Sorry Sion, but we're done

First they took away his AD enhancement, weakened the max health scaling on killing minions, and replaced his ult with the Moron Train. But that wasn't enough.

I used the new passive on his shield with jungling to compensate for the changes. I rushed Feral Flare and farmed the jungle. Then they took away Feral Flare. But it wasn't enough.

I had it all worked out. Rushing Ranger's Trailblazer with the Devourer Enchantment compensates for the loss of Feral Flare. And with Blade of the Ruined King, Mercury's Treads, and Atma's Impaler, I'd have the stats I'd need to wreak havoc. And now they've taken away Atma's Impaler. That's enough.

We're done. I've called it quits on three champions so far. Ages ago, I abandoned Karthus, but Liandry's Torment brought me back and Karthus became my main again. I still haven't touched Sivir since her second rework. I was holding out hope that Riot wouldn't ruin Sion, but this is too much. Goodbye, old friend.

Going for the Gold Part XLI: Still Stuck in Bronze

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

Not done yet, I tried some duo queue games with Scott (IMLRG). First, we had Fizz (Scott), Mordekaiser (me), Rengar (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Morgana (support). Our opponents were playing Karthus (mid), Gangplank (top), Udyr (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Xerath (support). I was able to bully Gangplank top, but he did a good job of farming as I whittled his outer turret down. Scott got first blood on Karthus, but then fell behind after Rengar went in and fed Karthus two kills. Karthus snowballed. Xerath snowballed. Gangplank lost his turret, roamed, and snowballed. In the end, I went 4/7/3 and we lost heavily.

Wanting to take another shot, we tried again, this time with Karthus (me), Jayce (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Braum (Scott). We were up against Morgana (mid), Gnar (top), Shaco (jungle), Corki (ADC), and Taric (support). I started off farming well, but Jayce fed hard (and whined about Shaco camping him, even though Shaco only actually ganked him once, the same number of times as he ganked me) and bot collapsed with Corki and Shaco getting fed. My teammates were all getting destroyed, and I couldn't keep up against an entire team. I was 2/2 for a while, but I tried to save objectives and died some more times, with a final score of 2/5/3. Team score was 8 to 38. It was a very, very one-sided match.

Being a glutton for punishment, I tried one more time. We had Ziggs (mid), Dr. Mundo (top), Master Yi (jungle), Kayle (me), and Braum (Scott) against Ahri (mid), Nasus (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Thresh (support). I got fed, but so did the other team. This actually made things pretty close for a while. Eventually I got full build, but found it hard to keep picking up kills without dying, because only Scott ever actually bothered to help me. Seeing an opening, I wanted to push mid while our opponents were down. The other four players all went for Baron. I said, "Fine, I'll recall and enchant my boots, then we'll push mid." They decided it would be better to push mid without me. They all died and left me alone to defend our base against all five opponents, which I could not do. I went 16/9/12, but couldn't solo five people (three of them being fed themselves). This takes me down to 47 LP. I'm done. Stuck in Bronze at the end of another season.

Going for the Gold Part XL: The Return of the Clamps

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

I did one solo queue Ranked game on Halloween. We needed a top and an ADC. My track record this season as an ADC has been terrible. I wanted to win, so I took Singed, with whom I've had considerable success this season. I was immediately counterpicked by the other team, using Jayce. Well, crap. Singed does have a few problematic matchups, and Jayce has generally been the worst in my experience: he can poke Singed, kite Singed, close the gap on Singed, break away from Singed, outdamage Singed, and farm while doing all of it. I let my team know that I'd probably be useless for most of the match, but that I'd do what I could. The lineups were Annie (mid), Singed (me), Master Yi (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Morgana (support) vs. Ziggs (mid), Jayce (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Alistar (support). I was able to stay alive against Jayce, but he was increasing the CS gap between us and keeping pressure on me from the start. I eventually completed my Catalyst and got a Glacial Shroud. Even when I started poking my head out and poisoning waves of minions to catch up, Lee Sin showed up with gank attempts that kept the pressure on me, but I survived and kept my turret standing. Annie lost lane to Ziggs, but Morgana was able to bully bot initially. Yi just kept on rushing Feral Flare. The combination of Ezreal holding his own, Morgana getting an early lead and playing aggressively, and Yi having farmed so much gave our team an edge in mid-game skirmishes, while I slowly caught up to Jayce in CS and managed to avoid every Lee Sin gank attempt. It was a close match up to that point, and then my Singed tankiness reached a critical point: Jayce stopped being able to bully me and started struggling to hold his lane against me at all. He proved the value of having a farmed up Jayce in teamfights, and together with Jinx he managed to kill my allies quite a bit. But soon I got my Rylai's and had Singed do what Singed does. When the enemy team chased mine, I snuck into a lane and pushed it. And when I showed up to contest objectives, we won every fight. Eventually, I went bot to push alone and the whole enemy team tried to five-man gank me. I survived it and didn't even try to escape, opting to weave around the bot lane and the enemy jungle, wearing them down until my own team showed up and forced them to retreat. Then I recalled, teleported top, and we pushed hard on two lanes while the other team was recovering in their base. That was the beginning of the end for them. They simply couldn't kill me. I went 4/0/5 and accumulated 351 CS. That brings me to 59 LP and a neutral win/loss ratio of 65 wins, 65 losses.

Queuing up for another solo queue match on November 1st, I initially got into a lobby with first pick and was all set to play Karthus, but we were requeued and I ended up with a different team. It was Veigar (me), Jax (top), Sejuani (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Soraka (support) vs. Gragas (mid), Riven (top), Amumu (jungle), and Jinx and Wukong (kill lane). At first, Sejuani was AFK, so I was pretty worried that this would be an automatic loss. Sejuani made it back though (some problem with the player's son) and started catching up. I farmed up a whole lot of Q stacks, but the deciding factor in this match was the top lane, where Riven inexplicably posed no threat to Jax, then roamed and mainly gave up kills, including a few to me. I was farmed and fed and so were Jax and Lucian, so this quickly took a turn toward domination. The enemy team surrendered just as we were destroying their nexus turrets. If they blamed weird feeder Riven, they wouldn't be wrong. I went 11/4/5. Now I have 66 wins, 65 losses. I'm at 84 LP. Silver is closer than it has been in a long, long time.

I got first pick in my first Ranked match on November 2nd. So of course I took Karthus mid. My allies were Jax, Amumu, Ezreal, and Morgana. Our opponents were Fizz, Fiora, Malphite, Lucian, and Janna. My lane opponent tried to be aggressive at first, but got caught by my Lay Waste too much for that and had to back off, which let me farm easily. Amumu's ganks helped me get ahead even more and kept our bot lane from falling behind. But top failed and Fiora snowballed. I was 6/2 for a while, then 7/4, and ended the game 8/8, with my teammates falling behind as well, but the thing that enraged me was that all four of them elected to surrender when the other team wasn't even attacking our base. We lost some jungle skirmishes, yet again, and fell a bit more behind, then they just abruptly surrendered in what had mostly been a close match. I have no patience for that crap. If you're going to just give up in a Ranked match, don't play. They also kept failing to group up when I begged them to, which was a big part of why we were falling behind, but sometimes we accomplished things that way, hence the pretty close match. I'm not mad that my teammates often made very bad decisions in this, as I made some myself and it's part of the game. But to just suddenly give up when we still had a chance? Despicable. And I was getting so close to a promo series too! Now I'm at 66 wins, 66 losses, and 66 LP.

I tried again and got first pick again. For some reason, I picked Karthus even though I just keep losing Karthus games now. He really is my best champion, but things just keep going badly. We had Karthus, Darius, Amumu, Varus, and Leona against Viktor, Garen, Kha'Zix, Lucian, and Thresh. Varus gave up first blood when the enemy team invaded our jungle, and then Leona proceeded to flame him and insist that he lose his promo. She succeeded. I tried to talk her down. Amumu ignored it at first, then saw her hide behind the turret when he went for a gank and started raging at her, which made the bickering continue. I just kept asking them to stop and to try to win, but Leona refused, saying that her goal was to make sure that Varus and Amumu lost. We stayed slightly ahead for a while, but the 4 vs. 5 eventually wore us down. I went 6/2/15. Down to 51 LP. League of Trolls.

Well, I got fourth pick, and my allies already had Akali (mid), Darius (top), and Warwick (jungle). Our last pick could pick at the same time as me, so I waited and saw last pick take Morgana. That meant I was designated to be the ADC, so I picked Kayle, of course. No one complained, although Morgana and Darius did ask about it, but seemed cool once I said that I knew it worked. Our opponents had Talon (mid), Pantheon (top), Diana (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Sona (support). Initially, our lane was pretty brutal, but we gave as well as we got. Morgana supported competently enough, but the two of us weren't always coordinating with each other as much as we could have. Twitch outfarmed me, but also died a bit more, with neither bot lane carry really doing much at first. Progress was slow as I fell behind on CS and this was one of the roughest Kayle games I've had lately, but eventually the power of on-hit Kayle triumphed, and I went 6/4/7 as well as catching up on CS and passing up almost everyone else. But it didn't really matter: Akali snowballed and scored two pentakills, so the enemy team surrendered after just 26 minutes. I'd imagine that Talon's teammates were none too pleased with him, since he was the one to drop the ball moreso than anyone else for this match. It happens, though. This takes me up to 70 LP.

With mid and jungle already settled and a Jayce in the enemy top lane, I decided to just take Sona and hope I could support a random sufficiently. We had Heimerdinger (mid), Jax (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Sona (me). Our opponents were playing Lulu (mid), Jayce (top), Volibear (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Thresh (support). This one went badly everywhere. The Lucian I was supporting turned out to be incompetent and also disconnected a lot. Jax was even worse, and Heimerdinger just kept overextending and getting killed. Lee Sin was toxic. This match was a disaster. I went 2/8/3 and could have played better in a few cases, but my teammates were always there to compensate for any of my successes anyway. Back down to 52 LP. Silver is looking a whole lot less attainable than it was yesterday.

Next up, I did a match with Ahri (mid), Ryze (top), Skarner (me jungling), Jinx (ADC), and Sona (support) against Yasuo (mid), Wukong (top), Warwick (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Thresh (support). Ahri initially held her lane, but eventually fell a bit behind. Ryze dominated top. Our bot laners did poorly at first, but they were definitely trying. Eventually, Yasuo got fed, and the only thing that was going to save this match for my team was a scorpion with a penchant for destroying everything in his path, which was exactly what happened. I got to my full build. On-hit Skarner strikes again. I went 14/4/6. Now I'm up to 76 LP.

On the 8th, I got one Ranked game in. Karthus (me), Singed (top), Sion (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Vel'Koz (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Irelia (top), Riven (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Janna (support). Fizz laned passively against me, then roamed and went for ganks on bot all the time, which let me farm up and become powerful. The bot lane became very chaotic. Jinx got an early lead, but Fizz and Riven both showed up to help, which got Sion involved, and eventually that even drew me in some of the time. Unfortunately, Singed fed Irelia pretty hard. We had the advantage for a while, but Sion and Vel'Koz did their own thing and didn't capitalize on fights that we won, while Singed continued to perform poorly, although he did eventually start doing better. We destroyed their nexus turrets, but they managed to fend us off. Twice, we got horribly baited at Baron and nearly lost. My teammates were whining and saying "gg" a lot, but we worked together to defend and were able to keep our nexus alive, albeit barely. I had full build for a while with this match. They pressured us, with Irelia and Riven attempting to sneak our inhibitors at various points, but eventually we got all of our inhibitors back up and started pushing. Finally, we caught them in an advantageous fight and pushed into their base. I kept my Teleport ready to save our nexus if Irelia went for it, but she didn't, and we finally won after 67 minutes. Irelia's teammates cried that we should report her, but I'm not going to fault someone who almost managed to carry her team and lost a 67-minute match just because she appeared to be AFK in the final few seconds. Anyway, I went 16/6/27 in this one. I'm back to a positive solo queue win/loss ratio (69 to 68) and I'm at 95 LP. Well, this is awkward. No matter what, if I win my next match, I at least get a series. I think I stand a good chance of winning that series and closing the season in Silver V. But if I lose my next match, I'm dropping in LP. I probably won't have enough time to push for the series again. The season is ending in a couple of days, I'll be out of town for work anyway, and I just won't have enough time...

November 9th will almost certainly be my last day to try for Silver. I queued up and got fourth pick. Last pick really wanted top, but picked Riven into Yorick and fed hard. "I can't jungle." Yeah, well you can't solo top either. Our first pick was LeBlanc, who did beat Diana in lane, but then went too aggressive and, ultimately fed the enemy team. Bot lane we had Vayne and Leona. Vayne farmed quite effectively, picked up kills, and kept us going for a while. Leona mostly just caused Vayne and LeBlanc to whine with her uncanny kill-securing, but in the end, she did more than anyone else besides Riven to lose us the game, refusing to initiate when our inhibitors were under attack. Having had success the first time I tried it in Ranked, I picked Skarner. I got ambushed by Kha'Zix at red early on, nearly killed him, but messed up. Kha'Zix snowballed, but I shut him down multiple times. It wasn't enough. My teammates were oblivious around Kha'Zix and simply focused him last even though he was killing them. I hoped we could turn it around with the damage output that Vayne and I had, but the other three people had absolutely no sense for teamfights. I went 10/7/12 and now I'm down to 81 LP. I really wanted to win this one, but it was not possible. Skarner gave me a better chance than most champions might have, but my team was just outclassed this time. This probably leaves me stuck in Bronze at the end of yet another season, but I'll take one more shot at that promo series.

Trying again, I ended up on a team of Ziggs (mid), Darius (top), Skarner (me), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). Our opponents had Fizz (mid), Vi (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Braum (support). I noticed that the loading screen was taking a long time. Checking back after a bit, I saw that Vi's loading percentage hadn't moved and that Fizz hadn't shown up at all. Fearing the worst, I reset my client. Sure enough, the match was underway. But I wasn't the only one it had happened to. Multiple players on both teams had experienced problems. Not having any other options. I raced into my forced late start in the jungle. My team got the better of the disconnections, with bot land snowballing. Mid got fed too, despite Ziggs also getting a late start. I was only 2/1/1 when the other team surrendered at 25 minutes in. And that took me up to 99 LP. Yeah, 99. This means that even if I were to win my next match, I would only be qualified for a series and would still have to win the best of five to complete it. That's too much. If I'd had the series now as a guaranteed thing, maybe I'd go for it. I don't know. I had other plans for today. I think this is the end. So close. Just one LP off. The clamps are back.

Going for the Gold Part XXXIX: Shaky Progress

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

Almost a week after finally being promoted, I queued up for my first match in Bronze I of the season (I had over a hundred games in Bronze I last season). I was fourth pick, with my teammates already taking Twisted Fate (mid), Yorick (top), and Jinx (ADC). Last pick had requested to either go top or jungle, so I grabbed Sona to support the Jinx, with our last pick taking Xin Zhao to jungle. We were up against Azir (mid), Ryze (top), Aatrox (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Braum (support). I tried to get Jinx off to a good start, but she gave up a few early kills and made our lane problematic, although I managed to stay alive and keep the outer turret from falling too soon. Our jungler was good and managed to punish the enemy bot lane for getting greedy, but some counterganks by Aatrox mitigated that, so I was still struggling. Twisted Fate fell a bit behind, but eventually got his ult and started helping with ganks. Yorick won his lane, of course, but it wasn't going to be enough to save us. The other team had a bit of a lead, much of it on their ranged ADC, and we needed to turn things around. Since I was playing Sona, all I could really do was look to support my teammates and look for openings. We won some skirmishes, then we lost some. Yorick and Xin Zhao started to get further ahead of our opponents, and I picked up a couple of kills too, so I was able to build some tankiness and become a bully for mid teamfight pushing. It worked. We caught up and stayed ahead, winning multiple pushes on mid turrets and punishing them for attempting to push other lanes. After 22 minutes, they surrendered. I was 3/0/15. That win gave me 26 LP. It also makes my current record in solo queue 62 wins, 60 losses. I was so happy to get promoted in my previous match that I didn't even notice the fact that it was the match that finally took me to a positive win/loss ratio for the first time this season. Well, let's see if I can keep this going.

It's weird. I started emphasizing on-hit Udyr as my main jungler, and I was really on a tear for a while. Now, I just can't catch a break with Udyr. I'm playing the same as far as I can tell, but my allies, with seemingly no exceptions, are playing very differently. They tend to back off when I try to initiate for them, and they lose their lanes and fall back into our jungle, stealing camps from me and making it even harder from me. That just happened with a new level of intensity. I was with a Zilean (mid), Riven (top), Lucian (ADC), and Anivia (support) against Zed (mid), Pantheon (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Heimerdinger (support). I just couldn't catch a break. Most of my deaths came from four or five enemies jumping on me, either when I tried to help my allies or when I tried to clear camps in my own jungle, desperate to catch up. At one solitary point I caught an enemy alone, quickly and easily killing my victim (the fed enemy Jinx). The rest of the match, I felt terrible: nothing I tried worked. I ended up going 1/8/7. While I'd be despondent, this loss couldn't have happened to a worse set of teammates, excepting the weird support Anivia, who was OK. As for the other three, they were extremely toxic and also bad players. That's a loss I'll just have to accept. Maybe I can bounce back from it. I'm not even discouraged from playing Udyr because if I'm not getting allies with a modicum of brainpower anyway, another jungler wouldn't serve me much better. Oh, I'm down to 13 LP now. But I still have a positive win/loss ratio, albeit barely.

And there goes my positive win/loss ratio. I tried. I really did. But it wasn't even close. Just another terrible match. We had a Fiora top and a Master Yi jungle. One person picked Fiddlesticks as a support and our last pick wasn't saying anything. I took Kog'Maw as an ADC. Last pick took Volibear...support? Yeah, Volibear ignored Fiddlesticks, so Fiddlesticks agreed to switch and go mid. The other team had Fizz (mid), Azir (top), Hecarim (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). Remember how I tend to lose in Ranked when playing ADC? This one was way worse than usual. Volibear gave up an early kill and generally didn't do anything to protect me, so they killed him again and then killed me under the turret. From there, Tristana kept killing me under the turret. When I teleported top to take minions there, Hecarim charged in on me and almost killed me. Then I left and got killed under mid and bot turrets a few more times. I couldn't do anything all game except get killed in turret dives by enemy champions that were way too powerful for me to actually fight. Meanwhile, Yi was off doing his own thing and Fiora was busy complaining about everyone. Fiddlesticks tried, though. So for both of the matches I've tried so far on October 19th, there's been one teammate who wasn't a consummate asshole. Well, I went 1/11/7. And now I'm down to 1 LP. My win/loss ratio is neutral. So much for that hot streak. Bronze I is beating me down harder than it did last season. Or maybe today just isn't my day.

Well, the next day I came back and tried some Ranked with Scott again. The first game saw Karthus (me), Wukong (top), Maokai (Scott jungling), Corki (ADC), and Sona (support) against Katarina, Nasus, Amumu, Draven, and Nami. My lane was uneventful, with the enemy Katarina putting too little pressure on me to stop me from farming. Wukong initially outlaned Nasus, but wasn't stopping his farm, which became a problem. But it was bot that doomed us, feeding at an alarming rate. I thought Corki had good escapes and would be a good candidate against Draven and Nami, but I think ours was just too unskilled. Draven snowballed, then Katarina, Nasus, and even Nami joined the party. It was simply too early in the game for my Karthus to compete with the level of domination our opponents had. I went 6/5/7 in the end. Not to whine, but our feeder bot lane made this one unwinnable. Even though I played my main and held my own, I suffered a brutal loss and saw my LP drop to 0 and my win/loss ratio go negative again. Damn.

In the second game of the day, we had Fizz (mid), Sion (top), Cho'Gath (Scott jungling), Kog'Maw (me), and Soraka (support). We were fighting Lux (mid), Darius (top), Rammus (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). This one was really frustrating. I was annoyed at how underpowered I seemed to be and I was raging a bit, but Scott reminded me that the real problem in the bot lane was Soraka, who was very, very bad. I'm not mad at Soraka: the player was either lagging heavily or was not sufficiently skilled to have been placed into this match (I never found out which, and I thought I saw evidence for both). Fizz was nearly as bad. Sion was initially ahead, but fell behind against Darius and played too aggressively to stop that from spiraling out of control. So we lost all of the lanes. I eventually got the damage I needed to kill things, but none of my allies protected me in any way the entire time. Looking back, I don't see how Paul was doing so well with Kog'Maw this season: I'm consistently getting teammates that make it hard for me to carry. I went 5/9/3, which was better than it could have been, considering how badly the rest of the match went. Scott held his own too, but it was a battle we just couldn't win.

On October 22nd, I managed to get back to Ranked, this time in solo queue. I got first pick, so we had Karthus (me), Talon (top), Volibear (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Leona (support). The other team consisted of Twisted Fate (mid), Akali (top), Warwick (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Zilean (support). Even in the pre-game lobby, our Sivir whined that we were going to lose. There was some bickering, I forget by whom, that it was a mistake for me to pick Karthus into Akali (incorrect), but it turned out that Akali was top anyway, so that was a moot argument. Sivir continued to complain once bot lane lost an early scuffle and our team was slightly behind on kills. But Leona did a good job of holding the lane and Volibear came to the rescue multiple times, so bot wasn't a disaster. Talon got fed and was snowballing so hard that he got greedy and bought Sword of the Occult. My own progress was slower and more inexorable, as I outfarmed everyone and picked up kills and assists from distances too great for the other team to retaliate. Eventually, Sivir started getting fed too, and the other team surrendered at 30 minutes in, concluding what had become a very one-sided match. I went 7/1/10. Well, now I've got 63 wins, 64 losses and I'm at 25 LP.

After winning one in solo queue, I teamed up with Justin (Schweizerhof) for two more games. I got first pick again and took Karthus. The rest of the team consisted of Kennen (top), Udyr (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Janna (Justin). In the laning phase, I was fighting a Fizz that couldn't kill me without dying under my turret, but he got a few free kills from Udyr making bad plays, so he came out ahead and used that to farm up and become strong. Top lane was an AFK farmfest, but the enemy Ryze was able to capitalize on that moreso than our Kennen. Our bot lane fell behind too. In the end, I went 7/4/2, but our team fell behind too much and failed to coordinate for necessary base defenses, so we lost. That took me down to 9 LP.

We queued up for another game and, yet again, I was first pick, taking my Karthus. My lane opponent was a Katarina. Justin picked Lee Sin top. He was going to switch to jungling when he saw the enemy team take Ryze, but he stayed top when he saw that they also took Nunu. We ended up with a Warwick jungle. Bot lane we had Jinx and Leona against Twitch and Lulu. Justin gave up early kills and fell behind against Ryze, who farmed continuously. I easily avoided Katarina and farmed myself, but she and Nunu helped pressure bot lane, so that was where the action was. As Ryze kept getting stronger and more difficult for Justin to deal with, I switched with him. He was able to handle Katarina while the farmfest in top lane worked out for me. After I picked up a double kill with my ult and won a teamfight that was going on in the mid lane without ever actually leaving the top lane,  I was surrounded and killed by a five-man gank. That gave Ryze the time he needed to pass me up in CS, but I came back and started killing his allies. I got fed and helped Jinx and Warwick get fed too. Justin finally got the items he needed to start catching up, so he turned things around too. We pulled way ahead and started winning every teamfight. I went 7/3/11. And now I'm up to 34 LP. Since arriving in Bronze I, I've won three matches and lost five, but technically I have climbed the ladder. Progress is shaky, but for now, it is happening.

Sion is dead. Long live Sion.

Sion is one of my favorite champions. I'm a sucker for necromantic stuff in games, but I didn't pick him up right away because I was intently focused on Karthus, an undead mage having more appeal to me than an undead warrior. But I did eventually get around to buying Sion, and then I worked on learning how to play him. I became a huge fan.

I played Sion as a tanky fighter. My runes and masteries gave me some attack speed where it was accessible and went purely into defense otherwise. My item build was Ravenous Hydra, Mercury's Treads, Phantom Dancer, Frozen Mallet, Atma's Impaler, Guardian Angel. My Sion was an all-in late game gambit, which made me hesitate to play him much, since my laning phase was so bad. The idea was that if I played cautiously and farmed where possible, I could survive the laning phase and get a decent start on stacking my bonus maximum health from the passive on Enrage. This coupled with the offensive and defensive capabilities my items provided and with the massive boost from my ult, turned me into an unstoppable force. Eventually. With infinite scaling on the bonus health and Atma's Impaler to translate some of that into more damage, Sion could outscale almost anything. But that could take a long time and by then it could be too late. Still, I did try it on occasion. I described my approach to playing Sion as going into the laning phase "like a little girl." I didn't want to fight. It wasn't about killing my lane opponent. It wasn't about denying my lane opponent CS. It was all about surviving and farming. Some players hated it, but most of my teammates wound up appreciating what I was doing, just because it usually paid off. When it failed, it failed badly, but it usually worked. Last season, I even took my Sion into Ranked play for a single match. And in that match, I stopped a push on my team's inhibitor by scoring a pentakill, and then proceeded to lead my team back from the brink. That ended up being the final Ranked match for me in the season, and I didn't pick Sion up again in Ranked this season, just because I knew I wasn't going to top that performance. I did think about it. I certainly had fun with Sion in Normals. I even picked him in a couple of Ranked lobbies, but those got re-queued.

Sion may not have been my most played champion, but he was my favorite anyway, or my second favorite after Karthus, depending on my mood. For most of the time that I've been playing him, though, I had the lingering fear that Riot would rework him and ruin him. Well, they went and reworked him. Since then, I've been testing him out in co-op games to find out if the rework ruined him. While I do miss my old Sion, I've since come to the conclusion that new Sion has his own advantages. Maybe he'll even become one of my favorites. It's too early to tell. Breaking down the rework, Sion's old kit consisted of...

• Feel No Pain (passive): This passive was basically crap. It offered minor early game damage reduction, which could help Sion survive attacks by minion waves and such. Eventually, everything outscaled it into uselessness. This was a very, very bad passive.
• Cryptic Gaze (Q): As a targeted stun, this was exceedingly simple to use. It offered some protection early on and could help win duels or catch squishies later, but the flat damage was puny and the scaling was AP, meaning that for my purposes, this was practically a non-damaging stun.
• Death's Caress (W): Again, the damage was based on AP, so it was paltry on my build. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the shield itself was also dependent on AP, so this skill really fell off. Still, it offered some early tankiness to make up for the rest of Sion's bad early game.
• Enrage (E): I took this right away, maxed it first, and always left it toggled on. In some long games, I rebound it to a different key so that I wouldn't accidentally toggle it off. Enrage gave a huge boost to Sion's autoattacks and, most importantly, allowed him to permanently gain maximum health for killing things. Most champions only get gold from farming. Sion got gold and he also got tankiness.
• Cannibalism (R): This was what made my Sion a viable choice. The infinite scaling on the E, while very nice, was too slow to turn Sion into a dominant tank by itself. But the massive boost here allowed Sion to actually have a presence in fights. It also saved me in lane, letting me heal back up after being picked on by an opponent.

It's obvious that this kit was problematic. The Q and W were extremely weak without ability power. But I knew that if those skills were fixed and Sion got a real passive, it would mean that the skills I really cared about would need to be changed too. If I'd had my way, I would have reworked the Q into a skillshot and given the defensive portion of the W maximum health scaling. Of course, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Then the rework was finally announced. I knew the damage was going to be done. I got a couple of farewell Sion games in, with the last one being a very fun teambuilder match (I lost lane, but went on to murder enemies under their own turrets). But that was old Sion. And he's gone. What about new Sion?

• Glory in Death (passive): The concept of having Sion gain massive life steal and attack speed was shifted from his ult to this passive, which only does anything after Sion dies. In theory, this passive, which lets Sion keep on being a killing machine even after he is taken out, seems good. I mean, Sion gets to keep on doing things for a while after he's dead? That's reminiscent of Karthus, my other favorite champion. But in practice, it didn't work that way. When I tested Sion, I found this passive to be like a bad version of Kog'Maw's passive. Sion in his passive form can easily be avoided and his health drops so quickly that he has no time to stay around and fight the ones who killed him.
• Decimating Smash (Q): While this is harder to use than the old Q, it still has some crowd control and also does a lot of damage. It's great against minion waves and in big fights.
• Soul Furnace (W): This inherited the health stacks from old Sion's Enrage. I was dismayed to see that kills now add only 2 health instead of 3. But more on that in a moment. As for the active portion of this skill, it's essentially an upgrade to Death's Caress. The shield now has maximum health scaling and the damage scales off of enemy maximum health and covers a much wider area. All of that means that this new version of Sion's W can continue to be useful all game, not just early on. 
• Roar of the Slayer (E): This skillshot has AP scaling, but it comes with a short-lived slow and armor reduction, which are obviously useful to have. Shredding enemy armor could be especially useful for duels. There's also the potential to launch minions into enemy champions with this skill, which could be valuable in some situations.
• Unstoppable Onslaught: This is a big, flashy gap-closer that's reminiscent of Nocturne's ultimate. It lets Sion move with incredible speed, but it's very difficult to steer. Struggling with trying to hit enemies with this, I started saying, "Choo choo, here comes the moron train."

This version of Sion seems more like an AD caster than the old one, which isn't what I wanted. Trying the new Sion out against bots, I found that he didn't seem as robust as the old Sion. Yeah, the new abilities are generally better, but it bears emphasis that Cannibalism was one of the best ultimates in the game. I had a better pre-6 laning phase, but my old build just wasn't working. Once I came to terms with the fact that my old approach to Sion wouldn't work, I pondered whether he could still be a good champion. Well, I haven't tested the new Sion against human players yet, and I'm still working some details out, but there's definitely something to work with here.

Firstly, Ravenous Hydra isn't going to cut it anymore. I got away with that as my only life steal item because of Cannibalism. No more Cannibalism means that I need to move on. But one of the main advantages of Ravenous Hydra for old Sion was that its passive and active AOE damage could be used to kill minion waves. The new shield is so much better than the old shield at doing that, so it's not much of a consideration. I switched from Ravenous Hydra to Blade of the Ruined King. More attack speed early on. I might even build a Bloodthirster too in a final build, or throw in Ravenous Hydra at some point. But Blade of the Ruined King is just looking too good to pass up, since it gives both life steal and attack speed, both of which were missing from the loss of Cannibalism. The amazing passive and the useful active are also considerations in this.

Secondly, I realized that while the health scaling on minions got weaker, it's now triple for large monsters and for kills and assists on champions. This makes jungling, rather than laning, a more tempting choice for farming up health stacks.

Thirdly, I realized that jungle monsters let Sion engage on them by fully charging up his new Q. They don't notice the Q charging up, so it easily deals full damage to them. This combined with a better shield makes new Sion's early clears in the jungle way better than old Sion's were.

Fourthly, I realized that if I was building Sion as a jungler and already putting one on-hit item on him, that it only made sense to include our lord and savior, Feral Flare.

Fifthly, I found that his new ult, while it pales in comparison to Cannibalism, isn't half bad for ganks.

So yeah, new Sion isn't a laner like old Sion was. He's a jungler. I've been building him with Blade of the Ruined King, Mercury's Treads, Feral Flare, and Atma's Impaler. Well, he's no Udyr, but I'm convinced that this actually works. Now to figure out the rest of my build...

Going for the Gold Part XXXIII: Promoted With Scott

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

Previously, I'd qualified for a promo series. And that's the point at which I left off last season before the ladder reset. I got on and did a duo queue with Scott, hoping to finally make it into Bronze I for the first time this season. The matchup was Fizz (Scott) vs. Akali mid, Singed (me) vs. Ryze top, Diana vs. Warwick jungle, and Sivir and Zilean vs. Jinx and Braum bot. Diana helped me get first blood against Ryze and I was able to bully him in the laning phase, but the other lanes fared poorly and our team was thoroughly crushed. I ended up going 3/6/3, but Jinx and Akali consistently destroyed my teammates before I could attempt to tank for them in teamfights, and we were generally unorganized.

With one loss in my promo series, I was determined. Scott and I tried again, with a team of Mordekaiser (mid), Fiora (top), Udyr (me), Ezreal (ADC), and Braum (Scott). Our opponents were Teemo (mid), Yasuo (top), Sion (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Nami (support). This was just a weird and very frustrating match. Fiora got an early advantage and became fed, but Yasuo got fed too. Neither one was as fed as Tristana, though. For my part, I just couldn't get help when I needed it. My teammates would ping, I'd rush in for a gank, and then I'd see, too late, that my teammates were running directly away from me for some reason. I fell behind and started getting ganked in my own jungle. In the end, I was 2/6/0, never once getting my allies to coordinate with me at all (even though I was in a Skype call with one), I picked up two kills on enemies that were retreating and happened to head in my direction. With that, I failed to qualify and was dropped back into Bronze II.

Only partly deterred by those defeats, Scott and I decided to shake it off and try again. This time, we had Yasuo mid, Dr. Mundo top, and Elise jungle. Scott and I took the bot lane together, with him supporting my on-hit Kayle as Braum. I'd played Kayle before in Ranked, but Scott was surprised. Well, I chose her pretty deliberately this time, as we were up against an imposing enemy bot lane in Caitlyn and Morgana. Scott had wanted to play Braum, his main, and that combination was liable to put a lot of pressure on us. I had last pick, so I took a champion that I knew I could use to hold out against that kind of harassment. The enemy team also had Xerath mid, Jarvan IV top, and Amumu jungle. I told Scott that I should be able to use Kayle to farm underneath the turret if necessary, and that we could probably hold the lane against our opponents for a long time. It ended up working better than that. They put up a fight, but we bullied them and won lane handily. Scott died in ganks, but I started to snowball and I was pretty sure we'd win. The game took a weird turn, though, with both mid-laners becoming very fed. Yasuo and Xerath were each destroying each other and their other respective opponents, so they almost cancelled each other out, but our Yasuo came out ahead. Yasuo aside, our team would have been at a slight disadvantage, but, like I said, I was starting to snowball. I went 7/4/5. With that victory, I was on my way back up the ladder.

I logged on to find that Scott had just lost his first match in a promo series. He was in Bronze I, so he had up to four more matches in his series. We decided to team up again and try to turn his series around. Our first match in the session consisted of Ziggs (mid), Swain (me), Kha'Zix (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Alistar (Scott) vs. Zed (mid), Xin Zhao (top), Blitzcrank (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). I was worried about a possible invasion, and my concern was vindicated: Blitzcrank and Xin Zhao went after our blue buff and Xin Zhao attempted to kill Ziggs, but got caught by my snare and I killed him for first blood. From there, Blitzcrank mainly eschewed the jungle, camping top for a duo lane against me. I held out and eventually got help from Kha'Zix. Bot was in trouble, though, and mid was pretty close. Twitch apologized for feeding, and eventually farmed up enough to contribute. Once that happened, I was fed, Kha'Zix was fed, and Twitch was fed. The fed enemy Lucian couldn't compete with that, and the gap between our teams grew as we pushed lanes and won decisively. I went 16/3/18. That was enough to qualify me for another promo series. It also tied Scott's record in his promo series, so we were effectively in the same spot: best of three to advance. Not bad.

It didn't last. We queued up again and somehow the client didn't register me attempting to pick a champion, so we were dropped. That added a virtual loss onto my promo series, although Scott's record was unaffected. Now, in order to advance, I had to win both of my next two matches. Of course, I wasn't happy about this. Well, after we waited for the time penalty and finally got into another match, it was Fizz (mid), Garen (top), Udyr (jungle), Kog'Maw (me), and Scott (Braum) against Annie (mid), Sion (top), Aatrox (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Thresh (support). With my abysmal ADC record this season, I wasn't particularly hopeful. Scott tried to protect me, but I died multiple times in lane against the relentless pressure that our opponents brought. Fortunately, the other two lanes did well, which gave our jungler the freedom to focus on helping us. I thought I'd be stuck behind the whole game, but I should have given Kog'Maw more credit, as that little guy can really pack a punch. I caught up, which put our whole team way ahead. They couldn't kill Braum without exposing themselves to me, and they couldn't kill Garen at all. I went 7/6/5, which isn't amazing, but it's a nice comeback from 0/4/1, so I was satisfied. This also meant that if Scott and I won our next match, we'd both be promoted.

Scott got first pick, and we decided to do the Braum/Kayle bot lane again. Since I wasn't last pick this time, we had to explain to our allies that I was going bot with Kayle, and that it really would work. Scott told them that we were both in promo series, to emphasize our seriousness about the matter. Our teammates were still apprehensive. I replied, "Trust." They didn't have much choice, so they went along with it. They took Vladimir mid and Garen top. Our last pick cycled between Diana and Master Yi to jungle, and Scott thought Yi was the better choice. Our opponents had Zed, Ryze, Jarvan IV, Tristana, and Janna. Scott thought it was a good sign that they picked Janna into Braum, but he was worried about Ryze top against Garen. That ended up working out. Garen outfarmed Ryze by a bit and didn't die to him. But it was in the bot lane that the real plays happened. Janna ran into a brush that Scott had warded, and Tristana wasn't close enough to save her when he attacked and hit her with Exhaust. I used Ignite and finished her off for first blood, then bullied Tristana for the rest of the laning phase. I proceeded to demolish the entire enemy team. Zed put up a fight, but the rest of them didn't stand a chance. I went 20/5/9. I got multiple triple kills. After a while my teammates were claiming that Kayle was free LP. And with that victory, I have finally returned to the place I spent all of last season. But just as I arrived in Bronze I, Scott left it. He's now in Silver V.

Going for the Gold Part XXXII: At Long Last, Qualified

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

I got some more Ranked games in. I had a plethora of  trolls, but still managed to account for myself in these games, I think. I started out getting first pick, which gave us Karthus (me), Kayle (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). Our opponents had Vel'Koz (mid), Volibear (top), Vi (jungle), Corki (ADC), and Janna (support). While Vel'Koz isn't particularly problematic for me, the enemy Vi was quite good and, for some reason, the Kayle player was completely out of place here, feeding with a baffling intensity. Lee Sin took to raging rather than playing the game, and Lucian, the only player besides me not to become completely outclassed from the start, was arrogant. I was initially a bit ahead on my kill/death ratio, but I purposely went into deadly situations trying to swing teamfights, which never actually worked. I'm trying to prioritize giving my team a chance to win the game, rather than just going for kills. I think I did a good job of that, but this just wasn't a game that we could win. In the end, I went 3/4/5.

I tried another game. This time, I got mid, but without Kassadin banned. Haven't seen one in a while, actually, but I'm not risking it. I picked Veigar. I was up against a Lux, and I was narrowly beating her in lane, but she abandoned the lane early and became a roamer, which worked marvelously for her, as our bot lane repeatedly fed her. I pinged that she was missing. I did it a lot. They just kept dying and then our Lucian would whine about "mia." He and his Annie support were facing a Caitlyn/Alistar lane, which didn't get many kills but was able to feed Lux and the enemy Master Yi (jungling) kills. Our Garen top decisively beat a Xin Zhao, but our Tryndamere wasn't doing much. In fact, he fed Lux some of the kills that let her get going in the first place, going for stupid ganks that weren't going to work, then getting snared and killed by her turret. There was a lot of bickering between Tryndamere and Garen. It started in the lobby when Garen first-picked, then waited for Tryndamere to lock in before switching away from Smite and declaring "top." Ultimately, Tryndamere failed to adapt and had poor decision-making. Garen was a better player, but was all in it for himself, refusing to help the team or coordinate in any way. With those two and a feeding bot lane, I didn't stand a chance. I went 7/6/2 because Veigar can dish out the pain, even with a fed Lux trying to stop him, but we lost and it wasn't even close. I called it a night, frustrated that I'd fallen behind.


For my next two games, I did a duo queue with Justin (Schweizerhof). Our team composition was Xerath (mid), Urgo (top), Udyr (me), Varus (Justin), and Thresh (support). We were facing Talon (mid), Lissandra (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Orianna (support). Our bot lane came out ahead and our mid also did better than the enemy, although top did a bit worse. But skirmishes started to go against us, so this was actually a pretty close game for a while. The other jungler did pretty well for himself, which might have salvaged the game for them, but the combined poking power of Varus and Xerath helped us control objectives. And then there was me. I revisited my characteristic Udyr farm-intensive jungle domination. I assembled my full build and was able to annihilate any opponent I caught alone. A couple of times, two of them tried to team up against me, thinking that their combined power would stop me, but I'd kill them both instead. Fights in which I could find and opening quickly became very one-sided. In the end, I went 13/4/8.

In the second game with Justin, I jungled again, taking Maokai this time. He went top as Aatrox. Our mid was Malzahar and our bot laners were Vayne and Soraka. The other team had Heimerdinger mid, Darius top, Pantheon jungle, and Tristana/Karma bot. Justin can take most of the credit for this one. He tore Darius apart in the laning phase. Pantheon made some effort to turn that around, but not enough. I earned some assists, but wasn't doing very much for my team. I did serve as tanky bait to net Justin a few more kills, though, which put him over the top. This game was marred by both Malzahar and Tristana getting one kill each and then disconnecting. As Justin dominated the match and it drew to a close, the other team whined about it being 4 vs. 5, failing to notice that it was actually 4 vs. 4. I think Tristana did disconnect earlier, though, which might have given us a substantial boost, allowing Vayne and Soraka, neither of whom did particularly well, to control their lane and then go mid with me to help win skirmishes against Heimerdinger and Pantheon. I only went 1/2/7, but that's not so bad for a generally starved tank in a very short match. The other team surrendered at 25 minutes in.

Justin took a break but came back to spectate most of my next game. It was Karthus (me), Fiora (top), Amumu (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Morgana (support) vs. Cassiopeia (mid), Ryze (top), Udyr (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Janna (support). I was worried about facing the new Cassi, but I've had Karthus vs. Cassi lanes in the past, especially practicing with Nick. This Cassiopeia player was rather bad and I was easily able to control my lane. I got farmed and tried to carry, but everyone else on my team did poorly. Fiora lost to Ryze, badly. Lucian built the wrong items in the wrong order and fell behind. Morgana fed. And then there was Amumu. He had a habit of entering my lane either just as I was returning or just in the middle of a fight. These weren't ganks. He'd stick around and get cozy, stealing CS from me and pushing the lane. Once it was pushed all the way out, I'd usually have to back off, either because I spotted Udyr or because I had no ward coverage at all. Then Amumu would run off into the enemy jungle, get ganked by three or four opponents (because they had wards), and rage at me. Lucian was begging Amumu to help bot, but Amumu continued this pattern of failing to counterjungle despite those pleas. Udyr and Ryze easily carried this for their team, with the other three doing their share to help ensure victory. I only went 7/3/13. Not bad, but it would have been better if my teammates ever tried to pick a fight when my ult was actually available.

Later on, I tried solo queue again and got first pick. Since I refuse to learn my lesson, I took Karthus again. My allies were Nasus (top), Hecarim (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Fiddlesticks (support). My opponents were Lux (mid), Dr. Mundo (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Soraka (support). Lux played passively and I was able to farm against her, which was good because kills were slow in coming. I saw very few ult opportunities, and most of my attempted ults didn't pick up kills. So I was forced to get up close and personal for this one. Fiddlesticks actually got fed the quickest, but Hecarim and I weren't far behind, and Lucian eventually got fed too. On the other team, Mundo held his own, but none of the others could. I went 9/2/5. Well, at least I finally won a Karthus game again.

I'd struggled with trolls and I knew that I was, yet again, one match away from qualifying for a promo series. I tried again. It was Ahri (mid), Singed (me), Udyr (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Braum (support), against Ziggs (mid), Riven (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Thresh (support). I actually picked Singed into Riven, which was risky on my part, but I'll explain. Riven isn't a good matchup for Singed, as she is manaless and has a much stronger early game than he does, as well as winning games if she gets fed. With the help of a good jungler, Singed is in a pretty bad spot against Riven. But I also know that most players in Bronze are liable to feed Riven kills and make her dangerous. I was banking on being more skilled than the enemy Riven, or at least on not being pressured by her jungler, and being able to survive and help my team. Singed outfarms Riven if the pressure isn't on him, and he can control teamfights. Another top, such as Mordekaiser, could potentially bully Riven, but I thought I could make this work. My choice was vindicated. A lot. Riven won a few early exchanges against me, but got tossed into my turret, which she survived, but that allowed me to catch up. Rather than recalling, she stuck around in the lane with low health, which let me take control. She attempted to coordinate with Fiddlesticks to circle around behind me for a gank, but I saw it coming and popped my Ghost. They chased me, but I use Fling. Riven used Flash to escape my turret, and Fiddlsticks managed to run away with low health. I teleported back and Riven refused to leave. Eventually, I killed her under her turret and took over top lane completely. I farmed up and was able to get Singed to do what Singed does best: run around causing mayhem so that his team can easily clean up. In the end, I went 5/2/17. And that win propelled me into a promo series.

Going for the Gold Part XXXI: Slow Progress Is Still Progress

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

I came back to Ranked play with a rather uneventful game. I mean, it was uneventful for me. I was fourth pick and our fifth pick wanted ADC, so I obliged and took Sona, supporting what ended up being Jinx. Our allies were Akali mid, Sion top, and Warwick in the jungle. I laned against Miss Fortune and Malphite. I tried to support Jinx and keep her alive, but she made some bad misplays and fell behind. It happens. Fortunately, the enemy Ahri fed severely, allowing Akali and Warwick to snowball. Sion was up against Riven top, a matchup I'd be worried about, but he came out decisively ahead. The other team had a Xin Zhao jungler who managed to pick up some kills, but not enough to turn the match against us. Warwick and Sion really carried this one, with Akali picking off enemies too for good measure. I just wandered around trying to keep my teammates healthy and had an easy, nonchalant sort of game. Warwick had Blade of the Ruined King, Feral Flare, Frozen Mallet, and Wit's End. On-hit junglers are fantastic now. It's beautiful. I went 3/1/10 in the end. The 24 LP I just got takes me up to a total of 77.

I started another match. This time, I got first pick, so I took my Karthus of course. It was Karthus (me), Darius (top), Udyr (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Braum (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Rengar (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Thresh (support). I was able to farm effectively against Fizz. Udyr went in for a gank when I was only level 3, so I stayed back (I don't take a point in Wall of Pain until level 4 and Fizz wasn't that low anyway). Fizz hurt Udyr and stuck around to go for the kill, so I flashed in and got first blood on Fizz. From there, I won my lane handily, but the other lanes fell behind. I thought we were doomed, but Lucian, who was way behind against the enemy Caitlyn, finally got going. He backdoored and lured enemies out of position. I got fed and would have carried hard if I'd gotten any help at all, but my teammates (except Lucian, who was doing his own thing that was working) practically ignored me and continued to lose fights. I went 15/10/12 and, of course, it wasn't enough. Darius, Braum, and Udyr were really all pretty bad. I don't know why matchmaking keeps putting me with these people. And I'm not saying that because I think I'm so good. It's just that while one bad game on occasion is inevitable, there's a clear, consistent pattern I'm observing here, and I get inept, bickering allies way too often. That loss drops me 19 LP, to a total of 58. The stagnation continues. Or perhaps now that I've pointed it out, I'll lose more and plummet in the ladder. The worst part of it all is that Fizz carried the other team to some extent. Caitlyn and Lee Sin got fed too, but I kept ahead of Fizz and killed him repeatedly throughout the game so much that he really shouldn't have been able to snowball. It didn't matter: my teammates gave Fizz his own catering service.

Coming back after a hiatus consisting of half of July, I did a solo queue match. I'm hooked on Feral Flare junglers now, so I grabbed Udyr. My teammates were Vel'Koz (mid), Olaf (top), Draven (ADC), and Leona (support). The other team's jungler was Amumu. Olaf was up against Tryndamere, Vel'Koz against Diana, and the enemy duo bot lane was Jinx and Lux. Olaf got off to a good start, but our bot lane struggled. I helped out a bit early while clearing jungle camps more quickly than Amumu could. Eventually, Tryndamere disconnected. From there, I mostly farmed jungle camps, occasionally putting pressure on lanes to keep my team ahead. It was 5 vs. 4 and we had already been winning, so the other team caved in and surrendered after 21 minutes. I went 2/1/2 in this silly free victory. I gained 19 LP and am now up to 76.

Work had me too busy to bother with any Ranked games, so I went on another hiatus for the rest of July. Came back on August third and jungled as Udyr. I was with a Nidalee mid, Brand solo top (I thought he was going mid, but he eventually noted top and we were able to fill the other roles after some confusion), and Caitlyn/Nautilus duo bot. We were up against Syndra, Renekton, Amumu, Tristana, and Karma. However, both Renekton and Amumu were no-shows. A 5 vs. 3 could have been an easy, uneventful game, but my allies did poorly early on and then proceeded to freak out. I just kept calm and picked up kills where I could. I went 4/1/0 and was the only person on my team with a positive K/D ratio. Syndra and Karma both got fed and were able to hold my teammates off when they panicked and tried to force objectives at unfavorable times. But of course, it was 5 vs. 3, so we still won. A bit annoying, but a win is a win. And now that I've switched to on-hit Udyr as my nearly exclusive jungler in Ranked, winning is apparently what I do. That's 19 more LP, taking me up to 95. If I win my next match, I get a promo series. But who knows when that will be? I don't have time for this right now.

Came back on September first for another Ranked game. I got first pick, so I tried a Karthus game. I had an easy lane against a Katarina. Top lane we had Vladimir against Riven. Our jungler was Vi and the enemy jungler was Maokai. The bot lane consisted of our Lucian and Braum against Tristana and Leona. The other lanes didn't do particularly well, but they weren't feeding at first either, although bot eventually did. I had enough time to farm up and start wrecking the enemy team. I even teleported in and ganked them when they chased my team, picking up a quadra kill. Of course, it wasn't enough. Lucian was particularly obnoxious, but the whole team was pretty clueless, picking fights when there was no objective for us to take or when we were split, while failing to take objectives unless I led the way personally. Vi held her own for a while, but my whole team, save for myself, became outclassed and died far too much, which doomed us. In the last teamfight, Lucian ran off by himself into the jungle while the other three charged on ahead of me into the middle of the map. They died, of course, and left me alone to defend the nexus against an entire team, which wasn't possible. I went 14/2/4, scoring more kills than the rest of my team combined. But I didn't really need them to pick up kills. I needed them to stop dying so much. They died eight or nine times each. This really was a case of that "can't carry noobs" cliche, although I hate to fall back on it. And this is why I hate Ranked. Even though I kicked ass all game long, all I have to show for it is the loss of 13 LP, which puts me back down at 82. I get the feeling that this will be another entirely Bronze season for me.

A week later, I tried another Ranked game. Guess what happened? If you guessed that I got Karthus but couldn't carry my feeding team to victory, well, it's become such a cliche at this point that you really aren't demonstrating any sort of prescience. I had a Pantheon top, Xin Zhao jungle, Lucian ADC, and Morgana support. The enemy mid laner was Brand, who played passively other than when Sejuani was trying to gank me, so I was able to hold the lane and eventually outfarm him. The enemy top was Malphite, who easily dominated our Pantheon. The enemy jungler, Sejuani, kept aggressively ganking people, which wasn't going to work on me, although I did have to flash away from the first attempt (didn't expect it so early). The enemy bot laners were Tristana and Blitzcrank. For a while, we were ahead on kills solely because I was dominating, but eventually a coordinated team outscales a single Karthus. My allies tried to do some sort of collaboration, but it was haphazard and often stupid. On several occasions, they engaged when they shouldn't have, and I died after picking up kill or two while the rest of my team perished. But they also refused to initiate when we needed it, such as when the enemies were grouping up to push down our mid inhibitor or when they were taking Baron. Essentially, the impression I got throughout this match was that my teammates, while trying their best, were of a lower skill level than me. If even one of them had done well, this match would have been a cinch. But they just kept feeding. I went 18/6/14. At the end, my teammates were wrongly going on about how the enemy inhibitor respawning stole our victory (the nexus had plenty of health left and they all dropped like flies in the fight that took place at it, mostly because they bullied Pantheon into ulting onto it long before the rest of us could get there, so it was 4 vs. 5 in their base). The enemy team was just saying, "gg." It wasn't. It was a stupid game with stupid people in it. I think I blocked most of them. Yeah, I'm bitter. This crap keeps happening! And now I've dropped 20 LP, down to 62.

Got second pick in my next game and mid was wide open with no real bans, but the enemy team had taken Jax and Udyr, so Singed seemed like a safe pick. We ended up with Fiddlesticks (mid), Singed (me), Master Yi (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) against Xerath (mid), Jax (top), Udyr (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Orianna (support). Jax didn't bully me enough early on, so I got a couple levels into my Poison Trail and took over the lane, damaging the outer turret badly and keeping Jax underfarmed while I cleared his minions by running around. I messed up and let Udyr gank me, then Xerath went for a gank as well, which he got, but not before I killed Jax. I took the outer turret and kept farming up for a while. I was annoyed to be 1/2, but the rest of my team was doing well, while the only enemy that wasn't falling behind was Sivir. That let me get enough items to initiate with impunity. Once that happened, the match that was already going our way became so one-sided that the other team surrendered. I went 5/2/9 and got 20 LP, taking me back up to 82, which cancels out the match I lost with Karthus earlier today. Not progress, but it's better than nothing.

For some stupid reason, I tried to do better than breaking even, and joined another queue. This time, it was Ziggs (mid), Gangplank (top), Udyr (me), Draven (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) vs. Veigar (mid), Riven (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Braum (support). Well, my good fortune with Udyr had to give out at some point, and when it did, it gave out with obnoxious intensity. I did everything I could, but this was not the sort of game for me to be jungling in. I got no help from my teammates, while our opponents took over our jungle. I was ganked in the jungle repeatedly, sometimes by the entire team. I bought a bunch of wards and tried to place them for coverage, but I was ganked before I could. I went 4/11/4, but like I said, I did what I could. This was a doomed, one-sided matchup all around. Losing 14 LP takes me down to 68. Oh, and this match was filled with toxic players too. Riven was fine and Draven tried to help out on our team (although his notion that I should hide behind turrets with him so that I couldn't get killed in the jungle as a jungler wasn't really tenable). And I don't remember Blitzcrank being egregious. The rest of them were jerks. Ranked is starting to get unfun again. I'll try once more anyway.

Well, I should have known. Yeah, I did another Udyr game. This one wasn't quite as egregious in most aspects, and I was able to go 2/6/5. Mid we had a Katarina that mostly outplayed Lux, but got too aggressive when she shouldn't have. Top we had a Nasus that fed Akali like it was his mission, then pretended that it was everyone else's fault. The enemy jungler was Amumu, and my teammates handed him kills too. Our ADC was Caitlyn, the primary offender in giving Amumu kills, exposing herself to obvious Bandage Toss kills on multiple occasions and then expressing surprise that Amumu killed her. We had a Teemo support who griefed us, hogging CS that Caitlyn was trying to take, then counterjungling me (at one point, I used my Smite to take blue, then ran in and got the wight down to a sliver of health before Teemo sniped it over the wall). The enemy Jinx and Blitzcrank easily won their lane, so mid was the only one that held out at all, and none of us could hope to stop a fed Akali. Not only was this profoundly unfun, but I got a lot of senseless blame for things, even by the opposing team. Ordinarily I'd think, "Hey, if even the other team is saying it's my fault, maybe I'm wrong." But these guys were just slinging insults and saying things that made no sense. I muted six people in this one, but that's probably less than average for today. I'm done. I'll come back some other time. No point in playing a game that is only going to torment me. Well, now I'm down to 53 LP. Thanks, matchmaking.

On September 28th, I was invited to a Ranked game by Scott (IMLRG). We did Team Builder with other people after that, but I did get a Ranked game in anyway. So there. Mid was open and Scott suggested I grab Karthus, but mid was still open on the other team and I didn't want to get counterpicked. Unsure of what to do, I picked Veigar in the Ranked match for the first time ever. The enemy team tried to do a counterpick of sorts, taking Zed in hopes of assassinating me out of the game. Top we had Jax vs. Akali, and our Jax got an early lead on her, from which she eventually recovered. In the jungle we had Kha'Zix (bad) and they had Master Yi (dangerous for us). The bot laners were Lucian and Leona (Scott) vs. Caitlyn and Nami. I built up a lot of CS and nuked people, of course. I went 7/4/8 in the end, which was a bit better than my teammates, but not a lot. We were actually behind on kills in the end, but won key teamfights on account of an awesome Veigar deleting enemy damage-dealers as soon as the fights broke out. I really think Veigar could be one of my go-to alternate mid laners. With that victory, I'm up to 72 LP.

On-hit builds

Ever since early in Season 2, I've been really into on-hit builds. At the time, on-hit itemization usually focused on Madred's Bloodrazor, Malady, and Wit's End, with Frozen Mallet, Trinity Force, and Lich Bane as other options (Ionic Spark was another one, although I didn't care for it much). As items were modified, deleted and added to the game, on-hit builds, which are the most item-dependent builds around, changed considerably. In all that time, I've been continuing to refine on-hit builds for my champions that I think can pull them off and expanding my roster of on-hit champions. I've finally gotten to the point where I'm actually kind of proud of some of my on-hit champions. Although I still specialize in some champions that have nothing to do with on-hit itemization (Karthus and Singed, for instance), I'm becoming, at least as a secondary feature, something of an on-hit specialist. Some of the champions I build this way seem to be in pretty good spots right now. Here's a summary of where I'm at so far. This isn't a guide or anything like that, just me expounding on what I think is working for me so far...

Kayle: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Nashor's Tooth, Wit's End, Frozen Mallet, Zephyr
I've gotten to the point that I'm confident in my full on-hit Kayle build. For some reason, full AP and hybrid are the most popular approaches to Kayle right now. I think on-hit is better than ever. Kayle's whole kit synergizes with on-hit itemization. Early game is mediocre with this and mid game is a real struggle, but once the full items start accumulating, I think Kayle can carry harder than a traditional crit-based ADC.

Udyr: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Muramana, Feral Flare, Iceborn Gauntlet, Wit's End
I got tired of feeling underpowered when I played full tank junglers and couldn't carry my teams in Ranked. Even though I'm still a big fan of Amumu and Maokai, Udyr has once again become my go-to jungler. This build reaches the attack speed cap and adds massive on-hit damage to a fast, shielded fighter with a stun. Stacking Tear of the Goddess and Feral Flare takes time, but the utility that Bear Stance brings in skirmishes buys that time.

Teemo: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Nashor's Tooth, Wit's End, Frozen Mallet, Zephyr
My Teemo build is just a copy of my Kayle build. That's because I haven't been playing Teemo much on Summoner's Rift. I don't think my on-hit Teemo has much to offer that Kayle can't do better. If I actually played Teemo more, I'd work out how to optimize on-hit effects for him in particular. He doesn't get Kayle's awesome passive, but his base AS is much better. Perhaps Runaan's Hurricane or The Black Cleaver would be good here.

Skarner: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Muramana, Feral Flare, Trinity Force, Wit's End
Skarner was recently reworked, but I believe that my approach is still valid. I need more testing. My Skarner is very similar to my Udyr. I haven't figured out which I like more for late game performance, but Skarner takes longer to start contributing, which is problematic. Even if I mainly stick with Udyr, I'll be exploring Skarner more in the future.

Kog'Maw: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Statikk Shiv, ???
I gave up on on-hit Kog'Maw after the removal of Madred's Bloodrazor. While the champion remains one of my best, I've found that a physically focused, crit-based, life-stealing ADC Kog'Maw has so much to offer late game that I hesitate to try him as a full on-hit champion.

Twitch: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Statikk Shiv, ???
He's a newer acquisition, but my issue with Twitch is similar to the problem I'm seeing with Kog'Maw. I could go full on-hit. Twitch's kit would seem to synergize with that. But lifesteal and crits are so strong when Twitch is built as an ADC.

Lulu: ??????
I know that Paul (Lithormane) has some experience with on-hit Lulu. I've dabbled in her as a full support, and she's just so good at that. I'll have to figure out if I can find a place where I'd be comfortable playing her as an on-hit champion. Maybe solo top? But her whole kit provides support functionality! It just seems like a waste to make her a solo laner.

Shaco: Blade of the Ruined King, Berserker's Greaves, Trinity Force, ???
Not really my style of jungler, so I moved away from Shaco. I've trolled some ARAM and other really casual games with AP Shaco, which is gimmicky, but very fun. If I were to seriously play Shaco again, it'd be on-hit. I really do think it wins out in the end over AD Shaco.


Diana: Nashor's Tooth, Berserker's Greaves, Wit's End, ???
I used to play Diana, but gave up on her after her entire kit was nerfed. Generally, I hybridized between on-hit and AP. Diana has a lot of options. But I've moved on to other junglers. I don't see myself focusing on Diana again any time soon.

Warwick: Nashor's Tooth, Berserker's Greaves, Wit's End, Frozen Mallet
Whenever I've tried on-hit Warwick, it's been very cheesy. But I think it could still work. I might get back to this.

Elise: ??????
Tried it, but I found AP bruiser to be more reliable than on-hit here. I think I'm not good enough at Elise to play her anyway. She's tricky and probably requires more aggression than I am used to.

Gangplank: Ravenous Hydra, Berserker's Greaves, Statikk Shiv, Trinity Force, Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer
Basically, I build Critplank. But it's sort of a hybrid on-hit build anyway. I don't see going full on-hit as being a more attractive option here, sadly.


Cho'Gath: Wit's End
When I have played Cho'Gath, which hasn't been often, I've been going tanky AP. It works. Wit's End is pretty good with his Vorpal Spikes though, and I dream of incorporating more on-hit items into that.

Orianna: Probably not
She gets an on-hit passive and has some utility that would make sense for an on-hit champion. But her shield, which is so very, very good when she builds AP, is ineffectual for a full on-hit build. When built as a mage, Orianna gets more range, more burst, a big shield, and can use her passive to threaten enemies that would press engagements against her. That passive would be even better on an AS-based build, but Orianna would lose the long-range burst damage from her spells and most of the magnitude of her shield. She'd have amazing DPS against enemies that stood in front of her doing nothing, but would be a short-range glass cannon. I just don't see that being viable.

Going for the Gold Part XXX: Stagnation

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. More recently after failing to climb out of Bronze I, the ladder was reset and I found myself placed lower still, all the down way at the bottom of Bronze V. The Ranked matches I've played so far have clearly marked me as a Bronze player. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

In solo queue, I found myself second pick. Our first pick took Kayle mid. Two more people were arguing over support, so I avoided the whole mess by picking Singed top, which was a risk. We ended up with Kayle (mid), Singed (me), Udyr (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Braum (support). Our opponents had Annie (mid), Vladimir (top), Rengar (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Alistar (support). I had to give a lot of ground against Vlad. Udyr came top to help, but didn't bother coordinating with me and I was often unable to support those gank attempts, due to being out of mana or having recalled. Annie got fed and our bot struggled, while Vladimir killed me and Udyr in a teleport gank as I was finishing Rengar off, then pushed and took my turret. Things were looking grim, but we stuck it out. I never died the rest of the match, and I disrupted enemy push attempts, buying us time. My Singed finally farmed up enough to tank, and I got myself fed, then Udyr, then Caitlyn. Up until Caitlyn got really fed, it was back and forth. Most of my teammates died in a fight, then the enemies went for Baron, getting it, but I killed two of them as they took it and made two more of them vulnerable as they fled, so Rengar was the only one to keep the buff. Our late game was better and we weren't far enough behind for them to keep us down. Annie raged and wanted everyone to report the feeder Rengar. In the end, I went 10/1/21. That win got me 18 LP, so now I'm up to 47.

I was last pick, but mid was open and I was up against a ridiculous team composition. We already had Caitlyn and Braum for bot lane, with Rengar jungling and Gangplank top. The other team had Yasuo (mid, I guessed, and he was), Varus (ADC of course), Fiora (turned out to be top), and Master Yi (jungle). So I took Karthus. Last pick on the other team was Leona. We were up against a team with almost no magic damage and not much crowd control, but the potential for extreme physical damage. Gangplank was trounced in lane and I was slow to pick up kills, but eventually our relatively sane plan of bringing a combination of disruption, burst damage, sustained damage, and utility to fights won out over the all-in physical damage our opponents brought. I went 11/2/16. Our opponents were bickering and wanted to report each other, but really, they have themselves to blame for that comp. I get another 18 LP, taking me up to 65. Not bad, but I'm a little worried. I used to be getting more LP for wins. My MMR might be too crappy for me to keep climbing. This match did even out my overall win/loss ratio, so I'm at 43 each. Hopefully that improves the situation.

I tried another match. I feel sorry for our Ashe, but only our Ashe. We had Malzahar (me), Quinn (top), Udyr (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Thresh (support). Our opponents had Annie (mid), Rengar (top), Malphite (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). I was able to bully Annie, but she farmed very well and I was wary of ganks. Eventually, Malphite circled through our jungle (which had no wards, of course), and shot in for an ult gank on me. I was annoyed at this point, but I was still only slightly behind. Then he did it again. That's the point at which I started complaining to my team that mid was a problem. No response. Even after she was ahead two kills, I was still keeping up with Annie. Confident that Malphite wasn't coming for me, I pushed out again, only to have Rengar and Blitzcrank both show up to gank me. Ashe was struggling to keep bot lane under control, and doing a pretty good job of it, but my other teammates let the enemies group up and murder me again, putting me far enough behind that I didn't have enough damage output to win against anything. Then, for the rest of the match, Quinn, Udyr, and Thresh all whined about wanting everyone else on the team to focus Annie. The Annie that they'd ignored and that was now massively fed and protected by a wall of other champions. Yeah, that wasn't happening. I couldn't get close to Annie and neither could they, but they still couldn't shut the hell up about it. Each of the three was wholly convinced that if only everyone else would magically kill Annie, our problems would go away. This whole match was some bullshit. Aside from how frustrating my teammates (except Ashe, who was fine) were, I also had numerous instances in which my spells got enemies to just a tiny sliver of health, but couldn't finish, and other instances in which my spells were easily killing someone, but Thresh or Udyr was run in and steal the last hit, keeping me from using kill gold to climb out of the hole I was in. I was considering swearing off Malzahar in Ranked play, since I haven't had much success with him. But that's not fair. This was not a reasonable test. I was doing fine against Annie when she was alone. But she got help from her teammates and I got none from mine. Woe is me. Blah, blah, blah. I might have been able to do more with Karthus in this one, but I wasn't about to pick Karthus into a very possible enemy Kassadin. So yeah, I went 5/9/10. It was just a bad game and I'll move on. By the way, it was Loss Prevented. Ha! Yeah, there were server problems last night, but apparently there were still issues, although I didn't lag myself (Udyr was claiming to, now that I think about it). So, no drop in LP for me there, but it might have hurt my MMR?

In my next game, I wound up on a team that needed a jungler. I was going to be Maokai, but I switched to Udyr at the last second because Feral Flare is still OP. I was already building Udyr as an on-hit champion anyway. Now it's just crazy. We had Teemo for mid and Yorick top. Our bot laners were Jinx and Morgana. The other team went Akali mid, Cho'Gath top, Vi jungle, and had Draven and Taric for bot. Akali tried to invade near blue buff and hit Teemo while he was acting as a ward. I gave chase, but couldn't catch her. Yorick and Teemo killed her anyway, then leashed blue for me, so we were off to a good start. Cho'Gath held his own, but raged far too much for me to feel sorry for him. Our other lanes won, so I was able to farm the jungle and do what Udyr does best. Wriggle's Lantern took some time, but once I had it, Tear of the Goddess was easy to acquire. I stacked both and moved on into Wit's End. I stayed out for a long time, relying on blue buff for sustainability as I stacked Feral Flare and helped my teammates pick up kills. Akali eventually caught me as I was recalling under a turret (because of her stupid ult). But then I got Muramana and Iceborn Gauntlet simultaneously, allowing me to walk all over our opponents. I went 9/3/9 and had so much gold. Just so very much. I'm pretty tempted to try Skarner in Ranked. On-hit is so good now. Anyway, I guess the Loss Prevented in the previous match might have affected this one, because I only gained 9 LP for winning. I'm up to 74. I just hope that my MMR doesn't keep me down.

Well, the following game was a rather uneventful win. We had Ahri (mid), Darius (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Kog'Maw (me), and Taric (support) against LeBlanc (mid), Renekton (top), Master Yi (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Morgana (support). Taric kept me mostly safe and I was able to outfarm Twitch, so things were going well for us early on. But no kills were happening bot, while top and mid both snowballed in our favor. Eventually Taric screwed up while trying to recall and Morgana was able to come in and murder both of us. I later picked up a kill. LeBlanc left at some point, and my teammates aggressively pushed mid. I farmed bot alone for the rest of the match, scaring Twitch off when he tried to share the lane. The other team surrendered while I was still farming. My score was 1/1/1. That was an unnecessarily easy win, and it gained me 22 LP, taking me up to 96.

I was going to close out the weekend with a promo series in sight, but I was invited to duo queue by someone I'd played with back in Bronze V, right before my first promo series. I tend to duo with people if they ask me, but sometimes I get burned and find myself with people I can't believe I ever added. This was one of those times. My partner picked Diana jungle to start with. So far, so good. Second pick took Ryze, but wouldn't answer me when I asked which lane. Since my duo partner had said something about tricking them into thinking Diana was mid and then countering their mid pick, I thought maybe Ryze was going mid. I took Singed top at the last second. Our bot laners were Tristana and Braum. The other team had Malzahar (mid), Fiora (top), Jax (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Morgana (support). Fiora's early damage isn't that great, and she has limited range for her attacks, so I was able to farm from the beginning. I think my Singed has gotten to be pretty good again, maybe better than ever before. But it is not guaranteed to work. In this case, Jax harassed me by camping my lane early on, and then Malzahar, after beating the crap out of mid, roamed and camped me as well. I fell a bit behind on CS, but Fiora still wasn't much of a threat. Ultimately, our loss was a group effort. Tristana was constantly disconnecting. Ryze stayed away from the team and then raged when we didn't wait for him (even though he obviously wasn't following us). Diana and Braum watched me initiate for them, then waited to fight until after the enemy team CC-juggled me and killed me. For how bad my allies were, I'm surprised that it lasted as long as it did. There were some minor blunders on my part (like running right into the Jax I knew was probably hiding in a brush), but mostly, I did my job. My teammates simply didn't want to let me tank for them. Diana wasn't the most toxic of players, but did turn out to be very bossy and said stupid things like, "Singed, stop running around." Lesson learned about playing with that person, I suppose. I went 4/8/7. This match lost me 18 LP, so I'm down to 77.

I played some duo queue games. I hadn't recorded anything about these matches and was relying on LOLReplay to remind me about them, but it is glitching out badly, so I have limited information. I might not be getting these next ones quite right. There was one with Scott (IMLRG). We had Ziggs and Renekton in the solo lanes, with Warwick jungling. Scott and I duoed bot with Braum and Kog'Maw, respectively. Our opponents had Diana (mid), Jax (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Pantheon (support). This match was a disaster. Every lane failed and the enemy Lee Sin got fed very quickly. I don't remember why things went so badly, other than the enemy Lee Sin, but they sure did. My final score was 0/5/1, which was terrible, but I had no time to get going and my teammates weren't interested in protecting me (except Scott, who tried to, but could not). My teammates fed even more. The total team score was 42 to 8. The whole thing was over in 27 minutes. Disastrous. That should be 45 wins, 46 losses at this point.

We tried again. This time, I was jungling as Udyr and Scott went Braum again, supporting an Ashe. We had Rumble to solo top and an AP Tristana mid. Our opponent had Zed mid, Nasus top, Olaf jungle, and their bot lane consisted of Draven and Heimerdinger. I know that I've said before how I'm pleased with the development of my on-hit Udyr, but I'll continue to do so. I was having some trouble getting my Udyr to be reliable, but the advent of Feral Flare has really made the build come together. Scott had a lot of trouble, though, mainly because the Ashe he was trying to support was quite bad. Aside from my Udyr getting fed, other factors turned out in our favor: the enemy Zed was bad and fed our Tristana early on, Rumble was (initially) able to keep Nasus pinned down, and the enemy Draven was also bad. Heimerdinger did get fed, though, and Nasus eventually got out of control (for people who weren't Udyr), so it wasn't a total shutdown. I went 12/2/6. This one would have, I think, put me at 46 wins, 46 losses.

Something is off. I had five more Ranked games, all of them in duo queue with Scott, and I played Karthus in all of them. But my total record is 48 wins, 52 losses. I'm missing three losses somewhere, and I think they all happened in a row, in duo queue with Scott, between the the Singed match (duo queue with a jerk) and the disastrous Kog'Maw match. I'll see if I can correct this error once the improved official match history tool comes out. At the moment, I can't remember anything about those three losses except that I think I know when they happened. However, the Karthus spree I remember quite well. The abbreviated version is that I did a duo queue with Scott and went Karthus in every game. I got fed in every game. But three of them were beyond my power to save. My impression was that my teammates were all too eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I was kicking ass and taking names (except not taking names so much, because that takes time away from kicking ass). But I still lost three of the five. Let's see, as for some details...

First game my allies were Shyvana (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Sona (Scott). We were up against Talon (mid), Fiora (top), Amumu (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Morgana (support). Scott was frustrated that he kept getting jumped on and killed, but he did a good job of supporting our Varus. Xin Zhao and I both got fed anyway and carried. I went 12/2/7.

Second game my allies were Aatrox (top), Pantheon (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Braum (Scott). We were up against Ziggs (mid), Kayle (top), Udyr (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Annie (support). This one was incredibly stupid. Our Aatrox was toxic from the beginning. Initially it was all about one of the bans Scott chose (without this person having said anything beforehand), but really Aatrox was ready to troll over anything. Bot lane was fine, but top and jungle were actively trying to lose. I reported both. I went 19/7/15 this time. We were easily ahead and would have won if either Aatrox or Pantheon, let alone both, had decided to contribute. They refused.

Third game my allies were Shyvana (top), Evelynn (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Braum (Scott). We were up against LeBlanc (mid), Kayle (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Lulu (support). I distinctly remember that LeBlanc was a good sport (even though I was able to outscale her and murder her) and that Lulu was incredibly obnoxious. I snowballed pretty hard in this one, getting full build and elixirs, then accumulating a hoard of even more gold that I couldn't even use. It just seemed like a good game for me. I was convinced that I'd be commending LeBlanc for keeping me pinned down initially, even if it didn't work out in the end. I went 21/3/16. My teammates had other plans, but I didn't think it would enough to stop me from carrying. Eventually, after we got the worst of an engagement, they wanted to push mid. I agreed, but told them to wait for my ult to come back up. I told them exactly how long it would take. I thought they were fine with that, so I soloed the dragon to get my teammates some more gold as my teammates spread out and shoved the side lanes. I recalled in our jungle and told my teammates that my ult was back up and that I was ready to group up. What I didn't notice was that while I'd been recalling, all four of them overextended without me and ran into an ambush. Scott told me that he was following them to try to protect them. Well, that was terrible, but Jinx did escape and we cold still have held out and recovered, but Jinx inexplicably turned around and tried to fight the entire enemy team by herself. That left me alone against all of them, which was too much, so they pushed and took our nexus. I get that these things happen, but I explicitly told them the amount of time it would be until I would be ready to group up with them. They appeared to be waiting. And then, in the last few seconds, they charged in without me. What more could I do?

Fourth game is a perfect example of why I still main Karthus. My allies were Nasus (top), Pantheon (jungle), Kog'Maw (Scott), and Blitzcrank (support). Scott was initially unhappy with his support, but Blitzcrank eventually proved himself. Pantheon went in for a gank on Yasuo, but Lee Sin counterganked, then attacked me under my turret, giving Yasuo a double kill. Yasuo pressed that advantage, farmed up, and Lee Sin continued to put pressure on me. Oh no! "Hi, I'm Yasuo. I'm a highly mobile, manaless, crit-based AD caster. I got my lane handed to me on a silver platter by Lee Sin. I have 400 CS. And Karthus still beats me." Yeah, despite my early disadvantage, I got full build and wrecked the enemy team, even Lee Sin. I went 11/3/24. We won.

Fifth game my allies were Pantheon (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Leona (Scott). We were up against Lux (mid), Nasus (top), Tryndamere (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Nami (support). We were ahead up until the last few minutes, when my teammates suddenly collapsed and let Nasus, Caitlyn, and Tryndamere run all over them. I went 11/4/6. That puts me at 53 LP.

That's a rocket in my pocket. I'm also happy to see you.

Tristana has been my go-to ADC ever since the Sivir rework. She's my second most-played champion in Ranked for the current season. Tristana represents the bulk of my ADC gameplay in Ranked since the Sivir rework. I sometimes change it up, but I'm more comfortable with her than I am with msot other champions. Tristana's incredible late game damage output, ease of farming, pushing power, and escape capability make her well-suited to the conservative, hypercarry approach I employ as an ADC. And my record with her this season has been 2 wins, 12 losses.

It's safe to say that these games have been holding me back. At the time I'm writing this post, I have 43 total wins in Season 4, and 43 total losses. If the Tristana games could magically be excised without changing the other results, I'd be at least one division higher than I currently am, and probably in a good position to go even further. I've been pondering the problem for a while, but I'm not sure what to do about it. Change my build? Change my playstyle? Change my champion selection? Practice more? Eschew the role in favor of ones in which I see more success? I have no idea. I'm stuck.

And just when I'm tempted to give up on Tristana, I roll her in ARAM and this happens.

I managed to salvage a game that was otherwise looking to be pretty doomed. Just an ARAM, but still, it was pretty cool. I'm not giving up on you yet, Tristana.

AP Kog in ARAM

Fuck your Spirit Visage. I have Liandry's.
Fuck your Banshee's Veil. I have a Void Staff.
Fuck your Mercury's Treads. I have Sorcerer's Shoes.
If you really want to buy, my spells will make you die.