The Last Guide to Solo Queue You'll Ever Need

This could have been three times as long. It would have been mostly fluff. I just thought you should know. I've broken this guide into a whole bunch of sections. Here's the Table of Contents. I'll hyperlink each section once I've posted it. Sound cool?

I. ChampSelect

II. Runes and Masteries

III. Level One

IV. Laning

V. Dragon

VI. First Tower

VII. Sieging and Countersieging

VIII. BaronNashor

IX. Teamfighting

A Different Take on 'The Thesis That Launched a Thousand Sitcoms'

The quarter-century that has passed since Nora Ephron's classic means that any number of When Harry Met Sally... thinkpieces now litter your interwebs like husks of failed rom-com writers. Of course, I also have a take, but I wanted to try something a little, different.

EDIT NOTE: So, I actually published this under a different title first, so if you saw that version, I'm sorry. After hitting the go button, I stumbled across a tab I'd opened while researching and never actually checked. Mark Harris, over at Grantland, wrote a mind-numbingly brilliant thinkpiece on the film here: "When Harry Met Annie". Not only is that article neuron-melting, it also included the gem of a phrase I'm quoting in my new one.

More about the Noxian language I designed for a fan fiction I'm writing

So there is every chance this is going to go on for a while, but, sure. Let's do it.

Whenever I'm trying to uncover a language used in an already-existing IP, the first step could be considered a little boring. It's the research phase; before worrying about grammar or alphabets, I read up on as many words as exist in the target language. Noxus doesn't have many. Here's a quick checklist I run through along with specific examples from Noxian:

                1) Names -- while there are plenty of names in every language with no semantic meaning (James, Cathy), the majority of names will use the standard phonemes, giving you an idea of the breadth of consonants and vowels. Because of, as you identified, patronymics like "Le Blanc" and "du Couteau" we know that those names are untranslated, fixing "le" and "du" as some sort of articles.

                2) Proper nouns -- although nearly all of the lore (to be fair, all of the lore I could find, but I'm not discounting the possibility there is something I missed) translates non-common words to the English-equivalent, proper nouns often give away a title or phrase in the target language. For example, we know that Swain is or wants to be Grand General of Noxus. Assuming there is a Noxian language, it stands to reason that there is a Noxian equivalent to Grand General (otherwise that wouldn't have been the translation).

                3) Nouns -- the same as with proper nouns, although I haven't found as many Noxian nouns. We know there is a noun which means "quick move," or some approximation thereof, since Katarina uses "shunpo," a non-English word, as a noun. Whatever word it is, it can't have a good English equivalent, so we can re-create it once we've set up more of the Noxian tongue.

Moving on to grammar, remember those fixed morphemes we identified in the names? Those are definite articles, which is our first clue to deciphering Noxian syntax.

As a romantic language, Noxian would likely have tenses and verb conjugations, formal and informal constructions, as well as at least twenty characters in its alphabet. The existence of both [v] and [u] is problematic in a way, since a simpler alphabet is easier to asterisk. But with [i] and [y] both dropping in as well, we have to assume we're dealing with at least 24. The proposed alphabet looks like this:

*a, b,c, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

(using [ph], for example--we haven't found any Noxian words that need an f, nor any good reason to have it around)

We can assume, from the stories we know, and the brief snippets of dialogue we have between Noxian characters, that there are two forms of Noxian. One formal, one informal. Let's also assume the formal version would be used in most political or judicial situations.

Based on the power dynamics on display in Noxian culture, I decided to assume that the formal version would be less comfortable for the average Noxian to speak. Once I decided that, it was easy enough to determine that ornate, descriptive prose with a flowing rhythm and soft vowel closings would not be the average Noxian's cup of tea. Thus, formal Noxian words end always with a vowel, where gutter Noxian or informal Noxian can end with either a vowel or a consonant, although never with the [ee] sound as used only in formal diction.

There are even subtler distinctions. [Ch] pronounced as [kay], as in Jericho, occurs only in formal Noxian. In informal Noxian, the [kay] sound is always represented by the [k] letter. From this, you should be picking up that Noxian is different from the formal and informal forms of most romantic languages. For all intents, Noxian is actually two completely separate languages, which I determined because of an inchoate conflict I've pieced together, where the nobility (who frequently use formal Noxian) and the military (comprised largely of non-noble Noxians using informal language) have grown further and further apart over centuries of arguments and dissent.

The Noxian Articles and Slight Variations:

Le -- the, informal

Du -- the, formal

Ka -- a, informal

Ke -- some (as an article, informal)

I -- a, formal

Ai -- an, formal

En -- an, informal

Noxian words and phrases I've used so far --

"Na kalyn" --"by the raven", informal Noxian. The formal version would be "ni kali". Here Anton is purposefully baiting Katarina, using gutter slang.

"docherni" -- Remember that this is pronounced "dough-KER-ni". It's actually an honorific, as Anton is trying to appeal to Kat's noble side. An English near-cognate, docherni means "Revered Daughter".

"druz'yami" -- Here's where we go uber-deep. This is a portmanteau of sorts, the kind of slurring that happens when a common suffix melts over the rest of the word. The full phrase would be "druz a du yami" or "a fight to the next level". "Druz" the noun form of the verb "fight". "A" means "to". "Du yami" could be "the top" or literally [ya] + [mi]"above me" but there's probably no reason to break up a word like that unnecessarily, so when combined with a Noxian tradition of formal duels to the death, "next level" describes rising to the occasion with a subtext of ascending from this world (or descending, we haven't examined that yet). You should recognize that this is a formal phrase, a well-worn cliché for instigating a duel.

"malen'mal'chik" -- Another one of those contracted phrases. Let's take a step back to why so many contractions? We can extrapolate from Draven and Darius's behavior, as well as Talon, Katarina, and Cassiopeia's impulsiveness, combined with the notion of a society governed by a culture of power, and the language would likely be gruff, workmanlike, as terse as possible in its informal version. Formal Noxian probably tends the other way, with flowery ornamentations and rhetorical flourishes. Remember that informal Noxian ends in consonants and occasionally vowels, while the formal version only ends in "[i], [e], [u], [o], and sometimes [a] or [y]". We can assume, since Noxian is a phonetic language, that "mal" is the root of the word "malen". It's even easier in this case, since the full phrase is "malen maleninichik," or "very stupid very stupid person." Literally, "bad brained boymanchild with a bad brain." Where "inichik" tells us that we're talking about a "inchik/boy child" who is older than he should be--that interjecting [i]--possessing of the prefix ("bad brained" or "stupid").

"Direya" -- The suffix [-eya] is attached to a noun to signify "little girl" or "daughter". "Dir" in this case would be "street". I'm pretty sure you can figure out the word from that.

"Kreshnaya" -- "Shadow mother". An unofficial term of address for one of the graduated assassins of the Sinister Blade. Can be used as a curse or pejoratively, as Marcus uses it here. Well, somewhat pejoratively, I think it's possible to detect just a little bit of begrudging respect.

"Nikiya" -- Just as "eya" means "little girl" or "daughter", "iya" is "wife" or "sister" (for those wondering, "aya" would be mother or grandmother). "Nikiya" is a term of endearment, where "nik" is "cute" and the full word translates as "cutie" or "little cutie." As you can undoubtedly imagine, almost every diminutive used with young women is unfortunately used as a pejorative when said to a man. It's worth pointing out that the same is true in reverse, describing or addressing a woman using the diminutives meant for boys would suggest weakness or a lack of power in the subject.

"Dai luta" -- "May you die with blood on your hands" or "Die in battle" or "Die bleeding". Traditional Noxian salute between soldiers.

You Know That Scene in the Game of Thrones Season Finale You Really Hate? It's actually awesome. Here's why.

The Bear and the Maiden Fair

We're in that fallow period between seasons now, when winter looms but we've left Westeros behind until the snow melts in the spring. And with the threat of a hiatus on the back of everyone's mind, it makes even more sense to savor what we've seen thus far.

Sometimes, with Game of Thrones, it's the sweeping spectacle that sets your imagination soaring. Other times, you crash harder than a Stark kid thrown from a window, your spirit pulped like so many swollen heads in King's Landing. There are a few scenes, though, that raise the hackles of casual fan and Martin connoisseur alike. In the season 4 finale, "The Children," amidst daring escapes and far-less-cliché privy piercings, an enormous, hulking knight faced off against a hideous, loyal guardian in an impromptu dance-off to the death that felt as visceral as watching one of those "how McDonald's makes their beef" shock vids.

Widely derided, the scene sparked a brief tweetplosion that was quickly forgotten once Tyrion tracked Tywin to the toilet. Still, ask just about anyone their impression of the scene and as soon as they picture it, they'll make a face like someone just offered them raw seaweed from the Hudson, and grumble some monosyllables.

But those people are idiots. Here are five reasons why.

5) The scene is the culmination of a dozen allusions and symbolic foreshadowings.

Because the scene departs dramatically from the books, it actually came as a bit of a surprise to some tome-knowledgeable viewers. But within the show itself, there were several references to what was going to happen.

You can guess from the title that the repetition of the ballad "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" throughout the credits and closings, and as one of apparently the only two songs any bard in Westeros knows, are all interpreted as hinting towards the showdown of scary swordmasters.

But there's more, circumstantial, allusions as well. The long Samuel Beckett homage where the Hound and Arya met a dead man in the road directly mirrors the way Sandor meets his own unlikely end (and yes, I'm aware "we didn't see him die" and things-and-stuff-books-but-and). Waiting for Godot is many things, but a typical aside in a high fantasy murderfest it is not. All the more reason for us to have paid better attention to it.

4) Benioff and Weiss take great pains to show off scenes of Westerosi brutality, this short encounter does it better than any of them.

From the pilot to the season four finale, the showrunners behind our annual excursions in the wilds of George RR Martin's imagination avail themselves of nearly every opportunity to remind us that in this world, life is not only brutish and short, but as much of both of those things as possible. Regicide, fratricide, patricide, good old fashioned homicide, a hint of suicide, and tales of infanticide cover just about every Latin-inflected word we have for killing people.

But so many of those scenes hinge on a kind of violent voyeurism. Shock porn for the sake of social media impressions. From the first surprise beheading to the last bolt-interrupted bowel movement, the torturous eviscerations and bloody conflicts and headzit-poppings all elicit gasps and groans but go too far to linger beyond a graphic, crimson-smeared image.

When Brienne of Tarth and Sandor Clegane, the Hound of House Lannister face off in the rocky outerlands of the Lords of the Eyrie, over a not-nearly-helpless Arya Stark, they do so with the words of heroism and glittering knights, but wearing the ill-fitting armor of soldiers aching their way through the last years of a war. The lack of music, the heavy clangs and thuds as the titans clash, the scene finds its song in the roughness of its intercourse. There is no great triumph to be found here. No medals or gold for the victor. Just two tortured souls battling each other and themselves while clambering over the boulder-strewn heather.

3) It freed Arya to become herself

The Arya Stark who turned over her coin with a quip and a wink and found herself sailing across the Narrow Sea is not the Arya who served Lord Tywin at Harrenhal. Nor the Arya who watched her direwolf die at the hands of a cruel butcher. Nor the Arya who looked on in horror from the crowd when her father was slain by an even crueler mockery of a king. In all of those situations, she was under the "protection" of someone. 

Only through Brienne's errant gallantry was Arya freed of her final captor.

Inversely, by failing Arya in her duel with Sandor, Brienne was chained by the oath she'd given Catelyn Stark. Yes, the scene labored on long enough to be uncomfortable, and it's true that dying atop a jagged piece of granite was a death unworthy of the Hound. But it happened in a way that allowed Arya to recover from the untimely passing of her aunt and the morbid catharsis she'd giggled away in the canyon during episode eight. It happened in a way that severed the shackles around Arya's wrists. She has no more ties to the Seven Kingdoms, only a life she has to figure out how to live.

2) It's aesthetically beautiful, the perfect microcosmic summary of the entire western storyline.

Yeah, this is the art-house, slightly pretentious entry. But, you can't ignore the symmetry in the scene. Or you could, but that'd make it infinitely harder to prove this point. Podrick and Brienne; Sandor and Arya. A Lannister and a Stark-by-oath, a Lannister and a Stark-by-blood. An ugly lady knight against an ugly male ex-knight. A young boy who thanks to Tyrion's pampered-at-least-before-prison lifestyle acts more like a lady-in-waiting. A young girl whose unfortunate circumstances and karma-stockpiling left her pretending to be a squire. There's also the parallel, probably inappropriate anywhere-but-Westeros tension in each pair.

The mortal combat adds another dimension by symbolically reflecting the plot of the show thus far. The older Stark narrowly defeats the Lannister only to lose what she was fighting for. Like every victory we've seen up to this point, this one rings hollow in the end. The giant was defeated, the Mountain toppled, the Lion put down on his throne. As Daenerys freed Slaver's Bay,  Arya was freed. She'll sail upon the waves, albeit headed in the opposite direction.

The cinematography frames the fight perfectly. Eschewing the hectic jump cuts from Mance's assault on the Wall, the ponderous, lumbering camera clunks along with each crushing blow. There's no commentary, just a glum, almost voyeuristic look at the kind of ordinary violence that happens every day in the world of ice and fire. It's pretty much the best "Previously on" ever.

1) It was two monstrously strong fighters beating on each other like a platemail-clad heavyweight main event at Wrestlemania

So what if it was more late-career, less-agile Undertaker versus never-agile, somehow-late-career-only-like-two-years-in Brock Lesnar, and not an epic Warrior vs Hogan clash. The fight, for all its tracking, silent cinematography, bears rewatching for how intricate the choreography is.

If you've never tried to duel with broadswords before, you probably don't appreciate how much harder it is to fake a realistic showdown than to perform a swooping, leaping blade-ballet. Dirty, rough; lit with the grime and grit of the barren Eyrie-environs, the plodding pace of the confrontation underscores how banal one on one combat can be. There's no weeping orchestral score or blazing-white Gandalf charging down a hill. Just two herculean soldiers, smacking each other with swords and spilling black blood on blacker soil.

Ben Snyder is a writer at Riot Games who spends most of his time trying to master the dying art of calligraphic Sanskrit. That's not true at all, and he's even pretty sure that's not even a thing. Follow him on twitter, @RiotExLibris, or find him on the Riot community sites with the same tag.

More from In Times of Cold Rain

So, to be fair, there's been almost no response to any of the openings I posted on earlier. I think this means either that I need to decide myself, or that none of the ideas are worth following up on. I wrote a few extra words for a couple of the novels-in-vitro so I'll go ahead and share them before returning to some sort of regular blog content.

           

In Times of Cold Rain

“I’m sorry I missed your call, I had a problem with the car this morning,” he explained into the phone, twirling a pen through his fingers and idly clicking at the keypad.  “It’s nothing, really, I’m sure.  I’ll get it into the shop and I’ll be back on the road in no time.”  He listened to her reply, nodding with his face frozen into an impassive glare.  “No, I know, I was going to be home, but I need to get take care of the shop in Champaign,” he paused again, waiting for her to finish.  “It’s not a big deal,” he argued, “I’ll be back next week.”  Her voice sounded like a screech through the earpiece.  “That’s bullshit, Erin, and you know it.”  He held the phone away from his face and mimicked her piercing cries.

                “What are you doing?” Josh said, standing in the doorway.  “The conference call is starting.”

                Fuck off, he mouthed to Josh, then returned the phone to his ear.  He cupped the receiver and mouthed to his assistant, pick up the call, and I’ll join in a few minutes, trying to mime his instructions with his free hand.

                Josh couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of his boss acting like he was playing charades at the home of a developmentally-disabled twelve year old.  “You got it, boss,” he said, and set the coffee down before heading to his own desk to join the conference call.

                “Are you done, yet?” he said into the phone.  “I’ve got an important call I need to be on.”

                He stood up, sliding the chair back to the wall.  “I know, babe, I know, it’s hard for me, too.  I’ll call you back later and we’ll talk some more about it,” he said, “all right? I’m going to go.  I miss you,” he finished and set the receiver back in its cradle.  He picked up the coffee and took a sip.

                “God damn it, Josh,” he hollered.  “This tastes worse than your girlfriend’s asshole.”

                Outside the room Josh just shrugged, he hadn’t made the coffee.  “Yes sir,” he said into the phone, “he’ll be right on.”

*   *   *