Assignment 2: Read the Game

Both team compositions and one frozen mid-game state — name the win condition, the threat, and what you would change about how you are playing

You will be issued one frozen mid-game state. Where Assignment 1 asked what you would do with a hand, this asks what you can read off a game already in progress.

What you receive#

A single position, roughly two thirds of the way through a game:

• both team compositions, with every augment taken
• current items on all ten champions
• health and mana as they stand
• which ultimates are available and which are not
• the gold each player is holding but has not spent
• the position of the wave and of the ten champions on the bridge

You are one named champion in this position. The state is what you have; there is no additional information available on request, because there would not be in a game either.

What you submit#

Roughly 1,800 words, in five parts.

Composition. What functions does each team cover, over-cover, and lack? Name the gap on both sides. Do not list champions and describe them — that is not a reading.

Win condition. One sentence for your team, one for theirs. Both must describe how the next two fights are actually won, not a general aspiration. “We scale” is not a win condition. “Their only route through our front is the one ultimate they are currently holding” is.

Space. Where should the five of you be standing, in what order, and what is the enemy’s shortest path to the person at the back? Argue from the position you were given, including the wave, the bushes and the range bands.

Engagement. Under what condition does this fight become worth taking, and which of the regenerating variables are you waiting on? If the answer is that you cannot wait, say what is forcing you and price the fight anyway.

Adaptation. What in your current build or plan has been invalidated by something in this state, and how do you know? At least one thing has. Point at the observation, not at general principle.

One of your claims must be tested against actual data — match history or a patch note, sourced and patch-labelled. One is enough. The point is that you can tell which of your claims is the kind that data could settle, and which are arguments that no dataset will decide for you.

How it is marked#

The same four criteria as every other task in this course, with reasoning under uncertainty carrying the most weight.

The failure mode this assignment is built to catch is the essay that is correct in general and unconnected to the state in front of it. Everything you write should be false of some other game. If a paragraph would survive being pasted into a submission about a completely different position, it is not analysis — it is recital, and it will be marked as such.

Practical#

Submitted through the course page by the deadline. Cite the patch the state is drawn from, which is named in the materials, not the patch that is live when you write.