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Thursday is here again. That means it time for some in house games with lane breakdowns at the end of the matches. We will be adding a rule fer League of Learning going forward from now on (many of you will know I've been implementing this rule as of late already) but there will be no level 1 invades. This is just something that tends to destroy games when they happen, especially if one team walks away with 2 or 3 kills because of it. Some of you might argue "its part of the game and is a legit tactic. People should be prepared for it." Yes I agree its something people should be aware of and prepare for. My counter argument to this would be that when you are making games in pre-made groups of 5 you tend to remake and redraft if things go drastically wrong early in the game. As we do not do this I'm not going to be putting a stop to the level 1 invades. This gives people a more stable opening to the game and generally prevents people from tilting off the face of the earth at 2 minutes in. If you guys have any questions or concerns please feel free to bring them up to me and I will field any questions you have.

Hurray! TFT tournament time! The tournament will be held a couple weeks out on January 20th, to give people time to sign up, formulate their strategies and set aside time for the games. We will do a total of 3 games. These games are only available to Candidates and Full Members of the MadCast community and we will be having a signup sheet for the tournament. This means if you are not already a Candidate or Full Member of MadCast you are not eligible to participate in this tournament. By signing up (which you will do by indicating so down below) you will be held to the MadCast Policies that apply (MadCast CoC, Event Attendance Policy) It will not matter if we do a full 8 man group as points are static based upon place that you finish in. So this will allow us to field a tournament with an odd number of participants (example would be 15 players would still mean we play 2 groups but one group would have 8 people and the other group would have 7 people and 1 PUG player) 1st - 10 pts 2nd - 7 pts 3rd - 4 pts 4th - 2 pts 5th to 8th - 0 pts If we do not have enough for a full in house 8 man group we will split into even groups (as best we can) and queue up. The random people in the games will act as obstacles. They do not count for points if you eliminate them but they will count for overall place. This means if you queue up in a 5 man group you end up with 3 PUGs. If the 3 random players get 1st, 3rd and 4th then the best anyone in that game can do is get 6 pts. Example: 1st - PUG #1 2nd - Tournament player #1 3rd - PUG #2 4th - PUG #3 5th to 8th - Tournament player #2 - #5 There will be special objectives that will net you extra points each round similar to how they did it in the eSports show match a while ago. These objectives will be: 1) Finish the match with 4 different Bonus' active (Cloud, Infernal, Swordsman, Assassin, Predator, Poison, etc. There are plenty of these you can have active) - This will be worth 2 points 2) Have a Gold level bonus of an element (6 Ocean, 9 Infenro, 6 Glacial, 9 Light and 6 Shadow) active on the board when you finish the match. All other bonus' will not count. - This will be worth 2 point 3) Have NO bonus active when you finish the match. - This will be worth 3 point 4) If you are in a group that has random PUG players you will get points for being the FIRST person to eliminate a PUG player. (PUG = random queued person. Points will only be awarded for the FIRST PUG eliminated in each group. If they are eliminated by a "shadow" player because others have been eliminated already then no points will be awarded for that group.) - This will be worth 2 points The one to get the most points out of everyone in the tournament will receive $10 of RP and second place will receive a masterwork chest from me. DISCLAIMER!!! The following factors determine whether you can send or receive gifts: The player receiving a gift needs to have been on your buddy list for at least one day. The player receiving a gift cannot be banned or suspended (this includes Leaverbuster, Tribunal, etc.). To send a gift, you must be at least level 10. There are also specific rules for different types of gifting. That being said the second you decide to sign up you will want to send an in game friend request to "Support Welfare" so that I can gift you a prize if you win. If you fail to do so you will either be getting your gift really late or have the option to forfeit your prize and it will go to the next highest point scoring player. ---------------------------------------------- Tournament Sign Up List MadCast: Support Welfare (I will not be taking a prize but will be destroying you all!!!) MadCast: Suixide22 MadCast: Mike MadCast: doublestufforeo MadCast: Lunalesk MadCast: StargazerLilli MadCast: Kitty Stark

Hello again everyone! Thursday League of Learning is near at hand again. Thursday night at 9pm EST. Join in for some in house games where we will be doing lane breakdowns at the end of the match and give some constructive feedback on game play. See you guys there.

Greetings everyone! League of Learning is back this week! As I mentioned at Town Hall on Monday, we will be putting a hold on the specific topics for LoLearning but will be keeping the post game run down. I want to focus more on getting into games quicker and having more fun all around. We will still be playing games as long as we have 5 people. This means if we don't have enough for in house games we will go play in normal queue. Either way we will have some fun. See you guys Thursday night!

Greetings everyone! I am wanting to run a small TFT tournament for MadCast Members. To do that I want to cement some rules to follow for the tournament but I'd like to get everyone's feedback so that we can make this as fair as possible (or as fair as an RNG based game can be). I have some basic format in place but am open to any suggestions as well as any ideas on how to make things a bit more fun. I don't have a date in mind just yet as all the holidays will be keeping people pretty busy so its likely that it will be after New Years hits. Let me know what you think and feel free to throw any suggestions in here. Here is my rough draft on the format for the tournament: We will do a total of 3 games. It will not matter if we do a full 8 man group as points are static based upon place that you finish in. 1st - 8 pts 2nd - 6 pts 3rd - 4 pts 4th - 2 pts 5th to 8th - 0 pts If we do not have enough for a full in house 8 man group we will split into even groups (as best we can) and queue up. The random people in the games will act as obstacles. They do not count for points if you eliminate them but they will count for overall place. This means if you queue up in a 5 man group you end up with 3 PUGs. If the 3 random players get 1st, 3rd and 4th then the best anyone in that game can do is get 6 pts. Example: 1st - PUG #1 2nd - Tournament player #1 3rd - PUG #2 4th - PUG #3 5th to 8th - Tournament player #2 - #5 The one to get the most points out of everyone in the tournament will receive a mystery skin from me.

Hello again everyone! This week is our last League of Learning for a while (until after New Years). This week I want to cover a few things. Don't worry, its nothing too overwhelming. With the pre-season patch hitting there are a lot of changes to how the game plays out. With that in mind I want to keep the item changes in mind as there have been many changes and even some removals as well as returns. I suggest reading up on the patch notes in the game client for specifics. The other thing I want to cover is "attitude". With new changes and the game changes shaking things up so much there are bound to be some lack of knowledge while people figure out the shape of the new meta and how things all work out. So the overall theme for this week will be a focus on learning how the patch effects our game play as a team. We will put more of a focus on the end of game analysis so be prepared to spend extra time on it as the game warrants it. As always, have fun and I'll see you Thursday night!

With the holidays coming up I am going to be putting a hold on League of Learning until after New Years. Everyone will be busy with all the fun things that come with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years so I think a little break is in order. This will go into effect the last week of November. This means that we will have a League of Learning next week (11-21-2019) but will not have a League of Learning on (11-28-2019) until after New Years. Any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below.

This week's focus will be on teamfighting and cooldown tracking. I want you to keep in mind what your opponents CDs are and try to play around them in lane and eventually when you get into the teamfighting stage of the game. This could mean something as simple as Morgana's Q is down so she doesn't have binding which means her team is going to have a tougher time pealing for their damage dealers. This does also mean the big CDs such as Ults and summoner spells like Flash, Ignite, Teleport, Exhaust, etc. Try to play around these spells, bait them out, keep your own teams CDs in mind when looking for a fight or engage. Its a tough thing to balance in the heat of the moment but it will make you a much better player to have this skill under your belt. And as always everyone have fun! See you Thursday night!

Hello Everyone, Set 2, Rise of the Elements, for Teamfight Tactics is officially launching tomorrow (Wednesday Nov. 6th) and since ranked is being turned off til patch 9.23 (aka the next patch), I thought it'd be fun to do some in-house matches to have fun and help familiarize everyone with how set 2 works. With that, I thought it'd be the perfect time to spice it up and roll some random modifiers into the games as well. Here are the three modes I plan on using (separately ofc). Blacklist - Pretty straight forward but before the game starts, each player picks a champion to Blacklist or Ban basically, and no one is allowed to buy or use that champion the whole game. With 8 players, that means you'll have 8 bans and only be able to use 43 of the 51 different champions, meaning you'll have to find fun new builds without relying on certain champions. Hoping this helps people be more creative with their builds and find new fun options they never would have thought of otherwise. Natural Selection - At the start of the game, whatever champion you pick from the first carousel, dictates the champions you can buy/use the rest of the game. Basically, you can only buy/use champions that have one of the same synergies as the champion you got. For reference, if you were to pick up a Jax (Light/Berserker), you would only be able to buy/use champions that have at least one of those synergies. As for the other carousels, you can grab whatever item you need, but if the champion doesn't fit the synergies you've been assigned, then you have to sell that champion immediately. Some of these might be tough, but will help people find ways to make certain synergies work together when they normally wouldn't. No Items - This one is tricky, because it won't start til after the first minion wave, but basically it will require everyone to sell their first champion at stage 1-2, and buy a new champ off their bar. From that point on, no one can use any items at all, period. When you get a champ at carousel, you'll have to sell the champion to put the item on your bench; All items must be on your side bar and NOT on a champion on your bench. The idea behind this mode is to focus less on items and item stacking and more on positioning, pushing a solid comp, and trying to out wit your opponents. Or in some peoples' cases, it'll be an excuse to force 3 star champions to roll over those who don't have any. I'll be starting the event at 8pm est, and if there's a large enough turn out, will run two groups if necessary. While these matches don't last nearly as long as normal SR matches in League, they're not as short as URF either, and with 3 different game modes to try I'd like to make sure everyone gets a chance to play each one. As such I'll be running this event for as long as people want to continue playing with the latest the event will go being midnight est. Anyone who stays beyond that point does so at their own peril. If you know you're gonna be late and still want to attend when you get home, please feel free to send me (MadCast: Craiden) a direct message in discord so that I know you're coming and can plan on weaving you into a group. Look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow for some in-house action and for anyone that wants to know more details about what's changing, I'm linking posts from Riot Mort below for reference. TFT patch 9.22 Notes TFT Set 2 Synergies and Items Descriptions

This week there will be no specific focus in game. We will still have the end of match game breakdown but this will be more geared toward just having some fun in games. I'm more than happy to give you guys homework assignments at the time of the event if you would like something specific to work on or if you have something in mind I'd be happy to keep an eye out in game and focus feedback on what you are working on. See you there!

Set 2 for Teamfight Tactics will be dropping on Wednesday Nov 6th, and I just want people to be aware, if you have never played, or haven't played since set 1, there's a lot of changes. Myself, @MadCast: Lunalesk, and @MadCast: Nimli have been playing set 2 exclusively lately on the PBE, and are Gold+ on both live and PBE. Anyone who's looking to get into set 2, feel free to hit one of us up if you have questions, comments or concerns about all the new stuff and for some good inside tips on builds for the new rank season to climb with. I can't promise I'll be on wednesday, as I assume atm that I'll have to work, but I know after work I'll be on (around midnight est) doing ranked and trying to push for Plat in the first few days of the season. Below I'll link Riot Mort's latest post about what's coming in Set 2 so you can browse over what to expect. Teamfight Tactics Set 2 If there's enough interest, I will be looking at finding a time to set up an event for anyone that would like to do some in-houses with the new set 2 once it's live. I'll try to find the most active time for the majority of people, but please feel free to leave suggestions here of days/times that work if you're interested in attending.

This week there will be no event as it falls on Halloween and lets be honest, we are all going to be in diabetic comas from all of the candy. Have a great Halloween everyone!

This week is another straight to the point focus in that we will be paying special attention to the mini map! That's right folks, the mini map. Keep you eyes open for movement on the mini map so you don't get caught out during rotations or ganks. Know where you enemy is as well as your allies so you can kill mercilessly and not suffer the consequences!

This week will be a bit different. I want to take time to relax and enjoy the game. So if a thing this week I want to focus on having fun. See you tonight.

This week for League of Learning we are going to be doing with something a bit more simple. No iron clad focus. We will be going in and playing new champions that you are wanting to learn the interactions with or how to trade with. This means NO MAIN champions. This is focused on trying new champions and learning how to match up against your opponents. See you tonight everyone.

This week we do our normal in house 5v5 games. The topics for this week will be "Objective Control" and when that isn't possible we work on "Trading Objectives". Prep for your objectives by warding ahead of time (60+ seconds so you can see the enemy warding / ward clearing), force fights when its appropriate and when you can't take the fight or you are out of position or even if you are just prioritizing a different objective, work on setting up or taking a different objective in response.

Thursday is here again and this week instead of going into normals and putting into practice what we have covered over the month we will be doing our regular in-house games. The reason for this is that because of holidays and things we only had 2 actual weeks of games. That's alright though because we get to beat on each other in in-house games some more! Our topics for this week are going to be "Roaming" and "Collapsing / Rotations". These go together for obvious reasons. You are going to want to roam when your lane is ahead or when you have the enemy pushed in or when you have some sort of advantage that allows you to leave lane for a bit. This naturally leads into collapsing on enemies when they try to invade or if you are on the enemy team when someone goes roaming, you will want to try to coordinate with your team to collapse on them and murder them without remorse. And again this will lead to rotating between lanes when you get ahead or take towers or when you are wanting to prioritize a particular objective. The key thing to remember as always is communication. Always let your team know whats going on.

This weeks topic will be what we would have gone with last week if I had not made last minute changes. We will be focusing on Trading Damage and couple that with recognizing your win conditions. Recognizing your win conditions is something everyone should start looking at before you even get into game. You can start getting an idea of what fights will look like when you see what the teams are picking. If your team is going with assassins in the jungle and mid with a brawler in top then you are likely looking at a pick comp. You will want to find small fights or ambushes in the jungle where you can quickly delete one player and gain an advantage on pushing an objective from there. If you are running a tank in jungle and top with a control mage in mid it's likely you will be looking for a teamfight based play or even siege comp to take towers. The other side of that is knowing how well your lanes are doing vs. how well the enemy team's lanes are doing. Know who is fightable and who isn't. You don't want to 1v1 a 9/1/4 Irellia when you are on a 2/2/3 Jax. Look at items, approximate gold and think about what they are wanting to do in the game to get their team ahead. All this will give you some picture of what you need to do to tilt the scales in your favor. You know, the "win conditions" I mentioned earlier. As for trading damage, this is more for early game lane dominance. If you are trading effectively you will push your opponent out of lane more often, force them into a passive game play style and give you the chance to get ahead in lane and eventually spill that over into other lanes. Nice and simple. I'll see you guys Thursday night!

This week we are jumping into it with a core mechanic of Attack Move/Trading Damage and couple that with recognizing your win conditions.

This week is our end of the month normal game review match. The topics to review and put into practice are as follows: vision control (specifically objective control and counter ganking wards) objective control Teamfights Cooldown Tracking Better decision making Playing from behind

This weeks topics will be "Better decision making" and "Playing from behind" as they go hand in hand or you could say one prevents the need of the other. Either way they tie in together this week when we hit the rift. See you guys there!

This week I want to cover "Teamfights" and "Cooldown Tracking". Teamfights can be won or lost by taking a fight when cooldowns are down for a given team. Keep in mind your team's cooldowns before you start trying to force a fight around dragon. This is easy to think about but can be tough to do because you can't always pick your fight.

This week we go back to our 5v5 inhouse games. Focus will be on "vision control (specifically objective control and counter ganking wards)" and with that comes "objective control" which goes hand in hand with warding and counter warding for control. I'll see you all at 9pm EST!

This week we jump into normals as a group of 5 and put into practice this months topics. These topics include: Attitude and better decision making, ----Top Lane---- Pushing out lane when jungle is wanting to do herald or get scuttle control. This gives a bit more safety for the jungler in case the enemy show up to counter. Collapsing in jungle when your jungler wants to invade ----Jungle---- When invading a buff let your laner know so that they can collapse if things go wrong. Its always safer to have backup. Letting your lanes know what you are planning allows them to react faster when things go wrong. Try to time out your objectives with when your lanes are pushing and have priority ----Mid Lane---- Ward enemy jungle paths on a regular basis to help prevent ganks and help keep eyes on the enemy jungler. Its much easier to prevent ganks when you can see where the enemy jungler is. Roam when you push your opponent in ----ADC---- Communicating with your support when to go in / follow up when your support goes in. You are much more effective when you go in together. If you actually talk to each other this happens much more frequently. Don’t greed for tower damage or minions when you are low or alone in lane ----Support---- Get deep vision in the enemy jungle when appropriate / safe. This means not going alone and if you are going alone making sure you probe bushes with abilities and keeping an eye where the enemy is on the mini map. Roam when appropriate / lane is pushed out and your adc is backing A bit of a specific list for this month. I wanted to try out something new in how I presented the topics. I'd appreciate your feedback on the change so if you could stop over at the League of Learning Feedback thread and let me know what you think it would help out a lot.

Hey folks, below are the current weekly League events. Funday Monday: Funday Monday runs every Monday at 9:00 PM EST! Pile into Discord where an admin will roll dice to decide what kind of fun game modes will be played that night! Ionia vs Noxus? Team Mechanic? Team SMITE? Who knows what it will be, but be sure to be in Discord before the start time to enjoy this always entertaining batch of in-houses! LoL Mafia Tuesday: A fun new game mode adapted from our Rocket League team. LoL Mafia Tuesday at 9pm EST! It can be played with 2 teams of 3, 4 or 5 players on Howling Abyss where they fight it out with random champions. Each person given 2 chances to re-roll with the random button. The kicker to each team is you have one random person secretly designated as "mafia". Their goal is to sabotage their team without being obvious. The goal of everyone else is to figure out who the mafia is on their team! League of Learning: Thursdays at 9:00 EST are when we help you with your game! Join us on Discord for some In-house 5v5 matches where our admins and players cover team based tactics and individual skills. Come learn how to better yourself in a non judgmental environment. Feel free to drop in! All events and their topic threads can be found in our MadCast: Events section of the forums.