2016 and 2017 Years in Review

The last two years were busy to say the least.  I'm going to blame all the other stuff on why I didn't write anything about my gaming those years.  It's not that I didn't get a chance to play games or be involved in the gaming communities in town, just didn't have time to write or reflect about it.

Here's a brief run down of what occured

• Started an Esports club at NVSS.
• Even competed in the High School Starleague
• Penny and I played the Pokemon TCG competitively and regularly placed in the top 8 at our local events.
• Once she could read better, the decks we played got more complicated and we started buying singles and building meta/net decks.
• Finally reached Gold rank in League of Legends in Season 6 (2016)
• And got the shiny gold border for all of Season 7 (2017)
• Sadly I didn't play much ranked in Season 7 and ended up in Silver again.
• More board games!
• Got into cooperative board games big time.

Video Games - League of Legends Highlights Sway

This past Tuesday was a Professional Development Day (Pro-D Day) for my district and rather than drive 2 hours to the town where the various Pro-D sessions were held, I instead opted to submit a self-directed Pro-D application to learn how to make a Sway.  Sway is a new presentation app that Microsoft developed as (I guess) an answer to Google Slides and Prezi (both are presentation apps that are natively online).

I originally wanted to learn the program at another Pro-D day but that session was full.  The app did interest me so I briefly looked into what it actually was and initially dismissed it until now.  Neat little program and in my mind, the biggest advantage over PowerPoint is the native online presence Sway has.

However, since I'm not supposed to be making lesson plans or other lesson related activities during my Pro-D day I instead learned how to use Sway and created Mr. Arocena's League of Legends Highlights.

In the process of learning Sway I also inadvertently ran across HitFilm Express which is an amazingly powerful free video editing software package.  I'll end up using it for all my education videos as well as it can do things that Movie Maker cannot.

The only flaw I found (and it's a major one in my mind) is that for some inexplicable reason Sways cannot be grouped into folders.  So for example if I make a bunch of League of Legends Sway presentations, they will just be sitting there ungrouped and unorganized in the My Sways tab of the website.  Huge flaw and the only reason I'm not going all-in on this new tool.

In the meanwhile though, Sway is great for special projects like the one I made.

League of Legends - Awesome Plays vol. 1

Despite what my previous posts might suggest, I do still play other games aside from Final Fantasy 14.  And to prove it I'm going to start by showcasing some nice plays from a recent League of Legends night I had with some friends.

I still play a lot of League but mostly with friends in recent weeks.  Haven't played much ranked despite season 5 starting a few weeks ago.  I'm only 2 placement matches in.  So far 0-2 because I am out of practice and I really should play a bunch of normal games to get the hang of the new patch.  I probably won't though and at some point in the future i'm going to just dive right into my remaining 8 placement matches.

Anyways on to some highlights of a recent game!  Two warnings though: one of my friends uses some colorful language.  Also I think I need to adjust my mic settings to tone down some of the higher pitches/volume from my voice.

2014 Year in Review

2014 was an interesting year.

• Taught in a distance educating school
• went on strike for 4 weeks and a bit,
• went to London and Paris with the family
• and played a lot of games (both digital and non-digital).

Overall a good year even with the loss of a months salary and stress caused by my work strike.  Now on to some more specific accounts on various gaming fronts.

League of Legends - Quest for Gold Division still ongoing...

Season 4 is almost over and unfortunately no luck in getting to Gold division.  That's ok though I'm still happy with where I got to (Silver 2, and almost Silver 1 mid-season, sadly dropped back to Silver 4 late in the season) and I'll try again once Season 5 starts up.  Starting to realize that what separates me from Gold is that I just don't play enough games of League.

I think my mechanical skill with the champions I play is good but I don't understand all the match-ups that well.  Match-up knowledge is really only gained through a large number of games played.  For example I play Jarvan IV a lot so my skill with his kit is pretty good.  I know his limits and when I can and cannot start a fight or when I can dive and survive.  But I don't know his lane match-ups well enough to dominate my lane when I play him top or who/when to gank for my laners as I don't know some of their matchups that well either.  I can get a general feel like who has an escape, who has CC, whose lane is pushing, where will the enemy jungler be, etc. but little things like when does a certain champ hit their power spike still escape me especially if I am unfamiliar playing with or against the champion.

So for next season, I think I will just focus on my three best champions, Leona, Jarvan IV and Thresh.  Since I already know their kits well, I can focus on understanding the match-ups in the game and hopefully get to Gold in season 5.  I still need to find a mid-laner though and an ADC that I can play comfortably so that in those odd cases I get stuck with that role I don't feed and can at least go even in lane.

On an unrelated note, I think I'll start streaming my game nights as some pretty cool/funny things happen.  I almost got a hexakill in my last game night (with Yasuo no less) but wasn't streaming/recording it so lost that moment.  Similarly there were some funny moments when my friends and I were playing co-op Interstellar Marines against the freaky robots.

League of Legends - Get fit with League (inspired by #GetFitWithSnoopeh)

Let's start by showing this video.



Snoopeh has been a big reason as to why I have started to be a little more active this past year or so.  Shows that not all gamers are fat slobs who live in their mothers basement (see here).  Fun to incorporate a little exercise after a game or two of League and has had a lot of positive impact on my overall health as well as how my day starts.  Unfortunately I have not been consistent with physical activity since the teacher strike as I've had other things to worry about.  But now that it's summer I can choose not to worry about job related stuff until at least late August.

This coming school year I am going to be a Physical Education (PE) teacher for at least 2 blocks out of the 7 that I teach in the school year.  This came about mostly because that's what was available if I wanted a classroom.  I had spent this past year as a distance education teacher (really I just marked assignments for the whole year and did not interact much at all with students) and I really wanted back in a classroom.  None of the science teachers at the high school were going anywhere but the senior math teacher retired and for some bizarre reason a bunch of junior PE classes were left over so they mashed the classes into a bizarre senior math/junior PE position which I ended up getting.  Strange, I know, considering there were a few junior math classes that ended up being rolled into a social studies position.

Regardless I've got 2 PE classes to teach and I would be a bad example for the kids if I wasn't in good shape myself.  Unfortunately I'm not the most active of people and have relied on my naturally high metabolism to keep me relatively thin.  At first glance you wouldn't think I'm unfit but any amount of strenuous physical activity tuckers me out quickly.  With this in mind and the fact that I want to be able to at least keep with my future PE students, I will do my best to get fit over the summer.

As a result I've devised a series of exercises to do before and after each game of League of Legends.  Why before and after each game of League?  Mostly because I have been playing League consistently every day in the morning for the past year or so (became my morning routine on my quest to get Gold last year as I couldn't play any other time because of family and I don't play ranked with my friends on our gaming nights).  This habit just carried over into the summer.

Before game
Queue Wait time and Champion select - Wall sit until game queued, then wall sit for duration of your champion select (not the whole champion select unless you really want to work your quads)
Game load - Jumping Jacks until game loads or a set time passes like 45 seconds or 1 minute (if a player has a toaster you could be doing jumping jacks for a long time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing)

After game - Take a rest of about 10-15 seconds after each set.
Kills = # of Pushups, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Assists = # of Russian Twists, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Deaths = # of Squats, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Kills + Assists = # of Triceps dip, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Kills + Deaths + Assists = Plank for equal number of seconds, x2 if below 30
Kills + Deaths = # of Burpees (currently without a jump or push-up)

The order is designed to work different muscle groups and the amount of each can be adjusted to your level of fitness.  The multipliers are there to ensure I actually do enough of each exercise to have some appreciable effect.  None of the exercises require any special equipment, though the triceps dip does require a non-spinning chair or something similar and the Russian twist should be done with a weight of some sort like a text book.

Let's hope I can keep up with this routine as from what I've read, consistency is key when trying to get into shape (an adjustment in diet helps as well).  6 weeks before school starts, let's get fit!

EDIT: I failed to mention that if you attempt this, you probably should not do the After Game routine every day.  The muscles you work need a day to recover in order to rebuild themselves properly.  If you find your legs hurt are getting sore from the wall sit, you can do that every other day as well.  The jumping jacks are fine to do every day though.

League of Legends - Reaching a Plateau

Since the start of Season 4 I've had a pretty decent time in my ranked games.  My placement matches went 8-2 but for some reason I was still placed in Silver 4 (my ranking at the end of Season 4).  However I did really well in my next few games and managed to climb into Silver 3 relatively easily playing support or jungle.

It was here that I ran into the same problem I did in Season 3.  I could not get any higher.  I would get to around 90 LP and then suffer a string of defeats that knocked me back down to 0 LP.  This process repeated itself for several weeks and was quite infuriating.

I eventually realized I had hit a plateau with regards to my skill in the game.  What clued me in was my massive losing streak with Leona.  At one point I had a whopping 80% win record (over 20+ games) with Leona but then lost a bunch of games in a row.  When I started to play Thresh I started winning again and I attribute that to learning new skills that helped me move on from my plateau.

While some skills are universal, like map awareness, where to place wards and wave control, there are some skills that are specific to champions.  For example with Thresh I had to learn to better predict champion movement because of the short delay with his hook.

Learning to play Thresh also improved some of those universal skills.  A good example is map awareness.  With Thresh's lantern, having good map awareness is even more important for setting up ganks or saving team mates.  With Leona, map awareness was mostly useful for avoiding ganks, so I did not really pay attention to the position of my team mates.  After playing with Thresh for a while I've become much more aware of my team mates (especially my jungler) and I've pulled off a few lantern ganks and lantern saves that have swung fights in my team's favour.

With that said, I made it into Silver 2 earlier this week and I'm hoping my skills have progressed enough to get me further.  Going for Gold by the end of this season!

League of Legends - S4 changes and my roles

Had some time to play some more League in the past few weeks and some thoughts about how season 4 changed some of my champions and their roles.  Now since starting ranked play, my champion pool has become incredibly focused (or small).

I used to play jungle with a handful of champions (Jarvan, Udyr, Volibear, Xin, Warwick and some others) but have since focused on just two, Jarvan and Xin.  Their mechanics are similar so if one gets banned or picked I have the other.  Thankfully neither get banned or picked that often at the level I currently play at.

I also play support a lot now too and have focused on playing two as well, Sona and Leona.  They play differently from each other but are so strong in lane and in team fights.  They also have the benefit of not being banned too often (or picked for some reason)

The Season 4 changes to gold flow for both junglers and supports makes both roles a lot more impactful.  It's possible to build big items in both roles and you can really help carry your team.

For example as a Jungler I used to only get tanky items like Spirit of the Ancient Golem and then a Randiun's Omen and that's about it.  Now I have enough gold to add a big damage item like Trinity Force or Black Cleaver so I can do more damage in addition to the massive amount of crowd control in both Jarvan or Xin's kit.

As support I can get more than Locket of the Iron Solari and wards.  With Leona I can often pick up a Sunfire Cape or Randiun's Omen and with Sona you can add some AP items to help boost your heals and power chords.  The unfortunate thing is the 3 ward limit as I can't just light up the whole map now.  Not sure if that is worth the extra items but time will tell (and hopefully teaches the other 4 players to ward too).

Sadly I still don't practice the other roles so I'm pretty bad at them.  Though that's mostly because I can't last hit very well (but I am getting better!) and that puts me behind my opponent.  Oddly enough I am very good at trading with my opponents and I can usually secure a kill on them before they get one on me.  Unfortunately I have a hard time translating that advantage into a win for my team.

Oh well, things to work on for Season 4.

On another note, I think I've spent more on LoL skins in the past year than I have on Warhammer in the past decade.  Can't decide if that means my hobbies have just changed or Warhammer has gotten to the point where it's prices are too high and I'd rather spend that money on digital goods which are individually much much cheaper.  I've almost decided to drop the hobby altogether and get rid of my stuff.  That might mean a name change for my blog as I will have no Deathwing anymore.

League of Legends - End of Season 3 thoughts

Season 3 ended a little over a week ago and I did not make my goal of getting to Gold (made it Silver 4 though).  I vastly underestimated the difficulty in climbing Silver and also vastly overestimated my own skills.  Not a bad thing as I've been forced to get better by refining a lot of my skills as a League player.

Here are a few things I learned while trying to climb Silver to Gold.

1. Learn to play as a Support.
   This has got to be the best thing that happened to me in my solo-queue adventures.  I used to play as a jungler exclusively and if that was taken, I would play ADC or top.  I got frustrated though that as ADC I rarely got a good support who knew how to ward or how to peel or how to initiate and as such made laning much more difficult.  Didn't help that at the time I was not a good ADC (my last hitting skills and positioning were horrid so my terrible laning phase was not all due to the poor supports I got)
   I decided to play the other side one day and picked up Sona (my only other support was Janna but I gave up on her after going on a massive losing streak with her) and proceeded to play a bunch of ranked games with her.  Having a good support made such a difference with how the ADC performed (I tried my best to emulate good support players like Xpecial and Krepo).
   Good ward placement meant my ADC almost never got ganked and even helped our jungler gank for us as they would know when/where the enemy wards were.  I've actually taken to just buying an Aegis (and eventually Locket) and wards as my items for the entirety of the game.  If I get more gold I'll look to get a Frozen Heart or Randiun's but that's about it.  I almost never leave base without 2 pink wards and 2 green wards or an Oracle's and wards.
   Similarly knowing when to initiate with a good flash + crescendo meant we could secure lane dominance very well and really helped ganks out.  I currently have a 60% win rate with Sona over ~50 games.
   But it got even better once I started playing Leona.  She is so much tankier than Sona and her style of initiation is very reminiscent of Jarvan (who is my favourite champion).   I have a 70% win rate over ~30 games using Leona and most of the time I get congratulated by my ADC or the other team for my outstanding play.  I can obviously get better at the role as I am only in Silver 4 but playing Support has certainly boosted my win rate immensely.
2. Ward everywhere.
   This is important no matter what role you are.  The pro's tell you do it, the YouTube tutorial videos tell you to do it, and the Riot Teamwork OP videos/posters tell you do to it.  Surprisingly very few people ward oustide of the support and then wonder why they get ganked or get no jungle support.  For those who top lane or mid lane, junglers generally don't want to gank your lane if you don't have wards up.  It just begs to be counter-ganked or have your targets flee and waste the junglers time.
   On the flip side, I can't remember how many times my team (or the other team in some cases) has set up good initiations based on all the wards thrown around the map (I almost always have 4 wards on me when I leave base and I throw those around at the good spots so my team has great vision).
3. Don't rage or dwell on a loss but always reflect on what could have been better.
   The hardest thing to do in this game is accept a loss or accept that no matter how well you do, some games just weren't meant to be won by your side.  Whether it was because I initiated a bad fight or just misclicked/missed an ult or someone fed or whatever, I've learned to accept my losses (most of the time), reflect on what I could have done better and then move on.  Because of this attitude I've improved my ability to peel for my carries (I now try to use each of my crowd control abilities on a different champion so I can maximize their effect on a team fight or chain them properly so when one effect ends, the next effect starts), I've improved my ability to initiate (I am better at gauging when I can initiate and survive) and improved my overall game awareness (I'm better at predicting a jungle gank or where the enemy is so we can hit an objective).

I'm surprisingly happy about being in Silver 4 despite being 4 divisions out of Gold and I think that's because my attitude has changed considerably since the start of my ranked play.  I'm looking forward to Season 4 and I might have some duo-queue partners as a few of my friends want to take the plunge into ranked games.  My friends and I have been playing some normal draft games and practicing some team compositions and we've even considered starting a ranked team once 5 of us hit 30 (4 of us are at 30 and we have two other friends in their mid-20s).

I'm especially excited for the increased gold supports and junglers are going to get as that means I can buy things other than wards!  I am not looking forward to vision being everyone's job as people are going to take a while to adjust to that and if I can only place 4 wards total (3 greens + 1 pink) the amount of vision I can give my team is going to be very limited compared to Season 3.

Can I hit gold in Season 4?  I hope so and if not I will definitely be a better player throughout this next season.

League of Legends - Duo-Queuing

As I mentioned in an earlier post (Grouping Up) my friends and I started grouping up in League of Legends so we could avoid some of the toxic behaviour from grouping up with random people.  As a result I've been duo-queuing with our Blitzcrank player a lot.  Mostly in an effort to get him up to lv30 and maybe we can start duo-queuing ranked games or something.  At the very least our group will be completely lv30 so everyone should be on a level playing field.

Due to LoL's matchmaking mechanics it is sometimes awkward when I play with my lv30 account and he's only lv10.  Pairs us up with a bunch of 20s who are way more skilled than he is.  So I made a second account to level with him.  However because he plays Blitzcrank support almost exclusively (he does a good job at it), I've been playing ADC a lot.  I normally jungle when I solo-queue but there's not much to coordinate between jungle and support during laning.  Not a total loss though as it has improved my last-hitting skills and positioning skills and if someone else jungles when I solo-queue I will have another role I am decent at.

My ranked play has been really good lately.  I'm currently on a 4 game winning streak for ranked games and I'm only 25 league points from my next promotion series (promo from Silver V to Silver IV).  Haven't been grinding as much as I used to but work has gotten in the way lately.  End of semester is coming up so lots of last minute marking and catching up of marking because of students panicking.  If only they just did the work when asked.  Once this friday hits, no more assignments will be accepted as that is the end of the semester.  Which means more hobby time!

League of Legends - Grouping Up

League is getting fun again.  After a few days of struggling to climb Silver V and getting nowhere, I decided to stop playing ranked and try something else.  As I mentioned in my last League of Legends post, I convinced my friends to get futuristic skins/champions and we could all play as a themed team.  It was quite fun and we managed a few wins against some random folk.  No ranked play as only two of us have lv30 accounts (our midlaner is almost 30 but our top laner and support are only 15 and 8 respectively).

Our current set up is (our summoner names in brackets)

• Top lane (Salcomine) - Galactic Renekton
• Jungle (Deathwing40k) - Galactic Nasus
• Midlane (ManEatingDuck)- Cryocore Brand
• ADC (Eloesha) - Pulsefire Ezrael
• Support (alexwarrior) - iBlitzcrank

Mind you if we're not all together we just play whatever.  I've gotten really good at playing Miss Fortune, especially when paired up with our iBlitzcrank support.  Those rocket grabs and power fist knock ups give me so much time to just unleash Miss Fortune's abilities on to the poor unfortunate soul.  Of course almost any ADC will work well with Blitzcrank's style of support.  Salcomine plays a lot of Malphite which works really well with my junglers (usually Xin or Jarvan) so we have some awesome initiates which are devastating if our team capitalizes.

Did I stop my attempt to get to Gold division?  Hardly, I just don't grind ranked games anymore.  I've taken to playing one ranked game every day or every other day.  So far it's been working great and I'm on a win streak (finally!).  Still in Silver V but slowly earning league points and about half way to the promotion series.  In the meanwhile I've taken to playing ARAM games.

I'm very glad that ARAM queues got implemented too as it gives me something to do in between ranked games that's kind of relaxing.  It's strangely satisfying to roll a totally random champion and then just fight the other team.  No jungle to worry about, no ganks to worry about, just fighting.

League of Legends - Adventures in Silver Division V

A few weeks back I started my trek into League of Legends ranked play and I have to say it's been quite an up and down ride.  Getting out of Bronze Division I was easy enough (only took 15 games I think?) but I'm having a hell of a time climbing Silver Division V.  Currently I've played some 20+ games in the new division and I haven't gotten anywhere.  Seems like I win one or two games but then lose 3 or 4 right after.

What bugs me is that the opponents I'm facing are no different than those I faced in Bronze Division I and I had a way easier time against them when I was in Bronze Division I.  Even more frustrating is that I haven't really run into a lot of ragers/afkers/toxic folk so the games are actually decent (except for the losing part).  One thing I did consider is that I'm not playing my favourite/best role as a jungler in a lot of my recent games.  Getting used to a new role takes a bit of learning and my first few games as an ADC (attack damage carry) was not the greatest.  I'm getting better though especially after I decided to practice some of the basic skills (like last-hitting and positioning) in normal games.

Gonna try and rank up some more and hope to hit Gold by the end of Season 3 (I want that shiny gold name plate!).  In between ranked games though I've been playing with my friends in duo or trio queues.  One of them picked up Blitzcrank and the cool iBlitzcrank skin and I got the brilliant idea to convince everyone to get a champion with a cool futuristic/mechanical/space like skin.  Each of us thankfully has a favourite role so it just came down to finding a champ that fit each role.  As such our proposed team is going to be composed of the following champions

• Top lane Galactic Renekton
• Jungler (me) Galactice Nasus or Full Metal Jayce
• Mid-Lane undecided so far.  He might end up playing Full Metal Jayce mid.
• ADC Pulsefire Ezrael
• Support iBlitzcrank

We've yet to actually all get together as a full team but it's quite fun even duo-queueing with themed skins.

League of Legends - Ranking up

With the price increases by GW and the general lack of anyone playing Warhammer in the area (either fantasy or 40k) I've been spending more and more of my free time playing League of Legends.  I've even started watching some of the more prominant streamers as I want to improve my game play.  That last bit baffled my wife as she didn't quite understand why I would want to watch someone else play.  At which point I told her it's just like a sport (the only real difference is LoL is played on a computer and most other sports are played in a larger arena).  To be honest, after watching some of this weekend's European LCS, you'll think League of Legends was a major sporting event.

Anyways, the most interesting aspect I find about competitive LoL is their impressive ranked play system which I never did participate in when it was first introduced about 3 years ago.  Since I'm currently on my spring break it was only natural I spend some time gaming and I managed to grind out enough in-game points to get enough champions so I could start playing ranked matches.

Oddly enough ranked matches are really no different than normal matches and I actually really like the draft format of the ranked matches (reminds me of drafting MTG which I don't do enough of either).  After my 10 placement matches I managed to land in Tier 1 of the Bronze Division which in layman's terms is basically the best of newly ranked players (see my profile here).  Will I play enough to get higher?  I dunno, but I do want to try and hit Gold division (at that point I think my nameplate becomes a cool golden colour).

So begins my journey through all the ragers, haters, leavers, afkers and feeders to try and reach Gold division.  For anyone interested my summoner name is Deathwing40k and I like to jungle (though I have played every role now and it has dawned on me that I need to get a few champions for each role)

League of Legends - Returning to the League

So as mentioned in my last post, I have recently gotten back into League of Legends (otherwise known as LoL).  Not entirely sure how or why to be honest.  One of my friends just asked if I played and I said yes and he invited me to a game.  I kinda felt bad though as I have a lv30 account and he just started so the skill disparity was quite obvious (even if I had not played in about two years I stopped just before season 1 started).

Outlaw Shizzle - Episode 3 - How they found the Fox

Alright, so it's been a while since I wrote about Outlaw Shizzle mostly because it's been a while since we all got together.  To give an idea of our group, we're all old gamers around our 30s (maybe not as old as some gamers and definately not as young as some) so we've got obligations outside of gaming.  Being a teacher, I tend to have a bunch of stuff to mark or plan (and this planning isn't about what monster or insane dungeon to throw at the party) so some weekends just don't work for me.  Others in the group have out of town jobs or kids or work late or whatever.

We're all still gamers at heart so we try to get together as often as our schedule permits to game out.  If we can't get together, well there's a lot of online games we play (lately the group has been playing a lot of League of Legends).  Speaking of League of Legends (or LoL as it's come to be known as), I've been playing the game since it got out of beta off and on and I am amazed at how popular it has become as well as the plethora of champions available (I remember when Udyr, the first non-beta champion, came out). Currently I've been playing as a jungler with Xin Zhao or Jarvan IV mostly because of their way awesome Warring Kingdoms skins.

Anyways on to a recap of Outlaw Shizzle Episode 3 - How they found the Fox.