No no no no....Steam Autumn Sale is LIVE (as My Wallet [and Backlog] Cries)

something about money to burn.

Thank Christ I'm working two jobs.

Right off the bat - Skyrim ($7.49) [Dragonborn DLC ($9.99)], Antichamber ($4.99), The Walking Dead ($6.49), Sleeping Dogs and Terraria at $4.99 and $2.49 respectively.

You've also got survival-horror Outlast at $6.79, and HammerWatch 66% off at $3.39. State of Decay, Rogue Legacy and Left 4 Dead 2 are all on sale as well. The current flash sales range from Space Hulk to Crysis: Maximum Edition. 

Sales run until December 3rd. Afterwards, the Winter Sale will commence to kick us in the teeth once more. Dammit, Valve...

Steam Autumn Sale

Also, sorry for the lack of posts. We're handling some MAJOR final projects here!!

A Steep Slope: Only a hill

In the promo series for GOLD!!!!!!!

Oh man I was hype, it was already about 10 pm and I had resolved that it was now or never. Either I get to Gold now or I will probably never do it. And so I waded in.

Also I realize that the several Amumu comments I've made in the past few posts may not have made sense but worry not, all will become clear. Also amumu is the cursed lonely mummy, that only wants love! and hugs

GAME ONE
A Varus game unlike any other, my team lost every lane including our own bot lane. things looked bleak, but a perfect Q snipe by yours truly, and a clutch assassination by our mid player allowed for an uneven team fight evening out the score. A few barons later and some increasingly good communication allowed for more catches, and eventually game one for me !
VICTORY

GAME TWO
I took to the jungle in game two as the space adaptation of my favorite deep sea diver, Nautilus. An early gank top secured a lead for my top laner, a rumble who does extremely well with a lead. So I told him that I was going to snowball the other two lanes, so he needs to buy wards and farm and we will win the game. So I begin my relentless assault on the middle and bottom lanes.

Our Ahri has 5 kills by 10 minutes, and bot has a combined 6 kills with each lane winning by at least 40 creep score (farm). And I'm feeling pretty damn proud of myself, until our rumble dies for the fourth time. See the enemy shen jungle, decided to do the opposite of me and sit their top laner, which should have been irrelevant because of Rumbles wards right ? O wait he never bought any, and that's my fault. I hope that confuses you, because it definitely confused me. Now this guy begins to spout the most ridiculous things and trying to just die outright and get the enemy riven fed.

Things are beginning to spiral out of control until I see it in chat, "gatekeeper". When our entire team demanded what he was doing our Rumble said that one word. Now understand because of past experience with these people you stop telling others when you are in your promo or how far in one you are in, but you can search your teammates to find out that information.

So I go hard mode, not on tilt though. I stayed in control and smart, but this rumble made it hard. But we did it somehow. Its still a blur but we won a 4v5 teamfight mid lane and pushed to win, while Rumble was spouting nonsense in all chat. All I did was respond, "It's ok man, we didn't need you anyway."
VICTORY

GAMES THREE AND FOUR
Without going into too much detail, more gatekeepers and several disconnects are hard to win with.
DOUBLE DEFEAT

GAME FIVE, FINAL MATCH, FIGHT (I had to)

I hugged Amumu,
Amumu hugged me back,
Amumu carried me to Gold.

For the fifth game in my promotion series, I looked at our team composition and decided that Amumu was the best choice of jungler for our team. So I took him into the jungle, for the first time in ranked. Now I'm one of the first to say that first timing someone in ranked is bad idea but just stick with me. Amumu has the gank potential and a super strong AOE(area of effect) stun that can change a game. But this doesn't help when every lane loses early and I get smashed in my own jungle for the first half of the game. Things were looking bleak, and part of me was beginning to accept that Gold was out of my grasp already. Until I saw it, the enemy team was going to Baron Nashor. We had two inhibitors down with hope fading quickly and the team fighting each other. So I went for it, I mashed the follow command to baron and sprinted there myself hoping my team would follow.

I got to the pit waited three seconds, and then launched myself in with a stun hitting their jungler preventing him from smiting (smite is a summoner that allows you to deal a large flat amount of damage to monsters allowing you to execute and secure them) then I ulted killing their already low AD Carry and again stunning their junlger, then I smited, hoping I timed it just right. I looked, and I was wearing the purple buff, I had secured Baron, and my team got the buff, and aced the enemy team at the pit, turns out they did follow. With our buff we brute forced an inhibitor, two turrets and nexus for the win. And so Gold was mine that day.
VICTORY

But looking forward now, I realize that this was just a hill in comparison to the real slope lying ahead, the Platinum and Diamond peaks, splitting the sky far above. Wearing my gold trimmed victory I look with apprehension and excitement, because although I am taking a break for now, soon the slope will steepen and the climb will begin again.

A Steep Slope: In the Clouds

In the top tier of Silver. SILVER I

It felt really good being there, until I realized nothing had changed sadly enough. But enough of that, I will rant on the lower divisions in another blog post. 

Amumu hugged me back

So with my head in the clouds of this mountain, I can see the golden crusted gates of the Gold division with Victorious Elise waiting for me. So begins the final climb, between Varus, Nautilus, Graves, Lee Sin, and Jarvan, I managed to scratch my way towards my goal. While only gaining 10 league points per game as compared to normal 20, I was still making progress albeit slowly. But then the real battle commenced.

Not only with other summoners but with some of my own friends and with the "gatekeepers" of the gold division.

In order to get this far up the slope, I had dropped several things (including working out ) to give myself an extra few games per night in order to make my goal more attainable. But one day I jumped into our shared teamspeak server only to find several friends tearing me and my recent success down and claiming getting "carried" and getting lucky. 

Lets just say it was a mistake trying to play after that. So I dropped a few points of LP and took a break for the night. I resolved that I would only talk to my supportive friends until the task was completed. Then I ran into the next problem, the infamous gatekeepers. and nothing made me think of both of these issues better then this picture of Jarvan battling Noxus ( see above).

The Gatekeepers, a sourly group of individuals unable to promote who take out their anger on people still trying. and when you have a hot streak going and a plus percentage in LP, you become a prime target in the last week of the season. These people throw games, and troll to no end to make you lose despite the cost of getting reported. But despite all these obstacles it happened, I reached the arena before the gates, the last trial by fire.

The Gold Best of Five Promotion Series.

A Steep Slope: The Solo Que Hero

Well HELLO There !
Its been a bout a week and there are at least 2 failed attempts at blogging a steep slope and forgetting and overall sucking! So here you go. The Wrap up !

I gave Amumu a hug.

Mini Episode One: ATTACK ON RANKED !
Well in between watching every episode of Attack on Titan, and getting ultra hype about ranked play I managed to get sick. That seems out of order... WHO CARES! Moving on....

During my sick times i sat down in front of my computer but on a playlist of Attack on Titan music, and proceeded to play about 13 games of AD carry Varus.

And I only lost 2 of them........ This streak of play with the Arrow of Retribution allowed me to boost myself up the Silver III tier and through my promos ! clearing the way to Silver II and beyond as I cleared silver II with varus and a little help from my buddy Nautilus

Well Let's take a look at my buddy varus. He is an ad carry with extreme burst potential and harras in lane due to his passive along with their synergy with his Q and E moves. To explain that in at least words as possible, His W passive is that with each auto attack a point of "blight" Stack on the enemy doing bonus damage per auto and stacking up to 3 times. Now his Q, a chargeable long range arrow shot, and E, and aoe slow, synergize with his W passive in the way that depending on how many stacks of Blight on the enemy the ability bursts the blight stacks dealing massive bonus damage plus the base.

So he's very "stronk"

Now the reason I call him Solo Que Hero. Varus's ult is unique among AD Carries is that his ult is a skillshot stun, that spreads its stun to nearby teammates. A long range, aoe Engage/Disengage, on an ADC .............
Basically remember every I said in the How to Carry your team episode. Varus does them. He says GO IN TEAM with his ult, he says FOLLOW ME with his E, and then I GOT DIS with his Q snipes.
Varus you have my heart forever my friend.