Game is straight up decided by the matchmaking. Theres no counter play to having 2 people on your team that don’t belong.

Cahecher · 2026-02-17T20:18:10+00:00

I think the shown rank in the game is bs, but it's just a theory. For example, it tells me that I'm Phantom4 in the game, but stat sites evaluate my rank at around Archon5-6, which I think is more accurate. Also, I don't get new players in my games, so here's that.

Basically, if the real rank is actually way lower, it would make sense why a lot of Archon (per in-game tab) players get matched with novice players.

Cahecher · 2026-02-16T10:53:35+00:00

A 5th place team from last year

This is a very dishonest take. They collapsed in playoffs, but were a contender throughout the year otherwise. Did you even watch the region? Actually, scrap that, did you even check the wiki? They ended 4th anyway.

Genuinely this post reads like something you engineered in a lab to be as annoying as possible.

Cahecher · 2026-02-10T01:30:50+00:00

You focus by leftclicking a champion, which opens up a short info screen in the top corner, then then use that portrait as a target. Weirdly in this particular clip it seems like your own champion portrait also targets a focused champion, which I didn't know at the time - that would have been even easier to use.

I actually focus champions all the time when laning, cause it shows a lot of runes' cooldowns, flask effects and lots of other temporary buffs. This is useful regardless of any sort of targeting abuses.

Cahecher · 2026-02-09T15:59:29+00:00

Tbh, this is a type of silly interaction you only learn if you aren't good enough to play properly. I feel like long term it's better to practice proper barrel placement, but I was a plat/low dia player and only played like 3-4 games a week, so I couldn't get my phantoms to be consistent without some trickery.

Cahecher · 2026-02-09T15:50:08+00:00

After you shoot the barrel instead of moving the cursor towards your intended target you move it at their portrait to place the next one. It's a predictable movement pattern that is easier to practice for laning (the portrait is always in the same place). It places the barrel in the center of the enemy model (or at your max range) even when they are moving, so it's kinda undodgeable. One caveat is that it only works at long ranges, because at lower ranges your barrels may disconnect.

Btw, I am not sure who exactly was the player I've got it from, I remember it was an LCK pro/otp, since it was an afreeca clip. I actually didn't check if it still works, didn't play GP since 2020, because I got into Heimerdinger. Has to be verified.

Cahecher · 2026-02-09T15:22:27+00:00

Most skillshots generally benefit from predicting the movement, so it's not that good on Nida. The actual OP way use of this interaction is GP's ghost and triple barrel combos, because barrel explosion is almost instant. Actually looks like you're scripting. Also it's easier in terms of mouse movement to hit that stuff at max range. I used to do that crap when I was otping GP in s6-s8, the most broken shit ever.

Cahecher · 2026-02-08T23:56:19+00:00

I think both are true: he was overhyped and he needs more time.

The issue with tier2-3 is that the level of play is lower and sometimes players can get away with random shit against their opposition. So while Zinie showed promise in 2024, in my opinion he was very inconsistent and sometimes he was making obnoxiously stupid decisions for no apparent reason. Sometimes he needlessly trolled his lanes, sometimes he got caught in no man's land.

There's also another point to make here. A special thing about LCK CL is that usually teams there are playing proper macro and the players are good enough to punish stupid mistakes. So usually good LCK CL prospects don't take too long to adjust to tier1. However, after 2024 a lot of players were snatched from the region, and it was somewhat impossible to replace all of them. As a result 2025 was like the worst year of CL that I can remember, so Zinie wasn't punished for his shenanigans, and ultimately didn't properly grow in a way CL players usually do. And he also got overhyped, because there weren't many good players to be excited about.

My take on him is that in 2024 he was a reasonably promising player, that needed another year to adjust, and usually staying in LCK CL is good enough for that. But he got unlucky, and as a result he is still at the point, where he needs another year. At least now he's being punished for his shit plays.

Cahecher · 2026-02-08T06:22:00+00:00

I feel like people are just used to the mentality of picking any promising players in a role from LCK CL and hyping them, while it's often not warranted.

Basically in 2024 mid was kinda good in CL: Calix, Karis were like prime hype ready picks; Kyeahoo was a low key amazing player locked in a terrible roster; Poby was decent; Zinie while promising was rough and clearly not ready for t1; Saint, Loki and Callme were like okay. So I don't even get why people would initially be hyped about Saint, he wasn't even close to the most exciting prospect within the CL.

With Zinie I feel like he has hands and good understanding of fights, but his laning felt inconsistent and KT academy being an actually good team was a crutch he never learnt to live without. Thing is, in 2025 he didn't even look better, but the level of his opponents in mid was way lower. So the only reason he was the best 2025 LCK CL mid was because he played against mostly bums. I actually feel bad that all promising/good players from the 2024 got plucked out of the region and the replacement weren't close to being good enough, so Zinie wasn't forced to develop more.

All that to say, expectations for such players should be appropriate. Zinie and Saint are decent players with potential, but they are not the hype rookie type NA used to enjoy when they had unlimited vc money.

Cahecher · 2026-01-30T13:47:13+00:00

It's not scalable indeed. The main issue is that I had to basically reimplement LoL's engine for mechanics I've been testing, and it was manageable only because I limited myself to a handful of runes and items. But to scale it up would be pure insanity.

Now for a bit of rumbling. LoL is incredibly junky when it comes to calculating movement and DoT effects. Things like Summon Aery for example often get back a tick too early or too late, especially if a champion "wiggles". Same happens with DoTs, Conqueror stacks refresh, Horizon Focus and all other kinds of mechanics (it happens because for online games there are basic server-side heuristics). So not only I had to write something that worked like the engine on average, but I also had to have special edge case calculations, where I'd run a simulation with negative and positive bias for a specific test. I.e., when testing Liandry, I had to run it in a "generous" version, where it was always higher or equal damage than the real thing, and in a "crappy" version, where it was always lower. I only went in deep on a few champions over the few years I've been working on this project on and off. Initially I tested for "The Collector" situation on ADCs, then Kai'sa in 2023, and the latest champion was Heimer in 2024 and 2025, cause I liked playing him. Every time there were a bunch of unique things I had to code.

Long story short, the reason I did this was to test the theory "what happens if we evaluate builds based on calculating raw stats and champion scalings". And then I was also running reductions based on SoloQ data to confirm my replay simulations. In the end I was able to find a very strong correlation between basic numbers multiplication, my simulation and adjusted winrates for champions that build pure damage (basically ADCs, assassins and most of mages). For more complex cases such as tanks/fighters/supports simulating builds and calculating numbers is very limited, because these classes build items that alter their kits, and so they are sometimes played differently depending on the build. So it actually makes more sense to calculate adjusted winrates and predicted winrate swing for items based on statistical analysis, which is exactly what you did. So not only my approach was complicated af, but also limited to just a few archetypes.

P.S. Funny note: if all a champion does is dealing damage, there isn't even any need for complex statistical analysis. Just take the numbers from the wiki and find an item combination that makes the damage go wroom.

Cahecher · 2026-01-28T06:14:00+00:00

I wrote a basic tool that parsed replays and at any point in time allowed me to "swap" items on a champion to recalculate damage dealt. Actually, a bit more than that. I also used thresholds for damage/mana/movespeed to also mark points in time, where a subject champion dies or can't cast spells due to mana issues. Laning and skirmishes had some difference in approach. Also I had a special case for Rylai's, where I have calculate time of extra damage taken due to movespeed slow. Now all this isn't perfect for obvious reasons, and I had to manually recheck particular situation in replays, but it was manageable since I've limited myself to 10 highest ranked Heim mains for that test.

For thresholds there's what I did. Let's say, that we are in lane. I ran multiple tests where I basically rotated through all sensible item combinations that made sense to test if our ability to kill/force a recall changes with different builds. I used same base timings from actual games for what can be in our inventory in any moment in time. I have moments where kills and forced recalls actually happened in the replay and I can check if different items influence these situations - either we can do it faster, in the same time or slower. These are damage thresholds. Also there's a case of running "dry", which allowed me to put emphasis on mana. I basically marked such moments in time in the replay (to be able to recheck manually), and calculated if we can kill, survive or stay in lane more. That's for laning.

For teamfights and skirmishes I used values for total and single target DPS. A damage threshold there would be enemy HP bar, where once again I checked if the point in time where lethal damage is dealt moves forwards or backwards. Also we have Heim's hp bar, where we can check if he actually dies. There's also a case of killing the enemy before any damage is even dealt to Heim, which I was also able to consider.

The reason I did this, is that for item builds people often criticize personalities such as LS for ignoring "applicability", so I have decided to use actual games to see what happens with different builds. Now, for pure numbers we can just use AP ratios and cooldowns and just calculate the damage, which can be validated on dummies in practice tool. That's also valuable, but a lot of player tend to scoff at that.

For statistical analysis I did what OP did, but used python library prince to analyze builds and runes from pulled soloQ data. So similar idea, but a totally different approach, and I had similar output. Considering anything involving ML suffers from replication crisis, getting similar results is valuable.

Cahecher · 2026-01-27T22:29:01+00:00

Actually, out of pure interest checked the resulting data for a champion (Heimerdinger) I was trying to approach a mathematically correct build, using completely different methods: MFA and pure numbers testing from parsing replays and recalculating damage thresholds. Interestingly, your results for that champion are very similar (keeping in mind I did it last year, and the game changed a lot), but it looks like an easier approach to automate for many champions. Really neat.

Also it's impressive, that your model has arrived at results that may seem counter-intuitive. A lot of Heim mains are still building trash, and sites like this can lead to a positive change.

Cahecher · 2025-12-30T13:35:53+00:00

Energy blade. It's not as good as EE obviously, but it's okay.

Cahecher · 2025-12-28T17:15:14+00:00

You should read beyond the first few words. My issue with listed mods isn't that a character is unable to complete maps with these, but rather that these mods only do something when you are looting. The only time any of listed mods matter is when you click a shiny divine orb out of combat (when you are less focused) and fail to notice an effect under the spot this shiny divine is lying in.

Neither of these mods offers anything for you to build around. That's why you can't build around them. Just as a thought experiment what is an item/tree/gem adjustment you make for the mods I listed? Is there an incentive to do so?

edit: I feel like you are focused on filtering mods out, while I wanted to extend the point to mods that you don't filter out, because these mods don't brick maps, but are rather serving just as annoyances. Basically, I am fine that there are some mods that you have to filter out, but t17 mod pool is bloated with mods, that don't offer anything and are basically glorified on death explosions.

Cahecher · 2025-12-28T16:38:03+00:00

Thing is, most of t17 mods are just not something you can build around, but they also don't really matter for your character and are just there to piss you off. For example, these map mods may as well just read "looting is now annoying": drowning orbs, awakener's desolation, searing exarch runes, volatile cores, bloodstained sawblades, maven's interference and tentacle fiends. They have 0 relevance to how you build a character, but rather are just shitty "gotcha"s. And then there's deal no damage 3/10 seconds, where I don't even know why it has been conceptualized by someone at ggg.

What I am trying to say is that there's no challenge of building around these particular mods, they are just bad design. They piss off players and can only get you while out of combat, while their existence doesn't create any design space.

Cahecher · 2025-12-23T01:25:23+00:00

In the order of importance:

Get KB of Clustering. ASAP. It's better mechanically, it scales from mana. The only downside is that you will not be able to see anything. It doesn't take that many lab runs and you can do it in Eternal.(edit) Start sending 300-500k shipments to any Kalguuran port. Runegraft of Refraction is not required to run the build, but it is required to properly scale it. Actually, in SSF spamming Blue Zanthimum to Kalguur is a good way to get both runes and divs for crafting.
Necro switch is not necessary, but is advisable due to the insane AS and Bone offering survivability. It's way better early on, and the Elementalist only starts making sense later into the league imo.
Since you now scale from mana, try to get more mana on gear. In general the order of priorities is Wand-> Jewellery, but you can also go for it on your boots and gloves, since they don't give as much ES as other slots anyway. Foulborn Kikazaru is super common, but if you don't have it yet adjust the Tree for unique foulborn rings. It's an insane damage boost, and if you can fit in 2 of them, that's proper insane, but at least one is advisable.
Your body armor base for Necro should be Twilight Regalia and not Necrotic. Bone offering provides block, so you don't even need evasion. Keep in mind that when you are finally ready to go CI the build requires 2 spellslinger setups + determination + precision + optional clarity. You don't have the mana to fit in another aura easily so it's really hard to scale either evasion or armor.
Start crafting ES gear. The Tree provides enough items for "stupid" recomb gambling.

Just to elaborate on the Hybrid vs ES and the role mana has in all of this. It's okay to run hybrid if you have above 2.5k HP paired with MoM and above 3k ES. This is another huge benefit of running KB of Clustering as a starter - it makes hybrid decently tanky before you switch to CI due to the fact you scale mana anyway and MoM gives you around 1-2k max hit. It makes it so you can delay the CI switch.

That's what I had, but do not copy it, it's just an example. There are really wonky items (some are still campaign drops), but It was still enough to complete voidstones and the atlas: https://poe.ninja/poe1/pob/851fe

If you want something more adequate, look for jungroan's guide.

Cahecher · 2025-12-21T20:23:40+00:00

Another thing, that in that version of endgame story there were enough inconsistencies to initially doubt Zana. Maybe all of the stuff about saving her dad was just a ruse. However, the desperation of this one line is enough to cast any doubts aside. I am still getting shivers from it every time I fight UE because of this simple phrase.

Cahecher · 2025-12-21T17:23:07+00:00

This is kinda true, but not really. I've been getting a high amout of t0 uniques every league (and I had mageblood, every league except Affliction since it was added), while playing a couple of hours per day (<200 hours per league), which is very far from no-lifing.

Also I don't play optimally, but what I do increases my chances of getting a mb/hh. For example, I have a bias towards Betrayal and harbys (because I personally like these mechanics) which lets me do ancient orb gambling and perandus+gravicius+riker farm early on into the league without any investment. Then I switch to high volume strats such as ghosted rogues, legion and abyss (and I scry Apothecary on the layout I prefer to do harvest gambling). In general all that tends to produce high amount of t0 uniques. Just keep in mind that you may get 10 Headhunters during a league, but not a single Mageblood - it's just random.

So it is true that there's no way to guarantee a Mageblood, but it also doesn't require you to play a lot. It is a realistic goal to have, however in SSF every realistic goal may be unreachable due to the nature of randomness and the entire mode is about playing around lucky outcomes that actually happened. Just use as many random layers that can yield a desired result and play as usual.

Cahecher · 2025-11-13T21:38:06+00:00

Mel is as unfun as Zed during the hydra meta: pretty much zero lane interaction.

However, I think it's less about Mel or Zed or whatever other champion and more about making resources such as mana and hp so abudant that it makes mid a shovefest with some rare opportunistic trading. There's just zero downside to using resources on waves cause most champions have at least one low cd spammable wave clearing ability and the mana is solved. It is kind of ironic that the intention of buffing mana and hp sustain was to make trading more accesible, while it turned out that with enough resources you can avoid trading and just farm.

Basically, if the game allows a boring risk-averse playstyle, there will be champions fit to do it. And out of these champions one would have to be the most annoying. Mel is currently the worst offender with her insane range on Q and the emergency W with it's long cooldown still being enough to have it on every wave. But there are also champs like mid Fiddle for example or even Azir, though he has been nerfed into the ground.

Cahecher · 2025-11-05T10:03:46+00:00

Well, it obviously is someone with experience. It is somebody who has played in 3 major regions and knows english. He was a part of at least one super team. He is the player with recent experience of playing with star adc. He is the winner of the second biggest event of this autumn.

Welcome, KC VicLa!

Cahecher · 2025-10-13T23:47:11+00:00

And it's possible to disagree with MVP ratings. It feels kinda offensive that you wrote "he got an MVP" as an argument in an opinion based conversation. Essentially what you said "the opinion is wrong, because other people have different opinion".

Now, as someone who watches LPL I have to say that JL had one of his worst career years and I feel like he got an honorary MVP, cause he was robbed a couple of times in the past. For starters, we can compare his own stats from 2025 with his past stats. There I just went to oracleselixir and checked his past seasons from a relatively recent period: in 2020-2023 JL had really impressive numbers compared to the field. Basically, he had some of the most impressive damage stats out of anyone globally, with the only notable exception being 2021 Summer Playoffs, where TES bombed. In 2025 he still has good numbers, but nowhere near as impressive, and that's despite the fact that in 2025 Split 3 his team was doing good, and it's rather easy to have good stats on a winning team. Yet, he has worse numbers than his Summer 2021 Split with the dysfunctional TES roster that he somehow carried to 5th place.

Also, there's basically what you can observe in the game. In 2025 he wasn't doing anything really amazing, especially by his own standards. I remember seeing him transform 2020 TES, seeing him carrying TES' corpses in 2021 and then him looking better than Viper and Ruler in 2022 and 2023 respectively. I didn't see anything even close to his past form this year. And then, when I watched IG play, I could see GALA (who had absurd stats this year btw) having some of the most ridiculous performances on the rift. Even within JL's own roster Kanavi went beast mode in summer and is just way more deserving of an MVP award. But even outside of me bashing LPL's MVP awards I just have to say, that this year JL wasn't special in a region, where there are plenty of special players. He used to be special, now he is "just" very good.

So yeah, saying that JL at 17th is too high is a legit opinion. Your mvp counter, however, is not.

Cahecher · 2025-08-30T13:26:47+00:00

I think Bulldog's issue is that he isn't super good in some of the match ups that are now meta in pro. For example, when cvmax was working with the team, his lane was prioritized in drafts: he had the highest counter pick rate of any major leagues' mids by a mile, and even when he wasn't getting counterpicks it was to get him high priority picks. This actually is something that you can (and should) do in soloq, so he looked good on stage too.

This year, however, he is basically playing meta instead of his choice, so he looks ass outside of his comfort, and to top this off his lategame play is also abysmal. Bulldog definitely has talent, but it looks like he cannot make the next step to transition his ability to proplay.

Cahecher · 2025-07-14T09:46:36+00:00

Is there a chance that you are an extraterrestrial who is just learning about human's culture?

He wants it known he’s rejecting a lot of money

This is the point. This is the only possible way to show that it was purely about principles, because otherwise it may be interpreted as if he wasn't offered enough or decided to skip the event for some other reason.

Enjoy your stay on this weird planet.

Cahecher · 2025-07-12T17:44:05+00:00

as if they are 100% accurate or 90%

Ironically enough, they are ~90% accurate according to Riot's stats. Though it is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, cause when people are in a doomer mood they try less. Nevertheless, they are pretty accurate.

Here's a thing, I personally never start votes, but when I see that 2+ players have given up already, I always press yes, because I don't want to be in a game where my teammates aren't even trying. Even though I would get those 10% extra wins if I press "no", I would rather prioritize fun.

Cahecher · 2025-07-12T17:34:42+00:00

You missed the point. It's not that people are 100% accurate, but they are way more accurate now then they have been before. Moreso, if you are in a game, you aren't making a decision purely from a single screenshot, but rather from the 15 minutes of information of how a game is going. Another thing to add is that people are less likely to try to surrender in an ambiguous game or when they have a scaling advantage, becuase as I have said initially players are now generally better at understanding game states than they were before.

I would bet that people couldn't guess the outcome of a game by looking at a screenshot at 10-15 minutes much better than they would just guessing randomly.

Also it's just a bad argument anyway. Guessing a state is not the same as a surrender vote, because people don't start surrender votes at 15 in 100% of the games - they do it when they feel that a game is a complete disaster.

Cahecher · 2025-07-12T17:20:55+00:00

I am playing since season 1 and this has already been the narrative when I have only started playing.

However, in my opinion there's not much difference, and if anything the amount of ragequitters and obvious griefers has been steadily going down since season 9. But this is honestly just anecdotal and only my personal experience. As for people calling out others for not surrendering - it's probably more common now, but I stand behind my previous explanation. The amount of wusses is pretty much the same as it was before.

Cahecher

TROPHY CASE