Reign of Gaming

If you follow my posts regularly, you'll know I stress, well, consistency. It's not enough to play a strategy that will win, but also to know why it wins, and how it gets countered, so that you can mitigate that counter when it arises. About 2 or 3 months ago, I started an experiment to test just how well people could counter strategies at a higher level. I played almost nothing but jungle Skarner. Why? Because I knew he was an underplayed champion who is 'easily countered', and I wanted to see at which point those counters would come into play. What did I find out? Well, I was quite shocked, to say the least.

When I started, I hadn't played Solo Queue consistently in months, having played pretty much solely ranked 5s with my team (which had died down) and blind pick normals with the ladyfriend. I wasn't really sure about a lot of variables; I was pretty sure my overall skill level had waned, but I didn't know by how much, and at what roles. I was pretty sure that if I was going to do best at a role, it was jugnle. At the same time, some elements of my old 5s team were reforming, and told me that if I could prove myself in the next few weeks, they needed a jungler. At the moment I was Gold 2, and they were all Diamond players.

I decided that the best strategy would be what I had already said it was; master the game with one champion, then branch out. But what champion? My 4 favorite champions have always been Cho, Skarner, Jarvan, and Nasus, and I decided that my best pick was Skarner. At the time, I had played 75 games with him, and was 44-31, with a KDA of 3.3/3.6/10.3, for a (K+A)/D of 3.78.

I played a few games in a row with him and found that nobody in Gold could handle my aggressive style of invading, as Skarner is a very strong duelist. I would take that early lead and attempt to snowball it by constantly contesting the enemy jungler's wraiths and golems, and forcing them back whenever possible, that I might hit 6 extremely early.

Click the spoiler for a more detailed description of my strategy, or find my Skarner guide at LoLKing.

I soon found out a few things:

I kept thinking 'this is the game solo queue is going to learn to counter me', but those games were few and far between. Ultimately, solo queue is disorganized. Often, to counter a champion, the whole enemy team has to know how to play appropriately. More likely, 3 people will each think they know how to 'counter' a champion, and they'll argue about it until they lose. On the other hand, when you play a rare champion, people will treat your word as god's word (especially when you have a match history of almost entirely wins). Even when I was playing Diamond III and Diamond II opponents, I'd still end games with comments of 'how is Skarner so fast?' or 'I didn't even think I was out of position!'

Never underestimate the ability of solo queue players to make mistakes; it is limitless, and not constrained by skill level. Better players are more defined by better game knowledge than fewer mistakes, so take advantage of those mistakes. How do you best do that? Play things that are good, even if just in a niche, but relatively unknown. I've tried to take advantage of this in the past few months, and it has moved me up a full division, pitted me against Diamond MMR opponents for awhile, and had me performing well both on the ladder and in tournaments in arranged 5s play. Moreover, moving up in MMR pitted me against higher quality opponents, which forced me to improve even faster.

But it's not enough to play an underplayed champion: it has to be a champion with a particularly game-breaking ability. By game-breaking, I don't mean OP, I mean any ability which causes the game to function differently by its mere presence. Some clear examples are Shen (time to play passive!) and knockups (say goodnight, CC Reduction!)

Finally, I like to play champions with multiple builds available, so I can pick them, and then switch strategies on the off chance that somebody DOES know how to counter the.

For awhile, Zac fit this bill for me (my ranked team is 30-12 with him), although with his success on Cloud9, people are starting to learn to play against him. However, here is a list of other game-breaking underplayed champion I like to jungle, mid, top, AD, and Support, with descriptions of what makes them game-breaking, and their current pick-rate in Platinum.

Jungle

Fiddlesticks: His ult forces you to plan your wards when pushing, or find yourself surprised. His drain makes him the most sustained taker of dragon except maybe Nasus, and he doesn't even need his ult to do so. His fear is a month long, too! He can be built 21/0/9 with Zhonya's and tanky AP items, or 9/0/21 with CDR/tankiness items. He has an 11% pick rate.

Skarner: His huge speed and the huge impact of his ult make him brutal at punishing mistakes. He can be built to be a tanky juggernaut (0/21/9 with tanky CDR items), or a faster tanky juggernaut with less CC Reduction (4/3/21 with less CDR and more tankiness or even a damage item, although I wouldn't recommend the damage item). He has a 1% pick rate.

Aatrox: That passive is severely under-planned for, allowing for great dives. Like Jarvan, he can build tanky, but he can also grab a BotRK (it synergizes even better with him) if he gets fed. He has a 6% pick rate.

Vi: She's practically an AD scaling Malphite with % health damage. She can also build tanky with the option for a BotRK if fed early. She has a 5% pick rate.

Nocturne: Wards? What wards. Built some early CDR to take advantage of his ult. He can be built tanky with the option for a BotRK if fed early, but as Meteos showed us, he can also just farm the jungle and wait to gank/counter-gank with his ult, building pure damage (he built Lizard Elder + Hydra + Last Whisper to pretty great effect, with ridiculous burst). He has a 7% pick rate.

Top/Mid

Cho: Remember Cho? He still has stupid sustain, crazy long CC, and a huge true damage nuke. He dominates vs many AP Carries because of the sustain and silence. He can also build almost any item, between Abyssal Scepter, Frozen Fist/Heart, Randuin's, Rod of Ages, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Wit's End, or Shurelia's + Twin Shadows, and each build leads to a different playstyle. He has a 6% pick rate.

Renekton: He's seen tons of EU play top, but mostly faded away. He beats almost erybody in lane, and the current popularity of Kennen/Ryze/Rumble is one of the few reasons he has become a rare pick. Picked with a strong early ganker, he will snowball hard, and he can build as much damage as he needs on top of his tanky build. He has a 12% pick rate.

AD

Twitch: People still don't know how to deal with Twitch, who has one of the most ridiculous lv 2 all-ins with a strong CC support. His passive and his Expunge add so much delayed damage, and if he gets ahead in a lane, his stealth makes it almost impossible to gank him, or even stand safely in lane. On top of having a super strong early laning phase, he scales LUDICROUSLY into the late game with 3 or 4 steroids, depending on how you count his ult, and he can pull off Vayne-style stealth assassination shenanigans with impunity. In my opinion, he and Vayne are the top two ADCs at the moment, and while everybody knows to ban Vayne, nobody plays Twitch. He had a 12% pick rate until a week or so ago, and has since climbed to 18%.

Support

Zyra: I wish I could play Zyra. She has such long-ranged harass that a well-played Zyra will zone you away forever, if you give her an edge in lane. On top of that, she has tons of AoE CC and can build Liandry's for tons of damage, unlike most other supports. She has a 12% pick rate.

Unusual Champions Stream

If you want to watch me playing unusual junglers, tune into my stream! I'll probably be playing something more unusual like Fiddles/Skarner/Cho/Aatrox (or Zac/Jarvan/Nasus, because I love them). By the time this post goes up, I won't be streaming anymore, and my schedule will be sporadic while I move, but by September 15th, I should be on a very regular schedule. As well, I play 5s every night from 6PM PST until we decide to sleep (...except not today)

Chapter 1 of a novel I'm writing: Memories

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