After playing League of Legends for over two years and accumulating
over a thousand normal games, I finally entered ranked play. In my own,
totally objective, assessment, I am skilled enough for Gold. My
placement matches disagreed, and threw me into Bronze II. This is the
story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.
Well, the season is officially over. Since my last update I've made, well, let's see...
Progress! Kind of. I mean, not really. But I did pass 100 total Ranked games. So there's that. But on with my recaps.
Well, I had an Udyr game that I wasn't happy with. I didn't feed or even die early on at all, but I couldn't pick up kills or keep my teammates from losing early engagements and we lost too heavily in our side lanes. The enemies snowballed and I couldn't get close enough to make an impact. I went 0/4/7. Udyr is one of my favorite champions and can be really fun to play, but if he falls behind, his nonexistent range makes it nearly impossible to accomplish anything. Also, I think I'm generally weak in two roles, and those are jungler and support. When I'm mid, top, or bot, I can almost always keep up by farming minions and freezing my lane. Playing a role that doesn't have that option, even if the option wouldn't win the game anyway, I feel like my gameplay is nerfed. I have had games where I've done well as a jungler or support, but I never go 0/4/7 and feel helpless when I'm solo mid.
My 100th Ranked game was a rather one-sided affair. I was playing Karthus, if that's any hint. Actually, I found this one really amusing. I had first pick, and the other team captain banned Kassadin and Fizz. I banned two more problematic champions and picked Karthus. In response, our last pick made some remark like, "Ew, first pick Karth" to which I replied, "Fuck you" or something like that. That player then exclaimed "counterpicked" when the enemy team took Annie as their mid. I think I said, "Shut up." But I didn't mute my heckler, who ended up taking Poppy as a jungler, something I've usually considered too risky. In truth, Annie really is kind of problematic. I've noticed that Annie players in Ranked tend to be either very bad or very good. And the good ones can kill me if I'm not careful. Annie gets massive burst damage way before Karthus can get going, and combining that with her stun makes her really dangerous to lane against. This Annie wasn't terrible (she let me farm too much, but she did prove herself and pick up several kills eventually), but I avoided her pretty easily and outfarmed her. She got underfarmed. The enemy jungler, a Rengar, was too aggressive, so our top (Udyr) and jungler (Poppy) started to control the game, right before I got enough AP to begin snowballing. And then our Poppy, who was 6/1, said something in the chat like, "Karth, you're 5/0. I apologize for my earlier comment." Maybe it shouldn't seem that novel, but I was impressed because I've been playing this game for two and a half years and I've scarcely ever seen someone apologize like that. And in Ranked? Never. I said, "Aw, thanks" and Poppy said, "Thank you for proving me wrong." We went on to get even more fed. I ended the game going 12/1/11.
Back at the beginning of October, I mentioned that I queued with what appeared to be a Caitlyn-only player. Well, I had mostly forgotten about that person, rejected a few invitations to Ranked games because I didn't feel like playing Ranked anyway. Well, this person had apparently played a lot of Ranked games in the interim. Seriously, it must have been well over 200 games, most of them with Caitlyn. Well, today I got another invitation to play Ranked. I figured I might as well. I got first pick, and went with Karthus, of course. I won't call out this individual by posting a summoner name, but our Caitlyn, my duo partner, was extremely toxic. Most of it was directed toward our Mordekaiser solo top, who seemed to have connection issues. But Caitlyn raged at the entire team, insisting that we were all throwing the game and that it was obvious from the start that we were going to do so. Our jungler, playing Vi, tried to calm Caitlyn down and focus on winning. So did I. But the chat was filled with Caitlyn's useless raging. Mordekaiser, offended by Caitlyn's personal attacks, lashed out, so it got even uglier. And because this was going on from just about the beginning of the game and it ran long, we had to endure it for over an hour. All of our turrets were destroyed. They got Baron at least once. Vi's suicidal initiations combined with my massive damage eventually won us some key fights. We killed most of them and had the remaining enemies slowed down, so we could catch them and ace them. We pushed into their base and won. I went 15/7/16. Caitlyn whined that we should have lost. Vi and I both decided to report Caitlyn and we added each other as friends. And then I got another invitation from Caitlyn. Hilarious.
My next two games with done in a duo queue with a friend (Vladmir the Hand). I was last pick in both. First, we needed a jungler and I saw that the other team was much tankier than ours, so I took Amumu to compensate. Our Kennen mid declared the game lost because we had a Sivir bot, and then Sivir and Kennen decided to spend the whole game raging at each other instead of actually playing the damn game. My duo partner, playing Ryze solo top, did well. I was doing OK, but eventually our doomed mid and bot lanes became too much, especially once they got a fed Vayne. I went 4/5/6.
In my latest Ranked game, I was Sona, supporting Quinn (Vladmir the Hand). In the laning phase, we seemed to be doing well, but both mid and top were completely zoned. I shouldn't be too hard on them. The other team had strong mid-to-late damage output and they simply overpowered us. Yet another game in which someone whined about my Clairvoyance. And yet another game in which I saw Nidalee mid fail against a real mid-laner. Also, they were the same person. But I wasn't so great myself this game, either. I tried to save teammates with my ult and failed too often in the endeavor. It was a rather brutal game. I voted no on the surrender, but I can't really blame the team for outvoting me: we were losing every fight. I went 1/5/4.
Lifetime W:L: 48:53
Current LP: 24
That's right. I had 22 LP for my previous update. I've climbed the ladder a little bit, despite the losing record. Progress?
Friday, November 15, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
On the Sivir Rework
This is something that still irks me. I didn't really rant about it when it happened, so I'm going to take the time to do so now. But first, I want to say a bit about my own experience with Sivir...
I first encountered Sivir in 2011, way back before she'd been reworked the first time. I was new to the game and found her rather confusing, mostly in the same way that I found all AD carries confusing at the time. As I learned more, I developed a great appreciation for her. I got Tristana for free through the Facebook offer, but Sivir was the first ADC I actually bought with IP. Sivir got me into the habit of playing a very conservative bot lane, picking up last hits no matter how much pressure was on me, and building up enough damage output from items to wreck teams, eschewing defensive items in favor of tactical gameplay. It's still how I play pretty much all of my carries.
Sivir's incredible late game has never really been a secret, but in some ways it has avoided capturing the attention of the majority of players. Traditionally, other champions have been seen as better for extreme carrying. Tristana gets massive range, an AS buff, and high mobility with her Rocket Jump. Vayne gets evasion from Tumble and Final Hour, a stun, and extra damage from Silver Bolts. Kog'Maw gets massive range, armor shred on Caustic Spittle, and extra damage from Bio-Arcane Barrage. In theory, Sivir can't compete with that. In practice, Sivir has a lot going for her late game. Or rather, she did. Between her first and second reworks, Sivir was the best split pusher of any ranged champion, possibly the best base-defender against enemy minions, and could attack entire teams with Ricochet, targeting initiators from a safe distance and managing to damage enemy carries.
After Karthus and Singed, Sivir was definitely my third most-played champion in Season 2. She was my go-to ADC. I got my first pentakill with Sivir. Season 3 changed my itemization, but I quickly settled on a new build that I liked even more than the one I'd been using in Season 2. I branched out, becoming proficient with some other ranged AD champions, but Sivir was my best. That was why she made my "A" list for Ranked games, and subsequently became my second most-played champion for Ranked (after Karthus). I think that I've mentioned all of my Ranked games in my "Going for the Gold" series, so anyone who actually reads through that will see that I've been relying on Sivir. At first, she was the only ADC that I was really playing, and I haven't seen success with any other ADC so far. Before the recent rework, I could have been described as a Sivir main.
Every time Riot reworks a champion, there is some outcry over the changes. Until now, I haven't been in that group. But I do contend that this time, it's different. Here are some reasons...
I first encountered Sivir in 2011, way back before she'd been reworked the first time. I was new to the game and found her rather confusing, mostly in the same way that I found all AD carries confusing at the time. As I learned more, I developed a great appreciation for her. I got Tristana for free through the Facebook offer, but Sivir was the first ADC I actually bought with IP. Sivir got me into the habit of playing a very conservative bot lane, picking up last hits no matter how much pressure was on me, and building up enough damage output from items to wreck teams, eschewing defensive items in favor of tactical gameplay. It's still how I play pretty much all of my carries.
Sivir's incredible late game has never really been a secret, but in some ways it has avoided capturing the attention of the majority of players. Traditionally, other champions have been seen as better for extreme carrying. Tristana gets massive range, an AS buff, and high mobility with her Rocket Jump. Vayne gets evasion from Tumble and Final Hour, a stun, and extra damage from Silver Bolts. Kog'Maw gets massive range, armor shred on Caustic Spittle, and extra damage from Bio-Arcane Barrage. In theory, Sivir can't compete with that. In practice, Sivir has a lot going for her late game. Or rather, she did. Between her first and second reworks, Sivir was the best split pusher of any ranged champion, possibly the best base-defender against enemy minions, and could attack entire teams with Ricochet, targeting initiators from a safe distance and managing to damage enemy carries.
After Karthus and Singed, Sivir was definitely my third most-played champion in Season 2. She was my go-to ADC. I got my first pentakill with Sivir. Season 3 changed my itemization, but I quickly settled on a new build that I liked even more than the one I'd been using in Season 2. I branched out, becoming proficient with some other ranged AD champions, but Sivir was my best. That was why she made my "A" list for Ranked games, and subsequently became my second most-played champion for Ranked (after Karthus). I think that I've mentioned all of my Ranked games in my "Going for the Gold" series, so anyone who actually reads through that will see that I've been relying on Sivir. At first, she was the only ADC that I was really playing, and I haven't seen success with any other ADC so far. Before the recent rework, I could have been described as a Sivir main.
Every time Riot reworks a champion, there is some outcry over the changes. Until now, I haven't been in that group. But I do contend that this time, it's different. Here are some reasons...
- Sivir had already been reworked before. There'd been some bemoaning the loss of her Ricochet output following the first rework, but generally, she still felt like the same champion, with the same capabilities. People were happy with her.
- Sivir lost her niche with this rework. Her pushing power is gutted and she's not particularly better at mowing down waves of minions swamping her base than any other ADC.
- There wasn't anything wrong with Sivir. She did her job. She wasn't dominant, and she wasn't underplayed. A lot of players liked her mechanics, enjoyed playing her, and liked her lore and personality. The one problem, which everyone knew about, was with her clunky, outdated model. Triangle feet and running in slow-motion. Sivir looked bad. No doubt about it. And I get the impression that Sivir players initially assumed that Sivir was simply getting a VU. Instead, they hit her mechanics with a wrecking ball, gave her a voice that makes it sound like she has laryngitis, and made her lore go from enigmatic to bland. Maybe the bit about lore should be a separate rant. I don't think I've seen anyone make a case for any of the lore revisions Riot has done. And it's not like the bar is set in some particularly loft manner. Most of the champion lore is pretty bad. And yet Riot manages to find their oldest, worst-written lore and replace it with something that is much, much worse.
- With previous reworks, many players pointed out something like how the invisible Karma mains somehow turned up to complain once there was a rework. That sort of thing. But with every rework I can remember, the champion was either technically broken due to general gameplay changes (Jax, Kayle, the first Sivir rework) or horribly underpowered and too difficult to buff without becoming overpowered (Sejuani, Karma, Heimerdinger). Sivir is the one exception. I don't have the numbers to prove it, but just from experience I can tell that she was seeing her fair share of play. Sivir mains didn't magically turn up once there was a rework. They really did exist, and there were a lot more of them than there were Karma mains.
- Everyone who has spoken positively about the new Sivir wasn't playing the old Sivir. This ties into the previous item, but it's important. I have seen positive reception for the Sivir rework, but none of it has been from people who were already playing Sivir. Riot is already in the business of making new champions. They shouldn't take away popular champions from one group to give a new champion to a different group.
- They changed Sivir from an AD carry to a weird AD caster. Her single-target DPS is a shadow of its former self. Other reworks haven't so fundamentally taken something away from a champion. Jax went from being a lategame killing machine to being a lategame killing machine with some tweaks. Sejuani went from being a tank to being a tank. Sivir simply cannot be played as she was being played before, even though other champions with similar functionality retain it. The closest I can think of is Evelynn, and that was a rework of an entire mechanic, and still not comparable to what's been done to Sivir.
- They really fixed what wasn't broken. There were some calls for mechanical change to Sivir, but they were generally either about her autoattack range, and most Sivir players seemed fine with her range anyway. "I want less sustained damage and more burst," said no Sivir player ever.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Going for the Gold Part XII: Failure in Season 3
After playing League of Legends for over two years and accumulating
over a thousand normal games, I finally entered ranked play. In my own,
totally objective, assessment, I am skilled enough for Gold. My
placement matches disagreed, and threw me into Bronze II. This is the
story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.
Well, I haven't made one of these posts in a while. Part of the reason is that I haven't been playing many Ranked games. They've extended the end of Season 3, something I've known about for a while, but haven't commented on. I should note that I'll still be in Bronze when Season 3 ends. Going for the Gold, but I'm not getting any closer at the moment. Many people have been attempting to get promotions before the season ends. I'm not going to try that because it isn't a realistic goal. I'm not moping when I say that, just stating a fact. Here, I'll even support it.
When I concluded my previous post in this series, I had 33 LP in Bronze I, with 43 wins, 46 losses. A losing record overall, something that has been true for a while with these posts. Since then, I've played some more games. I don't remember the details about most of them, but I do have a few notes...
Tristana loss (we had a leaver)
5/3/3
Swain loss (the rest of my team fed)
7/4/8
Karthus win (I've got nothing, but apparently I sure did pick up a lot of kills in this one)
22/6/15
Mordekaiser win (my lane opponent was an inept Renekton and our ADC got fed anyway)
5/2/8
Kog'Maw loss (the rest of my team fed)
6/6/0
Karthus loss (both side lanes fed hard, then the other team started pushing mid and killing me)
2/3/4
Vayne loss (my lane partner, a Jinx, trolled the team and fed hard)
1/3/0
Kog'Maw loss (my lane partner, a Ziggs, intentionally fed—yes, I did get two fake supports in a row)
7/11/8
Karthus win (actually a pretty decent game)
5/2/10
Lifetime W:L: 46:52
Current LP: 22
This fits the pattern of my previous posts: my position in Bronze I oscillates, but it keeps spending more time near the bottom. The gap between my losses and my wins slowly widens. I titled one of my early posts "Going Nowhere." At the time I assumed that "eventually" I'd start going somewhere, specifically up. Now that I have more data, perhaps I should use the title, "Going Down—Very, Very Slowly." That I'm headed the wrong direction is one reason I won't be making Silver by the end of the season. But there's another reason: I'm just not playing that much Ranked right now. I have other priorities, and I've been having more fun with Normal games. I do still intend to make Gold, but it's both unrealistic and not worth my time to race for it at the moment.
Well, I haven't made one of these posts in a while. Part of the reason is that I haven't been playing many Ranked games. They've extended the end of Season 3, something I've known about for a while, but haven't commented on. I should note that I'll still be in Bronze when Season 3 ends. Going for the Gold, but I'm not getting any closer at the moment. Many people have been attempting to get promotions before the season ends. I'm not going to try that because it isn't a realistic goal. I'm not moping when I say that, just stating a fact. Here, I'll even support it.
When I concluded my previous post in this series, I had 33 LP in Bronze I, with 43 wins, 46 losses. A losing record overall, something that has been true for a while with these posts. Since then, I've played some more games. I don't remember the details about most of them, but I do have a few notes...
Tristana loss (we had a leaver)
5/3/3
Swain loss (the rest of my team fed)
7/4/8
Karthus win (I've got nothing, but apparently I sure did pick up a lot of kills in this one)
22/6/15
Mordekaiser win (my lane opponent was an inept Renekton and our ADC got fed anyway)
5/2/8
Kog'Maw loss (the rest of my team fed)
6/6/0
Karthus loss (both side lanes fed hard, then the other team started pushing mid and killing me)
2/3/4
Vayne loss (my lane partner, a Jinx, trolled the team and fed hard)
1/3/0
Kog'Maw loss (my lane partner, a Ziggs, intentionally fed—yes, I did get two fake supports in a row)
7/11/8
Karthus win (actually a pretty decent game)
5/2/10
Lifetime W:L: 46:52
Current LP: 22
This fits the pattern of my previous posts: my position in Bronze I oscillates, but it keeps spending more time near the bottom. The gap between my losses and my wins slowly widens. I titled one of my early posts "Going Nowhere." At the time I assumed that "eventually" I'd start going somewhere, specifically up. Now that I have more data, perhaps I should use the title, "Going Down—Very, Very Slowly." That I'm headed the wrong direction is one reason I won't be making Silver by the end of the season. But there's another reason: I'm just not playing that much Ranked right now. I have other priorities, and I've been having more fun with Normal games. I do still intend to make Gold, but it's both unrealistic and not worth my time to race for it at the moment.
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