Imagine walking into a burning building, and everyone laughs and tells you the fire’s all in your head. When no one believes you, are you going to stay to burn up with them? Every passenger in that crowd waiting to embark on the luxury cruise was already dead—they just didn’t know it yet! I stared through the windows of the terminal at the magnificent Seastar, at the broken glass and spatters of blood that only I could see… and then I fled.
Without warning a single soul.
What would have been the point? My name is Cassandra—I see death six days before it happens, and can feel it if I shake a cold hand—but no matter what I do, I can never, ever prevent it.
My flight took me as far as the escalators before a flash of purple brought me screeching to a halt. Lily Tsuki? No—it wasn’t the purple-haired musician who’d given me with cruise gift card. But suddenly I remembered how I’d been looking forward to hearing her performance aboard this very vessel…
Oh God…
It was one thing to turn my back on doomed strangers. Terrible as it sounds, it’s a bit like reading about a catastrophe in the news. Quite another thing to abandon somebody I knew! Could I really leave her to become one of the bodies putrefying in the belly of the Seastar? Every time I ordered a drink at my favorite bar, I’d remember I hadn’t even tried to save her!
“Fuck!” I cried, fumbling for my phone. “Oh, fuck me sideways… how much time…?”
Ninety minutes.
Ninety minutes to get on board, find the musician, and… what? Convince her to disembark?
How?
And yet my feet were already turning toward the gangplank—because as it turns out, I would rather plunge headlong into a ship full of the rotting dead than face an empty piano bench and the guilt that no amount of alcohol would ever drown. But to have any chance at persuading Lily, I’d need to know how the passengers died. This meant that in addition to finding a purple-haired needle in a Titanic-sized haystack, a horrifying task loomed ahead of me. I was going to have to do something I had not done in a very long time—plunge directly into my vision. Walk into its very maw and face whatever gruesome horrors lurked at the source of that nauseating odor.
I was going to have to find the bodies…
… and whatever killed them.
Boarding
The stench was so overpowering after crossing the gangplank that I dropped to my knees and dry heaved. The flow of passengers moved around me past the concierge desk. I must have looked exceptionally sick, because a pretty girl in a suit skirt approached, asking if I needed assistance. She reached out a hand to help me up—cold!
I staggered away from her and inside. Then—because I felt I might throw up—quickly found my way out to the promenade deck and the blessed breeze.
Lifeboats hung overhead. Beyond the rail, the sea sparkled in the afternoon sun. Cushioned loungers lined the deck. None were in use, presumably because the pool, patio, spa, and other amenities on the upper decks had much more attractive areas for lounging. I leaned against the rail and gulped the air, listening to the waves splash against the side of the boat, noting blood spatters further down—but nothing signifying the cause of the blood. Just vague signs of violence.
After circling the entire promenade deck and spotting only the occasional bloody spatters, I gritted my teeth, pulled my shirt collar up over my nose, and plunged into the nearest door.
The Seastar’s interior had the atmosphere of a luxury hotel. People milled about the restaurant and shopping area, buzzing with excitement, talking about cabaret shows and fine dining, while perky crew members answered questions, all perfectly oblivious to the putrid sweet rotting stench. I’d most likely find Lily Tsuki at the piano lounge, but since I didn’t yet have any plausible explanation for what had happened to the passengers, I continued wandering, entering a bustling café overlooking the ship’s grand staircase. Stepping over an enormous blood stain on the carpet, I passed the counter, nauseated by the fancy pastries behind their glass cases, peering among the tables and chairs. Paused when I spotted an eyeball in a teacup. No trace of how it got there. No body with an empty socket. Just the eyeball, swirling in a congealed bloody jelly at the bottom of the cup…
I scurried away, snatching a cloth napkin to cover my nose.
The interior darkened as I ascended the central staircase. No electricity, I noted as I clutched the railing. Why would the power be cut? A storm?
But storms don’t scoop out eyeballs with a dessert spoon….
Coming onto deck 6, I peered down a long, dim corridor lined with passenger cabins. To passengers coming and going, the hall was illuminated by electric lighting—but since I was seeing the ship six days in the future, the narrow hallway vanished into blackness. With no way to enter the cabins, and nothing much to see here or in the other dimmed halls of the passenger decks, I ascended until I reached the pool.
Pool Deck
Deck 9 opened to wide panoramic windows, dining, a spa, and of course the pool. I emerged outdoors with relief, removing the napkin from my nose as the sea breeze gave some respite from the odor.
Around me, people partied in bikinis and beachwear and suits, sipping all manner of drinks around the sky-blue swimming pool. A young woman stretched on a blood-spattered lounger, oblivious to the gore beneath her tanned figure. A few bodies floated among the swimmers, bloated and discolored. My vision shimmered briefly as a teen boy swam right through one of the bodies, splashing as if it were not there. My heart lurched when I realized that it was his own, albeit dressed in different clothes—
“Oof!” I grunted as a small figure bashed into me, her arm grazing mine.
“Sorry!” cried a little girl in a pink swimsuit, bolting by as her mother yelled at her to watch out for people.
I tried not to think of how cold the little girl’s arm felt. Counted the bodies: eight in the pool. One by the towel bin, head caved in. I made a circuit of the pool, occasionally brushing against people—cold, cold, cold.
No survivors, it seemed.
But why?
That was when I spotted a shirtless old man sitting at a table under an umbrella. I froze, goosebumps prickling along my skin. Unlike the floaters, there was no obvious reason for his death. His back was to me, the bare skin of his shoulders gray and blotchy. In his hand he held a broken drinking glass. He was positioned in repose… so what killed him?
My heart quickened as I moved round to the front of him.
His mouth hung open, shards of glass and a mangled tongue lolling out, crimson trailing down his shirt front. The source of the chewed glass was obvious—the cup in his hand was broken, its jagged edges bloody.
He’d died choking on the glass.
“What the fuck is happening here?” I whispered.
Forward Stairwell
The jogging track and the sundeck—decks 10 and 11—offered a stunning bird’s eye of the pool and ocean, but I did not stop to take this in as I circled to the bow, opting to take the forward stairs down, rather than central.
The stench hit me like a cloud.
I had to stop as I descended into the dim stairwell, clinging to the railing, doubled over, gagging. It was so so bad. My eyes watered. My stomach bucked. And it was dark. Thank God for my phone’s flashlight. I fumbled it on and, napkin firmly over my nose, plunged down into the depths… The phone’s thin illumination flashed along the carpeted stairwell and the hall of the first of the passenger decks. I kept descending. Paused at an unidentifiable slick red mound. I was examining it under my light when a crewmember jogged up to me and asked, “Lose something, miss?” “Just my marbles,” I muttered, shooing the crew member away and inadvertently brushing his hand. Cold. I turned my attention back to the mound.
A slimy pile of intestines on the stairwell… trailing down to a disemboweled body.
Intestines… eyeballs… eating broken glass… nothing about this makes sense! I swiveled the beam to check further downward.
That was when I found the source of the odor.
My path down was obstructed by a mass of bodies. The ones underneath seemed to have been trampled, but the ones on top… I squeezed my watering eyes and retched against the wall. Some of the bodies bore horrible mutilations—fingers bent and twisted, joints out of alignment, faces smashed in and jaws torn open. Many more appeared to have been crushed in the press of bodies. Best guess, there was a wave of panicked people rushing upstairs from below, colliding with a wave of others fleeing down from above.
Why this staircase? What was near this part of the ship?
The cabaret lounge, I realized. No electricity. No elevators. This was the nearest stairwell to the auditorium.
Closer. I was inching closer to uncovering the fates of the passengers. And yet, I still had no idea what the passengers were fleeing from. Who were the attackers? Or… I thought of the eyeball. The glass chewed and swallowed.
An icy pinprick at the base of my skull whispered the question I didn’t want to ask…
Why? Why did some of the passengers go mad, and do it to themselves?
Piano Bar
I took the long way round to the cabaret theatre, going all the way back up the stairs and coming down on the central staircase, only to detour on hearing the notes of a piano. I found myself in a cozy lounge and spotted a purple-haired figure at the keys. And just in time—the ship was due to depart in less than half an hour!
“Lily!” I rushed over.
The musician’s face lit. “Oh it’s you, friend! You made it!”
“You’ve got to get off the ship!”
“Off the—”
“I know it seems crazy but you’ve got to! Everyone on board is going to die—I’ve seen it because I’m psycho!” I heard it a second later and smacked my forehead. “I mean—psychic! PSYCHIC!! I can see the future.” At her scrunched eyebrows, I burst, “Look I know how I sound, but I’ve been able to see things since I was a little girl, and I am telling you that this ship is going to go dark! The engines will cut out! People are going to flee and trample each other on that forward staircase…” Launching into a rapid-fire recounting, I was just getting to the eyeball in the teacup when she interrupted:
“You’re afraid of some sort of terrorist attack?”
“No, no! No! It’s almost like… a kind of madness, a contagion, that spreads through the ship—”
“A zombie apocalypse?”
“Not zombies…”
“Poltergeists? Possession?” She played a riff from a horror movie. “Should we call an exorcist?”
“We should leave!” I checked my phone. “Quickly!—"
“What an odd duck you are! I can’t imagine any sort of catastrophe as big as you’re saying. You know this ship has tons of safety protocols. And even if I did believe some disaster were drawing near—do you really think I could abandon crowds and crew?” She looked at me over her glasses, shimmering purple lips curving in a smile. “Listen friend, if this were the Titanic and I was the only one who could see the iceberg, I’d stay to steer us right, not run off leaving everyone to die!”
Icy fingers raked along my spine. Even if she wasn’t taking me seriously, she was right—I did have a moral obligation to save people. An obligation I’d been trying to fulfill ever since I was a little girl, until the attempt killed my brother, and even after, I kept trying for years and years…. until at last I realized that there is no way to change anything. That is why I call myself Cassandra. For the Greek prophet doomed to predict the future but never be believed. Try and prevent what I’ve foreseen? You might as well try and pluck the stars from the sky!
Every hand I’d touched was cold. Everyone on board would die.
My fists balled, fingernails digging so hard into my palms they bled. “You really have no idea what you’re asking of me…”
“Oh, I’m not telling you to stay. I’m just explaining why I have to. Besides, I’m under contract.” She winked and focused on her playing as guests entered and sat at nearby tables.
She had no idea! None whatsoever! If I thought there was even a sliver of a hope, I wouldn’t abandon people! Oh, if this happy-go-lucky musician understood the futility!!
But she will, came another, darker thought. She will know the full depth of the horror coming…
“No,” I whispered.
“Huh?” She shouted, “Wait—friend, where are you going?”
But I was not listening. The cabaret theatre—was the answer there? The reason for the crush of bodies in the forward stairwell? I rushed past the cafe with the eyeball in the teacup, through the grand doors into the cabaret hall—
—but the cabaret hall was surprisingly quiet, save for a light touch of classical music. A few passengers mingled here or there, unnoticing of the cadavers draped on chairs and tables. The stage itself was pristine, the wood smooth and polished in the fading orange light through the windows. Apparently, the origin of the panicked flight up the forward stairwell was not this grand entertainment venue—nothing here supported that theory.
Nonetheless, I gave the place a thorough search until my phone’s battery ran low, and then I returned to the grand staircase.
In one direction lay passenger cabins. In the other, the gangplank back to the port terminal and safety.
“It’s not too late to be a coward, Cass,” I said. “Run from the ship, run from the empty piano bench at the bar, find a different, cheaper hole in the wall to crawl into like—like the cockroach you are…”
Always the survivor, eh…?
Or… or, I could try just one more time. “‘Hope,’” my brother always said, “is the thing with feathers.”
And look what happened to him! flashed through my mind. My heart slammed against my ribcage. I’d just die too, unless I left in the next—how many minutes? I checked my phone, but it was dead. Like I would be if I stayed.
A horn sounded the Seastar’s departure. A distant cheer rose up from the upper decks and balconies. I felt a brief panicky impulse to run back out on deck and throw myself off the ship… but in truth, my fate had already been decided before the ship’s horn blew. I hadn’t been paying attention earlier, but I’d been rubbing and rubbing my hands, and finally realized they were cold. Probably had been since I’d boarded. I shuffled leaden feet toward the passenger cabins, guided by my phone’s light to the brass number plate for 4044—my cabin. Reached for the knob and stopped.
That smell—dread squeezed my intestines like a wet rag.
Smoke. Burnt meat.
I wrinkled my nose and opened the door.
Orange rays shone through the window, the sunset so vivid it almost gave the illusion that the room was on fire. The walls and ceiling were charred. The edges of the mattress and sheets a smoldered ruin. But the worst damage was the small sofa by the coffee table. Broken bottles scattered round. And there on the sofa—
My fingers went limp on the door handle as I stared into melted sockets of a body charred beyond recognition. A dark line encircled its wrist. The blackened remnants of a charm bracelet.
My bracelet.
While the man on the pool deck swallowed glass, I would succumb to the insanity here, dousing myself in alcohol and flame—
—immolating myself.
[Part 1]
[Part 3 UPDATE]

https://u.gg/lol/profile/eun1/lmperatooverview
Hello, I am a Gwen main that recently hit Masters for first time playing on a 10 years old forgotten by the MMR gods account with abysmal LP win-lose ratio bringing it up from Bronze to Masters in 457 games with 57% WR overall and 62% WR on Gwen from 301 games. This post has few purposes:

• Share disagreements I have with common points on this subreddit - about Gwen's role in the team, her itemization, her strengths and weaknesses.
• Give certain formulaic tips that will help you cheese games even if you don't really understand why on the grand scale of things. This is not a guide on becoming a very good player, it's a guide on climbing the ranks with Gwen.
• Link it everytime someone asks what is Gwen's role in the team and how to play her.

BAD takes that you should not follow

• Shadowflame instead of Nashor's Tooth - Gwen's strengths are splitpushing and she does this extremely well. Trying to turn her into an assassin with items that harm her splitpushing potential is counterproductive. Enemies in Plat, Diamond and Master aren't beasts that can evade all your abilities. They are inters, just like almost everyone in soloqueue. Chances are you will never meet a truly great player in the enemy lobby or have one in your team. Once they are slowed down by your ultimates first cast, it is trivial chasing them down and finishing them off. There's no reason to build her like a C tier assassin when full duelist splitpusher build will do the same damage in teamfights. You will just get your damage items faster, because the splitpusher playstyle generates more gold.
• Ignore Rabadon in favor of X - Third item Rabadon is what allows Gwen to turn around games and turn from an okay teamfighter to a great one when the player uses their ult well. After buying Rabadon she can 100 to 0 anyone who didnt build more than 1 MR item. Rabadon is what allows you to dive their fed 500g bounty player 1v2 and kill him.
• Gwen has bad early game - It might take a bunch of games to see it, but when Gwen early is played correctly, she has better pre 6 than most enemy toplaners who are supposed to be stronger early. Her Q damage is very high, low cooldown, has mobility, increased ranged, untargetability, increased resists, ability to poke without drawing minion aggro. Noone will punish your champions vulnerabilities even in Masters. Two big reasons for it: Gwen is a rare pick and the enemy doesn't know what to expect from you, and because majority of players Masters and below haven't learned all aspects of the game equally well. They have learned to play into very specific things that allow them to win games (exactly what I do with Gwen). Whether its one tricking champions, very good vision and macro, great mechanics - it doesn't matter. They will start inting as hard as a Bronze would when you throw a wrench in their plans. More often than not they start to play a bit more careful when trading with you if you scare them with a great trade early on in the game which allows you to punish them even harder.
• Play safe and farm up for late game - If you just hug your turret, avoid fighting and prioritize on last hitting minions, then you will miss out on the snowball opportunity from plating and turret gold. It is a very suboptimal way to play Gwen.
• Riftmaker is a bad mythic on Gwen - Very common argument that I have read here is that Riftmaker is a bad mythic. That it has awkward stats or there are tankier options, items with more mobility, with more damage etc. Riftmakers main strength over any other mythic is the omnivamp it provides. The omnivamp is crucial for those 1v2 and 1v3 fights that you will be often fighting when playing very aggressively. The healing increase is miniscule, but it is enough to have an impact. Yes, you can fight enemies when outnumbered with other mythics too, but going anything other than Riftmaker takes away from your potential to be hyperaggressive. Going Riftmaker also creates an illusion for the enemy in which you are far squishier than you actually are which has helped me secure many victories after enemies get baited into fighting me. The health, AP, ability haste, omnivamp, increased damage, true damage - all of this works great on Gwen.

Key concepts that you have to understand to make this playstyle work for you

• Plates - 15 plates, each worth 175 gold. Consistently you can get around 5 plates per game which is 875g + 300g from turret kill + 150g from first turret = 1250g - more than 4 kills worth. Gold generated through plating does not grow your shutdown gold. Plates are better than kills for this reason. It is worth it to die for plates if minute 14 is about to hit (Plates despawn on minute 14).
• Inner turrets on side lanes ( second turret on bot and top ) - Destroying a secondary turret alone gives you 600g total. With demolish rune and completed Nashor's Tooth you need just a few seconds to push the turret. If you have vision on more than half the enemy team then it is risk free gold.
• Herald - Taking herald gives you 300g and the herald eye which can help you get either plates or inner turrets.
• Splitpush - Allows you to push the inner turrets and reach their inhibitor if the enemy team does 1 macro mistake. Sometimes when you take the inner turret the enemy team won't respond to your threat hoping that you will just give up and recall. If that happens you continue to push onto the inhibitor turret. In other situations your team will be 4v5 at drake and spam pinging you to TP. That can be the correct play but more often than not I decide to ignore the pings and keep on pushing. This often results in the enemy splitting up in the middle of the fight to try to do both drake and also protect their inhibitor and base. Your team might win the drake fight this way and you got yourself a free turret or two. Your team might also get completely wiped on drake, but that gives you more time to push. Maybe you even get to take 1 nexus turret. Gwen with Riftmaker, Nashor's Tooth, Rabadon Deathcap and demolish melts turrets in seconds.
• Nexus turret pressure - When inhibitor goes down you often have the opportunity to damage or destroy one of the nexus turrets. It is good to destroy one as it allows for you to no minion push the last nexus turret at a later time and cheese the game.
• Lobby pick order - Always try to be last pick in the lobby. Chances are your Silver, Gold, Plat etc. teammates aren't the most proactive players and they won't benefit as much as you would from being last pick. You don't want to blind pick and end up playing vs Akshan or Fiora. You don't necessarily have to counterpick the enemy, but you don't want to be counterpicked. If you aggressively spam the "Swap Pick Order" button it is possible your teammate won't give it to you out of spite later if he declined the first time. Which is why if that person declined once, wait for the enemy team to pick a few times. Then you notify them in chat that their lane opponent picked and if they can swap with you. There are 3 other people in the team so you don't always have to instantly go for last pick either. Try to weasel your way down slowly by asking those directly after you if last pick doesn't work out from first attempt. If blindpicking is unavoidable then pray the enemy is clueless.
• Playing hyper aggressive and money hunger - Sometimes it happens that your botlane goes 0/7 in the first 10 minutes of the game and enemy ADC is very ahead. This shouldn't make you play safer. If the enemy bot has 500g shutdown on their head then if there is an opportunity it is better to dive them 1v3 with the chance of getting that shutdown bounty rather than playing safe. Whenever you are forced to teamfight your primary goal is to get all the shutdown bounties on the enemy team. Gwen loves AP and AP costs gold. The more gold the better. It is okay to die if it means that you also got gold. Because gold on you is way stronger than gold on their champions. There are exceptions to this. For example if you are very fed with kills and have 700g shutdown on your head then it is not wise to jump in a suicidal fight when moments later a better opportunity will arise.
• Number of games played - Keep spamming Gwen and Gwen only. Play her against every matchup on top atleast a few times to know what your champion can do and what you can do. Don't wildly change your runes every few games. Stick to the same runepage. With time you will see and understand the key moments in the game where you can dish out the exact ammount of damage to kill an enemy and survive. Whether you can push down a lane, greed for a turret and get out of it alive. Whether you can jump in 1v4 and survive.

Tricks that you might or might not be aware of:

• Gwen Q does not trigger minion aggro if you do not autoattack so you can harrass through a wave.
• You can queue up an autoattack if you right click the target during the Q animation and if you are in range it will instantly autoattack when Q cast ends. Works great with E -> Q right at the end of your attack range to do a little bit of extra damage. This will trigger minion aggro.
• Going 2x Blasting Wand on a back with 1700g is better than going Leeching Leer ingredients in majority of cases. It helps you do as much damage as you would with a completed Riftmaker but way earlier into the game helping you snowball harder. Also you can push turret plates way faster with the extra AP. The second blasting wand can later be used for building into Nashor's Tooth. I prefer going Riftmaker first because it makes you tankier and allows you to do easier 1v2 plays when you get ganked.
• Your W can be used to tank Baron and Dragon attacks if you cast it at the proper location where the edge is right infront of the monster without touching it.
• You can use your W to push turrets and plates even if its protected by the enemy. If you are ahead of your laner and the wave is crashing on his turrent you can walk up and cast your W in a place where its edge allows you to autoattack the turret without moving the W. This way if the enemy wants to push you off, they have to walk directly into you which accomplishes 2 things: gives you an opportunity for an easier dive and/or the enemy misses a bunch of farm trying to protect their plates.
• If you are ahead you can skip completing your boots item and stick with normal boots or no boots at all. The speed difference hardly makes a difference in the early game but you can get your item spikes way earlier. Your slow from your R and your dash are more than enough to stick to targets.
• When you are trying to push a structure as fast as possible E on top of yourself immediately after your autoattack completes. Your dash is not a fixed distance and you can dash very small distances which is a quicker way to reset your E AS buff.
• Gwen Q executes minions below 20% HP which works on super minions too. This makes her one of the fastest clearers of super minions in the game and guarantees that you will get the 90g from them if there are teammates present.
• Even if your minion wave is very small when you are approaching a turret, it is worth it to push it. After Rabadon all you need is 2-3 minions to push a turret safely. You might tank a few shots but the damage reduction that turrets get without minions doesn't apply instantly the minion dies. You have time to push the turret.
• You can cast E while you are casting Q. This will move the damaging area of the Q together with you. Can be used in many situations that require it. For example if both you and the enemy are on low HP and you have pushed the wave into his turret. If you dive him with the standard E -> Q he might react, flash away and CC you. But if you pretend to be cleaning out his minions with Q and then E towards him right before the final snip which deals the most damage it is unlikely he will expect that and be able to react to it.
• Jump in a fight right when you are about to level up. If you are leading your enemy on XP then the level up from 5 to 6 often enables a kill opportunity. Learn to level up your spells with your keyboard, not a mouse click. Watching other people play in real life, I notice that even some mechanically good players keep using mouse clicks to level up their spells. When playing Gwen this should become a habit. You level up -> you rank up spell - even if you are in the middle of the fight. It happens frequently because of her AOE spells killing a few minions in the middle of the fight or you were just randomly near a level up. It has happened too many times where a level up in a spell that I did in the middle of the fight saves my life and changes how the rest of the game goes.

Build

CORE ITEMS:

Riftmaker

Nashor's Tooth

Rabadon's Deathcap

I build in this order in >90% of my games. Go Nashor first if splitpushing is going to be completely uncontested. Start Doran's Ring unless its against a lot of poke in which case go Doran's Shield. Do not buy HP Pots, only buy refillable.

FOLLOW UP OPTIONS:

Cosmic Drive Good AP, CDR, speed. Frequent build after Rabadon.
Void Staff When more than a few enemies have MR items. Overall increases damage. %pen is strong. Frequent build after Rabadon.
Lich Bane Good for faster splitpushing or nuking their squishies with E->AUTO. I recommend as last buy or sell boots to buy this when you have enough gold at full build.
Shadowflame vs frequent shielding and squishier teams. Good AP ammount and pen. I would buy this against a fed ADC with enchanter support.
Zhonya's Hourglass vs fed AD assassins or generally AD heavy teams.
Morellonomicon vs teams with a lot of healing. I never build this.
Thornmail vs AD heavy teams that also have a lot of healing. Occassional purchase.
Randuin's Omen vs teams that have a lot of damage from critical strikes. Example: Yone top, Yasuo mid and Draven ADC.
Spirit Visage vs teams with a lot of AP damage and prolonged fights. I do not build.
Force of Nature vs teams with a lot of AP damage. Generally better than Spirit Visage.
Abyssal Mask Great cheap item vs a lot of AP damage and when you have 2-3 AP on yours.
There are other items that could work like Wit's End or Death's Dance but it is extremely rare that it would be a better choice than any of the items above.

BOOTS:

I have bought all boots on Gwen except mobility boots. It is very dependant on enemy champions and how ahead I am. Usually I buy Mercs into a lot of CC, Steelcaps into AD heavy teams and Lucidity boots if I am very ahead.

RUNES AND SUMMONER SPELLS:

These runes will be most useful to you in majority of games. Swap armor and MR runes depending on your matchup. Go Second Wind instead of Conditioning vs poke matchups like Teemo or Gangplank. I like to pick Bone Plating against burst champions like Pantheon or Renekton. I climbed from Bronze to Diamond without Demolish, but my climb would have been way easier if I went Demolish instead of Unflinching due to the extra plates it can secure. I take it every game now. Presence of Mind is unnecessary and Triumph enables you to fight multiple enemies easier. It also gives you 20g per takedown extra which at the end of the game if you had 15 takedowns ends up being 300g. In my many games playing Gwen I can recall only a few times I wished I got Presence of Mind over Triumph. If you are nearing 0 mana then shove wave and walk up in river to get green slime plant.
Teleport is too useful not to take every game. For second spell I go Ignite for most games. Take Ghost if the kill pressure on lane is small AND the rest of their team is very mobile/ranged, for example a Malphite top lane with Kalista Rakan botlane, Azir mid and Hecarim jungle. That is a comp that you pick Ghost against. If the enemy team doesn't have a lot of mobility or you have easy lane on top then you should take Ignite. Makes tower dives much easier.

NOTES:

I cheese my games. I play around my enemy's mental and abuse Gwen's strengths. The account I played on was hardstuck Gold for many seasons, sometimes ending in Silver. My mental is not strong, I ran it down many times out of spite towards a teammate. My average vision score is 2x lower than that of an average Iron player. Despite all this my climb was steady with the exception of spending a decent ammount of time and games in D1, because I relaxed too much in my games. My point is that if I manage to climb like this, so can you. Just follow the template each game:

• Pre min 14: Get plates, plates, plates, shove waves, try to get herald if theres good opportunity, if not shove wave get plates.
• After min 14: Inner turrets! Bot and top, when you see 3 people on enemy team on one side of map, you go to the opposite and push the lane.
• Don't walk around aimlessly on map, walk up that sidelane and push the wave. Repeat.
• Enemies are guarding their towers too well? Farm their jungle. Join up for teamfights only if it is absolutely necessary. You will know which are if you keep playing the same runes, items and champion every game.

If I think of something else I will add it in an edit.

Hi teemo mains. This post’s main objective is to discuss the best tank teemo build. I main teemo since season 4 and I know that teemos ultimate mastery = mastering all of his playstyles and knowing when to use each one. There are multiple ways to play teemo and each one of us enjoys one of them : Shroom teemo, AP assassin teemo, classic AP teemo, On hit teemo, tankmo…
​
Today i wanna discuss the tankmo with u guys.
​
=> Objectives :
​

• \-proving that tankmo is a viable playstyle and not troll
• \-talk about what I believe may be the best tank build (according to my experience), Id like to know your experience too
• \-how to succeed with this playstyle

​
=> 1-When should I choose to play tankmo ?
​

• \-When u re in champ select and u have 4 squishies on your team
• \-U already have lots of damage on your team
• \-They have assassins that can easily oneshot you if you go for other builds
• \-They have many champs that simply outrange you

​
=> 2-When should you avoid playing tankmo ?
​

• \-Ur team already has 2 tanks
• \-Ur team lacks damage
• \-You re facing champions that destroy tanks (fiora, vayne…)
• \-You re facing a hyperscaling champion in lane and you need a strong early game build to shut them down before they become too strong for you (nasus, vayne…)

​
=> 3-Why isnt tankmo trolling ?
​

• \-I believe that teemo is one of the most versatile champions in the game and that s due to his weird kit. His E skill gives u enought base damage to be able to cs, poke and fight even if you build tank items.
• \-You can say « why play teemo when u can just pick a real tank ». If you are a dedicated teemo mains, then chances are that u only wanna play teemo. Furthermore, he has some skills that no other real tanks have :

1. \->Other tanks are generally countered by ADCs while teemo can just blind them and shit on them.
2. \->Other tanks dont provide vision to their team. The only one that does that is maokai with his saplings but shrooms are way better.
3. \->Other thanks are not ranged bullies in lane
4. \->u re a little rat and players will try to kill you thinking u re squishy. Your global taunt isnt to be underestimated.
5. \->You can effectively splitpush

​
=> 4-What are the most usefull stats for tankmo ?
​

• \-Tankiness : each of your items should ideally give some form of defense
• \-Movespeed : u neee to be quick af to be able to kite and chase. You also wanna be as annoying to their team so you can escape whenever they gank you
• \-Sustain : to splitpush, u need to be able to duel your laner and outsustain them
• \-Some pushing power : full tankmo sucks at pushing waves and we dont want to use all of our shrooms on waves
• \-Some form of damage : my build has 2 damage items that also give some tankiness. This enables you to take farm quicker and push towers and it also ensures that they dont just ignore you in teamfights.

​
=> 5-what is the playstyle ?
​
Tankmo is about :

• \-Soaking damage for your team so they can deal damage. I usually go for the cottontail teemo skin with pink chroma to have the best global taunt effect on them haha.
• \-Disabling their ADC carry potential throught blind. You ll need some ability haste for that.
• \-Perma taunting their jungler and escaping every gank to waste their time. Thats why we will invest into tankiness and movespeed. A tank teemo is also a teemo that doesnt die while he goes invisible in a bush when ganked.
• Your laning phase is about surviving and getting gold throught plates. you dont have the same kill potential of the other playstyles so try to get your gold throught farm, plates and objectives.

​
=> 6-Summoner spells
​
Always flash and ghost.
This gives you more opportunities to escape and chase.
​
=> 7-Runes ?
​

• \-Grasp is the best keystone. Teemo is the best ranged champ in the game with grasp because he can perma stack it thanks to his poison refreshing the effect. It will also enable you to rush your first defensive powerspike with your 1st item (see items section).
• \-Demolish : you will have a lot of hp in this build and you also need this be split effectively
• \-Conditionning : best one for that build because it has strong synergy with our mythic item and gargoyle.
• \-Overgrowth
• \-manaflow band : so easy to stack on teemo. We also need some form of mana regen because we will always be topped on health and we dont want mana to be an issue. Teemo has one of the lowest mana pools and we need this.
• \-celerity : this one has great synergy with teemo W and the ghost and some of our items.
• \-Shards : AS - Adaptive damage - scaling hp.

​
=> 8-Items ?
​

• \-Starter item : always dorans ring ! We need dorans AP to deal some damage and cs. And we need the mana regen (that has great synergy with teemo dot) to not go oom with manaflow.

​

• \-1st item should always be boots as tankmo is still squishy and vulnerable to jumps and dashes early. We need kiting power so we rush boots first. Best one for my build are swifties because they re cheap, they give 60ms and have a good synergy with celerity. Ull be quick early in the game.

​

• \-Then after boots we take Warmogs ! This is a key item for my tankmo build and let me explain why we need to rush it :

\->Teemo is weak in the laning phase to bursty champs who can gapclose (jayce, rengar, pantheon…). Having a first item that gives 800 hp ensures that their 100-0 combo is never enought to oneshot you. And then u can always recover to full hp with the passive.
\->Teemo also has a hard time against champs who win lane with poke (malphite, gangplank, mages top…). This kind of champs usually have low to no sustain or high mana costs. With warmog rush you can take trades you otherwise wouldnt take and outpoke them or make them go oom. Warmog also enables you to always stay at max health to be able to survive ganks and it has good synergy with grasp damage and demolish.
Keep in mind that you ll have the 1100 health required thanks to d.ring + warmog + grasp hp + overgrowth + scaling hp shard. You need all of these to make it work as your rush item.
Having hp instead of resistances makes u more tanky vs physical and magical damage. That better in the early laning phase as hard comiting into armor or MR can just make your top swap lanes with mid and then u re kinda fucked. So there is another reason for warmog rush.
Keep in mind that your damage will be low and you wont have much kill pressure before your 2nd item.
\->little bonus : if you get ganked and u go invis on bush you can trigger passive to heal and make them waste a lot of time and they wont kill you.
​

• \-After swifties and warmog you need to go for some damage and start buying resistances cuz hp without res isnt really efficient. I think that the best value item here is wits end. It gives you nice hybrid damage, some attack speed, magic resistance and it further enhances your movespeed. It also got a newer buildpatch since 13.10

​

• \-For your next item you ll buy your mythic item and I believe that jaksho is the best for tankmo and let me explain why :

\->For a tankmo build u need more hp than just warmog.
\->You need more magic resistances than just wits end because their AP carry usually already has sorcs boots and maybe some other forms of magic pen like morello or luden.
\-> You still dont have armor so you are vulnerable to ad assassins and fighters.
\->You need some CDR to have more blind and shroom uptime
\->with your core build consisting of warmog wits end and jaksho, with resolve tree, you can survive long enought to trigger the jaksho passive making you insanely tanky for a teemo
\->little bonus : if you go invisible in a bush to escape from a gank and they keep trying to hit you, you can trigger the jaksho healing and heal pf them to waste more of their time.
​

• \-After these items what should we buy as a 5th item ? I think we should go for some sort of damage to avoid falling off and remain a threat while still adding some tankiness. Furthermore, we will need some pushing power to be able to split effectively. The only item that gives us all of these stats is the titanic hydra. By that time we will have enought hp to have great synergy with it.

​

• \-The final item is gargoyle stoneplate for obvious reasons. It has synergy with jaksho and it gives us more resistances to still have around 100 resistances even against the champs that heavily invest into penetration.

It also comes with additionnal CDR and that huge active that uses all of our bonus hp.
​
\-For the consumable when we are full build we opt for the 300 hp one for obvious reasons.
\-In the very lategame you can sell your boots for a runaans hurricane to be able to have even more waveclear and great AOE damage with the runaans titanic combo.
​
​
=> 9- Why not heartsteel instead of jaksho ?
​
I believe that heartsteel is a trap item for teemo because :
\-You need to rush it ASAP and falling behind can be really bad for the stacking
\-It only gives you hp without resistances so you ll still get bursted in teamfights. You ll also be vulnerable to %hp damage.
​
​
=> 10-skills
​
You max E then W 2nd and Q last. If you re facing an AA champ like trynda or kayle u can go for Q max 2nd.
​
​
This is my tankmo little guide. Keep in mind that its just my personal preferences based on my own experience as a teemo main. I just wanted to share it with you and discuss the tankmo topic with other veterans to further improve.
​
I hope u like it \^\_\^.

Melinda and the Little Green Men
by Andrew Roller
Melinda and the Little Green Men
Table of Contents
Chapter One - A Sad End
Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen
Chapter Three - Incommodious
Chapter Four - The Sewer Room
Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat
Chapter Six - Neverwhere
Chapter Seven - Permanent Perigee
Chapter Eight - Losers Welcome ( Especially )
Chapter Nine - Buried Alive
Chapter Ten - Gone Away
Chapter Eleven - Dead Broke
Chapter Twelve - Grave’s End
Chapter Thirteen - Audition
Chapter Fourteen - Heavenly Flush
Chapter Fifteen - Coffined
Chapter Sixteen - The Big Bang
Chapter Seventeen - A Sucky Day
Chapter Eighteen - Examination
Chapter Nineteen - Expelled
Chapter Twenty - Enslaved
Chapter Twenty-One - The Bugler
Chapter Twenty-Two - The Gates of Salvation
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Amateur Genius
Chapter Twenty-Four - Pooper’s Paradise
Chapter Twenty-Five - Eisegesis
Melinda and the Little Green Men
by Andrew Roller
Chapter One - A Sad End
It was their last day on earth. The two girls, playing in the field in their suburban neighborhood, didn’t know this. If Melinda and Emily were ever to return to earth, it wouldn’t be for a very long time.
Melinda was ten years old. I could say that she looked “striking”. Or I could use some other politically correct term. In fact, she was very lovely. Her lank, flaxen hair fell to her slim waist. A white string bikini clung to her svelte figure.
Emily was seven years old. Her short red hair fell to her shoulders. Stout, she resembled a girl version of Winnie-the-Pooh. Emily wore a one-piece floral print swimsuit. Both girls had on rubber flip-flops.
Emily was clever. Though she was only seven years old, she wore a red fireman’s hat with the number “21” printed on it. Emily hoped that her hat would fool people into believing that she was older, or even that she was a fireman.
On this bright sunny day, something flashed in the sky. Both girls saw the silvery disc as it caught the sunlight. Emily was quick to figure out what it was.
“It’s a flying saucer!” Emily said. Melinda, who was taller than Emily, watched it with her friend. The saucer sailed over the neighborhood. As it approached, the girls saw it clearly. It had a flat circular base, and a domed top. A line of porthole-like windows encircled the lower part of the dome. There was a front-facing windshield.
The saucer, and its shadow, skimmed over the field. The saucer’s shadow briefly engulfed the girls. Then the saucer passed over a treeline. It settled into tree-dotted scrubland. From that place came a sound of snapping tree limbs, and of brush being crushed. Silence followed.
“Let’s go!” Emily urged. Both girls wanted a closer look at the flying saucer. It was unimaginable that such an object could land in their neighborhood! The girls had no idea that they would soon be swept up in an ongoing galactic war. They rushed into the treeline. Then Melinda and Emily crept into the shady brush beyond.
The saucer was there. It stood on metal legs, hulking amid the surrounding trees. An electrical hum, like that put out by high tension wires, came softly from the saucer’s smooth hull.
An airlock opened in the side of the saucer. A stair-equipped gangplank descended. Then, as Melinda and Emily watched, a line of little green men came down the gangplank. The men were about as tall as the girls. They were carrying a pink worm. It was a big worm, as big as a little green man.
The men laid their worm down on the grass. The last men in the group had brought shovels. The shortest of the little green men was in charge of the men. Named Chirpley, he set several men to work digging a hole.
Emily crept forward. Melinda tried to stop her, but decided to accompany her. The little green men saw the girls. There was a mutual cry of surprise from both parties. The men stopped their digging. Emily asked what they were doing.
“We’re digging a grave,” Chirpley answered. He and the other men stood with solemn faces. Emily, who sometimes went fishing, said that it was odd to bury a worm. She only dug worms out of the earth.
Chirpley stood straighter. He, like his fellows, had a round head. Two green antennae stuck out of the top of his head. He was without clothing, except for a white loincloth that, being puffy and full, resembled diapers. Chirpley wore white gloves. On his small feet were big, rhinestone-studded cowboy boots.
“This is no ordinary worm!” Chirpley told the girls. “It’s our queen!”
“Except she’s dead now,” a second little green man said. He looked much like Chirpley, with a round head and antennae. He wore a loincloth, gloves, and cowboy boots.
“She was a very old queen,” a third little green man said.
“So, since she’s dead, we must bury her,” a fourth little green man said. There were, in all, a dozen of them.
“Stand aside!” Chirpley told the girls. It didn’t matter that the girls were already at a distance from the dead worm. Chirpley rarely missed a chance to look important. Even in front of little Earth girls.
The little green men dug their grave. Or, rather, a few of them did, while the others watched this with Melinda and Emily. Chirpley supervised.
The dead queen was buried. The little green men had just filled in her grave when someone, off in the trees, yelled,
“Attack!” Stones and handfuls of dirt flew from the treeline. Several little green men were hit by the stones. A stone banged off of Emily’s Fire hat. She and Melinda screamed. So did the little green men. The men ran back aboard their flying saucer and, as neighborhood boys whooped and hollered, and threw more dirt and stones, Melinda and Emily followed the men.
No sooner had the green men and the girls rushed into the saucer, than something came out of it. Two somethings, in fact. They were grotesque. Ghosts, they resembled white sheets torn by the wind from a clothesline.
The boys charged from the trees. They were attacking through the shady brush when the ghosts set upon them.
“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled. The boys screamed in terror. They fled back into the trees, and into the field.
The saucer hummed more loudly. Its gangplank retracted. Just before the ship buttoned itself up, the ghosts zipped back inside of it. The saucer whisked into the sky. It disappeared beyond the clouds.
Within the saucer, Melinda and Emily cringed before the ghosts. These hung over them, looking horrid. The ghosts had blank, bulging eyes, and gaping mouths with fangs. They had scared the boys, and were now scaring the girls. To the little green men, they were damn annoying.
“Our spaceship’s haunted,” Gauss apologized. He was one of the men. He and several of his crewmates, though dressed like the others, also wore utility belts.
“But we got it at a discount,” a fellow crewman said. The green men stood with the girls on the saucer’s bridge. To one side was the closed airlock. To the right, and to the rear, the bridge opened onto other rooms.
The saucer was named “Regoob”. Compared to a military cruiser, it was a little ship. Yet Regoob was plenty roomy. Its many spaces held a number of unwanted passengers. But these occupants were mostly small, and furtive, unlike the two hovering ghosts.
One occupant was big. He was a worm, like the men’s dead queen. He slithered about in the saucer’s recesses. Except now. Curious about the girls, this worm peered from a shadowed corridor. Then, he did the one thing that he was known for, and named for. He farted.
“Farrrrrrrrt!” It was a big, smelly fart. Both girls clutched their little noses. The little green men did the same. The ghosts, who had been so hideously maleficent, fled. An embarrassed Fartley slipped away into the ship.
“Peeyou!” Emily cried. Melinda echoed her. The girls made for the airlock. That’s when they realized that Regoob was airborne. In fact, the little saucer was far beyond the Earth.
“We’d better go home,” Melinda said. Emily wasn’t so sure. The saucer’s pilot’s seat, before its dashboard and its windshield, struck her as inviting.
“Can I drive?” she asked. Since no one was, at the moment, controlling where the saucer went, she figured she might try.
That’s when Gauss saw the Moon approaching. It was approaching fast. He gave a cry of alarm. The other men, now seeing what he saw, gave panicked yells.
Emily jumped into the pilot’s chair. Grabbing the saucer’s yoke, she steered the ship clear of the Moon.
“Hooray!” the little green men yelled, with Melinda. Emily continued to fly the speeding saucer. Gauss gave her driving tips.
Soon, the ship was approaching Jupiter. As anyone who’s watched the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” knows, or even the film, “Starship Poopers”, Jupiter is no ordinary planet. It’s a gateway to other parts of the galaxy.
Emily couldn’t resist flying through a galactic gateway. Regoob sped toward Jupiter. The planet soon filled Regoob’s windshield.
Within Jupiter’s clouds was a bright oval. This wasn’t Jupiter’s red spot, but a metal doughnut. This doughnut, however, was slender. It was dotted by circular lights.
“Head for the center!” Gauss said to Emily. She did. Regoob shot through the slim doughnut and into hyperspace.
A kaleidoscope of colors streaked past Regoob. They were very pretty. The girls remarked upon them as Regoob tunneled through our galaxy.
The little saucer popped from hyperspace. It sailed among the ordinary stars again. Ahead was a ringed planet.
“That’s Quigley!” Zolna, one of the little green men, told the girls.
“We live there, in a castle.” Gauss said.
“A castle!” Melinda was impressed.
“Does your castle have a fireman?” Emily asked. The answer was “no”. So Emily, who was now Regoob’s pilot, asked to be the men’s fireman as well. The men agreed.
This left Melinda wondering what she could be. Before dinner, of course, since she still hoped to get home soon.
“You can be our queen!” Zolna told her.
“I’ll be the princess!” Emily said. She was still intent, too, on being the men’s fireman and pilot.
“I’m the king!” Chirpley said. This brought Fartley-like noises from the other men. So Chirpley settled on being what he already was, the men’s captain.
Somewhere in the ship, Fartley ensured his place in this little world, by farting.
Quigley loomed. Space traffic was flowing toward the purple planet. Quigley was belted by shimmering rings. But their colors clashed. Melinda remarked on this.
“It’s better than having no rings at all, like Earth,” Chirpley riposted. He did not mention that planet Quigley lacked a moon.
Emily followed the space traffic into Quigley’s atmosphere. There, the ships scattered to their destinations. Emily, directed by Gauss, flew over a city. Its buildings, compared to those on Earth, were outlandishly shaped. Beyond the city lay a beach community. And then, shining to the sunlit horizon, was a lavender sea.
“Land there,” Gauss told Emily. He meant the far side of the beach community, near the seashore. Emily put the saucer down in a patch of sand.
Regoob stood upon its metal legs amid other parked spaceships. Makeshift buildings were also neighbors to to Regoob. No castle was in sight. The sea lay near.
Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen
Zolna opened the airlock. Its gangplank lowered, and the men and the girls disembarked. The hour was noon. It was hot. There was a salt tang in the air and, in the distance, the waves could be heard as they broke along the shore.
Chirpley led the party along a sandy trail. It wound between the spaceships and the homes. Hofsted, the fattest of the little green men, waddled at the file’s rear. He complained about leaving the ship.
“We’ll be at our castle soon,” Chirpley said.
The beach community slumbered in the seaside air. There were odd odors. These smells, of cooking food, caused Hofsted to say he was hungry. The men ignored him. A seagull sailed overhead.
Creatures gazed here and there from the spaceships and from the homes. Their alien faces startled Melinda and Emily. It was as if they’d wandered into a back lot on Star Wars, full of extras in outlandish costumes! Some of the aliens were surprised to see the girls.
“What are Earthlings doing here?!” an alien asked.
“There goes the neighborhood,” an alien, observing the girls, lamented.
Chirpley heard this.
“Commoners!” he riposted, to his alien neighbors. “Show some respect for royalty!” Melinda realized that Chirpley meant her, and Emily. She blushed. As for Emily, she trotted along with a self-confident look. She’d piloted a flying saucer, and now she was the inheritor of Luke Skywalker’s realm. Plus she was a fireman, and a princess. This was a fine day!
The trail led onto the beach. It was mostly vacant on this weekday, with a few bathers and seagulls. Chirpley indicated a large sculpted heap of sand on the shore. It stood just above where the inrolling sea boiled.
“There it is!” he said. He and his crewmates beamed at Melinda and Emily.
The men had built a big sand castle. It had some attractive towers, a wall and a moat. Several small flags, in various colors, decorated the edifice. An old door lay across the moat. It gave access to a hole in the ground, that the castle enclosed.
Emily was entranced. When the men invited her to come inside, meaning down into the hole, she agreed. Melinda cautiously accompanied them. As she did, she seemed to hear her name on the wind. But she saw nothing unusual, besides the bathing aliens and the seagulls.
Zolna led the group into the hole. He did so with a flashlight. Several other men lit flashlights too, as the group entered the hole.
The hole had a stone staircase. It had been carved by time, and by an intelligent hand. Sand dusted or clung to some of the steps. So did seaweed and seashells. These also cluttered the floor of the cave that the stairs led down into. An old stove sat in the cave.
“This is Mr. Lehman’s cave,” Zolna told Melinda and Emily.
“We used to be his gardeners,” Hofsted said proudly.
“Gardners?” Melinda asked. She saw only stone, and the oceans’s detritus.
“It was an easy job,” Hofsted admitted.
“He’s a sailor,” Chirpley said.
“But he’s disappeared,” Gauss added. “We don’t see him anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” Melinda said.
An apparition appeared on the stairs, near the lowest step. Melinda yelped. Emily gave a gasp of surprise, and the men gave startled cries.
“Melinda,” the ghostly figure said. It resolved itself as a tall, slender boy.
“You’re human!” Emily gasped. The boy’s image remained streaked with transmission lines, as if it were being beamed into the cave from far away.
“Quiet!” the boy snapped at Emily. She gasped anew. So did Melinda, and the others
“You’re my bride,” the boy told Melinda. The bikini-clad girl shrieked.
“I’m King Kleigowski,” the boy said. “From Earth, of course. My galactic fleet will arrive in a moment. Stay here as it attacks. Then, I will land, and we’ll be married,” the boy said to Melinda.
Seawater spilled down the stairs. The boy’s image vanished.
“My God!” Melinda gasped.
“She’s not marrying you!” Emily, finding her courage, told the place on the stairs where the boy’s image had been.
More seawater came down the stairs.
“We’d better go,” Zolna said. “The cave floods at high tide.”
Emily scrambled up the stairs with Melinda. The men followed. The tide was boiling about the castle. In the clear sky above, thunder sounded. Then sirens began to wail in the distance. Kevin Kleigowski, who had been terrorizing the galaxy’s far side for some time, was now attacking Planet Quigley!
Melinda and Emily ran with the men from the beach. They headed back to Regoob. All about them, the beach community was coming alive to the danger that thundered above. A battle was underway in the sky.
Melinda and Emily ran up the gangplank into Regoob. As the crew came in after them, a seagull flew into the ship. Emily reclaimed her place in the pilot’s seat.
Regoob took off. Other spaceships were beginning to rise from the land too. Suddenly, a transmission forced itself onto a television screen on Regoob’s dashboard. A man in a military uniform issued a warning. His insignia showed that he was a Quiglian general.
“Attention all civilians!” the general warned. “We’re under attack! Do not leave Planet Quigley! All civilian spaceships are grounded!”
“We’d better land,” Hofsted said.
“Ignore that!” Chirpley shouted.
“But—“ Melinda gasped. Emily flew stolidly higher.
“We’re soldiers!” Chirpley said.
“We’re volunteer lifeguards,” Zolna said.
“Good enough!” Chirpley retorted.
The saucer was now climbing at an eye-popping speed. It cleared the clouds, and the sunlit sky. The starry cosmos opened before it. The ship sped toward the nearest ship in the Quiglian fleet. The Quiglians were locked in a battle with King Kleigowski’s ships.
As Regoob closed on the big Quiglian cruiser, the general reappeared on the saucer’s dashboard T.V.
“Stop!” the general ordered.
Chirpley drew himself up to his full, diminutive height.
“Sir!” he told the general, with an irked look. “I am Chirpley Superlapee.” To Emily, Chirpley said, “Full speed ahead!” Then, for effect, he added, “Don’t shoot ‘till you see the whites of the their eyes.” Since he was sounding very important, Chirpley added, “Your money or your life!”
The saucer rushed at the cruiser. As it loomed, Emily began to think that going full speed ahead might not be a good idea.
Then she realized that they were too close to the cruiser to stop! As a collision became obvious, she leapt from the pilot’s seat.
“Duck!” Emily called to Melinda. Samuel, the seagull who’d flown into the ship, drew himself up to his full, diminutive height. He did so on the floor, where he’d settled by Melinda’s feet.
“I, Miss, am not a duck! I’m a sea-“ Samuel began.
Melinda felt a sudden tingling wash over her. She was standing somewhere else, if still beside Samuel, as the bird finished giving his species.
“-gull,” Samuel said.
They were all someplace else. That is, the girls, the men, and whatever else that had been on the saucer’s bridge, was now in a jail cell. The jail’s front wall and it’s door consisted of iron bars. A heavy white mist clung to the jail’s ceiling.
The saucer was nowhere to be seen. But there was a low hum, that is common to spaceships.
A tall boy came to the cell’s door. Melinda gasped. So did Emily, as cries came from the men.
“It’s that boy!” Melinda yelped, alarmed, to cries of alarm from her cellmates. She cringed. So did Emily, and the others.
“Call me Kevin,” the boy said. He grinned at Melinda. “You’re lucky I’m around. Your little friend ( he meant Emily ) crashed your saucer into a Quiglian cruiser.”
“I’m not marrying you!” Melinda said.
“Me neither!” Emily said.
“Me neither!” Hofsted said.
Kevin laughed.
“You’d better let me do the thinking,” he told Melinda. “My teleport ray couldn’t reach you on planet Quigley. You were too far away. So I told you to stay. And what did you do?” He grinned, and not pleasantly. “You fled, of course, directly toward me!”
As Kevin spoke, the mist coalesced. Suddenly, it was no longer a mist, but a pair of fanged, bulging-eyed ghosts!
“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled, at Kevin. The boy ran shrieking out of the jail cell. A moment later, tingling engulfed Melinda. Everyone else in the cell was caught in the same sensation. Then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, the captives all disappeared from the jail cell.
Chapter Three - Incommodious
Melinda sat on the floor. Her head rested against a tiled wall. A sink was above it. Around her, in disorder, lay a number of little green men. Emily sat nearby. Samuel, lying near Emily, righted himself. He flew up and about in a mist that floated along the bathroom ceiling.
They’d been teleported again.
“Where are we now?!” Emily asked.
“I’m in a toilet!” Chirpley shouted, from a bathroom stall. “Help!”
The men and the girls gathered themselves. Some of the men, being teleported to the bathroom, had landed in toilet stalls. Chirpley hadn’t just wound up in a stall. He’d been planted with such force into a toilet that his bottom was stuck in the hole at its base. Toilet water surrounded his semi-submerged figure. He gazed helplessly from the commode.
“Don’t flush it!” Chirpley cried, of his toilet, as the girls and some crewmen piled into his stall. The group couldn’t help laughing. Chirpley, however, didn’t laugh. Being stuck in a toilet was not his idea of a good time,
Emily and the crew pulled Chirpley out of the toilet. He was unhurt. His body was wet in places. His diaper-like loincloth was soaked.
A woman screamed. Shouts came from the men who hadn’t crammed themselves into Chirpley’s stall.
Kevin had teleported his captives from his spaceship to a Quiglian one. Specifically, he’d teleported his captives into a ladies’ bathroom aboard the Quiglian ship.
“Eeeeek!” the woman visitor screamed. “There are men in the bathroom! In the ladies’ bathroom!” Soldiers arrived. When they learned that the men in the women’s bathroom had also crashed their saucer into the Quiglian ship, they arrested them. Chirpley and his crew were brought before General Grouchley. They were accompanied by Melinda and Emily.
General Grouchley commanded the Quiglian fleet. His flagship was called The Drut. It was this that Regoob had crashed into.
George Grouchley was big, fat and green. His uniform strained to contain him. It was he who had grounded all of Quigley’s civilian ships, and who’d ordered Regoob to stop. It was he whom Chirpley had disobeyed.
Chirpley stood to attention before General Grouchley. He did so with wet pants, from the toilet. Gathered behind Chirpley was his crew, and the girls. The volunteer lifeguard saluted the general. This did not improve George’s mood.
“I understand you were in the ladies’ bathroom,” George said to Chirpley.
“Yes, sir,” Chirpley answered. “I was stuck in a toilet.”
“Your saucer crashed into my ship!” George told Chirpley.
“Yes, Sir,” the volunteer lifeguard replied. Emily slipped partly behind Melinda, to escape the general’s eyes.
“We’ll need a new ship,” Chirpley told George. “To continue our noble fight against King Kleigowski.”
“Kleigowski’s fleet is in full retreat!” George told Chirpley. “I’m not sure what happened. One minute they were attacking, the next — they were fleeing!”
“I may know why - “ Chirpley said.
“Obviously, I’m an even better general than I knew,” George concluded. He eyed Chirpley. “Get your stinky saucer out of my ship! And stay out of the ladies’ bathroom!”
“Yes, Sir,” Chirpley replied.
Several women came screaming into the general’s presence.
“Help!” the women shouted. “Our bathroom is haunted!”
Chapter Four - The Sewer Room
Regoob had smashed through a large glass panel in the hull of The Drut, near its stern. Doing so, Regoob had plunged itself into a big cesspool. Much of the cesspool’s contents had emptied into outer space. This left the saucer at the bottom of the big cesspool, in such sludge as remained. The cesspool stank.
Repair ships had plugged the hole in The Drut’s hull. The big, open cesspool was in The Drut’s sewer room. This was a big, high-ceilinged room, with a crane. As Regoob’s crew arrived, along with the girls, the crane lifted Regoob out of the cesspool. It plopped the saucer, with a clang, onto the sewer room’s floor. A work crew gathered about the stinky craft.
Chirpley strode up to the work crew.
“I am the captain of this august ship,” he said, in a tone that he hoped sounded important. Chirpley had a high voice. But now, his voice was mouse-squeaky, for he was holding his nose. So was his whole crew, and the girls.
The work crew was wearing disposable masks. One of them regarded Chirpley, who remained in wet pants.
“You own this piece of shit?” the workman asked Chirpley. “It’s going to need a lot of cleaning.”
“We’ll wait until you’re done with it,” Chirpley said.
“You’ll clean it now,” a workman told Chirpley. “General Grouchley wants you, and your saucer, off of his ship!”
“Oh!” Chirpley said. “We must have important duties awaiting us.”
“The general just wants you to go!” a workman said.
Meanwhile, back at the ladies’ bathroom, a priest had been called. He was exorcising the bathroom of its two ghosts. Ladies waited with rising anxiety as this holy procedure proceeded.
“Hurry up!” a woman complained.
“I have to go!” another woman said.
The priest paused in his incantations. He assured the ladies that they wouldn’t have to wait long. There was no need to go elsewhere. The priest was a speedy priest. But, if he were to rush, in an unholy way, the ghosts might not be exorcised. So the priest proceeded with due reverence for the divine. And the ladies waited. With rising anxiety.
Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat
Regoob left The Drut. That ship, and its fleet, were now returning to planet Quigley. Emily was piloting Regoob. She was doing so with the purpose of learning to fly it better.
Melinda was aboard Regoob. So was everyone in Regoob’s crew. Samuel, the seagull, had again invited himself aboard. The ghosts, exorcised from the ladies’ bathroom, were aboard Regoob too.
On the saucer’s bridge, teleportation was being discussed.
“People teleport all the time on Star Trek,” Emily said. Chirpley had seen the show.
“We call it ‘Apes in Space’”, he said. Emily scowled at him.
“Who knew an ape - I mean, a human - would invent teleportation?” Gauss asked. Melinda asked what he meant.
“No one in the galaxy can teleport,” Gauss said. “Except, now, Kevin Kleigowski can.” Everyone on the bridge considered this.
“We need to stop him,” Melinda said.
“Yes!” Emily agreed. “He could attack Earth!”
Chirpley saw a chance to be important. Standing straight, though he was still short, he said,
“Men! We must go after King Kleigowski! We must climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, and go where only apes in space have gone before!”
Gauss hastened to a computer.
“I’ll see if I can find the king’s fleet,” he said.
“Maybe we should ask for help from General Grouchley,” Melinda said. Chirpley bristled.
“I’ll be in command of this mission,” he said. “Since it was my idea!”
“General Grouchley didn’t do anything to defeat the king,” Zolna said. “It was our ghosts who scared him off.”
“I found him!” Gauss said. He meant the king’s fleet. Gauss told Emily what direction to fly in. She did so. Chirpley, pleased, began to practice a victory speech.
“I came,” he intoned. “I saw - “
“And I got stuck in the toilet,” a crewman said.
Chapter Six - Neverwhere
Kevin Kleigowski was angry. The panicked retreat of his fleet had put his ships into disarray. The fault was his own. His fleet was crewed by robots. Their purpose was to obey.
Kevin stood on the bridge of his flagship, Teliot. He spoke with his robot admiral, Dolt 0001.
“Take the fleet through a hypergate,” Kevin ordered his admiral. “We’ll reorganize ourselves on its far side.”
“Yes, Sir,” Admiral Dolt answered. Kevin’s fleet was soon flying toward a distant gas giant. There, it would pass through the planet’s hypergate.
Unknown to Kevin, a little saucer, flown by a seven-year-old girl, was hot on his trail.
Kevin’s fleet neared the gas giant. As Regoob closed on the fleet, Gauss told Emily,
“Hurry! They might go anywhere in hyperspace!”
Regoob snaked among the disordered vessels.
“Land on Teliot,” Gauss told Emily. “That’s the king’s flagship.”
Teliot was a big cruiser. Emily zipped above it. She put the small saucer down amid the outbuildings that topped Teliot’s hull.
The cruiser, and its accompanying fleet, passed into the gas giant’s hypergate.
Emily yawned. She was in a flying saucer in hyperspace, atop a galactic cruiser, but she was also a sleepy seven-year-old. Melinda shared her sense of exhaustion. She said so.
“And I need a bath,” Melinda said.
“I don’t need a bath!” Emily said.
“Emily Fortley, we will both take a bath!” Melinda said. The little green men escorted the girls to a bathroom. The area included a laundry room. When the girls were bathing, they found that they weren’t alone.
“Hey! Quit looking!” Emily said, spying the ghosts in their bathroom.
“Shoo!” Melinda scolded.
The ghosts, sniggering, slipped away.
Melinda and Emily bedded down in a bedroom aboard Regoob.
“Good night, Emily,” Melinda said.
“Good night, Melinda,” Emily said. Neither girl could guess what the hour was back on earth. Then both got a rude reminder of where they were. Fartley trumpeted a loud goodnight in the near distance. The girls escaped the ensuing smell by falling asleep.
As for the little green men, they were concluding their day. They soon bedded down in the room with the sleeping girls. The saucer, atop Teliot, was still passing through hyperspace.
“I don’t know where the king is going, but he’s going a long way,” Gauss said.
“He could be going in circles,” a crewman said. “To throw off pursuers.”
“We’ll board Teliot tomorrow,” Zolna said.
“We can’t do that until we’re out of hyperspace,” Gauss said.
“When we are, I’ll lead the way,” Chirpley said. “Hofsted?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Bring a trumpet. I’ll need you to blow it.”
“Sir?” Hofsted asked.
“Huh?” Zolna asked.
“It will be a great heroic deed to capture King Kleigowski,” Chirpley said. “When we charge him, Hofsted can blow the trumpet.”
“What about all of his robots?” a crewman asked.
“We’ll charge them too,” Chirpley said. “Zolna!”
“Yes?”
“You bring a trumpet too.”
“Maybe we should just bring Fartley along,” someone said.
“Yes!” Chirpley said. “We’ll have loud farts, and loud trumpeting, and then I’ll say ‘Charge!’. Very loudly.”
“After we leave hyperspace,” Gauss said.
With this, the little green men went to sleep.
“Melinda.”
The 10-year-old sat upright. She’d gone to bed wrapped in a dry bath towel, but now she was in her bikini again.
She wasn’t aboard Regoob. She sat in a field of pale mushrooms. These grew suddenly taller, on long stalks. They became a forest of mushrooms. The mushrooms shaded Melinda from the high sun. Through sprouted undergrowth, a path trailed off into the tall mushrooms.
Then an old man appeared. Using a gnarled branch for a cane, he followed the path. He saw Melinda and spoke.
“Melinda.” He said this at a distance. However, Melinda heard it as if he were beside her. She even smelled his breath. It had an odor of onions.
Melinda stood.
Suddenly, the man was before her. His stooped figure was tall and commanding.
“I want you,” he rasped to Melinda.
The blonde frowned. At least, she told herself, she was face-to-face with the person they’d been pursuing. She did not call him king.
“Kevin. You look awful,” Melinda said.
The man scowled.
“I’m done with Kevin,” he said. “Kevin’s attack on Planet Quigley failed. I don’t like failure.”
The man smiled at Melinda.
“Kevin bores me,” he said. “You don’t.” The man took Melinda’s arm. She found herself walking with him, despite not wanting to.
“We’ll rule the universe,” the man told her.
Due to Reddit’s character limit, I can only post part of my book here.
A free copy of “Melinda and the Little Green Men” is at:
http://andrewroller.com
Copyright 2023 by Andrew L. Roller. Melinda and the Little Green Men is a trademark of Andrew L. Roller.

Hey all, back with some nice sets to move to new homes as I focus more on the micro/midi scale models! I apologize that I don't have good pics of all the sets assembled, but I'll include pics where I have them, and will be as accurate with my descriptions as possible. All the models are in good shape, have seen limited display time, and nothing is broken unless noted. None of them have boxes anymore, and all have been completely disassembled and bagged. All prices include shipping. Here's what I've got:

• SOLD 4504 Millennium Falcon - I still think this one is my favorite version to date, the mandibles on the newer ones just look too long. This one also featured a retractable gangplank, as well as removable escape pod. It has the instructions (worn but complete), all minifigs and accessories, and is 95% complete; the only pieces missing are the actual gangplank itself, and a small piece under it (circled in red in the pic). - $80
  
• SOLD 6207 Y-Wing - The Y-wing cockpit angle has always been hard to nail down in Lego, but I thought this one did a great job. It has the instructions (work but complete), both minifigs, manual, and is 100% complete. - $25
  
• SOLD 6207 A-Wing - There have been a few good Return of the Jedi-based A-wings over the years, but this was the first one to really capture the right feel. No instructions (they are available on Lego's site), but it includes both minifigs (plus a bonus Tallissan Lintra minifigure); the A-wing build itself is complete, but it was missing parts for one of the sleds, and I honestly can't remember if I got the replacements or not. - $20
  
• SOLD 75094 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium - This is one of my top 3 favorite Star Wars ships of all time; and aside from the UCS, I think this one is easily the best version. Includes the instructions (in great shape), all minifigs, and the build is 100% complete, even includes the extra pieces. - $100
  
• SOLD 75170 The Phantom (no Thrawn) - This was a set I picked up when I was convinced that I could find The Ghost for a reasonable price; what a fool I was! Anyway, no instructions (they are available on Lego's site), but it does include the Kanan and Chopper minifigs, and the build is 100% complete. - $50
  
• SOLD 75259 20th Anniversary Snow Speeder - I unfortunately don't have any pictures of this one assembled, but I bought it new, and it includes the instructions (like new), all minifigures (including Lando), and the build is 100% complete, even includes the extra pieces. - $90
  
• SOLD Small SW Minifig Parts - This is kind of a random bunch of minifig parts from various local bundles I've purchased. You get several helmets, an officer's hat, a nearly complete AT-AT pilot (no helmet), a Phase 2 Clone Trooper (cracked left arm and broken left hand), Mandalorian Warrior torso (from 75267), Stormtrooper torso, unidentified brown legs, the Emperor's head (has bitemarks on it), generic bad guy head, battle droid torso, and loose R5-D4. - $15 by itself, or $10 with any other purchase
  
• A Bundle of Kubros - These were my first non-Lego building brick purchase. They are pretty cool, even if the building techniques can be hella illegal, lol. Includes He-Man, Skeletor, The Arnold T-800, and the T-800 Endoskeleton. All are complete and include their instructions. I'm selling all 4 of them together as a bundle. - $35
  

And, that's it! Please speak up in the comments with what you're interested in, and we can go to PM from there. Thanks for looking!

I've been playing league since season 3. I fell in love with it, back then you could carry on any champ and there were so many options on what you could build on champs. I've mained Taric top b4 the rework, Gangplank before the rework, Auto attack Sion before the rework, Aatrox b4 the rework, Nunu b4 the rework, Yorick b4 the rework, and Mordekaiser b4 the rework. As you can see riot doesnt like me lol. AP Nasus is the only thing I have fun playing now. Ive gotten this pick to diamond 2 b4 but now my goal is getting masters with it. Playing this, you get so much sht talkers its insane, but anything is better then being a meta slave.
Ask any question if you're interested in the strategy.
Check out my YouTube channel and follow the climb. Hope this inspires many to play different picks and step outside of the META!
Wizard Nasus Youtube Channel

Hello guys, I just had this game:
https://imgur.io/fAuS12e?r
After the game was over, the nilah added me, and asked if I was trolling or not for building antitank and telling how I could have done ”so much more” if I wasn’t trolling with my build? I just told them okay and unadded them.
Was my build troll during this game? I mean, to be honest, I don’t think it would have mattered, the nilah himself died 15 times, my bot lane died 30+ times together on repeat.
I was playing mid and the reasoning for my build is that I went for botrk into stride then BC and grudge, I was already really fed in early so I wanted more HP.
Then he said how even Sona did more damage than I did, but I literally couldn’t go in, if I did, I would just get cc’d by evelynn, senna, samira and gangplank would jump on me and I would literally just get deleted.
Was there something else that I should have built during this game to win?
I guess I could have gone for deaths dance and guardian angel maybe? I don’t know. But to me it felt like he was basically saying that we lost the game because I built incorrectly. I felt like the game was unwinnable regardless of what I built because everyone kept dying. There was even a moment where nilah was farming our jungles raptors when everyone else was fighting for last drake for soul and we lost it because everyone was just goofing all around the map.
Was the nilah right that I should have built differently? What would you have built into the enemy comp in this match?

(No matter how far-fetched or stretched out it is)
Shelly - Graves Shotgun wielding outlaws
Colt - Lucian Double pistol do-gooders
Nita - Annie BEAR!!!!!!
Jessie - Heimerdinger Tiny things building turrets
Dynamike - Ziggs BOMBS!
El Primo - Sett Show fighters who attack by punching
Brock - Tristana Both use launchers of some kind that have exploding ammo and both can jump
Barley - Graves An AOE bartender and an AOE alcoholic
Rico - Sivir? Both marksman with abilities that bounce? Also Sivir literally has an ability called ricochet
Bull - Alistar? Uhhhh Bull? IDK
Poco - Sona Musical support healers
Bo - Kindred Spiritual Archers
Mortis - Vladimir Vampire archetypes who steal life force
Spike - Zyra Living plants who deal AOE damage
Crow - Twitch Poison
Piper - Jhin? Their both snipers who dabble in crafts? Also both their supers include the number 4
Pam - Soraka Healing Mamas
Tara - Twisted Faith Both throws three cards and reveal enemy location
Darryl - Rammus They see us rolling
Penny - Gangplank Pirates who have cannon artillery as supers, also barrels
Frank - Sion Undead corpse tanks who have an attack where they slam their weapon in the ground
Leon - Neeko Chameleon
Gene - Blitzcrank GET OVER HERE!!!!!
Carl - Wukong Both have fidget spinner supers
Rosa - Vi Punch tanks (Even though one of them doesn't even have enough muscle mass to punch)
Bibi - Riven? Both get close to your face with blunt objects and have wave clearing supers?
Tick - Taliyah? HARD STRETCH. Taliyah has that one ability maybe?
8-Bit - Milio? Another hard stretch. I guess since they both have AOE support abilities?
Sandy - Lillia Sleep zzzzzz
Emz - Singed Gas *cough*
Bea - Varus Long range marksmen who both have annoying supers
Max - Zilean? Max probably has weird sense of time anyway with all the energy drinks she's drinking
Mr. P - Malzahar Those porters might as well have come from the void for how annoying they are
Jacky - Rell Mounted tanks with supers that draw in enemies
Sprout - Maokai Living plants who throw other plants
Gale - Janna Supports who have supers that push enemies with wind
Nani - Kalista Marksmen who both have nanny cams
Surge - Kayle? Maybe the level up gimmick as well as the crash down supers?
Colette - Ahri One kiss and your health is taxed
Amber - Brand FIRE!!!
Lou - Nunu and Willump Both can freeze enemies with snow and ice
Byron - Senna Supports who heal by shooting at you
Edgar - Talon Parkour assassins
Col. Ruffs - Ivern? Supports who buffs others?
Stu - Akali? Annoying assassins with infinite dashes
Belle - Ezreal? Both marksman with abilities that doubles damage if it hit the same target?
Squeak - Zac Blobs, that's literally where the similarities end
Buzz - Pyke Grappling underwater assassins
Griff - Tahm Kench? Both wouldn't upheld their part of the deal? idk
Ash - Renekton Both have anger issues
Meg - Rumble MECH!
Lola - Zed Sends out clones with same attack
Grom - Syndra? Balls and knockback I guess?
Fang - Lee Sinn They both literally have kick based skill shots
Eve - Anivia? EGG!
Janet - Seraphine Singers who get all the fanart
Bonnie - Kennen Tiny assassins who deal massive damage with their supers
Otis - Lulu Have companions that attach to you and hurt you and makes you wish you never existed
Sam - Xayah? Both can deal damage by recalling their weapons
Gus - Thresh Ghostly supports who shield and collect spirits
Buster - Braum That flipping SHIELD!
Chester - Shaco No outright gameplay similiarities, both are just absolute CLOWNS!
Gray - Bard PORTALS!
Mandy - Caitlyn Snipers with annoyingly long supers
R-T - Swain They know all your secrets and they have AOE supers
Willow - Renata Glasc Poison AND mind control
Maisie - Vex? Both have abilities that accelerate mid-flight?
Hank - Nautilus Underwater tanks who deal massive damage up close

The Eternal ranked game mode will be available on Patch 4.5, so today we'll revisit old archetypes that used to have a solid performance in the meta.
8 Eternal Decks for Day of Patch 4.5
A lot of beloved archetypes will make a comeback in competitive play. Decks like Seraphine Aphelios, Gangplank Sejuani, and Lux Jayce might see play in the competitive scene.
Let me know which decks you're looking to play. Are you making the climb to Master rank? Thoughts on the new cards? Any ideas you want to build with those cards?

The Eternal ranked game mode will be available on Patch 4.5, so today we'll revisit old archetypes that used to have a solid performance in the meta.
8 Eternal Decks for Day of Patch 4.5
A lot of beloved archetypes will make a comeback in competitive play. Decks like Seraphine Aphelios, Gangplank Sejuani, and Lux Jayce might see play in the competitive scene.
Let me know which decks you're looking to play. Are you making the climb to Master rank? Thoughts on the new cards? Any ideas you want to build with those cards?

Ahoy, fellow summoners! Let's have a little chat about our favorite saltiest pirate, Gangplank, and how he's been sailing the seas of the current item meta.
Now, you may have noticed that the recent item changes have had a profound impact on our plank-wielding captain. With the arrival of the Mythic items and the reworked items, Gangplank has gained access to a treasure trove of new possibilities.
First off, the new Mythic items have provided Gangplank with a wide range of strategic choices. The Kraken Slayer has become a popular option for those who seek to maximize their damage output, especially against tanky foes. On the other hand, the Divine Sunderer has found favor among those who value survivability and the ability to shred through tanks with ease.
But it's not just the Mythics that have spiced up our pirate's arsenal. The reworked items have introduced some interesting choices for Gangplank as well. The Essence Reaver, for instance, now synergizes beautifully with his kit, providing him with much-needed cooldown reduction and mana sustain. The Collector has become a deadly tool for securing kills and adding that extra bit of pirate flair to Gangplank's crit-heavy build.
However, it's worth noting that Gangplank's success heavily relies on proper itemization and adaptation to the specific game scenarios. While the new items have expanded his possibilities, they've also presented a challenge in finding the optimal build for each situation.
So, fellow Gangplank enthusiasts, let's hoist the anchor and set sail for discussion. What are your thoughts on Gangplank's current state with the new items? Have you discovered any hidden treasures in terms of item synergies? Share your experiences and strategies, and let's navigate the turbulent waters of the current item meta together! Yo-ho-ho and a barrel full of crits!

My top 5 most aggravating are:
Riven. High mobility and good disruption means its very hard to land a good Q on her or even auto attack consistently. Not to mention her incredibly high kill pressure is bad for a hyperscaler who is weak in the early. Rengar and Yone are another picks that do something similar.
Jax. This one has a little bit of couterplay but generally both short and extended trades against him are terrible. You won't really win unless you can bait the E or he uses it poorly.
Nasus. Who can debuff a champion like Gwen better than he does? W obliterated your attack speed and movement speed, meaning you cannot stack Q, refresh E, or reposition which is so important on Gwen. Additionally he shreds your armor by a massive amount and gains a lot of MR and health which is very potent before Gwen has many items. Even at full build Gwen will still lose because of wither. This still isn't mentioning that he gets so much free lifesteal, making trades feel pointless at times. Nasus is definitely more of a champ you HAVE to just counterpick or have help to kill him the entire game.
Wukong. This may be more of me not knowing boundaries, but his level 6 all in power feels incredibly ridiculous. Gwen's level 6 is generally when you will be looking to find a kill since your ult provides so much extra damage, but the few times I've faced this champ top (i generally see him in jg) i always forget how incredibly potent the level 6 is. Generally though, this is still a winning matchup for 70% of the match, as long as you keep your distance early.
Some honorable mentions are
Malphite. lots of ways to avoid and debuff gwen but outside of the early Q spam from him, this is not incredibly frustrating as much as it is mildly annoying.
Singed. Annoying again in similar ways to malphite but if he proxies you are completely free to sit under your turret and scale. I wouldn't pick Gwen into singed however, unless it was a good answer to the rest of the enemy team.
Trundle/Warwick/VolibeaOlaf/Mordekaiser. These all function relatively the same. They are incredible statsticks that want to bait you into fighting them. Incredibly oppressive, but only if you fall for it. Otherwise you completely outscale and obliterate these picks.
Kayle! This one might be weird. But Kayle's level 1 all in is better than Gwen. But this is only the small part. The biggest thing is that Kayle does not need to snowball to win the game. She only needs to hit certain level/item thresholds, and doing this as a ranged champion with large movement speed buffing, invulnerability, and a slow, is not very difficult when considering the weaknesses of the oppositon. Gwen R changes DID make her significally stronger against ranged matchups, but Kayle is the upper echelon of "ranged" champions. These buffs meant very little against her. And you COULD argue that ghost should help, and that it does. However, Kayle can simply run ghost to match, as flash is not that necessary on her, especially with her buffed ultimate. By the time Gwen hits cosmic drive and can actually MAYBE catch up to kayle, kayle has also probably hit a few items and has essentially won lane effortlessly, just by matching your tempo. And kayle will never lose to a gwen past level 11
My #1 Most hated matchup is Sett. He is a statstick, has good extended and short trades, insane burst that has the limitations of a dps, good sustain, good cc, good aoe.... the list goes on. However, overloaded champs are nothing new (and yes, I do think even if his kit looks simple, the actual functions and properties of his kit are overloaded), but what irks me the most is I can nail the W spacing on most champions, but with sett it feels impossible. Unless I have E up it feels impossible to dodge his W, and even then his Q does more than enough damage. I overall permaban either Riven or Sett. Other picks like fiora or darius may be more frustrating to others but Sett and Riven have given me hell on earth playing this champion.
Anywho, on other matchups that are generally easier:
Sion. This is pretty self explanatory.
Ornn. Definitely some powerful damage in the early, but once you have riftmaker this matchup is just free kills.
Illaoi. I've heard people don't like this matchup but I find it just as easy as sion if not less satisfying because theres less health to cut through. There's absolutely no way her e should ever hit you.
Mundo. oblivion orb will drown him for the entire game. even ignite will suffice(but i like to fight a LOT). He also only has 25% of his passive against you, and his w requires him to come into range of you and tank whatever you throw out.
Shen/Kled/Urgot. These feel similar to me. These are picks that have intense kill pressure early but without their crucial spell you 100-0 them. As long as you dont waste spells just cuz, you will win these
Tahm Kench. Cheese pick, but unlike warwick and etc this is only dangerous if you are close to his turret.
Gangplank. i mean... it is incredibly easy for you to avoid barrel damage with e and w. additionally, with a slow and ignite he will HAVE to cleanse one or the other, and just having one of them applied is enough to kill, so you can just spread them out. He's also completely immobile so you can land everything very easily.
that's all i really have to comment on. k'sante has potent damage but still completely loses if you arent pushed under his turret. garen is easy, darius is... darius. camille is skill matchup, yorick is fine if you dodge e. etc. I was just bored and wanted to talk. if you read all this, thanks for that

So here is the thing, I have an idea for a character that is capable with fighting with a single handed sword and hand gun (think like a 1860s officer, Gangplank or Samira from League of Legends, or pirates of old)
I want to include Artificer in there for the infusions, but i can't help but feel like none of the artificer subclasses pair well with this idea... there is always something missing.
Ideas i've had is to pair it with the Bladesinger (as having a gun in one hand doesn't disqualify bladesong), Pact of the blade warlock, or Fighter.
My biggest obstacle is the optimization of the build. Tips, advice, thoughts all welcome.

Host must be a grown up and a trust worthy male, try using special symbols to be on top.
Rules : Don't ban any player for personal reasons, don't hit turrets or inhib or nexus, don't flame to win or spamm FF, don't spamm pause, don't spawn kill or harass, PVP starts only when minnions starts hitting each other and don't invade the enemy bush until then, don't hack, no .gg's.
Banned Items : Collector, Heartsteel, Shieldbow, Rylai's crystal scepter, Galeforce, Luden's Tempest, Force of Nature, Death's Dance, Prawler's Claw.
Banned Builds : Full Pen Team (Including mythics, Pen shall not exceed 2 items, this counts for everyone if anyone has already built a Black Cleaver, Must be agreed up on within the team).
Banned Runes : Gathering Storm, Grasp of the undying, Conditioning, Bone plating, Overgrowth, Lethal tempo, Legend : Tenacity. (player must link their final rune in the start of the game before minnions spawn time or else they are considered as rule breakers).
Banned champs : Aurelion Sol, Katarina, Senna, AP Shaco (AD build is allowed), Qiyana, Riven, Le blanc, Belveth, Nasus, Veigar, Akali, Pyke, Vayne, Full Crit + Lethality Gangplank (Tank build is allowed), Yumi, Lulu, Nami, Udyr, Volibear, Yasuo, Yone, Darius, Ashkan, Rengar, Ivern, Full AD Master Yi (semi tank build is allowed max 2 AD), OP Twitch (Full AP build is allowed, however King blade and Runaan's Hurricane are banned), ChoGath, Full AP Malphite (Max 2), Full AP Varus (Max 2 items Riftmaker and Nashor's tooth only), Full AD Sion (Max 2), Full Attack speed Garen (Only Stridebreaker is allowed).
Tips : Don't block the hextech gate for your team mates, you can ping your team mates if they forget about not hitting structures (in case there is no rule breakers), Demolish is allowed but you can only use one auto (max 1 player per team must be agreed up on in champ select).
Rules exeptions : Turrets can be destroyed or call for FF vote if a player is breaking any of these rules, girls (not the transgendered ones) are free to pick any of the banned champions on their freewill and they shall not be forced by their team mates to play them or build any specific build or any type of control on them for a win or else it's considered as rule breaking because that's not a girl playing anymore, we know they are lack of skills so for them exeptions can be made.
Extra informations : This mode is not for winning or loosing or any gains exept having fun and we all know that league of legends isn't a fair clean game, but Yasuo and Yone and Shieldbow and bone plating and overgrowth are being banned not because they are OP, it's because they are weak compared to the rest of the items and champions and runes and playing with them will bring a huge disadvantage to the player which results in a bad experience, also Rylai's crystal scepter (ap slow) is banned because frozen mallet doesn't exist, thank you for reading, and let's hope that league gets better one day that we don't have to ban anything from it :)
-Theses rules can only get as it could because the game isn't balanced from the first place so i tried to do the best i can for you, any suggestions are welcome in the comment section.
-The items, champions and runes bans are only available in the current patch (which is 13.9 as written in league).
-Some of these rules shall not be considered in rift map, because somehow for unreal reasons rift and aram doesn't share the same champions balance which makes no sence as always. (only difference between the two are wards and anti wards and bushes reveals it's attacker which makes the unexistance of warding like if it was nothing and also brings non sence for exemple a Darius R hitting unfair one shot damage on one player with full passive stacks resulting in one shotting almost everyone in a team fight due to the passive stacks immediatly from one auto afterwards) which doesn't exist in rift map which leaves tons of question marks to the Devs team.
-As for donations to league and keep it up, hoster or any member can purchase RP.

Level 13 is the main powerspike for gangplank and it is common to prioritize solo farming and scaling until that point. When you join a team fight before that spike, you are taking a huge risk by committing your weak and undeveloped body into the hands of your team's stupid fight decisions (I AM SORRY, I CANNOT THROW MY BARRELS, STOP SPAMMING BAIT PINGS ON ME PLEASE!), as they never understand why can't you just do your combo in one millisecond like every other 'normal' champion. And by doing that, you are wasting time by not farming that precious solo xp and denying your level-13 transformation even further. When gangplank was reworked, average games were longer, and level-13 powerspike where justified. But now half of the games are 26m long or even shorter, which means, on average, that you will become 'a champion' only for ~2 fights in every game. WHICH is absurd, as riot nerfed gangplank's early game specifically for the late game scaling, where all fun begins (or not, if game will just end sooner).
And even further, gangplank is a late game champion, but not a late-late game champion! A lot of his strength comes from his gold farm and faster itemization. You always have to be ahead on items with your opponent to be at least as strong, so if you have equal items, that means you are behind. So in late-late games, when everyone has full or almost full builds, you are losing that power and become weaker. For example, Kayle, Nasus, Vayne, Karthus, Kog'Maw, Veigar, Kassadin, and all other champions who sacrifice early will have exponential scaling, but Gangplank will not.
So, with everything above in mind, there is an even shorter window to 'pop off' and carry the game as a champion. And I think it would be more fun to play as a more earlier skirmisher gangplank, as he was designed for, than an 'afk farm the whole game, try to oneshot everyone in 2 teamfights, go next' gangplank. Most scale champions would already scale at level 11 and at level 16 just become more monstrous versions of themselves, so I think this request is fair.
I do play gangplank in the mid lane because I see him as a ad-caster-mage and don't want to take frontline role from my team, mainly because gangplank is also depends on the frontliner in his team as he needs someone to keep the enemy busy while he is summoning his magical barrels. And the main drawback for me is that there are a lot of skirmishes happening early in the mid lane, which I sometimes have a hard time following.
Bruiser gangplank could fight with his fists, and barrel's timers didn't matter that much as fights were very long. But now riot forced gangplank to go bomba-crit build, and now he struggles in 1v1 fights with other bruisers with his skinny legs when the first tower is gone. So it would be a good health improvement for my heart, which ionks a bit every time I have to side 2 waves to get my 13 before team fight and pray there is no bada-bonga waiting me in the bush.

(English its not my first language so maybe i will write some itens names wrong)
Hello, ive been playing Poppy for around two seasons, got almost 700K mastery and most of the time i played casual games with her but in the last 6-9 months i started to play ranked games with poppy, most of them are flex because i was too afraid to play soloqueue alone. Nowadays i play with her both Solo/Duo and Flex (i still play more flexq because i play with 2 friends that are way lower elo than i so i cant queue soloq) Now that i am playing ranked i want to "carry with Poppy" i know that she is supposed to protect the actual carrys but in low elo you cant trust in your supposed carrys. Im playin around high silver to gold in BR servers so its possible to almost anything carry. I play top and jg, i always go to DS (rarely to IBG or Jak'sho) cuz this item is ultra busted but i dont know how to play to carry, example: Most of the times that i got fed i build DS but after that i dont really know what to build, i mean if its obvious i go to the obvious, like if they have a lot of AA champs i go to bramble (the legendary version that i dont know the english name), if they have lots of meele AD champs i go to frozen heart etc etc but when its not THAT obvious i dont really know what to build. People always say that if you are ahead you go to damage so i build steraks or black cleaver but sometimes this dont feels like the right choice. Long story short, i need item tips to carry. Another topic is the mid/late game, i mean i have a good micro but my macro sucks sometimes, ive lost a lot of games because i dont know how to engage if the enemy is not on a wall or i lost because i was bot (i mean i know that i was dumb as hell here but i didnt play league for almost a month when i did this so go easy on me). I need tips against some match ups on toplane and some in jg too. Im not gonna talk about obvius Poppy caunters like Darius and Olaf. I feel so weak when im against Mordekaiser, Yorick and Gangplank, those champs seems to just outdamage and/or outtank Poppy without any efforts, even against some champs that im supposed to counter as a Poppy i dont feel that confidence on Poppy, like Fiora lanephase, its supposed to poppy stomps her but i dont really feel like it is. In jg i am can play normally almost all the matchups, except for 2: Master Yi (my perma ban on jg, ik that is a low elo moment but still) and Shaco, those two stress me out when im against them.
Overall, i need tips of how to carry on build, how to engage (i know that depends in a lot of things like both team comps where we fighting if the carry is fed etc etc) and when splitpush (ik that depends on lot of things too but if you have a tip i will gladly read and try on my ranked games). Hope everything is understable here. Im gonna read all the comments too, so feel free to write a whole bible that i will read everything.
Some useful links:
Poppy highlight (i did this in like 10 minutes, its just a bunch of clips and legends never die) I can play this mecanically well like 7 of 10 games so yeah i like i said my micro is good but my macro as a Poppy sucks, splitpush fights etc.
Op.gg

The Lethality build for Sion is the most famous and popular off-meta build in the game. In the past season this build had a win rate of around 46%, and even then, approximately 20% of Sion games were played with this build. However, due to a recent nerf to his passive, the build's win rate has dropped to 42%. Additionally, in the next patch, the dash from Prowler's Claw will be removed and replaced with damage that Sion cannot even use since he lacks invisibility or a dash ability.
Lethality build for Sion is significantly different from the tank version and can feel like playing an entirely different champion. Playing against Lethality Sion build may be frustrating, but the reason why some players may consider the Lethality Sion build toxic is not necessarily because the champion itself is toxic, but rather because it can counter certain champions. It's all a matter of perspective. If you were to ask an Irelia, Jax, Aatrox, or Kled player about the build, they would likely tell you that it's very weak. However, if you were to ask the same question to a Teemo, Jayce, or Gangplank player, they may say that it's the most overpowered and toxic thing in the game , there are many other champions in the game that can also be annoying to play against, such as Teemo, however, this alone is not a valid reason to delete the champion from the game.
One argument against the Lethality Sion build is that players who use it tend to die frequently. However, this is not surprising since even at its peak, the build only had a 46% win rate. Any champion at that level of weakness is bound to struggle and die frequently, especially a toplaner who is often isolated. The Lethality Sion build is not the problem, but rather a symptom of Riot's lack of balance. While some players may argue that the build should not be in the game, the reality is that it is already widespread within the Sion community and is one of the most popular builds. Therefore, Riot's decision to change the build is controversial and has left many players feeling disappointed and ignored.
If you go to the DirtySionMains subreddit, you will see that I am not the only one dissatisfied with the changes.

It all started there, when they, from the shadows, changes Ganplank's Q's crit calculations. Maybe back then triforce wasn't the best option, but damn it WAS an option.
Worst of all is I don't see Riot feeling they have a reason to change Gangplank from only crit builds