Featured Matches Sign Ups: February 21-22

Rank

There has been a lot of talk of rank recently, and some people are wondering how we determine rank in factions. I thought I would take a minute at the start of the sign up page to talk with the community on it.

Currently, we take the higher of your Season 3 and Season 4 solo queue ranks and use that for factions. However, we are now moving into Season 5 of League of Legends and Season 3 ranked info is hard to verify. People have been talking about moving on to Season 5 ranks and dropping Season 3.

Currently, we want to give players time to play their ranked games and achieve a rank as close to their skill level as possible. We already saw in the end of Nyroth when we tried to use solely Season 4 rank how discrepancies occur between someone’s rank vs how well they actually play. We will end up switching to the highest of Season 4 rank and current Season 5 rank in solo queue, but seeing as many people have yet to play even their ranked provisionals this season, Season 5 ranks aren’t all that complete yet.

Since we are currently in Intermission, we can get by with using Season 3 and Season 4 ranks for the time being. While featured matches should end up switching to best of Season 4 and 5 before the next arc begins, I will need to discuss with my fellow staff members on when we want to make that change.

February 8, Zaun vs Bandle City – Resolution

Two weeks ago, February 8, Zaun sought to punish Teemo, who Viktor had claimed to be a being of pure evil. While all evidence of this was destroyed in a lab accident, Zaun was still angry at the Yordles who had sided with Demacia in the Battle of Shurima and took Viktor at his word. Bandle City rallied behind their captain of the Scouts of the Mothership and would defend him Zaun.

They met on the Fields of Justice, where Zaun won with a crushing viktory. Defeated and humilated, the Yordles returned to Bandle City. There was no celebration party or victory cake, but they tried to comfort themselves with consolation cupcakes and juice boxes. Meanwhile, Zaun proudly boasted their triumph in the Institute. When Viktor returned to Zaun, some of the top Zaunite scientist and engineers attempted to analyze Viktor’s memory banks to see if they stored any information concerning the proof to Teemo’s evilness that was destroyed in the lab accident.

As they searched through the saved data, they encountered a large time frame that had been completely erased. It is assumed that this was a result of the lab accident as well. Some Zaunites take this as further proof that Teemo is evil, as the information is magically being covered up to protect him. Piltover quickly declared that the evidence clearly points to Viktor malfunctioning; he never had any proof to indicate that the Yordle was evil, but the explosion, which they claim to be a result of Zaun’s lack of safety and regulations, damaged Viktor’s memory and made him think he had found evidence of Teemo being evil. As for the Yordles of Bandle City, they were too busy sipping on their juice boxes inside their moon base to make a formal comment on the situation.

February 14, The Seeker’s Ball matches – Resolution

Ezreal looked at his clothes. When he had first stepped outside they were a very fancy and handsome attire, now they were nothing more than torn up rags. He held up the necklace he had bought for Lux, the gem in the center had been shattered. He could never give her this now, she deserved better. Yet, for as upset as Ezreal was that the gem had been destroyed during the fighting, Taric seemed to be at least twice as devastated at the loss than he was. The Gem Knight seemed to lose his will to fight on after he saw the damaged to the necklace’s gem.

Battered and bruised, Ezreal would be unable to take Lux to the Seeker’s Ball today. He had finally remembered what today was, it finally came to him after the 5th, or so, blow to his head during the fighting. He instead was forced to return home, in bitter disappointment. Likewise, the rest of those who had fought to drive away the evil forces seeking to ruin the Seeker’s Ball were equally disappointed.

The champions who had fought against him, most of which seemed to be negatively affected by the spirit of the Seeker’s Ball, left after they gave their opponents a good beating. It wasn’t clear if they were simply satisfied with the beating they inflicted, or if whatever was affecting them was starting to wear off. Either way, they had won and fans of the Seeker’s Ball had lost.

February 21 – The Void vs The Shadow Isles

Upon defeating the Freljord, The Shadow Isles claims the title as the coolest of the factions, and brings an end to the bad puns. However, it seems that the other nations of Valoran did not realize the play on words that was going on. They are demanding their turn to claim the title as the coolest faction of Valoran. From now on, the current holder of title of the coolest faction will have to defend their status each week. The faction currently holding onto the title will get blue side in 2 of the 3 games during the featured matches, while the challenger will get the red/purple side for 2 out of the 3 games.

While every faction is chomping at the bit to fight the Shadow Isles for their chance at glory and coolness, the Void was the fastest to challenge them. Evidently they are a little mad about Krocylea and had the extra motivation to challenge the Shadow Isles the soonest.

Both sides will be using their intermission rosters. These games will be played in normal tournament draft.

February 22:  Ionia vs Noxus – Nemesis

Noxus, already angry at Ionia for their humiliating defeat in Shon-Xan, is extremely upset with how they emerged victorious in the Nyroth dispute. Hoping to regain some honor and pride, Noxus challenges them to battle. Ionia, feeling extremely confident after their upset victory over Nyroth, will face their rivals, their nemesis, on the Fields of Justice.

Matches will take place in Nemesis draft using intermission rosters. In champion select, players will select champions from the roster of the opposing faction, for the opposing faction to play, and vise-versa.

After considering how bans work much more differently in Nemesis draft than in the other game modes, we are having a special rule about bans for these set of matches while in Nemesis draft. Normally, factions uses bans as throw-aways because of how limiting the rosters already are. This time, factions can choose to ban champions from their own roster if they wish. This allows factions to remove champions on their roster that no one feels comfortable playing. Of course, they have to leave a minimum of 5 champions on their roster un-banned so its playable.

Sign Ups

Casting/Streaming

February 21: The Shadow Isles vs The Void

February 22: Ionia vs Noxus