League of Legends: My Leap into the PVP Deep End and never looking back!

My original plan was to play on CO-OP vs AI till I reached level 20 then to jump into PVP so that I would only be 10 levels away from level 30 for Ranked. However the lure of PVP got me after I hit level 12. I realized that at level 12 I got all the summoner spells that were available so why not now. Plus after watching almost every single LCS NA and EU Summer Splits and talking with my friend GeneralFoamy08, that I realized the bots in CO-OP don't play like real people. Now a lot of you would already know this or think "no kidding".  But I am writing this for people like me who don't know or are just beginning to enjoy this most addictive game that is League of Legends.

So in watching the LCS for the past month or so, you start to see how the game is played by the best in the world. Go into lane, farm farm farm, harass the other champion in your lane, jungler sets up a gank then back to farming, buy and build, then teamfight, oh did I mention farm, then win or lose ROTFLMAO. Now when you play in CO-OP vs AI this is what happens, go into lane, other champion places himself between your minions and their minions, the try and kill you every time they get a chance, you trade shots at each other, you try to farm, no ganks from the bots, then you either snowball or get snowballed. So I knew from watching and talking that I had built my play-style to match what was going on in the LCS, that gave me the confidence to go ahead and make the plunge into PVP.

I can admit that I was nervous about going into PVP for the first time. I realize that I would be playing with people that I have never or will never meet in person. With the sheer number of people playing on League of Legends, I would probably never play with them ever again. But you still don't want to be the one to cause a loss, to get yelled at or raged on. Some people play just to have fun, while others play to get better and be as competitive as possible. I am the later but I want it to be fun. I replay every match that I play in to find out where I can be better and improve my game play. I watch a ton of videos that people have put up on YouTube in order to learn any little trick or tip that will improve my play. I read build guides from Mobafire, LOLpro and others as an example. I think about new champions that I can play later on as I level up. I can say that it lets me use my mind and think about a ton of strategies that I can come up with. 

Like the title says once you go into PVP, you won't ever want to go back and play CO-OP unless if you don't get your First Win of the Day bonus ROTFLMAO. I played my first couple of games and instantly knew that all the work that I have put in (which I know is not even a tenth of what other people have put in) has helped. My last hit skill was good not great yet, but was above average. I had to fine tune my build order and ability level up order which would take time. I got to experience my first team surrender that I voted against. I experienced my first champion in my lane feeding me and I experienced at least twice a horrible match up for me in lane. I saw what would happen if I was left unchecked and I snowballed. I saw what happens when the other team snowballs. I would always look at the champions on the other side that I went up against or that had snowballed and see what spells they had and why they did what they did. 

This game is such a great way for you to be able to think on the fly, to use strategy and build hand and eye coordination. I will say that I can't wait to people up a team of 5 that we can just play together and build our own strategy and tactics. Like with any of the eSport games right now, I feel like you can take a group of people and put them on a team (regardless of age) and they would be able to compete on an upper level with the right training and tactics. The whole idea that these type of athletes have a special type of skill or some genetic ability to me is not true. I am look to see if I can prove that with in the next year or so. They will have to be dedicated to wanting to excel at improving their game-play and compete at the highest level. 

Follow along with me as I set out to get to level 30 then move into ranked play. What would the LOL world come to if they saw a 40 yr old playing on the main stage at LCS???

My slackness last week blogging was EPIC but to me understandable.

So last week was what I would call a huge stressful week to where I had to prioritize certain things in order to accomplish what was first, second and third in my life. I was planning on taking a week break from training every 3 months so to give my body a chance to fully recuperate and rebuild. Last week I got to the gym on Monday had a 5 minute warmup as usual on the bike then did 60 minutes on the light green to green zone cause I did really push it last week. I thought to myself that I would take it easy and just concentrate on time in the seat not pushing the cadence at all. So 60 minutes at 80 rpm was to me a good idea. The only thing that I noticed was as soon as I got to the gym my heart rate was elevate and already pushing mid to upper blue zone or Zone 1. Now the week of stress had started for me the night before. I had started to practice for the iRacing Indy 500 that they rescheduled for this weekend. So me and my teammate Jon had put up a practice server to go ahead and get a fill for the up coming track. Get some telemetry data so that Jon can work up a good but quick setup for us during the race. We had a 2 hour practice session that I feel let us gather some great data and I am excited  to see what the setup guru Jon has come up with.

I realized with practice, race on Wednesday plus getting ready for the ATC Tounament that was in Tennesse this past weekend that I was going to have to just go ahead and use the rest of the week to take a break and give my "body" a rest from trainning. And that was the hardest thing for me to do was not to train for the rest of the week. I was surprised how hard that was for me to handle. Which is an amazing thing to feel! It made me realize what a huge infrluence training has taken over in my life. How missing one day has such an impact over my mood and just my well being. So I would be missing 2 workouts. Now cause of the workout on Monday and how my pulse was already so elevated before even getting started I know it was the best decision to make for this week. And I was right.

Tuesday night I got in a practice race, practice then another practice race for the iRacing Lionheart Series Miami Homestead 150. The practice went as well as I could hope for it to. When I jumped on to what I thought was going to be a practice session, however the practice session and qualify was already over. When I joined in it was grid time for the practice session ROTFL. So I will recap what happened with that and the race on the next blog. Which I know is very late but again I had to prioritize this past week. And Wednesday was the race, so far this whole week up to Wednesday I was getting in bed at 2. So again I was happy in a way that I did take the whole rest of the week off from training.

Thursday night was what I call, Painting night with League of Legends chromecast to the big TV. 16 men to paint and get ready for a 2 day tournament to Tennesse. The second largest one in the US. So 4 hours of LOL playing on the tv and 16 men completely done later and 2:30 am getting to bed. Friday night headed out to Tennesse. 48 painful, brutal and unhappy hours later and I got back home last night so very happy to be back in my bed.

Well that is it for right now. Please be on the look out for a recap of the Miami Homestead 150, thoughts on LOL, and training this week. Thank you again for taking the time out of your bust day and reading this blog. Can never say enough how grateful I am that you do.

League of Legends has sucked me in ROTFL!

Yes I have to admit I have finally decided to play League of Legends or from now on known as LOL in this post. I was watching the MLG Anaheim this past weekend. Watching my boys from Evil Geniuses dominate again in a tournament that actually means something to the gaming world not a shiny gold medal and no money ROTFL! And started watching the StarCraft II competition and just decided "Okay lets go ahead and see what this LOL is all about". It doesn't hurt that right now the prize purse for LOL is at $9.9 million dollars as of July 18th.

I have never downloaded LOL before so I had to download the game and all available updates. 1 hour and 30 minutes later, which on Sunday put it at midnight Monday morning I was ready to give it a go. Now I have a 3 monitor setup for iRacing and that is just not good for LOL. So after about 3 minutes I had to deactivate my Infinity setup with AMD so that I could see it. I am running the AMD Gaming Evolve and that lets you live stream on www.Twitch.com/bcutler2003 without any FPS hit. Decided to give this a try too! That worked great as far as I could tell. It doesn't work yet with iRacing so I am waiting for that.

I decided to pick the very first character that they offer you our of the 3 that are available. Ashe is a Archer so I just thought to myself "okay stay away and just shoot shoot shoot". Now I am not going to go into detail about the different aspects of the game, however as I give up to date details of my journey to level 30 I will fill in on more and more about the game. There are 3 different lanes in which to go and destroy the other teams Nexus. So I start in the Battle Training mode to get started and learn the controls. In the Battle mode as with other modes, you have what are called Minions or Cannon Fodder ROTFL. So as soon as I leave my Fountain (or my Base) the minions form and start down the different lanes. Well I started at about 12:30, I am just going to fast forward 2 hours and 10 deaths later, I still hadn't come close to destroying the other teams Nexus. It was late as hell and I had to get up for work the next day so I quit in the middle (which mean nothing saved) and said I will try again tomorrow.

The next day I realize that it is actually a good thing that it didn't save. This time I decide to go with what I love from World of Warcraft and that is a Mage. So Ryze it is!! Finally felt at home with this character. In WOW I always played as a Warlock. Lets just say 25 minutes later, going down mid land instead of top lane I HAD CONQUERED THE NEXUS OF THE ENEMY!! And it was fun but I can see how it would be very detailed and a lot of research that can go into it.

After this I look at the Level of Ryze once I got done with the Battle Training and he is at Level 12. I thought to myself "this is great! Only 18 levels to go!!" NOPE! My level not my Champions level is Level 2 ROTFL! I have 28 levels to go not 12! The next step that I am going to do is Co-op vs AI! Now some people just jump straight into PvP, but reading what a lot of people post about this. I will learn and get more experience from the Co-op before jumping in and going with PvP. I won't get out of Co-op until I hit Level 30.

Stay tuned for more post about each battle that I have in....LEAGUE OF LEGENDS!!  Also subscribe to my Twitch channel so you can get good laughs at me getting destroyed.