Minishcap1, a Challenger player in multiple seasons and #1 Singed on Lolskill, has been a strong critic of Dynamic Queue and the direction Riot has gone with League of Legends. In this interview, Minishcap1, will discuss his opinions on Dynamic Queue, the current state of Singed and the most optimal way to play him, and what he'd change to make Singed competitively viable again.

Describe the strategy you created for Singed & why it’s necessary (Zz’Rot rush) for him to be optimal.

Minishcap1: My strategy revolves around the idea that Zz’Rot Portal helps Singed overcome his garbage laning phase.

I started doing this back in January. Lane-bully champions were meta, and they were all pretty tough matchups for Singed. I was trying to figure out a way to deal with them when my friends and I came across a random platinum player in a normal game. He was playing Singed, and had built a Zz’Rot Portal as a troll item. I thought it was stupid until I saw just how much pressure he could put on a tower, so right then and there I decided that I would make Zz’Rot portal work in a variety of matchups. I was actually the first player in NA to use Zz’Rot Portal to climb the ladder at the beginning of this season. Streamers then started to pick up my strategy of placing it under your own tower in top/mid lane to safely poke the enemy towers while keeping the portal alive.

It’s necessary in most matchups because:

- Singed has a hard time pushing towers quickly, and

- Singed has a very weak laning phase versus a LOT of champions

Getting a Zz’Rot first-item allows Singed to move around the map, have defensive stats, and be a general nuisance while he farms past his abysmal early-game.

Put yourself in the shoes of a lead designer. What would you do to rework Singed?

Minishcap1: I would first inform people that Singed’s kit is extremely archaic and is pretty difficult to make function in high-elo in Season 6.

Personally, I would change his passive. Singed’s current passive converts 25% of his mana into health. This is pretty useless, considering that the most effective builds on Singed don’t have any mana items at all. It is an extremely non-interactive ability that’s boring, one-dimensional, and just ancient in design. I’ve come across a few different ideas concerning a new passive for Singed:

- Singed’s Poison trail is now permanently on, cannot be toggled off (Similar to Aurelion Sol passive). Singed’s Q changes from Poison Trail to ‘Mix Mix Swirl’.

Q – Mix Mix Swirl: Singed can press Q to change his poison trail into one of three new trails. Purple trail shreds 0.5 MR per second while dealing normal damage, Blue trail shreds 0.5 Armor per second while dealing normal damage (can also slow instead), Red trail deals bonus damage. These three consume a bonus flat amount of mana per second. Green is the default trail, and functions the same as live.

- Singed gains more movement speed the lower his health is.

- Last idea: Singed actually uses his shield, and gains a slowly generating shield (think S5 turrets) when he is moving towards enemy champions.

- Grounded OR Poison Trail dot applied by his W.

What made you first try Singed? Why do you still play him?

Minishcap1: I first picked up Singed back near the end of Season 2 because I saw a youtube video where a Singed player was popping his ult and running around full teams of people, slowly DPSing them to death. It seemed like fun.

I keep playing him to this day because he’s easily the most unique champion in the game, alongside only maybe Shaco and Heimerdinger. All other champions besides these three fall into the same repeating pattern of: farm -> skirmish -> objective -> repeat. Singed, however, requires you to think outside of the box if you want to win with him. Singed is a map-pressure champion. You have to know how to create distractions, draw jungler attention, and how to escapeganks/have great map awareness while proxying.

How is Singed in the current state of the meta?

Minishcap1: With the gradual nerfs to top-lane tanks culminating in patch 6.11 with Ekko/Maokai nerfs, and big buffs to Trinity Force, we are finally starting to see Bruisers in top lane again. Bruisers are much more interactive to play against, because you can actually outplay a bruiser. You can damage a bruiser.

As of 6.11, Singed is in a better spot than he was before. He’s not quite as good as he was in season 5. I still think he’s a little bit weak, personally, but giving him a passive that actually contributes to his kit would help with that.

What would need to happen for Singed to be competitively viable again? He was played in every season’s worlds except season 5.

Minishcap1: If Singed is ever going to be competitively viable, two things need to happen.

- The frequency of competitive lane swaps needs to go down. Singed can do literally nothing in a traditional lane swap. However, Singed is a great double-jungler, but that strategy was nerfed.

- This brings me to my second suggestion, which is that Singed’s W (Mega Adhesive) should apply ticks of Poison Trail until it wears off. This would give Singed a form of (very high mana cost) ranged waveclear, which would make ranged matchups and laneswaps just a little bit better for him to endure.

Also, for the love of all that is good in this world, give Singed back the tenacity on his ult that was removed in Season 3. Modern champions have insanely overloaded kits that are full of cheap, effective CC. A little bit of tenacity back on Singed’s ult isn’t going to make him OP.

In addition to this, I would make Singed’s W (Mega Adhesive) apply ticks of his currently selected poison to the targets it is slowing. This would give Singed at least a crappy form of ranged waveclear of some sort, something that nearly every other champion in the game has.

What top laners do you feel you have the most difficulty playing against? What about champions?

Minishcap1: As far as players go, I wouldn’t really say that anyone gives me a lot of difficulty. However, some players are definitely more talented than others. You’ll notice a distinct difference between an LCS top laner and solo queue stars. I think learning to deal with tilt is a greater obstacle to overcome than one player will ever be.

Champion matchups are a bit different. There’s a reason most players consider Singed to be a joke champion, and that’s because what makes him unique also makes him have an awful laning phase versus a huge number of champions. He has three abilities which each cost 120 or more mana to use. Pretty silly considering that mana items are not the most optimal on Singed.

Maokai and Ekko are probably still a bit too strong. Currently, Irelia is probably the strongest and most difficult, because Vlad and Swain are thankfully permabanned. As far as tough matchups go, stuff like Teemo, Lulu, and Gnar will always be the hardest for Singed due to their ability to kite and deal constant damage.

What would you recommend to handle playing against a Singed? What strategies should a player execute?

Minishcap1: Your first step is going to be to laugh at the poor enemy top-laner who picked an ancient and archaic champion like Singed. No dashes, gap closers, sustain, ranged waveclear, high base damages, or low mana costs in 2016? Pick any meta top-laner and beat on that poor Singed player until you send him back to 2012 when people actually took Singed seriously. You’ll quickly realize why everyone thinks Singed is a joke now.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Singed is playable, and I think you can win games with him. If you couldn’t, I wouldn’t be playing the game. However, it’s a million times easier to learn to play a meta champion than it is to learn to play Singed. If you don’t feel like playing any meta top-laners, you can always go for the classic Teemo/Gnar/Lulu picks which usually tilts Singed players pretty hard.

You’ve been a strong critic of Riot’s Dynamic Queue system. How would you handle the current situation in high elo solo queue?

Minishcap1: Recently, Riot has taken it upon themselves to reward only group play and not solo play, essentially punishing solo players through lack of rewards.

Dynamic queue has been nothing short of a disaster for high elo players. The biggest problem is that ranked rating at high-elo means NOTHING now. What’s the point of playing Ranked and getting to Master/Challenger if someone else can just get dragged there? Why did Riot feel the need to change a system that was working for 100% of the playerbase? Why is there no way for solo-only players to differentiate themselves from Dynamic players? Why are there no unique solo rewards? Why are players like me who put countless hours of dedication into the ladder being disregarded the most?

I think that the easiest solution would be to just implement a pure solo queue for Diamond+. Since Riot won’t do that, my second best solution would be Dota 2’s hybrid system. In this system you only gain "solo" MMR if you play by yourself, but you can play with a party and get matched in the same game as solo players, but you gain "party" rating instead, all while playing the same ranked system. This would be a good middle ground, and I feel like it makes a lot of sense, so Riot won’t ever implement it.

What are your thoughts with the latest changes to the system (3 person party-cap; autofill?)

Minishcap1: It’s a complete joke. The “solution” of auto-fill is nothing more than an admission of the inherent failure of role selection and dynamic queue itself. It’s contradictory to everything that has been pushed onto us in the past 6 months, especially in terms of Riot’s philosophy for groups/friends.

How is giving up role selection, the one thing that made dynamic queue slightly less awful, a good solution? It just indirectly punishes high elo players yet again. Either have a pure solo queue with no role selection for Diamond+ or get rid of this autofill nonsense. These Band-Aid solutions to fix the glaring flaws in dynamic queue keep failing.

What are your plans for the future? Will you be aiming to hit Challenger again this season?

Minishcap1: I just recently finished all of my credits on the 10th of June, and officially graduated from college, after having my graduation ceremony in April. I am currently planning on taking a year off from school to work and start up streaming again. I was streaming regularly earlier this year in February/March (www.twitch.tv/minishcap1) but I had to stop in order to focus on school. Now that I’m done with my Bachelor’s, I have time to stream again, so I’ll be doing that. My plans for the long-term future are to return to school after a year and pursue a Master’s degree.

I am planning on hitting Challenger again this season. In fact, I already hit Challenger in March, but time constraints due to school, as well as my own frustration over Singed’s weakness in the previous meta contributed to me just not playing League and decaying. Now that Singed is in a spot that feels not completely terrible, I’ll be playing a lot more.

In addition to this, I have a guide on Lolking!

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