In professional League of Legends, Teleport has seen occasional use in the Mid lane for years. But towards the end of the 2015 Summer split it gained more and more popularity, becoming a fairly regular feature in the playoffs and Regional tournaments. In this article, we’ll explore the effects of bringing Teleport in the Mid lane by looking at TP Mid’s “win conditions”, including how the early game plays out and what the late game looks like. Through a variety of statistical evidence, we’ll see why TP Mid is much more effective when it is used aggressively in the early game, not defensively, and why it is reliant on mid-game gold leads to produce wins.
Warning: this is a long one. Feel free to skim through for the important bolded sentences, or scroll through to the end of the article for a quick recap of the main findings and arguments!
Outline
1. The Recent Rise of TP Mid 2. Strategic Perspectives 3. Play Style 4. The Early Game 5. The Late Game 6. Conclusions
A few weeks ago, I asked the community to fill out a survey about the champion Viktor. The goal was to crowdsource or brainstorm some ideas about why Viktor was such a high priority Mid lane pick, when his win rate in North American and European pro play was so low.
Twenty-one people filled out the survey, with a lot of very detailed and well thought out opinions and perspectives.
My original intention was to supplement this feedback with some statistical exploration, to see whether I could support or counterpoint some of the common ideas. However, I’ve been too busy with other projects to do that properly, so I decided to put these findings out there for people to explore before too much more time passes. Continue reading Results of “Have Your Say”: Viktor→
Call it a Cinderella story, a tale of redemption, a hero’s journey: no label can fully describe the triumphant return of Hai Lam to the Cloud9 roster mid-way through the 2015 Summer split, which culminated in an against-all-odds ascension through the Regional tournament to qualify for the 2015 World Championships.
After Hai’s first few games back, very few people gave Cloud9 much chance of avoiding the Relegation Tournament, let alone qualifying for Worlds. But as the regular season wound to a close, if you knew where to look, there were signs that this could be coming, hints of a team ready to make its triumphant return. A handful of different statistics revealed Cloud9 as a potential top-3 North American team over the last four weeks of the regular season.
We’re going to take a two-part look at Hai’s effects on Cloud9 this split.
The first part of the article tells the story of how Hai helped Cloud9 improve enough to squeak into Regionals, run the gauntlet, and qualify for Worlds.
The second part is a statistical appendix that digs into three ways Cloud9 played differently after Hai’s return.
Read both parts for the full perspective, or feel free to scroll down to the section that interests you most!
