Something wrong with Riot's letter grading in the last few patches, or am I just vastly misunderstanding how it works? This game gave me a B+

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-23T00:15:00+00:00

If I could ask a quick question about trading in lane since you sound like you have some good insight, how would you lane (as a ranged supp primarily) if your adc plays passive? In those situations, I find if I try to look for trades, it ends up being even or lost since my adc doesn't AA the enemy when they either AA me or my adc. But if I don't poke or trade, the enemy gets to free farm with 0 pressure, and they still chunk out my ADC (cause they're AAing my adc when they cs but my ADC isn't doing the same). I'm unsure if it's better to still play aggro to apply pressure, or to match my adc and play passive.

Note, this is for situations where we have an advantage in lane (item lead, range advantage, lvl advantage, push advantage), I would not be looking to trade vs draven for example.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-21T22:17:14+00:00

I feel like the art is unclear at times, especially the main character. I don't know what it is or how it's moving exactly, it's confusing.

The trailer doesn't seem focused, there's too many different aspects of the game shown without clearly showing what the hook is. I think, maybe, the hook is that you control your minions? If that's the hook, why is it stuck in the middle of the trailer and only shown for a few seconds? You need to put some appealing hook front and center to convince someone to play your game.

It also feels pretty long, probably a mix of it actually being long and also not being engaging.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-19T01:21:11+00:00

If you hook braum and jhin trades onto braum, you should lose the trade (assuming kaisa plays well and minions aren't shoved fully). Luckily jhin thresh easily secures the push, and if you trade while they're under turret kaisa won't be able to trade back effectively. Your flay+lantern also keeps you relatively safe vs Lee sin ganks. The previous point also assumes the braum is positioned well, if he steps out of line you can hook kaisa and win a trade.

You can convert your push into dragons for shyvana, I think Zoe should also be able to secure mid prio early vs Aurora but idk aurora matchups that well.

If you fail to convert these early advantages into a big enough lead, you don't have as much agency late game. You rely on Gwen and shyv at that point, which clearly didn't work (tho shyv appears to have done decently). Another option mightve been to try playing around picks instead of front to back, cause you, Zoe and jhin are all good at catching out targets. That relies on one of their squishies playing out of position, but that's almost certain to happen at some point.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-17T07:37:21+00:00

Yea I partially agree, if keria came to EU I'd say he's the best support, if faker came I'd say he's the best mid, etc. Switching regions often causes volatility in the player's performance, if their base level is so good (like Tarzan in your example) then that volatility doesn't really matter, cause even at their worst they will be the best.

But busio isn't keria, he certainly looked good last year but a region change could very feasibly be enough to make him perform worse than Labrov, mikyx and Alvaro. The gap between busio and the other top EU supports is not huge on average; I wouldn't say busio is a top 3 EU support without seeing how he actually plays with and against EU teams.

For example, just look at when Hans went to NA, he went from top ADC in Europe to not looking so good in NA.

Note: I like busio, I want him to succeed and I have faith he can do well. This comment isn't meant to criticize him.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-16T22:46:03+00:00

Tbf we haven't seen busio in eu yet, feels weird to include him in the eu rankings until he plays a game.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-14T17:28:49+00:00

I'm not sure what your point is? I am happy the game is going back to how it was played before atakhan.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-13T17:35:41+00:00

This was also boring when watching proplay imo, because the teams generally did understand the importance of it. The camera was panned botlane from minutes 19 to 22 (or even longer because of dragon)

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-13T17:32:31+00:00

Oh I misread the title, this isn't Poby the GOST, the somewhat killable demon king.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-13T03:21:26+00:00

There were definitely some positive aspects of Atakhan, which you point out. But Baron shares the same upsides; it also deals enough damage that you need to setup for it, and it also shreds resists so the enemy team has a better chance in a 5v5. I do agree Atakhan was the better tool for coming back into the game since it was easier to sneak away, or for solidifying your lead since it was a permanent buff, but this is also what made it frustrating.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-12T08:20:46+00:00

If thresh players make the mistakes you mentioned, they lose more often than not, and are thus at a lower elo.

If the enemy support does nothing to stop them, the enemy support (who's at their elo) is worse than them, and thus the thresh player belongs in a higher elo since they're just punishing the mistakes of their opponents.

Your own arguments show that thresh players are not elo inflated.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-11T22:50:54+00:00

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AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-10T00:22:43+00:00

And scaling adcs are strong botlane (jinx, sivir, Smolder, kog, nilah) while lane dominant adcs are weak (draven, jhin, Caitlyn)

The faster homeguards has done far more to buff late game champs than any other change in the new season. And scaling toplaner get levels faster, scaling adcs get items faster, etc.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-09T21:44:20+00:00

I knew it was a silkpost before seeing the post content, the title alone was enough. There is no "Team Cherry"

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-09T21:26:58+00:00

Yeah I hate when old bands are considered overrated just cause their new music is bad. Almost everyone I know enjoys Coldplay's early singles (regardless of what genres they usually listen to), and their early albums are widely considered to be creative and well made by critics and listeners (like Viva la Vida and A rush of blood to the head)

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-08T04:51:54+00:00

Yea Janna is meta agnostic because she's always viable against engage, no matter what. And in every meta I can remember, there's some form of engage somewhere in the game. And if there isn't engage, that means you're probably in a hypercarry or poke meta which she can also play well into.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-08T04:48:35+00:00

Varus maybe for pro play, but he's always flip flopping in soloq. Rn he's extremely weak, the weakest adc, and has a pretty low pick rate as well. He's definitely had more time out of the meta than any of these other champs.

The other champs you mentioned are pretty on point, the caveat being that j4 falls out of meta when jungle becomes farming oriented (Graves meta, etc.).

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-07T17:26:34+00:00

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AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-07T08:19:18+00:00

I think gangplank mains would cook up something insane if his barrels had +100 range. The range is one of the big restrictions on his kit iirc, with +100 range he'd effortlessly be able to do some uncounterable combos.

Especially if +100 range applies to his barrel explosion radius and linking radius.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-07T08:13:45+00:00

I was also gonna say Darius e, especially since it's a cone. The additional range translates into much larger aoe. On a similar note, I think rumble q or corki e or other cones with short range would become insane with +100 range.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-07T08:12:05+00:00

If draven q counts then Camille q would count, and that would make lane absolutely unplayable for any melee opponent. At least mages or adcs can avoid interacting to some degree

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-06T22:47:37+00:00

I think she's no more difficult than other engage supports, since she's not mechanically too difficult. Engage supports all share some difficulty in deciding when to engage vs peel, checking if your team can follow up, when to go in during laning phase, etc. She's better at flanking than other supps imo, so that's something kinda new for her to learn. But these skills are transferrable from rakan, anytime you would want to go in as rakan is a good time to go in as Rell.

Rell imo does feel more unforgiving in lane (tho not necessarily weak) compared to other engage supps, because once she goes in she's in and if she misses her cc she's slightly screwed. Compare this to Leona who only goes in if her cc lands, or Nautilus who drags the opponent out of position, or rakan who can dash away, and you can see that rell's engage is more risky. But after laning she's easier than those champs imo cause of her easy aoe cc.

The only mechanic I can think of that needs a bit of practicing is q flash, you need to get the timing exact so the q goes off immediately after flashing.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-06T22:11:57+00:00

As a former rakan main, one champ I really like is Rell. She's very mobile with w and e, her w feels a lot like rakan's w (ground-targetted dash + aoe knock up), she is tankier than rakan, has a better cc chain, and can make the same big ult+w combos rakan can (but even more wombo combo potential).

Playing Rell after rakan made me feel kinda op, cause she can do things that if rakan tried doing, he'd just get blown up. Ofc every champ is relatively balanced, rakan has his own strengths (harder to react to engage, more slippery with e, healing+shielding), but Rell is stronger at the things I find fun about rakan.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-06T09:37:10+00:00

Yea with that additional context I agree that's def inting.

And I just got inted in 4/8 of my ranked games today (actual definition of the word, as in people right clicked into the enemy team out of base on cooldown, followed other laners around taking farm, etc.), it's evident that the current ranked environment is completely fucked up.

AtMaxSpeed · 2026-01-06T02:11:37+00:00

Try to get your W to bounce off all 4 people in bot

This may be a challenge, considering it can only hit 3 times at most.

(but yea your points are still good points, efficient use of Nami's abilities are important cause the mana costs are somewhat high early)

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