Skin Reveiw: Ironside Maliphite

Leagues newest skin launch "Ironside Maliphite," was just released. Maliphite is a tank/fighter champion nicknamed "Shard of the monolith." Normally he hones a very earthy appearance, similar to Mao Kai. In fact, they both look so much alike, (like Groots) that I can never tell them apart.

When it comes to skins, what makes me rate them is the same thought process as before I buy (or wish I could buy) one. What it really depends on, is whether the skin looks better than the champion themselves. And what I mean by looks, I mean in-game. Often the cover art for some skins and champions are very deceiving.

I mean.... The similarities are just. Striking. *nudge nudge* Among his other skins, I have to say this Bildgewater rendering is his best skin. The glacial Maliphite just makes him look like Taric joined the furry community. Mecha Maliphite I feel they should have waited on. While they did good on it. I feel like they should have released it as a "PROJECT" skin.


The cover art of the Ironside Maliphite skin looks quite silly to be honest. The other Bildgewater character renderings beside him look far more interesting than Maliphite. (Especially the Bildgewater Garen. He reminds me of the antagonist in the Avatar movie. Actually as personal preference of mine, Garen's standard look is horrible. And Rugged Garen, should be his actual standard look.)
Luckily though, the in game look of Ironside Maliphite gives him some justice.

Sadly though, his in game effects haven't seemed to change much. As well, this skin just doesn't look remarkably better than his original. And rather makes him look like a hodge-podge Blitzcrank.
If you however happen to like this skin, you can pick it up for 975RP.

My rating: 4/10 cups of tea.

Break the Meta: Can Kalista Jungle?

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/champion-reveal/kalista-spear-vengeance-revealed

What went wrong: Horrible beginning game. Partially my fault because I had never played even a regular jungle game before. [That's because I'm the adc's advocate.] However I did know a thing or two, and kicked up some armor seals before I started. So knowing that a leash [having someone help you kill the first monster, but backing away before the last shot] is a necessary thing thing to have- I asked for one.

(In the meantime of video editing, I had asked for a leash, but alas! No one had came. Or even bothered with it. As well our teams mid later, an Ekko, had many "positive" things to say about my decision to play a marksman in the jungle. Including that we are going to lose control of the mid lane, then the top lane, due to my incompetence.)

(Plus later that game the Ekko left me to die for no reason at all, and then complained 30 seconds later when he walked to his own death and no one helped him.)

Well that was a whole lot of positivity! And, that also didn't work. Hmm.... Wonder why.
Continuing on with the game I discovered that you need a lot of health potions, and support from your team, which my team wasn't so keen on giving. As I was beginning editing the video, I had noticed just how rude my team had been. It was sad, but you really can't break the meta without people dissaproving you. It was a very bad beginning, but I had high hopes of making a good recovery. Luckily I was only two levels behind.

Here's what I leveled:

I began the game leveling my E, Rend. Usually when I play Kalista in lane I choose to max that ability out first. Her Q is just a more powerful version of her basic attack. I didn't get my ult until the end because I wasn't bonded with anyone. Rend does more damage the more times the enemy has been hit with basic attacks or Q. Making securing a kill much easier. Which brings me to why I wanted to try to play Kalista Jungle in the first place. My experience playing Kalista, she is a Dragon slayer. At level 9-11 (as long as she has 10% life steal and runans hurricane) she can kill a dragon by herself if it's under 25-30 minutes in game. This is because the ammount of times that she can basic attack a dragon is enormous, due to its very high health bar. Having all of these basic attacks in on it can add up to a lot. Once the dragon is under 1500 health, she can kill it just by using rend. This seemed great for other jungle creatures, since they don't run away, I figured it should be easy to get lots of basic attacks in.

Well, it's not.

Kalista passive is being able to nimbly dart in a chosen direction each time she lands a basic attack. 

This is a really useful thing when you're in lane, letting you be able to attack enemies, and making it hard for  them to attack you afterwards. In the Jungle, this doesn't work very well. With the new update, monsters lose interest when they're away from their home. If you accidently dart in a bush area to avoid the monsters attack, the monster will follow you in the bush... 

Which leads to to downfalls of Kalistas basic attacks. Apart from the only doing 90%, you CANNOT attack an enemy unless you have full sight of them. Even if you shoot your Q spear, it still won't hit them, it will go through them as if it's not there. Sure you could combat this by putting a stealth warding trinket in the nearby bushes, but that's too long of a cool down on your wards. 

Plus, Kalista keeps complaining that you never made a pact with anyone. Once I did make a pact with someone, they went AFK. Nice. 

Needless to say, that was a game we surrendered. So-

Can you Jungle Kalista? NO.

Well, not yet. (Videos to come.)

Fan Art: Skin ideas and Lunar Revel Jinx

Last weeks all chat had some really funny spotlights, and had included the artists begins making the new Facebook stickers for LoL. It also showcased some work fans have been making of the characters in the form of cats, which, I have to say, is adorable. As well the Thresh Prince of Bot lane had me laughing a bit. For those who didn't know, the animator had taken a jab at the hit 90's TV show which gave rapper Will Smith his big break in acting; The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In the Thresh Prince however, the music is tuned to the theme some of FP, with lyrics that gives Easter eggs to his lore with Lucian. And the frustrations of, well, being in the bot lane.

That part of the chat aside, the cat renderings of champions had reminded me of back when I used to make fan art myself. Now a days I mostly just think of what would be great ideas for skins or champions, but never really go into it. After being told a possible bit of lore, a great idea had came to my mind for a skin set. "The Childern of Zaun." This would apply to any character that as a child (or even adult) who had spent their time in Zaun, and how the city has effected them.  I absolutely LOVE the idea of Jinx, Ekko, and Vi all being from the same gang in Zaun. (For those who don't know, Zaun is a very very large city. A powerhouse for technology, however it isn't exactly that prosperous, due do an extremely high crime rate. More than triple of Detroit.) As well as some others but. Next I would like to work on the Zaun Childeren concept. The difficulties that I would have is making them like like they're dirty off the streets, without making them look bad. In the meantime though, I figured I would finish what I've already started in my sketchbook before I work on something new. So, I did finish what I was working on. Well. Kind of. I'm going to pull it into Adobe Photoshop to give it a little more clean and glowing look.

 So there you go, there's my little lunar revel Jinx before photoshop.