Lobby Labs
The twelve-week teaching schedule: what happens in each lobby lab, what to prepare, and what leaves the room.
Every week has a Lobby Lab on the Thursday, three days after its Monday lecture. In weeks 4, 8 and 11 that puts it the day before an assignment is due, which is deliberate: the last chance to ask a question in person is always in the room.
A Lobby Lab is a different thing from a lecture, not a repeat of it. The lecture answers what the week's decision is and what mechanics sit behind it; the lab answers whether you can actually do it yet. Each one is a drill with a pass condition you could judge from the next seat, and each one needs other people — somebody to count your last hits, an opponent contesting the lane, four teammates to call to, a rival captain across the draft. A drill you could do alone at home would be homework, and we would have set it as homework.
Where a drill needs a quantity — a round length, a number of wards, a replay to watch — the tutor sets it in the room, on the day. Individual labs below just say that the tutor sets it.
Finish a whole game
Five-person bot match, nobody looks at the scoreboard, and everybody leaves with a client that works
Week 1 · 25 February 2027
Count the last hits
In pairs, one player takes last hits while the other counts out loud — the baseline Assignment 1 measures you against
Week 2 · 4 March 2027
Hold the line
A one-versus-one solo lane where the win condition is not kills but which side of the lane the wave ends up on
Week 3 · 11 March 2027
Stack against the clock
The whole class stacking camps to a called clock, then doing it while keeping a lane off its own tower
Week 4 · 18 March 2027
Three heroes, one item
Buy the same item on a strength, an agility and an intelligence hero, then pool the class's results into one table
Week 5 · 25 March 2027
Watch one player
The class watches one replay together, each student following a single position start to finish, then reassembles the game from five accounts
Week 6 · 1 April 2027
Build along
One bot match following a recommended build exactly, with the build order written down and marked up as you buy
Week 7 · 22 April 2027
Hold the stun
A five-versus-five where every control spell must be called out loud before it is used — and once called, used
Week 8 · 29 April 2027
Cross the map unseen
One group wards a route, the other tries to walk it without being seen, then they swap and review the vision together
Week 9 · 6 May 2027
Call the objective
A custom match where somebody must call the next objective aloud after every won fight, then the game is retold without mentioning kills
Week 10 · 13 May 2027
Draft, don't play
A full Captains Mode draft against a real opposing team, justified aloud pick by pick, and then not played
Week 11 · 20 May 2027
Match day
The Assignment 4 best-of-three, played with a tutor as coach, ending with each team writing down three decision points before they leave
Week 12 · 25 May 2027