Welcome back, Okairinasai

Yeah yeah, I've been gone for a week, I've been very busy with personal issues in real life, therefore I wasn't able to post. Also, I have been working on revamping my hilarious images blog entirely (changes will appear soon). I apologise for the delay, but now the blog will be back on track with plenty of updates and information on the league. This is not a lie fabricated by me because I was watching anime and playing LoL all week (the last few episodes of Bleach were awesome, shame about the filler).

So what do we have since I last posted? There's a new champion out and about, Jarvan IV.

From my experience so far (around 40 games with Jarvan in them), Jarvan is a very strong hero with some excellent utility. He is essentially a tankier version of Xin Zhao. I have fought him 1 on 1 as Xin, and  I lost most fights unless it was late game.

I expect there to be a fair amount of complaining about his ultimate, because trapping 3+ people in a ring while Fiddlesticks or Katarina AoE stomps them is practically GG. For those of you who want to see a video of Jarvan, here is HotshotGG playing his first games with him (skip the first few minutes to get to the game).

Whilst I'd love to chat about Jarvan all day, I'm going to move on to something more important, that was announced today.

League of Legends has been officially confirmed as a title in the 2011 World Cyber Games. This is great news for casual and hardcore player alike, since the League will be featured among some of the greatest games that have ever been produced. Here is a list of the 2011 games:

WCG 2011 Official Game Titles:

Fighting

    * Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai Games)



FPS (First Person Shooting)

    * Counter-Strike 1.6 (Valve)
    * Crossfire (Neowiz Games/Smilegate)
    * Special Force (Dragonfly)



MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)

    * World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



RTS (Real Time Strategy)

    * League of Legends (Riot Games)
    * StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ (Blizzard Entertainment)
    * Warcraft® III: The Frozen Throne™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



Sports

    * FIFA 11 (Electronic Arts)

WCG is the longest running esports event in history, so with coverage like this expect a fair few new players ingame. Last year League of Legends was only presented as a promotional title in WCG, so they've managed to take a step up the ladder this year. I am personally looking forward to this, considering it's a step towards more competitive play.

On another note, I've been on an incredible win streak this week, I can't remember the last time I've lost more than one game in a row. Touchwood. If you wish to play with me on the US servers, add my summoner name: ByakuyaYO. I know the Yo on the end makes me look like a pleb, deal with it.

Riot introduce paid tournaments! Finally!

A new post on the League of Legends website:




Summoners,
You asked for organized weekly tournaments and we’re here to deliver!
We saw how the ESL Go4LoL & Master Series provided an awesome experience for our European competitors, so now we want to bring all of you the same experience on this side of the pond.
The ESL will be running two competitions for North Americans:

1. The Go4LoL Tournament Series starts with weekly $100 one day tournaments that culminate in $1,000 finals for the teams that earn the most placement points during the month.
2. The National ESL Premier League will be an invite division where the best of North Amerca compete for $5,000. The top teams will be invited to compete against their European counter-parts in the ESL Major Series. Stay tuned for more details on this division.

All of these events will also be a part of the Season One Circuit, which means that the top eight teams in each event will earn Circuit Points that advance them ever so closer to being invited to the $100,000 tournament at the end of Season One. You can find the North American standings here.
The first qualifiers start this weekend, so what are you waiting for? Sign up a team today and start practicing.

The first thing I will say is, AWESOME. There's been a lot of posts on the Riot forums regarding competitive play recently, and this is the first step in the right direction. This is a wonderful way to encourage players to practice and play to win. I am behind Riot on this one all the way.


Whilst I will not enter myself, I hope plenty of people sign up for this. I will be watching all the live streams though, so I can put on my coolface when someone makes a mistake and brag to my friends about how I'm so much better.

It appears the massive success of the Go4LoL tournaments have finally gotten Riot's attention. This could be a new beginning to the League of Legends, because as of now, the game is considered "casual". When I hear this, it really pisses me off, despite the fact it's true. LoL is a game orientated for casual players, even in ELO. Of course a common player couldn't reach the top rankings, but average players can meet a fair amount of success in ranked matches. I play the game to win, and I'd like to play competitively, when I've had a few hundred more games of practice.

I really hope these tournaments bring a new era of play to LoL, because I know there's a lot of us out there that want there to be a more reliable and skilled playerbase.

Good job Riot, you managed to announce a change that most people will find favorable. The only downside I can see is a drastic influx of elitist players. Actually.... That's not good. Really not good. Oh dear.