Finding your niche in League of Legends isn’t easy. You can start as a top lane main and evolve as a player who favors the mid lane more. Players who are very good at League find one champion or role they are good at, and focus on mastering it. Some players go pro and have to learn as many champions as possible. Others climb the solo queue ladder using only one champion. One of the most famous one-trick-pony players is Jared Carr, also known as Annie Bot.
Annie Bot started playing League in August of 2012 after his roommate showed him the game. After a few days of playing, he picked up Annie and hasn’t put her down since. Since he started, he has become one of the best players in North America, constantly reaching the highest and most elite level, Challenger tier. Last season he reached a career high of rank 16, with 895 LP.
It isn’t out of the ordinary to see Annie Bot playing in the same games as some of the best League of Legends players in the world. Recently, he has started to queue up with Dyrus, Iwilldominate and Imaqtpie who he feels are: “really enjoyable to play with, as they all have enjoyable personalities to be around.”
Annie Bot knows what exactly makes a Challenger player: “Challenger players do not focus on the mistakes of others as much as diamond players do. This is important because when you’re flaming another player, you distract yourself and when an opportunity happens where your team could have had a potential turnaround play your team doesn’t act on it because you’re too busy typing to each other.” Challenger players also have better mechanical skill and know when to play aggressively or back off, along with a multitude of other game sense and mechanical skills. “It’s not one thing in particular that separates a challenger from a Diamond, it’s a little bit of everything usually.”
In the beginning, Annie Bot never expected to come this far as a streamer. Jared didn’t want to stream when he first started playing, but tried it out while he was attending UC Berkeley: “I was curious to know what streaming would be like. After a few days of it I really became hooked. I would literally stream as much as I could.” Since his start, Annie Bot’s stream has taken off, gathering thousands of viewers every time he streams.
One thing you’ll notice while watching is that Annie Bot has a really chipper personality. League of Legends is a game full of hostility and sometimes it’s great to watch someone just playing the game, not swearing or trying to incite a riot in their chat room. ”I try really hard not to offend anybody if possible, and whenever I say something that I feel might be rude or wrong, usually my guilt gets to me immediately and I really can’t help but feel bad about what I said, no matter how small it is, and I end up apologizing.”
Annie is a champion that’s played very rarely in competitive play and in high-tier solo queue. Annie Bot feels that all the nerfs Annie’s been handed since she was a top-tier support have hurt her viability. In the bottom lane, she gets out bullied by other supports, especially at levels two through five. At six, Tibbers makes her useful but that is way too long to wait for a power spike.
In the mid lane Annie is considered weak for two reasons: she is short ranged and immobile. Annie Bot explains: “This makes Annie very prone to being harassed and pushed out of lane by longer range characters, or being ganked and camped by the enemy jungler. Annie mid is very risky in competitive play for this reason.
You should hop, skip or jump to Annie Bot’s stream on Twitch or his Youtube channel to check out what exactly makes him the best Annie NA.
