dignitas/Shiphtur on the new patch and IEM: "High mobility mid laners like Ziggs and Ahri are good against the high gank Jungle meta"

Danny 'Shiphtur' Le took some time to talk with Mylixia, our NA manager about some of the recent changes in 4.20 and 4.21, as well as how that affects the team going into IEM Cologne.

What have you personally had to change in your playstyle to acclimate to it?

Shiphtur: Most of the jungle changes, jungle is pretty different right now. Not everyone is really sure about jungle paths and all that, so it’s really random. So the old patch, you know, the junglers gank at this time. At 3:30, junglers are going to gank, but now with this patch, junglers are going to gank at 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, all this random junk. So I guess you have to read the game better.

 

How do you go about doing that?

Shiphtur: I mean it’s really hard, and sometimes it’s just random, like this guy just did Gromp or something and he’ll gank with no buffs. There’s not really anything you can do about it, just punish it after, like invade his other buff.

 

So more communication?

Shiphtur: I guess. If the jungler does do that and it doesn’t succeed, then that jungler should be punished by losing three buffs or so. That pretty much always happens. So that’s just like telling your Jarvan, ‘hey this guy ganked, let’s go for his buff after.’

 

As the jungle meta shifts with the new items and Smite variables, how does that affect your champion picks in the mid lane?

Shiphtur: I don’t think the jungle items changed how the mid lane is, it’s just champs are popular right now, so really high gank champs like Pantheon and Jarvan are really popular. Because of that I feel like mobility mid lanes are really valuable, so we still have Ziggs from Coast today, Ahri’s good. Really high mobility champs are really good in this meta because you can’t escape Jarvan ganks, man

 

How do you change your items and buildpaths to work with this meta?

Shiphtur: The biggest change to mid lane items is that Chalice is a lot more expensive, Null-Magic went from 400 to 500 gold, making Chalice a total of 1k, and that kind of blows as a mid laner. So everyone’s like ‘you know let’s just get Morello’s.’ It’s 2100 gold, it’s 500 cheaper and gives more AP, same CDR and all you’re losing is Magic Resist and the passive Mana Regen. That’s all you really need as a mid laner, because no one really takes MR anymore, everyone takes AP per level glyphs. If you play well, Morello’s should do just fine.

 

That also helps with wave clear, right? Which you said might be an issue when the patch hit.

Shiphtur: Oh yeah, because of this new patch, minions no longer have resistances, they no longer have armor and MR and they scale greater with health. So take your Ahri or LeBlanc, you have your wave clear ability maxed at level 9, sometimes if you don’t have enough ability power then your Q’s not going to last hit the ranged creeps, especially if you go Grail. You’re definitely not going to have the AP to do it.

 

Objectives like towers, Dragon and Baron have all changed, but has the emphasis or timing on any of them shifted to other points in the game?

Shiphtur: For Dragons, they no longer give gold, but they give gold and combat stats, so in this change I think it just naturally prolongs the game so you’ll rarely see games that go twenty minutes then stop. Before teams would get two Dragons and get like 300, 400 gold instantly, that’s like bam, you get an item. Now you get this weird stat that scales better late game than early game because the first Dragon is like 6% bonus Ability Power and AD. In 4.20 it was 8%, but in 4.21 it’s 6%, and that stat doesn’t do anything early game. It’s like five AP or something early.

 

So does that mean games will be longer or drawn out now?

Shiptur: Yeah it would, because before you’d get a pick you’d get Dragon, so you’d get like 300 gold off the kill and another 200 off the Dragon, so that’s 500 gold for you. But now if you just get the pick and the Dragon that’s only 300 gold. So I guess it doe slow down the game in that sense, because getting the Dragon doesn’t really progress the game at that time because you need five stacks for it to really matter.

 

Does it start becoming stronger at three or four or is it literally five that you have to have to absolutely stomp?

Shiphtur: Even third or fourth Dragon doesn’t mean that much. It’s just the scare factor, like make these guys come and Dragon because they don’t want you to get five Dragons.

 

Yeah, but Dragon’s also stronger, so that affects team fights because there are a lot of fights that are decided around Dragon, right?

Shiphtur: Yeah and so you’ll see the enemy maybe go even in team fights even though they’re way ahead in gold. It takes out a lot longer to close out now, I feel.

 

Do you feel like it’s more dynamic now because there’s more randomness, it’s better in general, or the opposite?

Shiphtur: I don’t know if it’s better, but the thing I like about this change is that in the past we’ve seen world finals that are just 3-0 stomps that aren’t good to watch, I feel that even though this change, I don’t know if it’s the best, but you won’t see stomps like that at world finals.

 

In terms of the LCS it’s better to watch for competitive play.

Shiphtur: Yeah but if it’s healthier or not I’m not sure yet. We’ll see later on in the patches.

 

I feel like the whole game is sort of moving that direction, just more healthy to watch for competitive play, like if you’re actually watching the LCS there’s more stuff going on.

Shiphtur: There’s a lot of action, but I’m not sure if it’s better for competitive play because there’s less calculation, there’s just ‘if it happens it happens.’ It’s almost RNG.

 

Does Baron change anything?

Shiphtur: In 4.21, Baron lasts us for literally one push, because it lasts for I think a minute or 70 seconds or something like that. So you’re pushing down mid, you have Baron buff and if they clear the wave, well then Baron buff’s down. You really only get gold for Baron buff now. The old Baron in 4.20 was really good, you could siege forever, I think you could get two cannon creeps off one Baron buff, and that cannon creep is so strong. And you can buy a Banner of Command or something, which is actually a good item I feel because it gives a magic shield. In most team comps your wave clear comes from your AP mage, but Banner of Command makes them invulnerable to magic damage, so unless you have an AD wave clear then that cannon creep can live forever. So you need someone like Trist, Jayce or Ezreal, they’re all popular.

 

What about Towers?

Shiphtur: I think the outer Towers are the same, and then the inner one has this random shield. I don’t know why it’s there to be honest.

 

This one is for people watching the interview who really want to try to improve as players and considering mid lane, what are some of the really critical points you say to someone?

Shiphtur: I’d say right now pick up new champions. The old champions from before are really obsolete in comparison to the Xeraths, the Jayces, the assassins that are really good like LeBlanc, Zeds are even good right now. I feel like Orianna is starting to fall off a little bit because she’s so immobile, but she can still work just because she’s Orianna. I think champion pools are a really big thing in this meta, and because of this meta that’s full of these poking mids, and these assassins like Zed, all these matchups require extremely good spacing in lane. Spacing is just dodging skill shots and positioning yourself to land your own. That’s really important in this meta because these champions, they’re the best at punishing poor spacing and if you aren’t a good spacer you’re going to get destroyed in lane every time.

 

How do you improve that in real time?

Shiphtur: The first thing I’d do is go on League wikis, look up stats on abilities like Xerath Q. Let’s say it’s this long cooldown and this long range, so every time he uses this you have X seconds of freedom to do whatever you want, and then you have to stay this range to not get hit by it. So knowledge is first, then putting it in practice is next.

 

Not enough people read stats. Most people don’t realize that pro players know the numbers behind it.

Shiphtur: Knowing cooldowns is like the thing for mid laners, playing against Orianna especially. Orianna level one you always start shield, so you kinda have to know, ‘well if I poke her now she’s going to have a shield. Can I poke her again or are we just going to be trading?’ You just have to know everything and play accordingly.

 

Talk about Team Dignitas a little bit just in relation to this patch. How are we doing? What are some of the things you’ve encountered in scrims and practicing and what are the challenges?

Shiphtur: I’d still say we’re getting used to the new jungle. There a lot of random things you can do in this jungle like really cheesy strats like ganking after Gromp. I’d say we have to be really careful of invades, level one strats are really new. Getting used to the new jungle, I feel like that’s what every team is doing right now.

So you’d say the team is on the same level as everyone else in terms of just trying to learn the patch and get really good quickly and excel. How do you feel about IEM, given everything?

Shiphtur: I think I feel pretty good about IEM. I think we’ll do really well even though we didn’t have much time to practice because we’re still getting used to CoreJJ and Gamsu, but I think we have a good shot at taking it.

 

Any shoutouts to people, to the team, sponsors, anything you want say?

Shiphtur: Shoutout to fans, sorry for the last split and the roller coast ride. I hope to do everyone proud this season, and I think we’ll do really well. I hope everyone gives CoreJJ and Gamsu a shot, I know we lost Qtpie and Zion, they were pretty popular in the community, but I think everyone will like them as well. Thank you to all our sponsors, we really love you guys, thank you for everything, and thank you guys for watching.

Be sure to follow Shiphtur and Mylixia on Twitter, as well as Team Dignitas for updates on IEM and the upcoming LCS split!