League Of Legends: Hands On With The Summoner School Workshop

I finally got a chance to get some hands on action in the League of Legends Summoner School workshop this past week. I have to say, although I didn’t get to play the champion I had prepared for the match, I still got a lot out of it. In this article I’ll cover what I’ve learned, and how I prepared prior to going in.

Preparation:

It’s always good to play at your best when you’re getting evaluated. In order to play my best, I learned and practiced Leona for this game. I was a terrible Leona prior to the last week or so and I decided I wanted to prepare a meta champion for my pool.

I learned mechanics, builds, and playstyles through sources I’ve listed in my guide on good guides. I’d shown major improvement in normals and felt I was ready to put my knowledge into action. I went into the game fully ready to pick Leona.

Best Laid Plans:

“No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.”-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Unfortunately, the other team’s support had a higher pick than I did, so I knew going in that I wouldn’t get Leona myself. Since I knew I wouldn’t get Leona, I decided to bait the other team to pick her. I asked the team leader to ban Thresh, as that is a champion I’ve yet to learn well myself. I was confident in the knowledge I had gained in my study to face a Leona.

Here is the instructor recording, that breaks down the actual decisions and plays.

While in the long run my team lost, the Leona did not have a large presence bottom lane during the laning phase. I pulled out an old-school support Janna to counter the Leona in lane. For more specific details on the game I’ll have all three versions of the match within the article. Dunebogey’s recording in the header will have the review at the end.

What I Learned:

For the most part, what I learned was more from reviewing my own recording. If you watch my recording, you’ll see I stand still a lot. Some times I’m watching things happen in other areas. I didn’t notice how often I did this, watching my replay made it painfully obvious.

This is my recording, you can see first hand the mistakes I made in the game.

The teachers did offer a lot of information. Like the difference between starting Howling Gale (Q) over Eye of the Storm (E). We would have had a higher lane presence at the start with a level one shield. Also, Spellthief Edge over Ancient Coin on Janna isn’t really worthwhile. The difficulty of getting all three procs off on Spellthief’s effect is too costly.

Also, one final thing of note that I learned, if a Janna ult goes bad don’t flash, because you’re likely dead anyways. There were a lot of things discussed, and good information passed around to everyone, so I’d definitely recommend signing up for this program if you qualify. The week eight sign-ups are posted now, so be sure to apply if you’re interested.