It takes a lot of time to plan for a Factions arc. What do we do in between arcs? Intermission.

In an Intermission match, all factions (even those not involved in the current storyline) are available, and you can fight for whichever factions you like—you can play Noxus against Ionia one match, then play Ionia versus Noxus in the next, then Demacia against Bilgewater, and so on, to your heart’s content.

Since it’s Intermission, there’s no storyline for these matches to affect. However, we do keep track of the results, and we ask that you take a moment post-game to make sure someone submits the results. By default, the captain (the picks/bans person) of the winning team has the responsibility to either send in the results or make sure that someone else does. Ask if you need help.

Champion Rosters

You can access the intermission rosters for each faction here. In some cases, two factions share a Champion. An “Allied” Champion will always fight for the faction they’re allied for, except against their “Primary” faction. For example, Sona will fight for Ionia (her homeland) against any faction except Demacia (her new home).

How to Get into a Match

First, join the Factions chat.



Ask if anyone wants to start a match. Be on the lookout for custom game invites:



and enjoy! You might also want to friend 501st Big Mike or Sgt Porkchop, who lead Matchstaff. Say you’re new and want to try a match. They might be able to help.

If you’re not getting any invites, feel free to start a match up yourself. Read on for instructions.

How to Start a Match

It’s really quite simple!

Here are the steps:

PLAY > Custom Match > Create Game (Select Tournament Draft) Select two factions. Click here for rosters. Set the name to (e.g.) FACTIONS – Noxus v. Ionia. Sides follow the title, so in that example, Noxus would be Blue Side. Set the password to “factions”. Send out an invitation in chat, e.g.: Noxus vs. Ionia game open! To join: PLAY > Custom > Join > check “show private matches” > search “factions” > pwd: factions Invite everyone in Factions chat. Right-click their names on the player list and select “Invite to Game”. Do a quick balance check. You can use this Winrate Calculator to get a quick estimate of the odds based on the tier differences. Have people swap around if it helps to make it more balanced. This is also a good time for people to switch around if they want to play for the other faction. Uneven matches are fine, so long as people are aware of the odds and agree. The captain of the winning team has the responsibility for submitting match results. (See below.) Even though it’s Intermission, we keep track of matches in order to create an all-factions BoP, and to gather more data for balancing match point values given particular skill gaps. During the loading screen, open up lolmate.net and use Snipping Tool (Run > “Snipping Tool”) to grab a screenshot of all Summoners and their ranks. Have fun! Remember: no bans. (That’s probably the most common mistake that new Summoners make.)

Everyone’s encouraged to start matches. Don’t be shy! It’s really not that difficult; it just takes a couple tries to get the hang of it.

Submitting Match Results

Please submit match results here. The primary responsibility for submitting match results is on the first Summoner on the winning team, but they may delegate as needed.

Note: Because of changes in what information the various sites display, we are switching from na.op.gg to lolmate.net as our preferred screenshot source. If LoLMate is down, try LoLSkill.net instead.

Here’s a short video tutorial:

And here’s the form itself:

Direct Link to Form

You can see a list of matches submitted so far here.

Thanks to everyone who helps get matches going and sends in the results!

Getting screenshots

Sometimes people ask how to get the screenshot for the form. Here are instructions:

Open Snipping Tool (search for it in your Start menu) and use it to take a screenshot of the lolmate.net entry.

(search for it in your Start menu) and use it to take a screenshot of the lolmate.net entry. Upload the screenshot to imgur.com. You can either save the screenshot and then upload it, or ctrl-c copy it from Snipping Tool and ctrl-v paste it into imgur.

The screenshots are important, because they let our scoring volunteers quickly figure out what the tier composition of each team was.

Balance of Power

We will maintain a running Balance of Power for Intermission matches. This probably won’t have much, if any, story impact, but it’s a useful reference to see how the factions stack up against each other in a giant free-for-all.

Comments

Intermission rosters are a bit handwavey, and we err on the side of inclusiveness. Still, we do welcome comments, and we’ll probably adjust the rosters at least once before the next arc starts.