Wednesday, November 7, 2012

ARAM and League of Legends

ARAM, which stands for All Random All Middle, is a new un-official game mode for League of Legends.  It usually takes place on the Proving Grounds map (used for the tutorial).  Basically, everyone is assigned a random Champion from their pool and they fight it out on a single lane map.  There are some small rule adjustments, but the goal remains the same.


I had heard about this mode of play, but never really tried it.  that was until Gaarawaar started to talk about it on twitter.  He mentioned it was quick and fun, and I'm all about that.  So I went to the custom game list and found a match.  Here is how it started off...

Dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, MATCH!

In a custom game, there is no penalty for queue dodging.  Luckily spots filled up quickly, but it was still a crazy amount of dodges.  ARAM's I have played since then have been pretty much the same.  

Once in the game I had a lot of fun.  Just a lot of fighting, and very little pressure.  Since champions are random,  there might be a bit of a learning curve if he has gone unused.  The same goes for everyone else, so it felt a lot more laid back.  I really liked playing new champions too, which I wouldn't if I was in ranked Summoners Rift. 

My hope is that Riot makes this an official game mode soon.  That way we can queue up for it and hopefully lessen the amount of dodges.  I like it more than Dominion and it's quicker (usually) than a Summoners Rift match.  I just don't see myself playing un-ranked SR matches, so this could be my go to type of game when not playing ranked.