League of Legends

2025-11-07
One of the last times I played League of Legends was in college. I had a quarter of a weed brownie my roomies made and at some point got so high I got lost in the jungle on Summoner's Rift. A map I had played for countless hours by that point. I got up off the computer mid-match, got into my floor-bed, and proceeded to have the worst trip I've ever had in my life.

And that's the thing about LoL for me it's less about the actual game. Sure the skill ceiling and mastery curve was amazing. Starting as a scrub back in 2009, when Malphite was the newest champ and watching my friend's older brother gank people as Rammus while I could barely last hit, left me with a feeling of wonder I hadn't felt playing a game in a long time. But that quickly faded into the background as it found its true place as a communal gathering.

I got introduced to it by one of the other CS majors in my freshman hallway and soon there'd always be one dorm in the hallway with a bunch of kids with their laptops out all playing together. Soon it spread to other dorms on campus and the tradition carried on when I moved into a big drafty old Massachusetts house off campus. Our family room had multiple constants: a hookah lit, a cage with pet rats, and someone--usually multiple someones--with their laptop(s) out playing LoL. Back from class at noon? Play some League. Back from class in the evening? Play some League. Back from a party, blitzed at 2 AM? Play some League.

Even as I grew bored of the game, it was the watering hole. By 2013, the time that weed-brownie story happened, I had mostly stopped playing. But I'd still grab a beer, plop down on the couch, rip the hookah, spectate, and bask in the bants. And its in that way that LoL, for all its toxicity (to be honest, I reveled in the toxicity but that's a totally different aside), still holds a special place in my heart. Just don't ask me to play it again, I don't think my psyche could take another bad trip like that.