Grab The Lantern

Greetings Summoners, and welcome to Grab the Lantern! This blog publishes various articles about League of Legends, from champion design to game recaps and everything in between. Check my About page for more info!

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Hi! I have a lot of trouble with samira, and i enjoyed your video! are there any other support champs (girls preferably) that do good against her?

also i had a vs leona & samira game and i just wanted to die (leo why are your cooldowns so short 😭)

Hey, glad to hear you enjoyed the video! I apologize for the Leona/Samira game, that sounds like an awful experience.

The short answer to your question is not really. There are a few female champs that can do okay into Samira, but to really counter her effectively I’d recommend Taric or Braum. That being said, here are my thoughts on a couple female support picks:

- Zyra can attempt to stop initiations with Grasping Roots or Stranglethorns and has enough poke to make Samira’s life pretty tough in the early stages of the game. However, her general squishiness, coupled with Samira’s propensity to itemize early lifesteal, makes her a risky pick.

- Janna tornadoes can help get Samira away from your ADC or block her support’s attempts at engaging, while Eye of the Storm might be able to prevent the first frag. Monsoon is really your best bet, since it can totally reset a fight, but its cooldown is pretty long, so you have to be judicious about when and where to use it.

- Rakan has two forms of non-projectile CC that can stop Samira in her tracks when she goes to engage, on top of being tough to engage on due to his mobility. He doesn’t necessarily WANT to play super defensively, but when all else fails he can be a good peel champ against Samira.

Hope this helps!

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Let’s take a break from Seraphine to talk about the other female champ with an S name, and how to beat her.

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What are your thoughts of seraphine being "sona 2.0"

I very strongly disagree that Seraphine is just Sona 2.0. Her kit shares similarities with Sona, but no more so than Brand (a fire mage) shares with Annie (another fire mage).

Even with said similarities, I think Seraphine's kit actually contributes to an extremely different style of play. She's a lot more of an upfront, damage-dealing playmaker with a bit of utility, while Sona is content with hanging back and dishing buffs, with her one major button being Crescendo. Both have distinct play patterns and reasons to be picked, even if we overlook their thematic similarities.

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Gonna have to ask the K/DA Evelynn simps to calm down.

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TBSkyen on Twitter

“UUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH”

Tfw Seraphine, whose entire popstar rig runs on the souls of Skarner’s people, says to Skarner “let me sing you the song of your people.”

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I have risen from my ancient slumber to say, quite simply, that Riot could have done better in regards to Seraphine.

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State of the Meta: Rest in Peace, TT

By Helmight

Let’s talk a little bit about the recent Nexus article, shall we?

Starting from the top, Riot’s announced that they won’t be producing any more temporary game modes a la PROJECT: Overcharge or Star Guardian: Invasion anymore. The biggest takeaway I get from this is that the RGM (Rotating Game Mode) Queue is finally dead for sure, which has been the de facto experience anyways, so not a big deal. Events will certainly feel not as exciting as they did with an event-specific game mode attached, but hopefully Riot is putting the resources they used for temporary game modes into creating something else (like something besides League of Legends, perhaps).

Next up, TFT got confirmed to be a permanent addition to the game, which surprised exactly nobody. We all knew TFT was going to be a forever addition when it skipped the beta phases that Nexus Blitz went through and got microtransactions added to boot, so I’m not sure why Riot felt that they needed to make an announcement. I don’t necessarily dislike this, but I do think that TFT is less of a savior for Riot and more of a stopgap that will drop in popularity over time.

ARURF+ and Nexus Blitz coming back is certainly a welcome surprise, as I assumed both modes would be killed alongside the RGM Queue. Evidently Riot are alright with some temporary modes coming back and not others.

And finally, let’s talk about Twisted Treeline. After many, many years of neglect, Riot will finally be pulling it off life support and sending it the way of Dominion before it. They gave a bunch of excuses like low player count and poor pacing, but let’s be real here - the mode is dying because Riot chose to not devote resources to it. They released it and didn’t support it, then reworked the map and didn’t support it. Without support, a mode won’t attract a playerbase - and without a playerbase, it won’t get support.

And at the end, it’s the players at large that suffer. Twisted Treeline was a valuable addition to the game for multiple reasons - it was a shorter game mode that still felt strategic (unlike ARAM), it had a different meta that brought out different compositions and champions, and it was one of the few ways in which players could experience the different areas of Runeterra. TT’s removal is just another way in which Riot have homogenized the League of Legends experience and brought it away from what it used to be.

I’m not going to say that Twisted Treeline shouldn’t be removed in its current state, but I will certainly cast the blame on Riot. If they had time to produce an Autochess clone, they definitely had the time to give TT the support it deserved... and instead, they chose not to. It’s a sad day for LoL indeed.

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PROJECT: Reckoning

By Helmight

//It’s been years since I’ve been forced to look at the ash wastes around the city, but they certainly haven’t gotten any prettier.

//PROJECT’s sent us a welcome. Surprises me that they even bothered - hell, it’s been how many years? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? The mind tends to lose track while wandering the outlands.

//Too long, let’s leave it at that. Too long since they discarded us like garbage. Too long since they betrayed us. Too long since we’ve had a chance to g̸̖̱e͕̳̗̬͠t̵͍ͅ ̟͎̞͓r̛̞͎͖̜͇̖̰e̞̝͉̩̠v̸̯̝̥e̴͎n̤̮̣̳̬͈̯͜g̡͕̣̻̜̮̗e͍̭̞̠̗.

//Too early to start thinking about that. Mind’s not quite ready to lose control. Not yet. Not until we reach PROJECT’s headquarters. For now, we have the welcome party to deal with. Surprises me that there was a welcome party at all, but I guess there’s still someone at PROJECT who remembers us. Good. Means they know how scared they should be.

//The Dancer’s done her job well. Clean cuts through the service bots - limbs removed, sensors offline, hands disarmed. No wasted movement there. She gazes off at the skyline, blades still poised and ready. Can’t fault her skill, but I can fault her dedication. Is she ready for this?

//The Assassin had more fun with it. Drones are easy to kill, and she enjoyed every moment of it. Now, she stands at the ready, blades still poised for action. She’ll cooperate - if for no other reason than the thrill of the hunt.

//The Anarchist is still firing - a waste of ammunition, but not altogether surprising. She was always a difficult one to reason with. Has too much fun with the jobs she’s assigned to. Taking down PROJECT is a different kind of job, but I have more faith that she’ll stay on target than the other two.

//The Wolf isn’t in sight, but is roaming somewhere nearby - the howls are evidence enough. Uncontrollable, but I know enough that he’s sympathetic to our goals that he won’t stand in our way. PROJECT dies tomorrow, and he’ll join us or die as well. I know it, he knows it, they know it.

//My blade arcs out from my body, skewering the head of a nearby drone and pulling it back to my hand. I scan the face briefly - unidentified combat drone, serial number irrelevant. Not on the list. Metal fingers dig into the skull, denting, crushing, pulverizing. N̲̜͖͚̜̲̞o̙t͓̜͕̯̲͙̜ ̱̞͙̱̼̝o̝̜͉ṇ̝̳͙̯̻ ̲͔̹̫̙̝t̢̜̣͉h̠͡e̯̮̭̖̺̮̲͢ ̘͓́l͔̠ís͎t̸͇̪͔͖ 

//I access the list now. Names, serial numbers, security codes - all listed neatly, numbered, scrolling past the bottom of my vision and into infinity. Every name will be crossed off. E̵v̴̦̖e̩̻̮͉̕ŗ̻̙̘͉̥y̦̰͓͎̕.҉̯ ̠͓̀Ơ̖̰͈̱n̼̣̬̝͕͉ͅe̳͇͓.̟̱͘ 

//And when I’m done, PROJECT won’t have been dead long enough.

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PROJECT: Reckoning fanfic competition!

A few years back, Bioluminescence ran a fanfiction competition focused on the new PROJECT skin releases. I thought that was an amazing idea and figured why not do another one for the new PROJECT releases? So here we are with the PROJECT: Reckoning fanfic competition! The Challenge: As you might exp

Just put this up over on the Boards - come take a look if you’re interested!

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It’s been a long time coming, but today I finally sit down and talk about the Mordekaiser rework.

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Qiyana is out (for those of you not still playing TFT), and she’s surprisingly fun.

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Teamfight Tactics is finally out, and despite a few minor quibbles, is excellently fun to play.

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State of the Meta: What a Dick

By Helmight

Look, I totally get the desire - and the need - to create villainous characters in games. Every story needs antagonists, and a lot of people find it fun to play as them. Hell, I quite enjoy bringing out champs like Vel’Koz or Renekton specifically because of how mustache-twirlingly evil they are.

But there’s evil, and then there’s just being a dick.

Qiyana is unfortunately the latter. Rather than being evil with an agenda, she’s just a petty, arrogant child with too much talent for her own good. She has no qualms about crippling her siblings or killing her own people, provided it inflates her ego, and has approximately zero interest in actually helping her own nation. No, Qiyana is in it for herself, with no respect for any other being on Runeterra.

And while this kind of character is fine to have in a game like League of Legends, it ultimately leads me to believe that making Qiyana the flagship character for the new Ixtal faction was a mistake. Her visual design is awful, her backstory makes her terribly unlikable, and her kit is only so-so in terms of interesting or unique abilities. Nothing about Qiyana makes me interested in Ixtal - which is exactly the opposite of what Riot want.

A good example of a character like Qiyana is the recently-released Sylas. Sure, he’s a dick who kills innocents, but at the very least Sylas has a damn good reason for why he’s a revolutionary. He’s not completely unlikable either - Sylas displays character in both his short story and in the Lux comic that demonstrates that he has some degree of decency. I don’t like him since he’s trying to destroy my beloved Demacia, but at least I can acknowledge that there’s something there.

Not so with Qiyana, unfortunately - she’s just as terrible of a person as you’d expect, and that means Riot’s attempt to add a new faction to Runeterra won’t go nearly as well as they’d like. Hopefully future releases add more likeable characters to Ixtal, because the current “flagship” is more of a dingy that’s barely seaworthy.

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Let me know your thoughts on Qiyana in the comments, and be sure to like and reblog this post if you enjoyed it!

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9.13 includes plenty of pro-level balance changes and a new champion, but who cares when Teamfight Tactics is now available?

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With Nightblu3 finally receiving his two-week vacation as of today, I figured it’s high time we discussed the Nubrac controversy and whether or not roaming Teemo support is a bannable offense.

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9.12 is pretty light on changes, but does contain some substantial changes to power picks Sylas, Ryze, and Yuumi. Check out the highlights here!

You can also read the full patch notes here.

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Teamfight Tactics came as a surprise, though perhaps not entirely out of the blue.