You are sitting at your computer playing a round of League of Legends, either solo or with a group of your friends. The laning phase is going smoothly and you have pushed your enemy laner back, but he leaves the lane and roams when suddenly you see the words "An Ally has been Slain". You see your laner coming back to lane and expect the same usual match up you have seen a million times before. Is Darius going to come back to lane with his Black Cleaver? Maybe an Irelia with her Sheen or perhaps you are in bot lane and you see Miss Fortune with the beginnings of her Ghostblade. There are builds and items that have become synonymous the champions that we love to play and see almost every time they are in our games, but what if that Darius came back with a Trinity Force instead? What if Miss Fortune came back into lane with a Jaurim's fist, or if the Irelia built a Statikk Shiv?

Items and item builds are a crucial part of the League of Legends experience and, as we play and learn more, we have seen the evolution and rise in popularity of builds for our favorite champions that we would never have thought of or considered at first glance. Some of the most popular, meta, and trusted builds were at one time nothing more than a concept that one player thought up and said "Why not?". After all, how would we have seen the rise of Gunblade mid laners or the effectiveness of Frozen Mallet on marksmen champions without someone having had the crazy idea to try it first. While writing my previous article on itemization and change, I had the chance to look over and read up on a variety of items and about halfway through I had a thought. I looked at my League client, clicked over to the collections tab and just looked at all of the champions while thinking to myself "With so many items, why do I only build the same few each game? What else would work if I tried?".

After I finished writing I grabbed some friends and spent days testing theories and ideas that came to mind. After 7 days and nearly 100 games I came to a solid conclusion that I had believed in before, but could now firmly say out loud. Champions are not limited to a handful of items to be relevant. Now I know this sounds like the most basic concept you could imagine but, believe it or not, it's actually become quite a taboo subject in recent seasons. Champions in the current season are often locked into a small selection of builds and items to help make the "relevant", but why is this? Some of the most current or powerful builds are the product of players experimenting and trying out new ideas, many of which work well enough to become the new standard for the champion in question. How else would we have seen the rise of on-hit top laners like Teemo and Kennen or tank mages like Karma and Ekko. Outside of their respective playstyles, these champions have all found wild success and often this changes the dynamic of their roles almost completely. After thorough testing I discovered a large variety of builds and items that deserve more use and have, personally, become a staple in my daily grind.

Artwork by B.N.C.Y., submitted to the champion art showcase.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NICHE ITEMS

Certain items are given a bad reputation for only being effective on a small number of champions. One of the worst offenders for an item that is far more powerful then it seems and can be used in a wide variety of situations is, in my opinion, Manamune. Manamune has been a longstanding staple in League of Legends, lasting multiple seasons with very little change outside of a few number adjustments. At a glance, it seems to have a fairly limited use, giving additional attack damage based on a portion of your maximum mana and giving additional mana per spell cast or auto attack up to a cap of 750 and is given preferential treatment on champions like Urgot and Ezreal, but why is this?

Manamune is a powerful item that gives a good boost to attack damage and helps to refund mana for casters and, when fully upgraded the second form "Muramana", is a game changing item that can give a powerful boost in fights, dealing bonus damage on attacks and single target abilities equal to a portion of your mana. While this item is a staple in some builds, it can be effectively used in a wide variety of situations. During the writing of this article and the testing games previously mentioned, I tested the Muramana on several different champions and found that quite a few of them were able to make full use of the stat growth and transformed effect, a few of the stronger picks including Lucian, Irelia, Corki, Ryze and Cassiopeia. This worked effectively because all of the champions who were able to make the Muramana their own had a substantial focus on single target focus which activated the Muramana's unique passive "Awe" on hit.

Following the success of the Manamune testing, I decided to test out two other items that I see on rare occasions or on specific champions. These were the Righteous Glory and the Banner of Command respectively, and what I learned during these games was quite surprising. During the games focused around Righteous Glory, I focused on the aspect of its "Eternity" passive, gaining mana on taking damage and refunding health on spending mana per spell cast. This item is commonly seen on champions such as Singed and some supports like Janna or Soraka, so with that idea in mind I chose a handful of characters that I believed could benefit from both the Eternity passive and the active burst of movement speed.

I found that, once again, Cassiopeia was able to make decent use of the passive aspect, but champions like Anivia and Evelynn also found a substantial boon in the health per cast, while chase oriented champions such as Hecarim and Warwick were able to effectively use the 75% movement speed boost to their advantage. Along the same line of thought I began to use the Banner of Command in nearly 20 games and found that, while the armor and magic are great for survivability, the unique active was what made the Banner of Command a joy to use. While this item normally finds use in the hands of Heimerdinger and some supports, I had decided to build it on several top laners and junglers and found that, among everyone i had tested, the item found perfect use in the hands of Udyr, Nunu and Jax who can use it to their strengths and siege lanes from a distance or alongside their empowered minions.

THE RISK AND REWARD SYSTEM

While I had found that all of the items I had tested, not just the ones focused on above but all the builds I had been using, were enjoyable and in several cases very effective there was always one aspect that made it difficult to justify building what I had. It wasn't a question of use against an enemy team's composition or building into my own team, but the attitudes of everyone involved. The risk of taking chances in any game is daunting but, even in normal matches and blind pick games with friends, I often found myself being harassed over my item choices by at least one member of either team. Each of the build and item paths that I had been testing over the week had an almost ritualistic testing pattern of "Bot game/Normals/Ranked". While more often than not I did not bring myself to test my theories in ranked, with the exception of Muramana (one of my new core items, if I must be honest), I did bring each build into a draft game with varying degrees of success. While I discovered that items can be effective is nearly any champions hands I was verbally harassed by a large number of players who believed that stepping outside of the more "Meta" items builds was almost the worst thing I could have been doing.

So, if you are able to handle the poor attitudes of other players then I do highly suggest you take a chance and experiment like I had, find items that work in a variety of situations, and learn to adapt with a larger pool of items outside of the core that is always picked. You will be surprised at what you find, I guarantee it.

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