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

Finally, Trundle's ultimate, Agony, is essentially his anti-tank ability that also allows Trundle to gain more survivability in team fights by inflicting Agony on an enemy, Trundle steals his target's health and a percentage of their armor and magic resistance. The amount stolen ends up doubling after about six seconds, so Trundle also becomes stronger as the enemy tank becomes stronger. Trundle also has a relatively powerful passive ability in the form of Decompose, as all enemy units who die around Trundle will instantly heal him for a percentage of their maximum health; a powerful recovery tool in large-scale team fights.

As I noted before, Trundle does a solid job of fulfilling the roll of a 'tanky' carry champion who can protect his teammates on the front lines. In this way, in most situations where I would play Singed or Udyr to compliment my team lineup, Trundle was an acceptable champion replacement. In reality, while all three of these champions are very similar in their champion roles, they just go about achieving their goals in very different ways. Singed relies heavily on his Toss and Mega Adhesive abilities to keep enemies away from his team, while I like to build a Frozen Mallet on my Udyr so that he can use the slowing effect of the mallet in combination with his Bear Stance stun to control the battlefield. In this way, when playing Trundle, I simply throw him right into the middle of the fight, casting Agony on the enemy tank to gain more survivability, throwing a Contaminate onto the ground for the bonuses, and then using my body (and later, slowing my opponents with Frozen Mallet) and Pillar of Filth to prevent the enemy from advancing.

Where Trundle falls short, however, is really his battle presence after he casts Pillar of Filth. Since most Trundle players prioritize Contaminate and Rabid Bite for their early skills, Trundle's Pillar of Filth ends up being on a 23 second cooldown for most of the game and, outside of his Pillar of Filth, Trundle is nearly incapable of dictating the flow of the battle. When Singed's Toss and Mega Adhesive are on cooldown, a good Singed can still use his Poison Trail to intimidate wary opponents. Udyr's Bear Stance is fantastic because it gives great battle control in addition to being on a very low cooldown (three seconds between each mini-stun), and it's difficult to ignore the high AoE damage that Phoenix Stance offers in the early game. Trundle, unfortunately, lacks this kind of consistent presence, and so Trundle fans will need to learn to manage their timing well on Pillar of Filth - at least until they can pick up a Frozen Mallet.

So is Trundle really worth it for teams looking to replace their Udyr or Singed? Currently speaking, signs are pointing to no. The only time I can really advocate the use of Trundle is on a team that is severely lacking in anti-tank tactics. Trundle's Agony is quite strong at reducing the effectiveness of an enemy tank, but you end up losing a bit of battle presence that Singed and Udyr bring to the table. I like to turn to Trundle in times when I'm tired of playing the aforementioned champions, but unless you're a big fan of decomposing trolls (or you really need some crowd control reduction), I would say that there are champions better suited for your newbie babysitting needs.