You can also sign up for this weekend’s Featured Matches, which will be fought against the Shadow Isles.

I’ve been thinking about how to adapt to the removal of public chats from the client, which has made match organization more difficult. Certainly, greater use of the Discord server is part of the solution, but I felt we needed something else.

Factions Friday: Now with Signups!

In the past, Factions Friday has simply been, “show up around this time and we’ll be organizing matches”. And that dimension will certainly remain. However, it’s no longer anywhere near as easy to pluck people out of the chat for matches, because, well, there is no chat, other than the clubs we’re still setting up.

My solution is to use a signup process similar to that used for FMs, though not quite so formal. Indicate your availability here, and we’ll randomly organize a schedule and post it up here on Friday afternoon.

• Factions Friday sign-up form (sign up to play here)
• Arc signup form (in case this is the first time you’ll be playing in this arc)
• Champion lists (which Champions are fighting for which factions here)
• Reddit thread

Matches will be held at 6, 7, and 8 PM Pacific, assuming adequate signups.

What’s Factions?

Some of you might be encountering Factions for the first time with this post, so I thought I’d include a brief summary.

Factions was inspired by an event Riot did long ago: a Noxus versus Ionia tournament. They set up the tournament with a story about the Noxian occupation of Ionia, culminating in a match in the (gasp!) actual League of Legends. They gathered up Summoners and Champions for each side, and held the match. Ionia won, which is why the story played out as it did, with Noxus getting kicked out. (This was also the origin of the Ionian Boots of Lucidity.) This happened before I started playing League, but when I found out about it, I thought it was a really cool idea.

Factions is essentially a community-run version of the above. We organize the mode into “arcs”; we’re currently on our ninth. In each arc, we set up a story, then use matches to determine how the story plays out. The matches are played with faction-specific rosters that limit options for each side and often compel some innovative gameplay. For example, Demacia is great at mid-game all-in teamfights, while Ionia has absurd mobility and lots of engage/disengage potential. Over the course of the arc, Summoners develop strategies within the context of these matchups, all while (ideally) having lots of fun shouting in-character all-chat taunts at each other.

Each match is worth a certain number of points. The base is set by the map type, with a 5v5 Summoner’s Rift match being worth 10 points base. That base value is then adjusted to account for, among other things, the relative skill gap between the two sides. We’ve gathered a ton of data on how different matchups tend to go, e.g. how often a team of 5 Golds beats a team of 5 Silvers. By adjusting point values accordingly, we ensure that simply having higher-ranked Summoners won’t win you the arc. I’d love to go into wonky detail, but this is already getting a bit lengthy, so I’ll tl;dr it as: all skill levels are welcome, and you won’t hurt your faction because you’re less experienced.

Schedule and Rosters

These times are somewhat approximate.

First Match: 6 PM Pacific (7 Mountain, 8 Central, 9 Eastern)

For Demacia:

• Burntsilver
• Endgame1125
• Pato123
• Rextreff
• (open space)
• Subs:bobyjhon132

For Ionia:

• Kwon Ri Sae
• darkomega242
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• Subs:

Second Match: 7 PM Pacific (8 Mountain, 9 Central, 10 Eastern)

For Demacia:

• Burntsilver
• Pato123
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• Subs:bobyjhon132, Rextreff, Endgame1125
  

For Ionia:

• Kwon Ri Sae
• darkomega242
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• Subs:

Third Match: 8 PM Pacific (9 Mountain, 10 Central, 11 Eastern)

For Demacia:

• Pato123
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• Subs: Burntsilver, Endgame1125, Rextreff, bobyjhon132
  

For Ionia:

• Kwon Ri Sae
• darkomega242
• (open space)
• (open space)
• (open space)
• Subs:ShadowX74

—CupcakeTrap

About CupcakeTrap

Caitlyn, you monster.