In the midst of community tournaments and prior to the big Spring Season Live Championships, I’m trying out some new items for the news round up. No longer a couple fact snacks, now we got a full VG buffet.

Tesseract

The premier SEA tournament is nearing the end of its First Spring Qualifier, the quarter finals wrapping up yesterday with a couple great upsets. Huge props go out to 3rd seed Dion Strategist for beating 1st seeded 3LSea and another 3rd seed Ardent Allegiant that managed to top not one but two Infamous squads in 2nd and 1st seeded Spectre and Nero. Games are streamed on Mobcrush, so plenty of opportunity to catch up. For full results and brackets, check out the website.

VIS Allstar Game

The Vainglory Invititational Series had a special staycation from their normally scheduled high elo matchups with a high elo matchup that was purely just for fun. The community voted and the top six most popular players in VIS were selected and randomly placed on two teams for a best of three brawl. Looking at that sweet graphic above, on the left you have Team Catherine and Team Ardan on the right. In stunning fashion, Team Ardan swept the series 2-0 with VONC throwing a saddle on his back and carrying the game like a veteran war horse. A certified weapon power jungle beast, VONC actually selected crystal Reim and Joule in the two games and still fought with his own brand of intense aggression.

Head over to YouTube to catch the VOD, casted by CyberOwl. VIS will be back tomorrow with the start of Week 6 featuring a rematch Team SoloMid and Nemesis.

Ardent King of The Fold

Ardent guild held their first 1v1 tournament this weekend pitting 32 of the bravest solo tappers against each other. Over the course of two days, Jonobie hosted the event on his Twitch channel. When the dust settled, WizardSibs of Team Smurf took home the top prize of 2,700 ICE (That’s three Lances!) Be sure to follow @ardentvg for updates on future 1v1 tournaments including when registration opens again so you too can enter.

Vainglory Underground

Another wonderful community tournament brought fun to the Fold this weekend when Savage Gaming hosted Vainglory Underground. This 32 team best of three tourney was open to teams that didn’t make the top 16 of VGL NA in an effort to bring more glory to all the talent out there that haven’t cracked the top tier just yet.

Primal Impulse and Epik went the distance with a game 5 in the finals, Impulse edging out their competition to win the whole shabang. They took home 12,000 ICE and three Gorilla Gamer Crates! Check out the VOD and scroll down for a more details on the winning team in a new section.

Hero Balance Changes

Coffee With Zekent is definitely a thing now. This week the notorious wire-toucher sat down with everyone’s best friend Nivmett. Along with some tantalizing clips of Lance in-game, they discussed some of the Balance changes coming to update 1.18. What we know so far: Rona’s rage generation will be improved, Skaarf will be stickier and Vox’s kit will be more Resonance focused.

I’m happy about what this could mean for Rona, she’s hardly had a chance to be viable during her entire time in the Fold and usually regulated to casual queue. A buff to rage could chain her abilities faster and create a much more bursty barbarian. Skaarf is normally a back line hero, so sticking to his opponents can bring out some very interesting chase compositions, especially if Glaive and Blackfeather maintain some of their viability. Vox is a puzzle that’s been left out on the coffee table for months now and SEMC puts a few pieces into place here and there. While I don’t think any of us want him to be 1v3ing on a regular basis, I think a focus on Resonance will offer some serious field control that emphasize his sniper persona.

Champion vs Champion

This one goes out to trolls everywhere, on May 21st there will finally be a reason to use > with real tactile evidence. SEMC is hosting a Champion v Champion match up between Team SoloMid and Team Secret. You’re actually encouraged to hash tag #NA>EU or #EU>NA to support your choice, and you might not get into a petty argument over it for once! SEMC has promised a special in-game prize to the winning region based on the outcome. If TSM wins, I’m hoping for a Hamilton Vox skin.

Know Your OP History : 1.3 Vox

Plenty of heroes have had a stint in the lime light where their power was practically unmatched by all others on the Fold. In this section, I want to discuss one of those heroes each week and what made them so damn broken.

This week is all about the original incarnation of Vox. The sound Mage is in an almost constant state of flux because his kit can teeter on the edge of OP at any moment. The perfect example is when he was introduced to the Fold as an absolute terror.

For starters, there was the barrier. Vox’s heroic perk used to grant a 24-86 health barrier per auto attack or resonance bounce, stacking up to to three times maximum. That meant at level 12 he could be granted a barrier of 256 just off of two bounces, roughly a 17% health increase just by attacking. This was ridiculous for sustain and set up the rest of his kit to be a team killer. This has since been entirely removed, with good reason.

Sonic Zoom has changed so much it’s practically the equivalent of a chicken being descended from a dinosaur. First, you did not need Resonance on a target for the Sonic Zoom shots to hit them, and it still prioritized heroes. It could also grant triple auto attack bursts that could bounce between 9-12 targets (with Resonance) and the higher early game WP ratios and base WP damage made Red Vox a farming machine early game and near impossible to contend in the lane. Couple all of that with the longer movement range on the dash and good luck not getting kited worse than Ben Franklin if you tried to chase him down.

With larger CP ratios and more Resonance bounces (it used to be 3), Pulse allowed Vox to reach a state of late game power by the mid point and still get worse from there. Additionally, you could throw a bounce off the Kraken and delete a nearby hero with the amped up damage.

His ultimate was the real clean slate. With a silence almost twice as long, a 50% CP ratio and 30 second cool down, Vox could build enough crystal power with a clockwork and fire off two of these babies in a team fight. But two shots weren’t even necessary as the refreshed resonance bounce of Wait For It could bounce 9-12 times and erase even the memory of a team that once stood against him.

Has all of this been a little dry and TL ; DR for you? Well here come the videos. ShinKaigan streamed on the first day of update 1.3 and put together a compilation of highlights with Celeste and Vox play. Skip ahead to 2:15 to watch Vox do work. I have also tracked down a weapon power build that isn’t quite as dominant but still shows off the potential this little DJ once had.

Special thanks to Fierte and Keldegar for helping me compile all these fancy stats and figures.

Team to Watch

The professional scene has exploded in the last year, bringing so many excellent teams to the forefront and creating fan bases across the community. But in my opinion it can’t always be about the TSM and Hammers of the world, so I want to let you in on a team you may have overlooked, but probably shouldn’t.

Say hello to Primal Impulse. If the name sounds familiar, it’s not only because they won the previously mentioned Vainglory Underground, but also finished first in the VGL Amateur series and made a fantastic showing against TSM in the VGL Second Qualifier this season. While they weren’t able to top the champs, Impulse still showed they’ve got the skills to pay the ICE bills.

Primal Impulse is made up of:

PajamaDrama (captain/roam)

Seiyoku (jungle)

dadadademolay (lane)

4ever (sub)

PajamaDrama told me the team is less than two months old and feels they have achieved so much success due to their synergy as a team. Entering the professional scene with a positive atmosphere and group mentality to push themselves, Impulse beat out 127 other teams in the Amateur Series in their first official tournament.

Entering the VGU, Impulse had a whole list of teams they hoped to avoid. The competition was steep for the young team, but they focused on exploiting weaknesses and using those openings to push aggressively and gain momentum. PajamaDrama feels this shot calling is made so much a simpler by the team’s syngery and trust in each other’s ability. They hope to continue to develop as they approach the Summer Season and hopefully push like SAW right into the top 8.

Congratulations to Primal Impulse, can’t wait to see more of you in the future!

Streamer Spotlight

Another new idea I had was to show off a streamer that might not be getting the love of your XenoTeks or ShinKaigans out there. This community is rich with personalities, and many of them are very enjoyable to spend a few hours with.

My first target is WookieForc3, guildmate and all around chill guy. A very low stakes stream with some talented play, Wookie focuses on having a good time, which includes plenty of Battle Royale. You can catch him every Saturday at 1pm PDT / 4pm EST with some great music and plenty of Alpha play lately.

“Hey guys! I love playing Vainglory and have a lot of fun playing games with my viewers as well as just chatting and hanging out with you guys! Stop by if you wanna joke around and relax!” – WookieForc3

Follow his stream here!

Hope you enjoyed the extra content in this week’s news! Be sure to check out the new Builds and Tier list MrTouchNGo updated and come back for more fun stuff later in the week. XOXO Rona Bunnies and Dank Meme funnies.