This week, Chris "Pwyff" Tom checks out Riot Games' latest attempt at Trolling their community in the form of Trundle!

Over the past few weeks, I've hit a rather rough patch of League of Legends games, but this is mostly due to my choice of teammates. I've been pulling a lot of random casual gaming acquaintances into LoL, and the problem that comes when you combine a high-ELO player with a lot of his low-ELO friends (add in the premade ELO team bonus when queuing in a group) is that you end up playing against mid-ELO players who stomp all over your newbie friends. I remain quite determined, however, to leave no man or woman behind and, as part of my intense training curriculum, I've moved away from my standard carry-focused champions (Le Blanc, Annie, Miss Fortune) and begun playing more 'tanky' champions (Singed, Udyr, Cho'gath) more suited to letting my teammates learn the basic mechanics of team combat.

Of course, since Riot Games is keeping a close eye on my champion selection trends (obviously!), you can trust them to introduce a brand new 'tanky' carry champion, Trundle the Cursed Troll, who pretty much fulfills all of my newbie training needs: a physically and defensively strong champion with solid support skills you can use to protect your squishier teammates.

To be honest, Trundle is another experimental champion introduced by Riot Games to see if they can create a melee DPS champion capable of surviving in LoL's current ranged / AoE heavy meta-game. Trundle's most interesting mechanic is definitely his Contaminate ability, which allows him to infect the ground with his curse, granting him additional attack speed, movement speed and crowd control reduction. Crowd control reduction mechanics appear to be an increasingly popular addition for melee champions in League of Legends, as players will remember Riot Games' second-most recent melee addition - Irelia, the Will of the Blades - who also has a 40% crowd control reduction passive at her disposal.

Trundle's main attack skill, Rabid Bite, is essentially a bonus attack that also reduces some of his opponent's attack damage, although Rabid Bite's low range virtually requires Trundle to be on contaminated ground before he can really put it to good use. Trundle's other abilities include Pillar of Filth, a unique spell that summons a pillar at a target location, blocking enemy movement and slowing all targets in the nearby area. This is Trundle's main support skill and is surprisingly useful for protecting your teammates, with a slow similar to Singed's Mega Adhesive skill, but with the addition of creating an impassable block right at the center (thereby forcing opponents to go around).