we need a support that can get to the back row?  Do we need someone that can put out a ton of damage?  It all gets kind of tricky. All of those types of games are heavily influenced by what the team needs and that is a variable based on comp/what's happening right then. Anyone have any ideas how we can better categorize things?

I do agree that unconventional supports move people towards tilt.  And add in unconventional supports that are likely to take your money...

haha.  They say "why shaco support.?"  I say "cuz f you."  Not really, though.    Surprisingly, I haven't come across anyone mouthing off in team builder re: my shaco picks. I think there's that bit of understanding when you choose to lock in ready that you are accepting that there is a shaco support.  Team builder helps mitigate that type of rage quite a bit. 

I get that, but shaco does have peel with his boxes + threat of death + added damage on ult.  shaco is highly disruptive in laning. Just some thoughts anyway

Sure.  But the point was that teams essentially never want inconsistent assassins from the support slot.  Just not something thats desirable.  The extra vision from boxes is nice, don't get me wrong.  But there are a lot of other problems.

Yes, Shaco is fine early.  But he is not so good late.  When played in jungle, you can probably make the case that his early game is so strong that it can sometimes overcome his weakish late game.  But can you really claim that his laning phase is so strong that it makes up for his not good late game when play as support?  I just don't see that.

Keeping in mind, again, my conclusion did not have much support statistical evidence... One of the premises for my conclusion was that you have only about a 10% impact on your overall win rate. Additionally, i was assuming this is mostly in the SoloQ environment where team comp is going to be a bit haphazard; usually 4/5 people have 1-2 roles with 2-3 champs that they want to play. So it was addressing more of "which 2-3 champs should i focus on" rather than "which champ should i play THIS GAME".

Anyway, part of my assumption is that the matchmaking is not always on your side. Even if you get your best roles and champs and carry hard, maybe your jungler is on mega tilt and is going to go afk farm the jungle for 10 minutes after the first bad countergank. Maybe there's a smurf on the enemy team. Etc etc.

It's supposed to be a guideline of "which champs should i pick to make my 10% as good as it can be", as opposed to "which champ should i play this game".

If you remove the tilting risk of Shaco Support, Shaco Support might be really-really good in Bronze as a Plat+ player. You're able to provide tons of vision, you can contribute meaningful damage to out-of-position carries, and force your team to take objectives with ult via tanking. Because, you're going to have a lot of "#4" type games (due to the mistmatch in MMR), and you want a champion that excels in that environment.

So if you anticipate a lot of #4 games, Shaco might be a really really good champ to play.

One of the reasons supports are, well, supports, is because they perform very consistently, regardless of gold income. For this reason, supports are going to all perform pretty well, regardless of how behind or ahead your team is. But some supports are still going to be better or worse in some games.

Janna or Nami are going to be better in #2 type games, since they can offer a lot of anti-dive and sustain against stronger teams.

Annie or Zyra are going to be better in #4 games, due to their ability to tank objectives + a large amounts of AoE damage and waveclear.

i agree, you probably are not going to see as many ragers in TeamBuilder, and i was more making a joke than being serious there. People being okay with off-meta is one of its best attributes. Team Builder isn't a "Bad" queue. But it is still a "Casual" one.

off the shaco support stuff for a moment, I'm starting to think about jungle in the new season - in particular dragon functionality.   With teams getting flat bonus as opposed to global gold, I'm wondering if it will be worth to take junglers that can solo dragon early to provide a perm team buff.  To me, that actually sounds like a reasonable plan as you get an early drag AND likely get the timer for a potential 2nd team drag.  I'm actually thinking it could be worth to take jungler that is weaker at ganks, etc, in favor of something like that. Thoughts?

you have to kill dragon 5 times before you get a significant buff out of it (and even on live, +5000 gold is huge). Which means you don't get it until 40 minutes. Then it's nearly a permanent baron buff...

The first two buffs aren't even really useful for anyone other than mages midlane or mana-hungry junglers. Supports, i guess. Remember that HP5/MP5 items are now a % mulitplier with your current base MP5 + Dragon buffs. So in order to get much out of the first two buffs you have to already be building some HP5/MP5.

There's also the sidelane buffs @ 20 minutes... which makes having stronger top/bottom lanes better. (though i think 20 minutes is too early and they should push it back to 25/30).

Anyway, the way i see it, it's a way for early-game junglers to be able to scale into endgame better. An early game jungler who is able to get 2-out-of-5 buffs repeatably is going to help. There will just be that awkward 4-out-of-5 moment when the enemy Amumu kicks their face in. Early game junglers are also going to be making invasions and a lot of counter-jungles.

i mean, i think that the jungle is going to be much more of a "lane" than it is now. That's not to say that ganking is no longer an important thing to do... but it's going to be much easier to snowball against the enemy jungler.  That's a better reason to take a good farmer/duelist.

hurm... dragon is only a buff for whoever kills it?  Ah... that was not my understanding.  Thought it was a team wide buff. 

Buff says - slaying the epic monster dragon gives the strength of the dragon to this uint. Power increases based on number of stacks.

1. +5health/mana regen
2. +8AD +8AP
3. +15 MS
4. + 100 health
5.  triple other bonuses - so, + 15 hp/mana per 5, +24AD/+24AP, +45 MS, + 300 hp.

If its not a team buff, well smeh. 

Also, I saw this:  Dragon now deals 20% damage to units for every time that team has slain Dragon and takes 7% less damage from units from every time that team has slain Dragon.  Killing Dragon now gives 50% less XP.

Anyway, anyone know if I have that right - only 1 person gets that dragon slain buff?

No, everyone gets the buff.

Thanks for getting the numbers, i was trying to find them but couldnt...

Anyway, the first one is kind of nice in laning phase (it's a health pot and a 1.5 mana pots every base assuming you base ~3 minutes), but with how popular manaless champs are... But since the new regen items are % multipliers now, if you're buying a Chalice or a Spirit Stone that can actually be decent. But like i said, mostly only good on mages mid and mana hungry junglers.

8 AD is worth 360 gold, so it takes two dragons for the ADC to really get any benefit, and it's 360 gold worth of stats is less than 2 dragons are now (espiecially when you consider how freaking good ADC items are). Granted, it doesn't take up a slot, which is nice. 8 AP is only worth about 160 gold so mages don't care that much. And most tank jungles/supports don't have that great AP ratios anyway.

+15 MS is finally useful. i think the best thing to compare it against is basically a free 475 gold Alacrity enchantment for the entire team. Technically 15 MS is only worth ~196 gold since boots give 25 MS for 325 gold, but since it's the THIRD dragon everyone already has boots (and probably T2 boots).

+100 health is technically only worth about 200 gold, but it also doesn't take up a slot which makes it really good for carries. Usually i imagine Last Whispers will be done around this time and so ADCs might only have just started on the defensive items, so this is like half a ruby crystal in the meantime. It will also make GAs better on carries.

One interesting interaction is that since Baron will no longer give HP5/MP5, just a bit of AD+AP+out of combat MS+Tower damage instead, trading dragon for baron to get the 4th stack might actually be a decent trade because you'll be actually probably "better" at fighting than the baron team - and your buff sticks around.

Of course, once you get 5 buffs... it gets really crazy.

So pretty much, first two buffs are only marginally useful (ADC gets less than what they got before from two dragons. First buff is nice on mages and junglers. Third buff is really good. Fourth is actually not that great, but it is kind of a formality into The jungler himself gets a lot of out of all the buffs since it provides immediate stats that don't take slots, and junglers tend to use a lot of their slots with minor components + health pots + wards.

Fifth buff, of course, is insane

OK - if it is a team wide buff, then I'm back to thinking it still might be worth a jungler that can solo.  Buff #1 is pretty useful imo if you can get it early enough in the game (even only at +5hp/mana) and again, you can probably get the dragon timer when the enemy team doesn't have eyes on it.  And you then have leg up on additional drags.  Also, junglers that can solo drag early are,  you know, often good at dragon control.  Anyway, we'll see how things pan out, but I think it might open up some strategies.  I concluded that in the previous season, it was not worth taking someone that can solo drag and grab it super quick early due to the low ganking trade offs.