Reign of Gaming

Agreed, I like the look of him, I was just point out that there were more differences, than implied.

And doesn't give him a giant shield that let's him survive being in the middle of the enemy team.

That nerf to Hecarim's passive takes away one of my favorite things about him, ignoring minions is so fun.  If they are going to do it, they could at least tack it on to his devastating charge if they think it being up all the time is too much.  Don't take the ghost horse away.

Also hidden exciting news, the base boots price change would open up boots, ward, 2 pots.  That seems like a really strong start.  That would really shake up starting item choices.  And Doran's Ring being silly auto choose if that change went live.

My only issue is if he's a tanky/assassin/splitpusher and you leave him as that and make him strong or heck even middling, isn't that one of the most toxic champs imaginable?

Seriously that is an incredibly obnoxious kit to deal with, and seems like it is the sort of thing you frequently say shouldn't be in the game.

I get that it's saving grace is the flexibility in how it plays out, and the difficulty in doing so successfully, but that doesn't make it a not toxic archetype.

I don't want to play League when Tanky/Assassin/Splitpusher is a perfectly reasonable role to fill.

Probably complexity, but I really don't want to see them go down as they've been fun to watch since adding Prolly.

You definitely lose out on any sort of early game power, but it allows you to accelerate your mid game by skipping vamp scepter and going straight IE.  It's a trade off, not for every situation but nice to have as an option.

I really like the lifesteal quints as they scale well into late game (6% is nothing to scoff at) and allow me to delay a lifesteal item until after the core of Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, Last Whisper/Tanky Item.  I weakens my early game noticeably, so I prefer it on someone who isn't reliant on a dominant early game.  I really like them on Ezreal, Tristana, and Kog'Maw in particular and I'd imagine they'd be solid on Vayne but I don't play her so I'm not sure.

http://www.reignofgaming.net/blogs/a-different-view/gentleman-gustaf/23764-positional-imbalances

One big reason I'm posting is even with the lane swap meta what was discussed in the above article seemed really true a few weeks/months ago and I can't figure out why it seems so different now.

Edit:  That is to say that it seemed as though purple had it rough in a lane swap due to less dragon control, and rough in a standard lane due to mini golems.  But now it seems to be winning more often than not.

Lately it seems that in the LCS there has been a noticeable purple side advantage.  I've been wondering if it's an anomaly or am I reading too much into too few random games?  For example in Curse GGU the purple side won every game, GGU and Vulcun took games off of Dig and CLG on purple in the first round of the playoffs.  It seems to me since teams started the plan of take every camp the second it spawns purple side has been doing very well (but that is just observation not statistical evidence).

I have a couple of theories as to why purple seems to have an edge right now.  First two picks in a row rather than one solo pick might be a slight advantage.  On that same note having a last uncounterable pick could be an advantage.  Second purple side seems to be the side dictating where lanes go and being proactive rather than reactive can be very helpful.  For example IG versus WE recently saw WE reactively switching to try to match rumble against malphite (who started cloth 5), but because IG initiated the unexpected lane (malphite mid, played by the nominal top laner) the malphite got ahead through the several switches and was able to bully the rumble who fell way behind in levels and WE had to switch their adc and support and leave the underleveled rumble in a solo lane where he was ganked and killed under his turret.

So is there an edge to purple side?  Am I reading too much into things?  If there is an edge why?

That Vulcun CLG match was a blast to watch.  That game three was just a fun game, I really thought CLG had turned it around when they picked off four members of Vulcun late, but they couldn't capitalize onto any objectives off of it and Vulcun kept map control.

Also it's now a serious question: does purple side advantage exist?