Last Tuesday we reported that Alternate would be the... alternate for IG at Hannover. Well, it looks like that won't be the only team mixup we'll see only a week before the tourney. It appears that World Elite won't be in attendance either. World Elite was considered by some to be a favorite to take the whole tournament. Indeed, the Chinese team was predicted to take top 3 during last night's discussion of the event on State of the League.
Instead, it appears that Against All Authority will be playing instead. AAA recently finished second in the qualifiers for IPL 4, becoming the only European team to qualify for the event (though all matches were played on NA servers). They'll be seeded into Group A and have to contend with CLG, Fnatic, Dignitas, Millenium, and Alternate.
It's unfortunate that both IG and World Elite will be unable to attend. Historically, some of the most interesting tournaments in League have occurred when muiltiple teams from each region compete against each other. On the other hand, AAA has shown some impressive play lately, so they seem to be a worthy replacement.
The schedule for IEM Hannover is up! Click the source below to see which matches will be broadcast. One stream will be dedicated full-time to League of Legends, so be sure to tune in for some fantastic matches. Additional streams will also cover the contemporary matches.
Also, if you are over 16, near Hannover, and can make the trip, ESL is offering free tickets here!
State of the League Episode 24 is live tonight with Skyyart, Ocelote, HotshotGG, Scarra, and Mellisan. I posted about this yesterday, but just wanted to remind everyone due to the fantastic cast that will be joining me.
Also, there have been some requests for a countdown timer, so here it is - That's 5 PM PST.
Should be a really good episode, so tell all your friends, neighbors, pets, and enemies.
We've seen the ingame models for the Fiora patch skins previously, but here are the splash arts for each of them. We gotta' new Gragas, Orianna, and Urgot. I'm pretty partial to the Gragas skin myself. That guy looks like he's spent some time on the road and knows how to change lanes quickly.
Riot Games just posted the Champion Spotlight for the newest League of Legends champion, Fiora. Take a look below if you're interested in her. Surprisingly, Phreak opts not to play her as a jungler. Oh, and Dominion fans will be sad to see the usual Dominion play is missing this time.
Tomorrow night at 5 PM PST State of the League will air as usual, but because Hannover is next week, I wanted to put together something special for the event. As such, tomorrow night will feature captains and allstars from many of the teams participating. Right now the confirmed list is as follows:
CLG HotshotGG
SK Ocelote
Dig Scarra
Fnatic Mellisan
Sypher Skyyart
I was hoping to have Elementz on, but he's unavailable. I'm hoping to grab someone else from Curse. I've also attempted to contact Reginald a few times, but haven't heard back from him. I'm assuming TSM is in lockdown for prep. =)
Either way, it promises to be the best episode of State of the League yet, so I wanted to let everyone have a bit of a heads up beforehand!
Oh, and apologies to the Europeans for the rough time. I'll try and get it up in mp3 and YouTube formats as quickly as possible.
The Fiora patch notes were just posted up on the League site, nothing too surprising, considering most of these changes have been listed in the PBE notes for a while now, but we've stuck some of the more interesting things into a Red Quote below. If you want to find out all of the rest of the stuff, be sure to hit that source link.
Originally Posted by Udyr
Lux
Lucent Singularity
Now additionally grants vision while in flight to its destination
Now starts its cooldown when cast rather than when detonated
Cooldown increased to 10 seconds from 9
Now displays a buff showing how long Lucent Singularity will last until it automatically detonates
Finales Funkeln
Now grants vision of the affected area during the spell and vision of enemy champions hit for a short duration afterwards
Lux can no longer use Flash while casting Finales Funkeln
Olaf
Axe Throw
Damage increased to 80-260 from 50-210
Scaling changed to +1.0 bonus AD from +0.5 total AD
Base cooldown reduced to 8 seconds from 10
Cooldown reduction for picking up the axe reduced to 4.5 seconds from 6
Ragnarok now provides 30/45/60 Armor and Magic Resist instead of 20/30/40 flat damage reduction
Movement Speed increased to 325 from 320
General
Improved minimap visibility of turrets in Colorblind Mode
Colorblind announcement colors now reference blue (friendly) and purple (enemy) teams
Important items purchased by your team will now be called out in chat (Aura items, Sight and Vision Wards, top tier items, etc)
Champion Kill messages are now more specific
You can now activate a timestamp for game chat in the options menu
When colorblind mode is activated, movement cursor is included with new color scheme (was not before)
Announcer callouts no longer reference blue team/purple team, and instead should reference friendly/enemy team (ie. A friendly inhibitor is respawning soon/the enemy inhibitor has respawned)
Champions will now attempt to run home immediately when disconnecting, rather than attempting to Recall
Small monster camp sigils now restore up to 30 Mana in addition to Health
Small Golem camp
Movement Speed increased to 300 from 180
Medium Golem base damage increased to 59 from 54
Fixed a bug where whisper messages were the wrong color
There's been a slew of new information about the League of Legends IPL 4 event in Las Vegas that's come out recently, including the location: The Cosmopolitan, which is a pretty swanky resort that opened a little over a year ago and is located near the Bellagio and Planet Hollywood. That's actually my favorite part of the strip. I'm super excited, you should be too. Just in case you aren't though, here's a cute little video they put together:
Sadly, they didn't really include any footage of the League of Legends aspect there, but who cares? eSports is eSports and the event will be fantastic.
The neat thing about that video though, is that the description announces how much money will be up for grabs in League of Legends. A nice $50,000 prize pool! Domenic previously covered what teams are attending in his Weekend Recap.
If all of this extra information made you more interested in attending the event, note that IPL 4 takes place over April 6th - 8th and that tickets are half off through this Facebook page. As for me? I'll be making the drive from Southern California to Nevada on the 5th, so I hope to see you there.
