Morning Ramble for March 13th, 2017: #2017MMM Coulda Shoulda Preview and Ascension

Morning Ramble for March 13th, 2017 in which I look over my selections for the Coulda Shoulda bracket of the round of 64 in the 2017MMM and I review my enjoyment and frustration at playing the Ascension mode of League of Legends this weekend.

2017 March Mammal Madness: Coulda Shoulda Preview

Today is the day the Coulda Shoulda bracket gets started in the 2017MMM. These are critters that shoulda won in their previous journey to the tournament but were upset – some under mysterious and controversial circumstances, others due to environmental factors, and still others because the stars aligned for their opponent. With such an interesting array of contestants, I’ve picked quite a few upsets.

While I think the Sabertooth Cat will take the entire bracket, in this round I think the biggest fights will be between the Giraffe and Fossil Baboon, the Tiger and Dire Wolf, and the Irish Elk and the Pegasus. In each of these battles, I’ve chosen the underdog. I’ve actually picked the Dire Wolf to make it to the Elite Eight, but they gotta get past the fearsome Tiger first.

This round also features the wildcard winner – the Red Giant Flying Squirrel. While she picked up a bunch of fans during the battle royale, she’ll be hard pressed to repeat her victory when she faces the Sabertooth Cat. Regaurdless, I’m looking forward to some good contests tonight starting at 8:30 Eastern…oh and you all remembered to spring ahead and set your clocks ahead an hour this past weekend…right?

You can follow the battles on Twitter with the hashtag #2017MMM or @2017MMMLetsgo and be sure to check out the official site at Mammals suck…Milk.

And you can catch up on the results of the Desert Adapted Mammals (which somehow included the Gila Monster) with the Rodent Recap on YouTube.

Ascension fun and Tons of AFKs

This weekend was Ascension weekend in League of Legends…it was fun and frustrating as most things in League are. The fun was on Saturday when I won every match I was in. I mostly played Zyra and she seems to perform pretty well in this rotating match format. Her snare and magic penetrating thorns do some decent damage while her normal gear of Liandry’s and Rylai’s add some decent health as well as utility. I also took Frost Queen’s Claim since there so much fog of war that the ghosts come in handy – it also was fun seeing people comment on how much more gold I had at the end of the game than everyone else. With her plants, Zyra is good for setting up sentries and then channeling the crystals so I tend to make a difference in scoring and when the other team goes for Ascended status, her ultimate is perfect for disrupting their attempt.

The frustrating part was later in the weekend when the Riot servers started having problems. I had a perfect record and then ran into games where it was 2v2, 1v4, 1v3, and finally 4v4. Riot’s servers just couldn’t hold 10 players in a match any more. So many AFKs was very frustrating. The first, 2v2 wasn’t to bad to start. I went Zyra and had a Zac partner but we were against a Garen and Singed pair that out scaled us – it just got to the point I couldn’t do damage fast enough to stay alive…we lost. The next 2 were throw away games where I was all alone and even though I took Xin Zhao since I feared playing with less than a full team. Finally, the 4v4 was a pretty good game that I won win Xin, but I was just tired with the crappy Riot servers.

So as usual, the rotating match format was fun and frustrating at the same time. Hopefully Riot will get their act together and we can have more fun next weekend.