A Full Mug of Mead, Bonus #1: Serol Silvertongue

As with any game, it's a popular pastime for fans and players of League of Legends to create their own new mechanics and Champions that would be fun to engage on the Fields of Justice. I am no exception, so occasionally, you'll get a glimpse of my favorite designs. Serol Silvertongue just happens to be the first I've decided to share.

Serol Silvertongue, The Guild Merchant --

A ranged support, Serol utilitizes a unique mechanic that has never been seen before on the battlefield. Instead of mana, energy, ferocity, or any other secondary source of power, Serol's potency comes from the simplest currency possible: gold.

A Full Mug of Mead, Tip #9: Tibbers in the Tallgrass -- A Beginning Guide to AP Mid

If you find yourself enjoying farming away in top lane, but yearn for just a little bit more action and maybe even the ability to do quite a chunk of damage once the game shifts later, your next best bet is going to be slinging spells in the mid lane as your team's AP carry.

AP Mid -- 

No list of the Champions I feel play this role better than any other they can be forced into, means it's past time that I do that. I've divided the AP Mid Champs into A, B, and C groups, based on three factors. First, can they sustain themselves in lane without help from the Jungler? Second, how easy are they to play? And third, how likely, in blind pick, are you to get hard countered by the enemy teams' composition?

A Champion in Group A is always a safe pick, and I strongly recommend becoming good with at least one of them to start. As you begin to play draft games and ranked matches, you will need to add a few more Champions to your repertoire, and at that point, I recommend picking up a few of the hard counters to make your options as flexible as possible. Namely, you'll have your main Champion, if the opposing team doesn't pick a Champion which counters you, you can just go with that, and you'll have a stable of counterpicks to work with if they do find someone randomly that hoses your strategy or playstyle.

AP Mid Group A -- Ahri, Annie, Anivia, Brand, Cassiopeia, Gragas, Karthus, Morgana, Mordekaiser, Orianna, Twisted Fate, Veigar.

AP Mid Group B -- Fiddlesticks, Fizz, Kassadin, Katarina, Kennen, Lux, Malzahar, Pantheon, Sion, Talon, Xerath, Vladimir

AP Mid Group C -- Akali, Cho'gath, Galio, Heimerdinger, Janna, Karma, Kog'maw, Leblanc, Syndra, Zilean.

Also, with this list, keep in mind that some of the Champions appear in a lower tier than you might expect, and your mileage may vary. In general, Galio, Heimerdinger, and Leblanc are better as counterpicks, and Zilean, Janna, and Karma typically play better as support champions. Both Kog'maw and Akali will perform better outside of mid lane.

AP Mid Objectives -- 

1) Farm (Early Game) -- As with any solo lane, farming is your most important objective. You should be aiming to complete your bigger items faster than any other lane period. From Level 1 to 10, shoot to have 60 CS by 10:00. If you are level 11-20, you need to be closer to 70 or 75, and from 21-30 you need to perfect earning at least 85 by 10:00 consistently.

Farming mid lane is all about harassment and knowing where you are on the map. Crossing the river is extraordinarily dangerous, as most guides to jungling involve the words "after you finish your jungle, gank mid." Giving them a free roll to smash your face in is going to make it impossible to hit your farm targets. Having said that, your opponent is just as scared of crossing the river as you are, so the early game as an AP Mid will not usually involve a ton of aggression from your opponent, unless they have a clear advantage over you in damage trades. This is why it is so critical to harass your enemy whenever he or she gets within the range of your widest ability. Staying ahead of them, whether that means having more health, not using all of your pots, or simply overpowering them with damage, will allow you to easily win your lane.

2) Push and Roam (Mid Game) -- Many AP Mid Champions lack a ton of mobility, so their farming phase lasts a bit longer, and will involve your jungler giving you blue buff to keep up in CS and stay on top of your item build. However, you are free to roam if your lane is pushed too far to be farmed safely and you have the opportunity to secure a kill or counterjungle the opposing jungler. Although the mid turrets are probably the most important turrets to bring down, unlike top or bot lanes, you do not usually want to destroy the mid turret early, because doing so will allow the opposing mid to freeze their lane by the Inner Turret, and have plenty of gank support if you attempt to continue to farm. Weakening the turret is fine, so that you can bring it down at your leisure when you need to, but actually taking it down should wait until your team is ready or you've finished your item build.

3) Dominate the Team Fight (Late Game) -- As the ranged mage, you will be responsible for inflicting heavy amounts of damage and keeping the opposing team controlled with your deadly Area of Effect CC. What is that? How about a definition?

Area of Effect Crowd Control -- In order to win a team fight, it is necessary to impede the enemy Champions ability to use their spells and skills effectively. An AoE CC is exponentially more powerful than individual CC because it can hit multiple targets. The CC effects in League of Legends include Displacement Effects such as Walls, Knock-ups, Knock-backs, Fear, Slow, Stun, Silence, Snare, Charm, and Taunt. Fear makes your targets lose focus and become bewildered. Charm and Taunt cause the target to pursue or attack the caster without regard for what is happening around them. Slow inflicts a movement speed debuff and can affect attack speed or damage. Stun freezes your opponents in place and renders them incapable of fighting. Some Champions with AoE CC include: Fiddlesticks, Veigar, Anivia, Galio, or Morgana.

Once your crowd control is on, start pouring in the damage. Using items that increase Ability Power or Magic Penetration will make your spells more effective, and some Champions can come close to one-hitting an enemy if they have a full build and a powered up damage source.

AP Mid is a challenging and engaging role to play on a League of Legends team, and this guide should help solidify your understanding of how to get started. If you have any further questions or would like to see this topic revisited in an Advanced Guide sooner rather than later, e-mail wherethemeatcomesfrom@gmail.com, and tell me why or just head to the comments. Odds are, you can even be first!

Until next time, may all your ultimates end in kills and all your games with "Victory."

A Full Mug of Mead, Tip #8: Playing by Yourself -- A Beginning Guide to Top Lane

Now that I've gotten a lot of the basics of League of Legends explained and neatly filed away in the Introduction and Glossary (don't forget, you can always check the "Full Mug of Mead" tab for any articles you may have missed), it's time to turn our attention towards how to actually play different roles in lane. There isn't any particular order to these, save for  the fact that they are written in the order that I personally learned the roles, and feel most comfortable explaining them. Which is a particular order, I suppose. Eh, blame my editor.

Solo Top -- 

I have not yet made a list of the Champions I feel play this role better than any other they can be forced into, so it's about time that I go ahead and do that. I've divided the Top Lane Champs into A, B, and C groups, based on three factors. First, can they sustain themselves in lane without help from the Jungler? Second, how easy are they to play? And third, how likely, in blind pick, are you to get hard countered by the enemy teams' composition?

Counter -- In Champion selection, a counter is any Champion whose playstyle, abilities, or base statistics work in such a way as to make playing your Champion against them very difficult. Skill is still important. However,a player with less skill than you might still be able to defeat you if they select a counter to your Champion. This is especially true of a hard counter, which identifies a counterpick that is completely unbeatable without support from other lanes or items.

A Champion in Group A is always a safe pick, and I strongly recommend becoming good with at least one of them to start. As you begin to play draft games and ranked matches, you will need to add a few more Champions to your repertoire, and at that point, I recommend picking up a few of the hard counters to make your options as flexible as possible. Namely, you'll have your main Champion, if the opposing team doesn't pick a Champion which counters you, you can just go with that, and you'll have a stable of counterpicks to work with if they do find someone randomly that hoses your strategy or playstyle.

Solo Top Group A -- Akali, Irelia, Jarvan IV, Jax, Kayle, Malphite, Nasus, Olaf, Rumble, Singed, Yorick.

Solo Top Group B -- Cho'Gath, Fiora, Dr. Mundo, Gangplank, Garen, Lee Sin, Pantheon, Riven, Renekton, Sion.

Solo Top Group C -- Cassiopeia, Galio, Katarina, Kennen, Mordekaiser, Nidalee, Poppy, Rengar.

Also, with this list, keep in mind that some of the Champions appear in a lower tier than you might expect, and your mileage may vary. Still, of the Group C options, only Poppy plays primarily in Top Lane, the others are all in Group C because, honestly, you should be playing them somewhere other than Solo Top, but they are options, and they do occasionally work as counterpicks.

Solo Top Objectives -- 

1) Farm (Early Game) -- As with any solo lane, farming is your most important objective. You should be aiming to complete your bigger items faster than any other lane aside from the AP Mid. From Level 1 to 10, shoot to have 55 CS (meaning, 55 last-hits on creep minions, earning you gold) by 10:00. 11-20, you need to be closer to 60 or 65, and from 21-30 you need to perfect earning 70-85 by 10:00 consistently.

Farming top lane is all about positioning. If you have vision on your opponent, staying above the creep, towards the top of the map, will make it much more difficult for the opposing jungler to gank you and chase you out of lane. Equally so, if you control the top side of the creep, then your jungler can come in for ganks much more effectively. If you can trade damage effectively with your enemy, zoning him out by standing between him and your allied minions will make it hard for him to hit his farm targets.

2) Push and Roam (Mid Game) -- Many top lane Champions will use the Summoner Spell Teleport to help out other lanes. The best way to do this is through lane ganks. To execute this strategy, if you can push your lane up (after chasing away or killing the enemy top lane champion) and return to the Fountain then you can purchase your items and head into mid or bot lanes along the same path your allies travel. Once there, you can hide in the brush and gank quickly, scoring a kill or a chase, and retreat to the brush to teleport back to the top lane. Done effectively, you will lose almost no gold, and barely any experience, and greatly contribute to your team's overall success.

I recommend attempting this every time you return to base and have Teleport off cooldown and available to get you back into lane.

3) Dominate the Team Fight (Late Game) -- Once you have broken a turret or even two in your lane, it's time to start grouping up. Most Solo Top Champions are either tanks (Singed, Cho'Gath, Garen, Malphite) or assassins (Akali, Fiora, Jarvan IV, Poppy) or both (Irelia, Jax, Olaf, Lee Sin). In Team Fights, then, your goal is to either keep the opposition away from your carries using your Crowd Control and bulky body, or keep your carries alive by slaying the enemy Champions that can threaten them. Each Solo Top Champion plays slightly differently, especially compared to the similarities between, say, Graves, Caitlyn, Ashe, and Vayne, so it is important to learn your Champions strengths.

For example, unless she is focused, Irelia can more or less wade into a team fight, using her Hiten Style ability to gain minor health back, and stun her target with Equilibrium Strike, and chase them down with Bladesurge if they try and retreat behind their tanks. Singed, instead, is going to prefer to circle and poison, attempting to chase and flip the enemy carry right into the thick of his team and poison stream while slowing the others with his super glue.

Solo Top is one of the most entertaining and rewarding roles to play on a League of Legends team, and this guide should help solidify your understanding of how to get into the role. If you have any further questions or would like to see this topic revisited in an Advanced Guide sooner rather than later, e-mail wherethemeatcomesfrom@gmail.com, and tell me why or just head to the comments. Odds are, you can even be first!

Until next time, may all your ultimates end in kills and all your games with "Victory."

A Full Mug of Mead, Tip #7: Laying Down the Law

I poke fun on this website at the fact that during at least one game of League of Legends during your time playing it you are most likely going to be cursed at by what appears to be a drunken sailor on shore leave but is most likely a thirteen year old kid or a twenty-seven year old, well, kid.

What I've left out, so far, however, is the fact that Riot Games has created an intricate and awesome system designed to slowly weed out and improve the quality of the play experience by punishing players who engage in behaviors that are negative for the growth of the game.

The Tribunal -- A interactive voting system that allows LoL players to view incidents of negative behavior and punish or pardon accused parties based on the reports generated by allies and enemies during play. Anyone who is level 20 or higher can participate, and to get started, you can head to the Tribunal webpage to help make the game more fun and accessible for everyone.

Now that the definition is out of the way, I wanted to go through why you should join in and also why I think it is such a fantastic use of the community.

1) Everyone gets upset sometimes, especially playing a highly competitive game with strangers through the anonymity of the internet. Of course, that circumstance also gives rise to that ridiculously annoying ability to tell absolutely everyone just how upset you are and how it's the lag or hackers or bad teammates and never, ever, ever anything that you did wrong. And occasionally, people take that anonymity and vent their frustration in the game chat, bellowing slurs and insults that would make the most hardened racist blush. When that happens, its no good for anyone, not even the person exorcising their demons through verbal diarrhea. Having the Tribunal in place means that if you do it repeatedly, Riot will find out, and you will suffer the consequences of your immaturity.

2) As a result of that, the Tribunal has the potential to, over time, influence League of Legends players in a way that is tremendously positive, especially once it was revealed that Riot plans to implement a honor system that would reward teaching, mentoring, compliments, skilled play, teamwork, and all of the best aspects of an entertaining League game. You can read more about that by clicking on this hyperlinked sentence that you are still reading for some reason.

3) By creating a system where it is the players themselves who mete out punishment against offenders, Riot has ingeniously incorporated public shaming into their enforcement policies. It seems likely that occasionally Riot bypasses the Tribunal system, and just as likely that the Tribunal makes mistakes from time to time, but overall, the communal aspect of the policing duties makes it hard for someone who is aware of the activity of the Tribunal to blindly ignore it.

There are other games that use similar systems, but I genuinely feel as though Riot is extremely proactive in dealing with community issues, especially given the fact that the game is free to download and thus fosters an environment that could be flush with trolls and trollish behavior. The fact that there is not a surfeit of troublesome players can be linked directly to the success of the Tribunal, and the continual presence of assertive policing by the community that enjoys playing the game so much.

For more information about the Tribunal, or if you have any additional questions about how it works, check out the official FAQ here: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/tribunal/en/faq/

Until next time, may all your ultimates end in kills and all your games with "Victory."