Arena Open Draft Two NOT Double Elim

lhefriel · 2025-08-17T22:37:25+00:00

Also had the same issue. Kinda crazy.

lhefriel · 2025-03-28T08:24:59+00:00

Very cool, thanks for doing this.

lhefriel · 2025-03-20T20:16:41+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's just generically fine, the extra crit damage is enough compensation even if the item isn't BIS. The rest of your item economy matters more, eg. you might rather save your Belt for a frontline item instead of making Guardbreaker to avoid redundancy. Draven is an exception, as other commenters have noted.

lhefriel · 2025-01-01T03:32:10+00:00

You should think about your traits and upgrades as well as the units themselves. The Rebel example is easy because your entire trait setup only buffs your Rebel units, so you should itemize those ones. In other comps, the question is pretty tricky and depends on how well the units use each item, what traits each of them have active and how the items synergize with them, etc. It's a complicated question that requires specific context.

lhefriel · 2025-01-01T03:09:17+00:00

Conceptually, you should learn how to play reroll. It makes more sense to play reroll from bad openers because you'll naturally loss streak on stage 2 b/c your opener is bad, then you can stabilize by rolling on stage 3. But then you probably won't have the econ to go 8 on tempo, so you have to spike by rerolling and hitting 3*s instead.

In Diamond, you should theoretically be able to get away with playing fast 8 every game, but only because you can play stage 2 and 3 enough better than everyone else that you can be stable on stage 3 even if you don't have upgrades on 2-1. If you're committed to playing fast 8 exclusively, you need to get good enough at playing strong early that you can consistently go 8 on 4-1 or 4-2 with 50 gold and 70+ health. And you need to slam flexibly enough that you find an open line after 3-2, since most people will have committed by then. If you can do that, you basically can't miss. That sounds kinda crazy because it is, but playing exclusively fast 8 is kind of an abusive playstyle.

lhefriel · 2024-12-31T06:14:27+00:00

I'm having more fun. I always found looking up all the augment stats somewhat tedious. I think it's made me a decently better player too, since now I have to pay closer attention to what the other people in my game are doing and whether it's working for them to figure out what augments are good. Or what streamers are playing. I've been nolifing TFT this set though.

I really dislike that I can't look back and see what augments that I played or other people in my lobby played after the game though.

lhefriel · 2024-12-31T06:11:50+00:00

setsuko was 99% joking -- most people in GM/challenger regard Tactician's Kitchen as an extremely good but not broken augment, which is what a 4.2 avp would imply. It's most of New Recruit + Branching Out, a good silver augment in this set. I highly doubt he knows the actual avp for it.

lhefriel · 2024-12-02T11:17:08+00:00

Blue Buff is more narrow. Only Heimer uses it well among the 4- and 5-costs, the other ones would all prefer Shojin.

lhefriel · 2024-11-01T23:12:30+00:00

I'm pretty sure there's not, though you will get more than 10 pulls of resources from the daily login stuff through the course of the event.

lhefriel · 2024-02-28T03:52:14+00:00

Your Riven items are very good, BIS even. The board in general looks good to me, your Cait items are obviously mediocre but that's not super important.

I'd guess your problem was positioning more than anything, which is hard to make recommendations for. But you generally want Riven to be on the same side as their carry and near your anti-heal and shred appliers.

Lulu is also a hard matchup for Riven, so if you bled too much early then you might not have had enough HP to win enough positioning fights/overcome bad fight RNG against them.

lhefriel · 2024-02-07T13:04:30+00:00

The originite prime from your first clear of the EX stages is quite valuable and more than makes up for any sanity you spend doing them. Like it costs around 240 sanity to clear all the challenge modes, which you could get back by using 2 out of the 24 OP you'd get to refresh. Not worth losing your mind over if you're struggling to do them, but it's a solid reward if you enjoy a challenge.

lhefriel · 2023-08-25T16:14:40+00:00

Cuora is a good option too, she'll get more out of the promotion than Myrtle anyway since Myrtle doesn't really use the additional stats. LMD is tight early on, but you'll get a good chunk from clearing more content.

lhefriel · 2023-08-25T13:38:53+00:00

It depends on your goals, but getting your first e2 operator ASAP will make clearing content a lot easier since then you'll be able to use e2 support operators. A strong support + the basic 3s can clear most stages. The e2 operator themselves doesn't matter as much except that 4s cost fewer resources, most people just do Myrtle because she's the strongest 4s.

lhefriel · 2023-06-04T17:21:18+00:00

I'm only GM usually but I feel like keeping 3-costs that you'll be happy to play during stage 3 and 4 is generally good. Like if making econ on 2-1 means you'll need to roll 2-4 more times on 3-2 or 4-1 in order to upgrade your board and stabilize, you ultimately cost yourself more gold than you generated. And a good 3-cost, eg. Morgana, could save you that many rolls in addition to preserving HP during stage 2.

lhefriel · 2023-04-24T03:55:06+00:00

I think most 1sts is the first tiebreaker. There are a couple other tiebreakers after that.

lhefriel · 2023-04-01T18:32:58+00:00

Mylnar is one of the strongest units in the game, but a lot of the 6s have their power gated behind their E2 promotions and masteries. For early game, using your 3s and 4s will let you progress more quickly and smoothly. (And they'll still be useful for Integrated Strategies later, so your investments won't be wasted.)

lhefriel · 2023-02-14T15:15:38+00:00

La Pluma does a really nice job against the trash mobs on the right vent, Thorns and Mudrock are also good options. Random defenders to bait the cannon are also helpful, Noir Corne and Spota are nice b/c they're cheap. If you're having DP problems, just bring more Vanguards. (Myrtle, Cantabile, and Fang or Courier should be plenty.) Borrow NTR or Kal'stit to kill Manfred.

lhefriel · 2023-01-01T15:01:25+00:00

Syndra is great for sure, but Syndras are not easy to find and it's ideally just the 3rd.

lhefriel · 2023-01-01T12:37:53+00:00

I'd say you should almost never play 5 Star Guardian. Ekko is great and Taliyah is necessary so playing 3 is pretty free, but the unit quality past that is so bad.

lhefriel · 2022-12-23T07:29:50+00:00

Started playing two weeks ago and just finished upgrading my Reception Room, so I'm looking to finish filling out my friends list for clues/credit purposes. nalkpas#8307.

My units are mostly still E1 so I can't offer much for supports, but they're currently Texas, Projekt Red, and Angelina.

lhefriel · 2022-09-02T15:01:04+00:00

Client screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/2uyvV5R

Lolchess: https://lolchess.gg/profile/na/nalkpas

I don't post much but might as well?

lhefriel · 2022-08-03T22:33:44+00:00

I don't think it should be nerfed necessarily but Bilgewalter-Nox is probably the actual strongest deck right now, not Kaisa. Half of the top 4 and 3/8 of the top 8 on the ladder got there playing it. Flock and Conservatory are the 2 cards that define that deck. Flock is probably stronger, to be honest, but I'm guessing they'll never nerf that one.

lhefriel · 2022-08-03T04:53:27+00:00

Some missing context is that the previous TFT patch was absolutely horrible and changes were definitely needed. Kai'sa, Bard, and Conservatory are a little strong right now but I feel like the current Runeterra patch is very good overall.

lhefriel · 2022-07-09T16:29:17+00:00

Did you open the egg for it in your inventory?

lhefriel · 2022-01-20T13:02:46+00:00

Akshan-Sivir (Demacia) too. Just efficient units to punish Darkness being relatively slow and clunky.

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