We've seen a number of threads across a number of League of Legends communities recently wishing for a three week intermission between champion releases. We actually ended up with one such break between Viktor and Sejuani, but it looks like we'll have another prior to the release of Ziggs. A short time ago, a quiet red post appeared on the LoL forums explaining that the Ziggs patch wouldn't be released until "early February." Of course, the first starts on Wednesday, but given the language used in the post, we wouldn't be surprised to see it come out next week. Maybe they'll surprise us!

Support meta feeling a little boring? Don't worry, Riot just released info on a new support item that should help spice up your bottom lane's life. Not only that, but they're also changing up the existing aura items -- Stark's Fervor and Emblem of Valor. Check out Locket of the Iron Solari below, and then hit the source link to find out what changes we'll be seeing to Stark's and Emblem. Oh, and I'm left wondering if the "Locket of the Iron Solari" is the fabled return of the "Innervating Locket" that we saw so long ago?

Originally Posted by ByronicHero

Introducing the Locket of the Iron Solari

Naturally, with Stark’s Fervor now building from the Kindle Gem, we wanted to create a new mid game upgrade for the Emblem of Valor. Since we had just remade this item with support and tank champions in mind, we also wanted to make sure this new item was tailored to these roles. Thus, the Locket of the Iron Solari was born.

For the components of this new item we selected the Emblem of Valor along with another durability item popular amongst tank and support champions: the Heart of Gold. Providing additional Health, Armor and Health Regen along with an upgraded Health Regeneration aura, the Locket of the Iron Solari is a cost-effective way to keep your Emblem of Valor viable as the game wears on. And to top it all off, you’ll also be able to activate the item to give your team a brief damage shield nearby allies under attack by area of effect damage!

• +300 Health
• +35 Armor
• UNIQUE Aura: Nearby allied Champions gain 15 Health Regen per 5 seconds.
• UNIQUE Active: Shield yourself and nearby allies for 5 seconds, absorbing up to 50 (+10 per level) damage (60 second cooldown).

The Bottom Line

These new upgrade options for the popular early game items Cloth Armor, Heart of Gold and Kindle Gem should provide those of you in the support or tank roles with more options. With these new aura items, we hope to see players employing even more diverse builds through the early and mid game.

 

Source 

A recent post by WetDream on the CLGaming.Eu Absolutelegends.EU website, has announced that AL and CLG have "unmerged" as organizations, leaving the previous European AL roster with CLG as their EU team, and restoring the "Absolute Legends" brand.

Along with the changes, comes a new lineup for Absolute Legends. It appears as though the mTL lineup will be playing for Absolute Legends in the future, however the announcement post doesn't make it clear rather this is a complete merger between AL and mTL, or simply a decision made by the players to leave mTL and join Absolute Legends.

Wetdream also announced that Absolute Legends would be picking up a Dota 2 team as well. Folks interested in hearing more about the changes or the new Dota team can hit the source link below.

[Source: Absolute Legends ]

Right on the heels of the Ziggs full reveal, Riot posted a short video previewing some of the changes we'll be seeing to League of Legends in the next patch.

This preview is pretty short, so here's a quick rundown if you're not interested in watching the whole thing:

• Base crit chance removed from masteries
• Jax counter strike ability buff (also now reduces damage from AoE)
• Lee Sin attack speed from passive reduced, execute damage on Resonating Strike reduced

[Source: League of Legends]

If the initial tease and Art Spotlight left you curious for more information on the Hexplosives expert, you'll be happy to hear that Riot just released some more information on the upcoming Yordle League champ- Ziggs. Take a look at an excerpt of the reveal below, and then hit the source link to read his bio and grab a little more info.

Now the only question left is, will we hear "Nuclear Launch Detected" whenever Ziggs busts out his ult? Hopefully we'll see a spotlight late this weekend or Monday.

CDiscount, a French "e-tailer," recently partnered with EU League of Legends team Millenium to act as a sponsor. To celebrate this, the organization is hosting a tournament that's being held over a long stretch of the upcoming days. While not an official circuit tournament (to our knowledge), it's nothing to ignore. Several heavy hitters of the EU League scene are participating: aAa, CLG.EU, Fnatic, mTL.Tt, Millenium, 3DMAX, SK Gaming and Moscow 5.

The tournament's actually already begun. Why is this significant? Well, bracket results thus far show that SK Gaming, who took fourth at IEM Kiev, defeated the Kiev champions, Moscow 5.

I suppose this just drives home the lesson every lawyer's told me during my initial consultation: Past results do not guarantee future success. Which is really a shame; I'd love to find a lawyer willing to guarantee some results. Would make my life a whole lot easier.

[Source: Millenium]

There are a lot of League of Legends sites out there, and most of them have a lot of bloggers. It's a tall order to keep up with all of it, but don't you worry; we'll do it for you. We like you that much.

Each week, we'll sort out the best blogs, vlogs, podcasts, sites and articles from the rest and compile them into one handy (and also dandy) post for you to use as a guide to the week's League of Legends happenings.

• Elementz had a pretty busy week: he began a series called Tip of the Day, which dove into what players can do to improve their own odds for winning beyond blaming their teammates. Next, he was interviewed by Team Curse.
• ColbyCheeze began hosting his show from Tuesday through Saturday, with different goals for each day.
• DiffTheEnder addressed the recent Vlad changes, specifically how the change to Vlad's passive and ult affect his late-game HP.
• Locodoco recorded a vlog after his team won the OGN Invitational.
• FYA Umashi blogged about the perceived attitude of the community vs. what he believes the attitude is.
• Upon returning from Kiev, Xpecial vlogged about the experience.
• Renekton Bot argued why Dota2 won't be as successful as LoL.
• In an unrelated interview, Ocelote expressed a similar view to Renekton Bot's.
• ggChronicle's Obscurica analyzed the IEM Kiev finals and the fallout thereafter, wondering what the event meant for the future of competitive League of Legends.
• Enigma updated the recommended item changer.
• Fnatic's Cameron blogged about Korean players joining western teams. While this blog isn't specific to League of Legends, it's easy to see how this could come into play.
• Meanwhile, Riot's Tamat took a look at the gaming culture in South Korea.
• Curse's COP wrote a blog (via Reddit) on his IEM Kiev experience.
• Snoopeh hosted an AMA, also via Reddit.
• Chaox weighed in on the recent competition at Kiev.
• Via DiffTheEnder, Winrar evaluated the game's snowball items.
• Solomid.net introduced a new blogger: Steamanchor. Steamanchor will be covering the European scene for TSM, including the competitive scene, the EU meta and some game theory.
• Riot Games' Average Gatsby interviewed Team Dignitas' Voyboy.
• And here's the week's shows and podcasts: Ult in 10 Sec ep. 5, All MIA ep. 58, Trinity Force Podcast ep. 13, State of the League ep. 21, LoLPod ep. 31, In the Zone ep. 11, Beyond the Rift ep. 29, Ult in 10 Sec ep. 6, CheezeWorld Commentary no. 4, MOBA Weekly ep. 18

Travis is joined by Jatt, Wickd, Doublelift, Xpecial, and SYDTKO with special guest appearances by Wickd, Locodoco, and Day[9] in this episode of State of the League. Hit through to the YouTube source page for time stamps.

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