Red Post Collection: Celebrate MSI 2019, Lux Comic Series Preview, & More

Today's red post collection includes all the details on MSI, including celebrations on the Rift, a preview video for the upcoming Lux comic series, a new Ask Riot covering game pacing, pollution, and the client, & more!
Continue reading for more information!

• Red Post Collection: /Dev: Aram Changes Round-Up, Bring Home the Glory & More
• 4/19 PBE Update: Even More Tentative Balance Changes
• 4/22 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
• Champion Roadmap: April 2019
• Invictus Gaming Skins Now Available!

• 4/23 PBE Update: Summoner Icon, Login Themes, & More
• 4/24 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
• Book of Thresholds | Yuumi Champion Teaser

Table of Contents

• Celebrate MSI 2019 
• 2019 Mid-Season Invitational Event Overview
• League of Legends: Lux | Comic Series Preview
• Ask Riot: The Client 
• Teemo in Space... Kinda 
• Miscellaneous
• Reminders

Celebrate MSI 2019 

Here's Aether with a rundown of MSI celebrations on the Rift:

"MSI 2019 kicks off on May 1st. If you're new to MSI, head to the tournament overview for details on the competition. Otherwise, we're here to talk about a bunch of ways you can celebrate the event and the teams competing for the trophy! 

Conqueror Alistar 

This year's MSI skin is Conqueror Alistar, available for 975 RP between 04/30/2019 @13:00 PDT and 06/11/2019 @11:00 PDT. He'll also be available in bundle form during the same window with a fancy loading screen border and the MSI 2019 ward for 1845 RP (2137 if you need Alistar). 

25% of revenue from Conqueror Alistar and his bundle will go toward the teams competing at MSI. 

Team Icons 

Icons for the MSI competitor teams will be available between 04/30/2019 @ 13:00 PDT and 06/11/2019 @ 11:00 PDT! 50% of revenue from these icons will go to their respective teams. 

These are the new team icons we introduced at the beginning of spring split. As a reminder, we removed the year from these icons so you don't have to purchase a new one season. Except for relegations, promotions, and team logo changes, these same icons will return to the store each split and event a team participates in! 

Map Accents

We're decking the Rift out with MSI flair. Be on the lookout for the return of base banners and Conqueror Baron!

We've also added a new trophy pedestal to top lane. Once this year's MSI winner is crowned, their team's trophy will show up on the pedestal for the month after MSI ends.
This year's offerings come with a couple changes to how we're celebrating fandom. Let us know what you think and share your ideas for other stuff you'd love to see in the future!"

2019 Mid-Season Invitational Event Overview

MSI is heading our way soon! Check out this article for all the details - "View the format, schedule, teams, stakes, and more for the upcoming 2019 Mid-Season Invitational."

"Whether it’s your first time watching an international esports event or you just want a quick overview of what to expect at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational, here’s your guide to the upcoming tournament: 

What is the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational? 

The 2019 Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) is an international League of Legends tournament. 13 regions will participate by sending their most recent split champion (Spring Split or Split 1) to face off against other regional champions in a fight for the title of ‘MSI Champion.’ 

This year MSI will be taking place in Southeast Asia, with stops in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Taipei."

[Full Article with Format, Schedule, Teams, & More] 

League of Legends: Lux | Comic Series Preview

The newest set of comics from the collaboration between Riot and Marvel features Lux! Look for the first issue starting May 8th. Check out the preview video below:

In the shining city of Demacia, order reigns. The realm is safe and the people are happy unless you’re a mage. In a place where magic is outlawed, Luxanna Crownguard must hide who she truly is when she begins to exhibit magical powers.

Ask Riot: The Client 

Check out this week's Ask Riot - "Game pacing, pollution, and the client":

"Today we’re talking about client issues, game length, and hextech pollution. We’re going to be taking a break from Ask Riot for one edition—see ya in May! 

Are you going to fix the client? 

Yes. Our first priority is to fix the problems in champion select, as they’re sometimes causing players to unintentionally dodge games because they’re unable to consistently lock in a champion. Once the work on champ select is done, we’ll move on to improving other areas of the client. We’ll start to roll out our first round of improvements in the next few weeks. 

DARTH BATMAN

Software Architect 

Is Hextech a clean energy source, or does result in some sort of magical pollution or something similar?

Compared to pretty much every other energy source available to Piltover, hextech seems like the cleanest option they could ever hope for. Once the crystal matrix is stabilized and running, it appears to be able to function almost indefinitely with very little going to waste, perhaps only needing a delicate tune-up every once in a while. By putting hextech devices in the hands of regular mortals, magic is essentially becoming “democratized” in Piltovan society—for those who can afford such wondrous creations, at least. 

Chemtech, by contrast, is far more widely available, even if it is more experimental and potentially hazardous. The engineers and scientists of Zaun who dabble in such things are just as likely to end up poisoned or maimed as they are to create something stable and useful. 

SCATHLOCKE

Lead Narrative Editor 

Why are you increasing the pace of the game? The changes from last season and this season seem bent on speeding up matches, which makes comebacks feel improbable and strategy feel pointless.
Game times have gone down slightly over the years, but we’re not actively trying to increase the pace of the game. In fact, the goal of preseason this year was to keep game times largely unchanged while making comebacks more possible, which is why we increased bounties overall and increased Baron’s health to make it more contestable. We also added Turret Plating as a way to extend laning phase and regulate the game’s pace. 

Statistically speaking, comebacks—which we calculate using a combination of gold lead, epic monsters taken, XP difference, and more—are more frequent in 2019 than in 2018. 

That said, it is true that Summoner’s Rift games are shorter nowadays than they used to be in the earlier seasons of League, and comebacks are less likely. This is partially because we’re trying to reduce “decided games,” where it’s pretty clear one team is going to win but the game stalls out (Rift Herald is one way we’ve tried to reduce these games). Decreasing the number of decided games can also mean decreasing the likelihood of comebacks, which is why we’ve added ways to reward players who fight their way back into a game, such as by shutting down fed opponents and collecting their kill streak bounties. 

One of the other reasons game times have slowly decreased over the years is because players back in the day hadn’t mastered the map’s mechanics as well as they have today. It was much more common for teams to squander leads or be unable to close out games when they were ahead, leading to drawn-out game times. In other words—players today are better at League strategy overall than they were in earlier seasons, which consequently leads to lower game times across the board. 

In conclusion, we aren’t trying to reduce the duration of games, and if game times go down much further, we might even try to increase game length. 

RIOTREPERTOIR

Lead Live Gameplay Designer 

Have a question? Click on the button below, sign into your League account, and ask away. 

We’ll do our best to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points). 

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

Teemo in Space... Kinda 

Here's Cashmir with an article on Teemo's foray into space:

In March 2018, Clemens Riegler, a master’s student of satellite technology at the University of Würzburg—and self-titled “Best Rammus in the West”—reached out to us on social media with the message, “Weird question, are there some official Astronaut Teemo or Astronautilus stickers?…” 

And almost exactly one year later Astronaut Teemo went to space! Well, sort of... Our devilish angelic little yordle made it roughly 75 km (46.6 miles) into the mesosphere. Technically that’s only near space, not quite outer space. But don’t tell Teemo he isn’t exactly an astronaut, it’s better for everyone that he’s happy. 

One Small Step for Teemo 

It took more than the 114th ranked Rammus player on EUW to send a yordle to space—it required a team of 24 students from the University of Würzburg and TU Wien, nearly half of whom may be in your next game. Seems having enough Rammus mastery points can tilt Teemo off the planet. 

The Daedalus Project formed in the summer of 2016 with the intent of developing and deploying an aerospace landing mechanism without active components or parachutes. The more stable space vehicle they envisioned would allow for better maneuvering in turbulent atmospheres. While they were trying to solve for a safer and reusable landing mechanism for Earth, the team dreamed of space travel on Venus or the ability to gain atmospheric data in Jupiter’s tumultuous atmosphere. This led to the development of the “SpaceSeed.” 

After three years of work alongside Prof. Dr. Hakan Kayal (the chair for space technology at the University of Würzburg), support from sponsors across Europe, and approval from the REXUS/BEXUS* Program—and the full backing of the German Aerospace Center, the Swedish National Space Agency, and the European Space Agency that comes with it—the team developed a trio of SpaceSeeds and prepared to launch them on an Improved Orion rocket. 

But where exactly does Teemo fit into all this? 

“Teemo’s quite a figure in League of Legends,” Clemens explained. “We considered Astronautilus too, but everyone has a strong feeling about Teemo. Nearly everyone wants to see him shot to the moon at some point, but not everyone has the ability to do so. We wanted to give League players everywhere the chance to see it happen.” Let’s be real, we’ve all dreamed of sending that 0/6/0 ADC Teemo from our promos hurtling into the sun. 

A week before officially rescinding Teemo’s residency on planet Earth, Clemens and team members Alex Hartl, Eric Heimann, Tobias Neumann, and Florian Kohmann flew to Kiruna, Sweden, home of the Esrange Space Center, to build and launch their rocket. 

Working alongside the astrophysicists and engineers at Esrange, the Daedalus members assembled their project over the course of a week, taking it from an array of parts to a fully prepared and functional rocket. They also made sure to take advantage of the high speed internet at the base by getting in a few games of League to unwind.

One Large Leap for Yordle-Kind 

On March 4, 2019 Clemens, Alex, Eric, Tobias, and Forian woke early—though, admittedly, they may not have slept much anyway. After years of hard work it was finally time to watch their experiment, and Teemo, launch into the atmosphere. 

An hour prior to any launch at the Esrange Space Center, the entirety of Kiruna, Sweden is enveloped in a noise that can only be compared to the horns of Gondor. “It’s a powerful and terrifying sound,” Clemens said. “It’s so strong and loud that it can be heard for tens of kilometers. It’s to warn everybody what’s about to go down… Or up, for that matter.”

At 9:50 am CET the entire Daedalus team—not just those who flew to Sweden—waited and watched in nervous anticipation as the launch checks were finalized and the countdown began. 

You know how in movies there’s always a big countdown before a rocket launches? Well, that actually happens. “I’ve never been this tense in my life! It was my countdown, no OUR countdown! Finally! After watching it millions of times in movies! After so much work! OUR countdown has arrived… It’s a truly unique feeling,” Clemens said. 

“All I can remember is that my heart was beating like crazy but my head was empty. There was nothing left to think of. The work was done. We had no power over it anymore.” At T-0 the system took control, the automated process kicked in, and the Daedalus team watched on as Teemo and their rocket launched with enough force to lift a car. 

Traveling as fast as five times the speed of sound, it took less than three minutes for the rocket, and its probably horrified stowaway, to reach their maximum height of roughly 75 kilometers. Back on Earth, the Daedalus team waited nervously as their experiment took place. 

At precisely 133, 143, and 153 seconds after launch, as Teemo looked down on us all like a benevolent overlord as the three SpaceSeeds successfully deployed. The experiment was a resounding success.

The SpaceSeeds ejected from the rocket made their descent back alone. They had a “nominal” landing, meaning it went well, at roughly 85 kilometers per hour. While not exactly a gentle landing speed, the SpaceSeeds were built for fast re-entry. The rocket itself landed in a different location and had a much higher impact speed. Luckily the Esrange crew managed to recover it and all of its experiments. All but a certain yordle… 

Where’s Teemo Now? 

That’s… a good question. “He didn’t burn up,” Clemens laughed. “But we have no idea what happened to him. He just disappeared.” According to the Daedalus team, there’s no way Teemo’s sticker could have burnt up on re-entry because the rocket’s materials wouldn’t allow for the level of heat necessary to incinerate Teemo. And while the team at Esrange managed to recover every other piece of the rocket, Teemo eluded their capture. 

For all we know he’s still somewhere in the atmosphere planting mushrooms for future astronauts to unknowingly stumble upon. So if you’re planning on any space exploration in the near future, we’d highly recommend bringing a sweeper. 

From all of us at Riot, we want to thank the members of the Daedalus Project for sending Teemo where no yordle has gone before. We’re so humbled that Teemo could be involved in a potentially groundbreaking aerospace experiment, and we’re excited to see where you take us next. 

*The REXUS/BEXUS Programme is realised under a bilateral Agency Agreement between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). The Swedish share of the payload has been made available to students from other European countries through the collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA)."

Miscellaneous

• Mortdog commented on the boards about ARAM bans:

"Hey everyone. Let me see if I can offer more insight. 

We see all the polls, upvate threads, and requests to bring bans back to ARAM. We understand that a very large group of players feel this way. We get the benefits it brings, feeling like you have some agency to remove particular champs you don't enjoy facing. That's super valid. (I personally banned Teemo every game because trying to push into shrooms is pain.) We understand the desire and the need bans fill. 

HOWEVER, they also come with draw backs. Whether or not you agree with them, there are players that enjoy and have a high affinity for champions like Veigar and Brand. There are players that don't want to think about bans and just want to get in the game quick. There are players that enjoy the high and low rolls of a pure random mode. And believe it or not, most of them aren't "ARAM accounts". Discounting and downvateing them doesn't make them not real. 

FOR NOW, we'd like to see if we can solve some of the pain points through other methods before considering re-instating bans. Balancing has proven to work quite well, as we've seen Sona/Ziggs go from 68% win rate to 57%. We still have some more adjustments that can be made, but the champions are more fair to face than they have ever been. There's still more work to be done though, and more adjustments will be coming more often. (I've already got a batch ready for approval.) 

Bans are a very strong hammer we aren't quite ready to slam down yet. If you look at the ban rates I posted on twitter, for a few champs it was basically the equivalent of deleting them from the mode. If we made a poll saying "Should we delete Zoe from SR?" I'm sure it would have a ton of upvates...but we still wouldn't do it because it's not the right call. Game design isn't always about the popular opinion. 

That being said, we are STILL OPEN TO BRINGING THEM BACK if our other methods don't solve the issues. If after a few months, Fiddle/Veigar are still a pain to play against, then we'll reconsider. I'm sure this post hasn't changed many peoples minds, but hopefully at least shows you where we're coming from. 

Other common thoughts:
Look we had 5 melee and they had the perfect comp. This shows we need bans and they were ARAM accounts - No...this happened either way, regardless of bans and they very likely were NOT ARAM accounts. The thing about random is that highs and lows exist. With all champs unlocked in our internal playtests, we still managed a Lux/Morg/Blitz/Jhin/Alistar comp. It was terror. It happens. 

Why not just unlock all champs - This would help for sure, but has side effects we aren't comfortable with. It's no secret that Riot does need to make money in order to continue as a business, and this would impact that quite a bit. However, I do think we can make improvements in this area. 42 F2P champs isn't enough. More on this hopefully soon-ish."

• Reav3 commented on less VGUs vs. more champions this year:

"I want to take a minute to answer this from my perspective. First of all our intentions of doing less VGUs and more New Champs was actually based on caring for the playerbase as well as from player feedback we have gotten over the years as we have done New Champs and VGUs. Let me go into a bit more detail though. 

First when I said less VGUs I didnt mean we would stop doing them, I just meant we would slow down. Expect to still see plenty of VGUs in the future, just not as many as we have been doing last year. 

The reason why I feel that his is coming from a caring place is this. There are many players that share your perspective, that they want their main updated, and changed. But you have to understand there are also many other players that love their Champion, and find it very frustrating when they are updated even if many other players think the update makes them way better. We have to care about these players as well, and whenever we do VGUs we also cause a lot of disruption and frustration from players over their Champion being changed. New Champions generally don't cause this player pain. Last year we actually saw a lot higher player frustration over change, partly due to how many old Champions we were updating and changing, with many older players feeling alienated by the changes. 

At this point, after Morde, many of the Champions we would consider for a VGU have much higher players bases then the Champions we were doing VGUs on in the past. This isn't to say there isn't value in doing them, but if we were doing them at the rate we were doing them last year, on Champions with bigger player bases, then that is many more players that would feel frustrated or alienated by the changes, even if many other players like them. 

This isn't to say we want to stop doing them as we feel there is value in the game feeling modern and up to date, which means we value updating the things that are getting old and dated. The Champions on the list just aren't as dated as some of the ones we did over the last couple years, and as a result the value in updating them isn't as high, and also has a higher disruption and player pain cost since the Champions have bigger player bases."

• Check out new Season 2019 Merch in the Riot Games Merch store:

"The world of Runeterra is where legends are made. Take pride in your victories, defeats, and accomplishments on the Rift with these sleek and warm hoodie and sweatpants."