We had to act quickly because Gabriel told us the ride was over - he was quitting League of Legends for the whateverth time due to a string of nightmare losses. I was in one of those games, a game we managed to lose even though the opposing team had fewer players, and it recalled the days when you were playing on dial-up and your foes were on broadband. That was a thing, and not a good thing. That night's malefactors were having a LAN party at a crossroads, no doubt, their ears stuffed with demonic counsel.

What we determined over various tiny dishes heaped with pickles was that his Darius addiction had become a problem. Darius is an asshole - look at his asshole face - but when shit goes south, he doesn't have much of a response. The trouble is that his "ultimate" ability is too fun. You'll play a whole round as him just to use that ability: called Noxian Guillotine, but more commonly called The Dunk, he jumps way up the air and then comes down on your head with a huge axe. The animation is weirdly fast, and almost… funny, as funny as a decapitation can be I suppose, but that's not all. If you kill a target with it, you can do it a second time. This loop is incredibly addictive, but might not be a good overlap for his overall style. The menu we cooked up looks like:

Wukong, who is a kind of Monkey Person,
Irelia, Magic Sword Lady,
Jax, Some Sort Of Guy, and Talon, The Invisible Asshole.

A few roles to choose from, then. Also on the list, anybody champion who beats you so bad you want to quit. There's this fucking fish dude one of us took up purely because it drives us nuts to play against him. At this point, we just want others to suffer as we have.

As the last person on Earth to reach level 30, I have to learn other characters now. At the level of play I'm shooting for, the requirement to

- Ban Characters, and
- Play As a Unique Character

means you can't just play the equivalent of Ryu in every game; somebody else might be playing Ryu, or they might decide they don't even want Ryu hanging around. What this means is that I need to expand my roster. And what that means is that I don't win anymore, and I might not for awhile. I'm cool with it now, I'm building the franchise. But I do wonder what they'll tell me, when I decide that being continually pulverized does not constitute a leisure activity.

(CW)TB out.