Going for the Gold Part XVI: Merry Christmas, Matchmaking

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.

This is a very special post. It's finally happened. That's right...

 League Update

You have been demoted in Solo Queue to Hecarim's Elementalists, Bronze II.

For now, that ends my griping about how close I've constantly been to demotion. I got into a Ranked lobby. I was last pick. We had Zed (mid), Sion (top), Vi (jungle), Tristana (me), and Lulu (support) against Lux (mid), Lee Sin (top), Olaf (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Thresh (support). I had a very tough lane. Lulu gave up an early kill and didn't play very well, while Vi never showed up bot. Ever. I was behind and had no help from my team, but I farmed while I could and managed to pick up a few kills too. Zed left. As they were invading our base, Vi ragequit. Two leavers.

It means little, but since this is such a special occasion, I want to point something out.

Me: 4/1/0
Lulu: 0/4/5
Vi: 3/5/3
Sion: 0/7/3
Zed: 3/5/1

There are all sorts of obvious reasons why K/D/A isn't a measurement of how well one actually plays. But I want to point out, because I haven't really stressed it in these updates, that this is a recurring circumstance. In fact, the discrepancy here is considerably less extreme than it is in my typical Ranked Karthus loss. And I have 20 of those. It keeps happening.

When my friends found out that I had, almost immediately after my placement matches, risen out of Bronze II into Bronze I, they were encouraging, telling me that soon I'd probably be in Silver. Maybe they were just being polite. I've also had total strangers in my games compliment my skill, and express surprise that I'm in Bronze. Several people have told me that if I kept playing, they thought I'd make Gold by the end of Season 4. Maybe they too were just being polite. I don't know. But one thing no one told me, when I first got promoted to Bronze I, was, "You'll probably play a hundred or so games here, then get demoted back down to Bronze II." Demotion has been so close for such a long time now that I was halfway to expecting it, although I held onto the hope that I'd be wrong. Only now that it's finally happened, I find myself wondering, "What the hell?" I've spent so much time on this. And that's what I get for my effort? "You have been demoted in Solo Queue to Hecarim's Elementalists, Bronze II."

I've seen a lot of criticisms of the ranking system in League of Legends. I've had some thoughts of my own. But right now? All of that pales in comparison to whatever flaws in the system have taken me in this hundred-game loop back to where I started. If it wasn't for one little detail, I really believe that I'd give up right now.

Going for the Gold Part XV: More Bullshit

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.

I just pulled myself back up to positive LP in Bronze I. I first-picked Karthus, like I always do. It was Karthus (me), Darius (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Annie (support) against Morgana (mid), Yasuo (top), Elise (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Taric (support). Following the string of five losses, then a win, then three more losses that got me here, I finally managed to get into a good game as Karthus. Nah, I'm kidding: the other team had a griefer. At first, it was actually kind of annoying. I guess what happened was that when my teammates decided to invade and grabbed the enemy blue amidst the fighting, Lee Sin got mad at me because he wanted that blue buff. So he took ours and it was no big deal. And then he died and started raging at me for stealing his leash. Huh? Well, Morgana can't kill Karthus very easily in lane, and Karthus can outfarm her all day, so things weren't going too poorly for me, especially since I started out with a blue buff. Darius started out having trouble, but eventually started winning his lane. That didn't matter, though. We were losing bot, then the enemy Varus flipped out when Taric "stole" his kill. He proceeded to throw a fit and lose on purpose in order to teach Taric a lesson. And so I gained LP and have staved off demotion for another day. My final score was 11/1/4, with, of course, the highest CS. But this game was totally unfair. Varus ruined it. I hate crap like this, even when it benefits me. This game took me back up to 8 LP.

After finally winning a game, things returned to normal. And by "normal" I mean "terrible." I was fourth pick this time. We had Gangplank (mid), Riven (top), Diana (jungle), Kog'Maw (me), and Nunu (support) against Lux (mid), Wukong (top), Malphite (jungle), Draven (ADC), and Annie (support). We got off to a great start when my support took off down the lane on his own and the two enemy bot laners ambushed me from the brush near our turret, giving Draven first blood. I teleported right back in and kept minions off the turret, but Nunu went too far out again and got killed by Draven. And of course, Diana never showed up to help us, even though the lane was pushed the entire time. Diana, Gangplank, and Nunu all fed badly, and we were doomed soon. I played cautiously and did pick up some kills, but then I'd also die when my allies were wiped out and I was the only one left. No one on my team, and I mean no one, showed any interest in protecting me for fights. My final score was 6/6/8, and really, I'm surprised it was that good. Our next least-feeding player was Riven, at 4/8/3. Two of her kills were ones she took with her ult when I would have gotten them anyway. The other players on our team all did much worse. And we couldn't have lost to a more sportsmanlike team! Draven was mocking us when some of us refused to surrender, and Annie kept bragging about having more assists than our whole team had kills, or having more kills than me. I sure do love this community. Well, now I'm down to 2 LP.

For some reason, I tried another game as an ADC right after that. Well, I was last pick, so it wasn't entirely my choice. My random support this time was a lot better, though. We had Kassadin (mid), Singed (top), Shyvana (jungle), Tristana (me), and Lulu (support) against Swain (mid), Garen (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Quinn (ADC), and Leona (support). Lulu helped me get first blood against Quinn, then killed Leona herself before Leona could escape. From there, we had an edge, but Quinn and Leona put up quite a fight. They did manage to kill me, but we remained ahead. Swain won mid though, and joined forces with Kha'Zix to destroy our bot lane. Swain kept our team behind for a while. Our Kassadin was feeling overwhelmed and even made a show of threatening to leave. I meticulously continued progressing in my Tristana build. We were still a bit behind our team caught part of their team in the river. We didn't kill any of them, but we drove them off, then started Baron. I finished Baron while my teammates guarded me, then I entered the teamfight and got a pentakill. My first pentakill in Ranked. We destroyed their mid inhibitor before they respawned. They continued to put up a fight: Swain and Quinn even managed to kill me, but ultimately, we won. Finally, for the first time this preseason, I was part of a good game in Ranked. There was some whining on our team when Swain was destroying us, and later some whining from the other team when I was destroying them, but no real raging, and no leaving or griefing or anything like that. I finished with a K/D/A of 16/6/4. I am now at 7 LP.

In my next match, I was fourth pick. I got Mordekaiser for solo top, although I was thinking about playing Swain. I hadn't played Swain in a while. I decided that since I usually did well with Mordekaiser, I'd go with him. We had Zed (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Warwick (jungle), Quinn (ADC), and Nautilus (support) against Ahri (mid), Yasuo (top), Shaco (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Taric (support). This game was pretty uneventful for me. Yasuo couldn't kill me, but played safely and avoided dying to me. The other lanes were dominated in our favor, so I didn't really even have to do anything. In the end, I went 2/0/4. This game brought me up to 12 LP.

During my Mordekaiser game, a friend (Vladmir the Hand) called me on Skype and we did a duo queue immediately after I finished the game. It was Lux (mid), Singed (top), Shyvana (jungle), Quinn (Vladmir the Hand), and Leona (me) against Diana (mid), Renekton (top), Warwick (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Thresh (support). I guess this was my first Ranked Leona game. It did not go well. Their team beat our team up. We tried to hold on, but we were outplayed. Also, I'm not sure why I was playing Leona in Ranked. I guess I thought it was a Normal game. Oops. Well, I went 3/5/4. After this game, I'm at 8 LP.

Following a prolonged series of re-queues, I was able to get into a game as fourth pick. Last pick requested ADC, so I took solo top as Swain. And then last pick turned out to be Vayne—against Caitlyn. About half of my team seemed to think that Caitlyn is OP. Well yeah, when you feed her that much. If you couldn't guess, we lost. It was Kha'Zix (mid), Swain (me), Evelynn (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Nami (support) against Morgana (mid), Jax (top), Warwick (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Nautilus (support). I dominated Jax in the laning phase, denying him CS, forcing Warwick to cover for him multiple times, and eventually killing him. Then he brought three friends with him and they took my outer turret while my team watched. After so many Ranked games, I shouldn't be surprised, but I really was taken aback at just how bad my teammates, with the exception of Kha'Zix, were. They couldn't win any engagement. Most importantly, they couldn't kill Caitlyn. Ever. I was on the opposite side of the map from her until toward the end of the game. After killing Morgana, I was able to engage on Caitlyn and kill her single-handedly. Later, when they were in our base, the champions protecting Caitlyn took off to pick up kills on my teammates, and I managed to get close and kill Caitlyn single-handedly a second time. Caitlyn's final K/D/A: 19/2/10. My teammates fed her all game, then whined that she was supposedly an overpowered champion. Well yeah, when you feed her that much! Our team had 14 kills in the end. The other team had 31. Completely one-sided. I think I did fine, though. I went 6/3/3. And now I'm at 4 LP.

In case I was doubting that Riot hated me with a fiery passion, I got this stupid matchup. It was Annie (mid), Nasus (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Tristana (me), and Lux (support) against Yasuo (mid), Dr. Mundo (top), Master Yi (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Karma (support). Yeah, my teammates fed, but I don't really care about that anymore. The worst thing about this game was that I was lagging out the entire time. I couldn't see what I was doing, because the game was constantly lagging, all while my internet was fine, the game said I had 64 FPS, I'd experienced no lag all day before this game, and my teammates claimed I was the only one lagging. Despite not being able to see a damn thing, I somehow went 2/4/1 and picked up 100 CS, which was better than any of my teammates managed. What the hell? Also, they outvoted me and surrendered 20 minutes in. How is it that the person who is crying, "So sorry, but this game is being unplayable for me" is the only one who wants to keep going? Well, I was going to do a big Ranked binge and play even more games for the rest of the night, but after that, I don't dare risk it. Such a shame. Well, that steaming pile of bullshit has brought me back down to 0 LP, right where I was at the end of my last post.

Nothing has changed. I mean, I'm thrilled to get a pentakill with Tristana and enraged that I had mysterious lag, but really, I'm right back where I was. 0 LP in Bronze I. As before, my next post could be about my demotion. It's annoying enough that I'd play another one right now to make that stop being the case, but like I said, I don't dare risk it. This sucks.

Going for the Gold Part XIV: Veteran

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.

After I first got into Bronze I, I noticed that some of the other players in my ladder had little green medallions signifying that they had played "100 games in this league." The symbol is labeled "veteran" but I thought of it more as a mark of shame. When I pointed it out to Nick, we both basically said that we felt sorry for those players. With this post, I became one of them. It gets worse than that, though.

I got a message that I was now inactive in Ranked. I hadn't been playing because I didn't want to play with LP on the line when I wasn't comfortable with all the changes to the game. Actually, I hadn't even been playing normals much. Well, with no choice but to either lose LP due to inactivity or to risk losing it due to losing, I tried my first Ranked game in a while. Maybe I'm just feeling particularly cranky, or maybe it's the absence from Ranked, but this time I really feel inclined to recount my irritation at the brain-dead allies matchmaking apparently thinks I should get. So here I go...

Our team consisted for Karthus (me), Lee Sin (jungle), Tryndamere (top), Thresh (support), and Lucian (ADC). They had Ziggs (mid), Ryze (top), Volibear (jungle), Lulu (support), and Sivir (ADC). Firstly, I'll note that Tryndamere was fine. He won his lane and I felt sorry for him. Our Lucian seemed to do well and did get fed in-lane, but I still hate his guts. Once the laning phase ended, he moved around with no real sense of objectives and got himself killed multiple times in the jungle by wandering into obviously unsafe areas. That's not a particularly egregious offense, but he also decided, while we were ahead, that we would lose. Instead of looking for ways to win once the enemies started catching up and beating us in teamfights, he looked for people to blame. For some reason, he settled on me. He declared that I "threw." He never said why. Thresh wasn't as obnoxious, but he was too aggressive and died a lot. And then there was Lee Sin. Or rather, there wasn't. Our Lee Sin repeatedly left and then came back. I was able to hold my lane against Ziggs, but Volibear would steal our blue, give Ziggs the other blue, and attempt to gank me. And in the fashion that I've become so accustomed to with my allies in Ranked, Lee Sin blamed Thresh for some reason. Thresh was kind of bad, but it wasn't his fault that Lee Sin spent half his time on our platform. I went 6/5/6. One of my five deaths occurred when Ziggs and I almost killed each other, then Volibear tried to gank me. I escaped him, but Ziggs caught me with his ult. My other deaths, all four of them, were cases in which I was attempting to defend a pushed mid, alone, and three or four enemy champions converged on me. Not really a lot I can do about that, other than let the enemy team win sooner. So, I've just come back to Ranked, and matchmaking has given me yet another unwinnable game. Maybe it's a way of saying, "Welcome back." Whatever the case, I hate these stupid teammates and want to kick them in their stupid faces.

Coming back for a second Ranked game, I've attained yet another Karthus loss. This time, apparently the first and last picks on my team were a duo, and wanted to trade champions and take the mid and ADC roles, but didn't communicate that to the rest of us. So when I picked Karthus, they raged at me and said they'd report me, and also that Karthus is trash and always loses. Off to a great start. Well, we had Karthus (me), Olaf (top), Vi (jungle), Quinn (ADC), and Sona (support). They had Heimerdinger (mid), Shyvana (top), Amumu (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Soraka (support). I don't have a lot of experience laning against the new Heimerdinger. He has more burst capacity than the old one. But I once I got boots, I was able to dodge his skillshots, outfarm him, and beat him decisively in the laning phase. I had more CS than anyone else by quite a bit, and was starting to pick up kills so that I could carry. As before, my team was initially ahead on kills. I'm not going to attempt to assign blame for this one. We mainly lost because we were repeatedly failing to win teamfights, and there were multiple reasons behind that. Probably the biggest factor was their their Shyvana, who had initially not been dominating lane because Vi pressured her with ganks, started to snowball. Olaf lost lane, but there was more to it than that. I was able to beat Heimerdinger in my lane, but by initially giving up mid, the other team was able to have their Amumu help Varus win bot, which forced Vi to abandon top in attempt to mitigate that, leaving Olaf exposed and allowing Shyvana to finally start getting fed. I'm not sure what I should have done differently, but it's definitely the case that what I did do was not enough. My final score was 7/3/11.

For my third loss in a row in this post, and my fifth loss in a row in Ranked, I jungled as Amumu. I haven't been playing him with the changes, but that wasn't really a factor. Amumu is really easy to play. That being said, I probably shouldn't have been playing him. Our first pick apparently thought that, since Amumu wasn't banned, it would be a good idea to have him on our team. First pick asked if anyone wanted Amumu. We had two people that wanted to duo bot, and another person that wanted top, so I thought, "Why not? I'll jungle." So I gave the first pick Elise, as requested, and took Amumu. Our top was Garen. Our bot laners were Sivir and Taric. The other team consisted of Fizz (mid), Akali (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Lulu (support). At first, everything seemed fine. We started falling behind so quickly, I'm not even sure what caused it. My final K/D/A was 2/6/2. Garen fared a bit better at 2/4/2, but the others got killed even more (8 deaths for Sivir, and 10 for the others). No one on our team got more than two kills. We tried to hold them off, but it was a slaughter. I have to say, though, that with all the trolls I've been getting, I can't really be mad at these guys. They didn't do anything wrong. Well, they did push too much when I advised them to defend, as none of the enemy champions were visible, so they were probably setting up ambushes. But hey, I've been seeing so much worse lately that it doesn't seem that bad. These guys were actually all rather friendly, despite how doomed we were. I'd play with them again—just not in Ranked.

Well, my next game broke the losing streak. I was last pick, but I got to ADC, so whatever. We had Yasuo (mid), Fizz (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Tristana (me), and Taric (support). They had Teemo (mid), Lee Sin (top), Volibear (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Leona (bot). Things seemed fairly close overall in the laning phase, but I was outfarming Lucian and picking up some kills, so I was pretty confident we'd win (fed Tristana usually does). We started pulling ahead a bit, and it turned out that their 9/6/1 Lee Sin had left the game. He never came back, and we won the 5 vs. 4 pretty easily. Not the way I'd like to win, but I did finally pick up a Ranked victory as Tristana. She's apparently my new default ADC, replacing Sivir. I went 9/3/8.

With some renewed confidence coming off my victory as Tristana, I tried another. This time I was third pick and it looked like we needed a solo top, so I went with Mordekaiser. Our team was Cho'Gath (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Nasus (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Leona (support). The other team had Akali (mid), Garen (top), Shyvana (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Taric (support). Things weren't going too badly for me at first, but I got no help from our jungler in the entire laning phase, while the enemy jungler and mid helped Garen pressure me. At first, he couldn't do anything, but after I died three times, I stood no chance against him. And still, I got no help from our jungler. To be fair, our jungler was being destroyed too. So was bot. So was mid. It was looking like a complete shutout, until eventually Akali was too aggressive and got picked off by Lucian. Still, we had one kill, and they had a lot. Garen decided to troll our team by trying to "proxy" farm top while his team pushed the other lanes. It would have ended pretty quickly, but two of us, Cho'Gath and myself, started to pick up kills. The rest of our team couldn't do much but try to piggyback off us. They were kind of bad. Actually they were really bad. Especially our Nasus, who had a silver border, but was completely incompetent. It sounds like I'm especially bitter, but there was a very evident gulf in skill between three of our players (Nasus, Leona, and Lucian) and the other two (me and Cho'Gath). I really don't see why matchmaking would do this, or how it's supposed to actually place people properly in ladders. Cho and I tried really hard to win, but this was yet another unwinnable game. My final K/D/A was 11/7/7. I should note that despite the fact that I had the most kills, fewest deaths, and highest CS, I was unhappy with my own performance in this game. I had too many early deaths, even taking into consideration the amount of help the enemy Garen had to get in order to take control of the lane. I do not believe that I could have changed the end result, but I could have done a better job anyway.

I've tried another Karthus game. This one is, yet again, putting me perilously close to demotion. I'm at a loss here. Our team was Karthus (me), Garen (top), Vi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Leona (support). Their team was Ahri (mid), Riven (top), Udyr (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Fiddlesticks (support). I held my lane and outfarmed everyone but the enemy Riven, but it quickly stopped mattering. Garen and Riven got fed off each other and off both junglers, while our bot was destroyed. The fed enemy Riven and Vayne proceeded to demolish our team repeatedly. I tried to hang on, but I couldn't do a thing. The game lasted long enough for me to become reasonably powerful, but a Karthus with 6 kills is no match for a Riven with 20. My final score was 6/5/8. Bad for a Karthus game, but I consider myself fortunate to get any kills at all in a game like this one. My team was completely outclassed. This was just a bad, stupid game. Our Jinx, Vi, and Leona were noticeably unskilled. Yet another instance of matchmaking giving me what amounted to an automatic loss.

For my last game of this post, I'm down to 0 LP. Yay. I took Karthus against a Pantheon mid and killed him once. It probably sounds like I keep making excuses for my losses, but the dogs here all went crazy, distracting me exactly when Fiddlesticks showed up to gank me. I probably overextended anyway. Whatever. So I gave up one death and was 1/1/0. Then I got back into the swing of things and continued holding the lane and outfarm Pantheon. So far, not great, but not bad. And then my whole team raged at me because they lost their lanes, allowing the other team to roam. Since I still held my lane, the enemies were eager to put an end to that, so they harassed me and tried to kill me, but I was cautious and avoided it. My team surrendered, as I was the only no vote. Frankly, I'd prefer to have 20-minute surrenderers booted from Ranked play entirely. I know it's part of the game, and I've surrendered myself in Normals, particularly when my team had leavers. But to just give up like that in a Ranked game? What's the point? Go play Normals if you want to surrender at 20. Not that I harbor delusions that I was going to carry this particular game. All four of my teammates were feeding. But I still wanted to try, dammit. Also, I find it absurd that four players, all of whom are feeding, would decide that the reason they are losing is the one non-feeding player on their team. No matter the details, that's just specious. Where does matchmaking find these blockheads? I mean, I always hear about how terrible the League of Legends community is, but personally, I've always believed that to be mostly hype.

So that's it, then. I've finally dropped all the way to the bottom of the ladder. I want to say something here about how I could improve my gameplay and turn things around. I want to say something about how maybe I've underestimated just how much skill Gold takes. But I'd be kidding myself. Petty as it seems, I have to be honest with myself and admit that I absolutely, totally, completely, utterly, conclusively blame the teammates that matchmaking is saddling me with. I'd be happy to take responsibility for my actions in these games. I'll gladly own what I've done. It isn't enough, and shouldn't be expected to be enough.

Well, I now have 49 wins and 61 losses. I'm at 0 LP in Bronze I. It's entirely possible that my next update in this series will be about my demotion. I'm going to try my damnedest not to make that the case, but really, I have no say in that. Matchmaking will either screw me over yet again or it won't. I guess we'll find out.