Going for the Gold Part XXVII: Bronze II, Take II

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.

This weekend is destroying my Ranked record. I queued up for a new game in the division I just got demoted back to. I was fourth pick. The person with last pick called support. Our first pick took Jax top. Second pick took Ahri mid. Third pick took Twitch, but also said "jungle" and grabbed Smite. Seeing that we had an ADC jungle and that I was filling the carry role bot lane, I figured my on-hit Kayle would be the best bet. When my teammates asked, I clarified that I was going on-hit. So our last pick took Nami. Jax whined that we needed an ADC, so at the last second Nami switched to Miss Fortune. Now we had two ranged AD carries. And of course, both fed. But that's not so strange, as our whole team fed. Ahri lost lane to Annie. Aatrox outjungled Twitch, which is about as predictable as it gets. The enemy bot lane of Lucian and Morgana beat me soundly while Miss Fortune mostly just hid in the brush (and got killed every once in a while). Jax held out in a stalemate against Irelia, but that wasn't enough to save his lane with Aatrox there to help. My hope was that we could stall long enough to catch up with our incredible late game potential. If we'd lasted, we would have had one of the highest scaling late game carries, a second ranged carry, one of the highest scaling melee fighters, a mobile burst mage, and my on-hit Kayle That would give us good poke, good initiation, considerable utility, and more damage than the other team. But getting there was looking unlikely. I was going to try, but no one else on my team wanted to. They outvoted me and surrendered. So I went 1/5/0. I have no respect for people who surrender in Ranked games. We had a chance, however slim. And these morons just decided it would be better to give away their LP than fight for that chance. Unacceptable. Anyway, that's eight losses in a row. I lost 16 LP and am down to 59 LP in Bronze III. I'm also down 29 wins, 32 losses. I can't believe how poorly Ranked is going for me now. I'd say something about bad luck, but it seems so pointless right now.

Well, I got my first pick Karthus, and for the first time this season, I didn't get fed. We had Karthus (me), Kayle (top), Wukong (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Leona (support) against Katarina (mid), Teemo (top), Fiora (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Alistar (support). I say I didn't get fed, and it's true, but I didn't quite get carried either. What happened was that my lane opponent didn't try to roam, so I easily outfarmed her and avoided being killed. Meanwhile, Wukong got fed off the side lanes and through counterganks in the side lanes, as both junglers ignored mid. Twitch also got fed, so by the end those two had 13 kills each. Because they were getting fed, there weren't opportunities for me to get an edge by picking off enemies with my ult. In teamfights, my CS, much higher than anyone else's, allowed me to contribute, but kills were taken out from under me, even when I did all of the damage except for getting the last hit. I eventually made a mistake, thinking Leona had my back in the jungle and I got chased down and killed by Miss Fortune and Katarina while I still didn't have Sorcerer's Shoes. I also picked up a kill on Teemo when I finally got an opening to finish someone off without having it taken away by a teammate. But 1/1 isn't fed. In the very last teamfight, I was the cleanup crew. My allies finally overextended in an effort to take the nexus, and they got caught, allowing me to score three more kills. So my final score was 4/1/15. Very underwhelming compared to my other Karthus games this season. But we did win. At long last, the losing streak has been broken. I just got 20 LP, bringing me up to 79. I can hardly believe that losing streak has finally been put to a halt.

Yet again, I got first pick, and was set to play Karthus against Ziggs. Then someone dodged. Well, I got mostly the same people, and mostly the same situation, even though I wasn't first pick. So our team consisted of Karthus (me), Jax (top), Vi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Nautilus (support). The other team had Ziggs (mid), Wukong (top), Volibear (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Thresh (support). And this time, I did get fed. The enemy Ziggs tried to harass me, but I'm ready for that, so I survived and outfarmed him, then started killing his teammates. To be clear, our Jax and Jinx were also fed in this game, and Vi and Nautilus were doing a good job of supporting them, so that I got fed too, and not as hard, was really just the icing on the cake. I went 5/1/4 before the enemy team surrendered. This victory has propelled me into a promo series. If I win two out of my next three games, I make it back into Bronze II just a little worse for the wear (my MMR will be lower from all the losses, but at least I'll be back there). Still, I haven't gotten there yet. But I'll do those games before I post this update, so you'll see soon enough. I'll probably even put it in the title, so it's not even a mystery by this point.

For the first game in the new series, I was last pick, and everyone else called everything but ADC. I haven't given up on playing the role, but I'm on a self-imposed hiatus from it until I figure some things out. I have a nearly 80% loss ratio as ADC this season, and I pointed this out to my allies. First pick offered to trade with me if I could support as Morgana, but was vague about whether or not it was happening when I responded. To be safe, I took Tristana. In the last five seconds, the first pick did make the trade request, and I accepted and switched my runes and masteries to Morgana ones. I forget if I've mentioned it here before, but I've done pretty well with Morgana as a support. However, I actually play her as what I call a "fake support." I take the same runes and masteries as I would for a Swain solo lane, and I don't buy any support items whatsoever, although I do buy and place wards. Instead of support items, I buy expensive mage items like Rod of Ages, Liandry's Torment, and Zhonya's Hourglass. As a support, I get gold-starved doing this and progress is slow, but Morgana as a support isn't about raw power, but about timing, maneuvering, and landing skillshots, none of which require items. Support items would give me more early game capability, but I take the risk of assuming that I can grind out some AP items and become a strong mage for teamfights. In this particular game, it worked. My carry didn't play very well, but the enemy botlane was also technically deficient, so I was able to keep bot lane under control. It was pretty close for a while, and then I got a triple kill with my ult that let us push into their base for the first time. We didn't win right away, but they reacted poorly to losing the teamfight and never really got organized again so that they could beat us. In total team kills, the game was close up until the end, 39 to 35 in our favor. Renekton got fed, but Warwick and Quinn got fed too, while Thresh put up a good performance supporting. We only won because our opponents failed to adjust after losing a few key teamfights, clearly arguing amongst themselves instead of trying to adapt and recover, which let us win fights that we should have lost. Our Udyr gave up a lot of kills and was too focused on stacking Feral Flare rather than on not feeding. Our Malzahar came out behind and insulted the Tristana who did about as well in the game as he did. Fortunately, I came back from a precarious laning phase to wreck my enemies with CC, ultimately going 6/4/16. If I can just win one out of my next two matches, I'll be able to start undoing some of the damage wrought by the events of my previous post.

For the second game in the series, I got last pick again. They asked for Morg, so they got Morg. Specifically, we had Gragas (mid), Volibear (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Quinn (ADC), and Morgana (me) against Orianna (mid), Renekton (top), Jax (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). I gave up first blood trying to help Quinn, but shook it off, ran back to the lane, and picked up a kill when Kha'Zix couldn't quite finish Ashe off. From there, we got Quinn fed. The rest of the team did fairly well (Volibear had problems and Kha'Zix got too aggressive, but Gragas got pretty fed and Quinn continued getting extremely fed), and our opponents fell behind and were dominated. I went 6/3/19. So now, I'm back in Bronze II! I have 33 wins and 32 losses, so my MMR can't be that bad. Let's try this again, Bronze II. But not today. Some other day. I've accomplished what I wanted to. I've mostly cancelled out the horrible losing streak that bumped be out of Bronze II in the first place.

Going for the Gold Part XXVI: Instantly Demoted

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 ended my previous post on such a positive note, so of course this one has to start out on a horrible one. I just had one of my worst Ranked games ever. All nine other people in the game were just wretched individuals and I wound up muting every single one of them. Uh, it was Fizz (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Nasus (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Sona (support) against Ryze (mid), Aatrox (top), Vi (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Morgana (support). Of course I was able to push, but Vi camped me while Nasus sat around doing nothing, so I was bullied and fell behind. Then for some reason I couldn't ult. I had a point into it, but pressing "R" didn't do a damn thing. That got me killed twice, which put me so far behind I couldn't catch up. My allies fed Ryze anyway, and he snowballed and destroyed us while talking shit in the chat. I tried to get caught up, but I'd be by myself always because no one on my team would ever, not even once, go with me. The only times I'd see them would be defending our base, and also twice when they'd steal a last hit on Ryze after I ulted him and ignited him and one more tick from either was going to kill him anyway. I went 1/8/2 (with both of my assists being blatant robberies in which I outmaneuvered and killed the most dominant person in the game because he overextended, only to have it snatched away from me). But I don't even care, because this entire game was stupid. Oh well, it doesn't lower my LP anyway, just my MMR. So it's kind of a free one and I'll take it. If there's going to be some game where I hate every single other player in it with a seething rage, then it might as well be the first game after a promotion. I can bounce back from this.


And I'm back to first pick domination. Kind of. Karthus (me), Dr. Mundo (top), Evelynn (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Lux (support) against Fizz (mid), Nasus (top), Vi (jungle), Graves (ADC), and Soraka (support). That was the worst performance I've put up against a Fizz in a while, for no real reason. I was just off my game, wasting my Flash needlessly and missing Lay Waste far too much. I didn't feed or anything, but I didn't do that well either. Eventually I picked up some kills and I was 5/1/9 by the time the other team surrendered. Still, I'm annoyed at how I had two games in a row in which things went wrong for me. Oh well, it's still a win, and now I'm up 26 LP.

Well, I got mid again, but this time I didn't want to risk Karthus (not first pick), so I took Malzahar. My allies had Wukong (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Janna (support). Our opponents had Nidalee (mid), Darius (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Leona (support). Laning against a Nidalee as Malzahar turned out to be pretty easy and I outfarmed her, but all of my allies except Wukong were completely outclassed, which led to Kha'Zix getting fed and carrying against us. I could have done some things differently, but this one was pretty dire anyway. I went 3/4/11 and would have gone positive if people would stop stealing last hits on my ult kills already (seriously, first the Mordekaiser game, then this one). All of my allies died way more than that, with Wukong dying 9 times and the others even more. This wasn't a "can't carry feeders" game though, because I didn't really do that well anyway. Malzahar probably isn't that safe a pick for me. I lack experience with him. Lesson learned, I guess. That drops me by 14 LP. My MMR will still let me climb if I win a bit more than I lose, but it's going to start getting tough soon, I'm sure.

Next game, I was last pick and assumed that I'd fill and probably support. First and second pick were a Pantheon and a Kennen that both volunteered to either top or mid (it ended up being Kennen mid, Pantheon top). Third pick took Jax jungle. Fourth pick took Yasuo. There was a bunch of bickering in the chat, but I wasn't going to suffer through another troll support as Tristana, so I picked Morgana and said I'd support Yasuo. Our opponents had Malzahar (mid), Tryndamere (top), Hecarim (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Fiddlesticks (support). Of course, we were initially able to bully Caitlyn and Fiddlesticks, but it wasn't accomplishing anything. I suppose that mid failed first and hardest, but all four of my teammates fed. Yasuo was, of course, one of those players who pretends that the "meta" is just so stifling, and that it's totally productive to try stupid crap that doesn't work and then declare it to be a moral victory on account of having had fun. We still lost, jackass. I went 1/0/8. Can't carry feeders, especially when playing as a support. That strips me of my remaining 12 LP. Back down to 0 again. Thanks, trolls and feeders.

Dammit, these trolls are going to get me demoted. I tried again, but I was last pick and my team apparently decided I should be the ADC. I never have good games in that role anymore. It's getting really, really tiresome. And actually rather uncanny. In this case, it was Katarina (mid), Darius (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Tristana (me), and Soraka (support) against Heimerdinger (mid), Wukong (top), Warwick (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Morgana (support). Morgana and Twitch bullied me constantly and got first blood with a level 2 turret dive. They killed Soraka and drove Kha'Zix away, but I teleported in and picked Twitch off before he could get away. They continued to destroy us there, and the other lanes also failed, with Katarina force-feeding Heimerdinger and whining about Heimerdinger not being banned. I went 2/4/7, which is impressive compared to the rest of my team, but that's not the point. The point is that I lost yet again. I had this sinking feeling when I found out that I was ADC. I used to love the role, but I've just taken such a beating there that I can't stand it. Well, I'm done for the night, and I'm still at 0 LP. How long has it been since I won a non-Karthus game? I forget. The optimism of my previous post seems so distant now, and I'm all melancholy and crap. Maybe I can turn this around tomorrow...

Nope. Enemy team banned Kassadin, so I got my Karthus mid, but our captain didn't ban Yi because he was going to be able to totally destroy Yi. Guess what? It didn't happen. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you! It was Karthus (me), Alistar (top), Xin Zhao (jungle and totally going to get around to beating Yi at some point), Lucian (ADC), and Vel'Koz (support). Our opponents had Mordekaiser (mid), Renekton (top), Master Yi (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Morgana (support). I went 8/5/10, with all four of my allies dying way more and killing considerably less. Vel'Koz raged at Alistar in the pre-game lobby for picking a support and continued to rage constantly throughout the entire match, and in the post-game lobby too. Xin Zhao and Lucian folded after taking a beating and kept trying to surrender. Alistar never said anything. I was the only one who seemed to want to win. So yeah, that's another loss at 0 LP. This is driving me crazy. And this is why you ban Yi. This is why you ban Yi. This is why, this is why, this is why you ban Yi.

I tried a duo queue with Justin (Schweizerhof). I got first pick, but I messed up. He'd asked to mid, but was last pick. I asked if he wanted me to pick a mid for him, but he asked if I had LeBlanc, and I did not. So instead of just taking mid and relying on my Karthus to carry, I first picked Amumu and jungled. We ended up with Morgana (mid), Tryndamere (top), Amumu (me), Lucian (Justin), and Nidalee (support). Our opponents had Kayle (mid), Lee Sin (top), Rammus (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Pantheon (support). Morgana was dominated mid, but would spam pings all over me whenever I showed up to try to help, asking nonsense like, "Are you blind?" or whatever. It made no sense. Usually they were retreat pings, and I was demonstrably in no danger whatsoever, but she kept doing it. At one point, after doing that enough times that I swore off helping mid and started to head bot, Morgana demanded that I cover mid. Since I didn't, she raged at me even more. Then she raged at me for taking my second blue buff, and for every fight she was in after that in which she didn't have blue buff, even if I didn't either. Tryndamere was almost as bad. Initially, he tried to do the whole annoyingly proactive team player bullshit, saying how we needed to stay positive and not give up, meanwhile minions hadn't even spawned yet. He then overextended constantly and died a lot. He also complained in a roundabout way by using hypotheticals. Instead of asking for help, he'd wait until he died, then ask questions along the lines of, "If there are four of them top, why are the other lanes frozen?" Yeah, yeah, and if a train leaves Boston at stop doing that and talk like a normal person. So yeah, with such a disadvantage, our team was dominated and we were defeated in short order. Just kidding! I was all over the enemies, thwarting them in fights and generally being an engine of total destruction. I went 8/3/6. We still eventually lost, and I was pretty annoyed, but I took a break and got over it before proceeding. Maybe I'll get demoted, but I don't need to be livid about it. Losing streaks happen.

It's a good thing that I was determined to be calm for my next match, because this keeps happening. I got first pick, and with that I had some hope that my losing streak was about to end. My team was Karthus (me), Teemo (mid), Shyvana (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Lulu (support). Our opponents had Kha'Zix (mid), Riven (top), Elise (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). Of course, I wasn't about to let Kha'Zix kill me, and I even managed to eventually surpass his CS. Unfortunately for our team, the enemy Elise was quite good. She attacked me and kept me from getting ahead in the laning phase, counterjungled and killed Shyvana, and put pressure on Teemo to stop him from beating Riven in lane. She had her work cut out for her, but she didn't spend much time bot, which was her undoing because—just kidding: we had "first time Twitch" who couldn't do anything except feed and bitch. I could see that I wouldn't get fed quickly enough to save my team. Once I did get fed, we caught up and were ahead on kills overall. I urged caution, pointing out that we had strong late game potential if we could play safely and get there. Right after I did that, my allies charged in and fed. Yeah, I'd have been pretty mad, but I'd told myself to remain calm and focus on the things I could control, so instead of being mad, I was absolutely flipping the fuck out. But not in the chat or anything. No point in raging at my teammates for doing the opposite of the thing that I told them to do, right after I'd said it. No, I didn't rage in the chat until Twitch started hurling blame at others for throwing. In the end, I was 9/3/11. As usual in these losses, my teammates each had twice as many deaths as I did, or even more than that. But complaining about my terrible teammates will get me nowhere. So I'll just chill out and try again. After all, what are the odds that I'll actually be demoted back down to Bronze III?

Apparently, those odds are pretty good! I was last pick, but by this point I'd stopped caring. My teammates asked me to jungle. Sure! In fact, I'll even communicate with you and ask what sort of jungler you'd prefer? Tanky? Well, they already picked Amumu, but I have Maokai? Perfect, you say? Oh, that's good. Well, we had Viktor (mid), Renekton (top), Maokai (me), Jinx (ADC), and Thresh (support) against Mordekaiser (mid), Teemo (top), Twitch (ADC), and Nidalee (support). Of course, our Viktor wasn't prepared for Mordekaiser at all and was bullied constantly. Renekton was also outplayed by Teemo, and our bot lane started failing too. If only they had a jungler to babysit them. Oh wait, they did! Yes, I did it. I somehow managed to babysit those lanes. I even got fed. It wasn't enough, mainly because they just kept dying. I didn't want to harass them, but it sure seemed like they should have learned which things were killing them and to stop letting those things kill them. Or maybe that's just crazy talk. So yeah, I went 5/1/7. And K/D/A isn't everything, or else I wouldn't be in this predicament, but the two next best on my team were Viktor with 5/8/4 and Thresh with 3/7/6. I tried, but I just couldn't keep these guys alive. And with that defeat, I've been demoted to Bronze III.

I saw this coming far back enough that I'm not truly upset over it. I know I have to take it in stride or whatever. Losing streaks happen, and this one happened with attitude. After being promoted to Bronze II, I lost a game, won a game, and then lost seven consecutive games. I got fed in most of them, but a loss is a loss, especially as far as the ladder is concerned. Maybe it also helps that this was what was happening to me all last season, so I'm not surprised by it. Still, I can't help being just a little bit heartbroken by this. I mean, I was off to such a bad start, and then I rocketed through the ladder, getting promoted back to where I'd started off last season. I was, perhaps irrationally, thinking of everything that happened in this whole season as prologue, as preliminary. I was finally back to my original starting point and I was going to advance further than I ever had. I was going to tear through Bronze II like I had the other divisions before it, and get my second shot at the formidable Bronze I ladder with its devastating clamps. Well, my imagination got the better of me, and none of that happened. Dammit! If I'd won and lost games for a while and eventually lost more than I'd won and been demoted, that would be something. I'd have been beaten by attrition. That happened last season, and I chalked it up to ridiculous luck (because it couldn't possibly be my fault), dusted myself off, and tried to make the climb back up. But to get my promotion and then go right back down? Now I'm depressed. I'm depressed by a game. I've told myself that I'm stubborn and that I won't give up no matter what matchmaking throws at me. I still think that. And yet, thinking about how this is a game and that it's so depressing, I can see why Nick left (well, the time drain was the main reason, but other than that, I mean). This is a hobby. Persisting in a trivial hobby if it's depressing you has got to be some sort of pathological something. So now what?

Going for the Gold Part XXV: Right Back Where We Started From

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.

First match in promo series. First pick. This will be one down, one to go. Karthus (me), Jax (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Jinx (ADC), Nidalee (support). And we're up against Vel'Koz (mid), Shyvana (top), Warwick (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). I outfarm Vel'Koz from the start, but the enemy team works to end the laning phase early by forcing fights at Dragon and using Warwick to bully the side lanes. For a long time, I can't pick up kills, but do I worry? No, I am Karthus. So I go 14/3/12 and carry us to victory. I mean, having Jarvan to tank for me was helpful, and Jinx eventually snowballed after I already had, so she made the last few teamfights easy. But basically, it was another Karthus domination. Jarvan invites me to duo. Hell yes, this guy was good in our game, so I'll give it a shot.

I took a chance and grabbed Karthus when Kassadin was still open, a rule I never usually break. It paid off this time, and we got Karthus (me), Shyvana (top), Amumu (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Blitzcrank (Enderhunter, my duo queue partner, supporting). The enemy team had Fizz (mid), Jax (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Alistar (support). Kha'Zix helped Fizz, but I managed to kill Fizz with my ult every time they killed me, so I didn't fall behind and actually outfarmed him and outscaled him as I'd hoped. The other lanes were behind at first, but eventually Vayne got fed and I got fed, which was far too much for the other team to handle, and we won decisively. I went 11/4/13. And with that victory, I'm not in Bronze II.

I'll get back to Ranked play this weekend for sure, since it's a double IP weekend. But I'm pausing for now to relish the fact that I've finally cancelled out my placement matches for this season. I started last season in Bronze II, made it to Bronze I, got demoted, and closed the season in Bronze II. Everything up to this point has just been climbing back to where I'd been last season. And I intend to surpass last season, hopefully by a lot. Two more promotions and I'm in Silver. Things are looking good.

Going for the Gold Part XXIV: Getting Back to My Roots

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.

On the 23rd, I queued up for some Ranked games with Paul (Lithormane) again. First match, we had Vel'Koz (Paul soloing mid), Yasuo (top), Amumu (me jungling), Lucian (ADC), and Leona (support). The enemy team consisted of Ziggs (mid), Mordekaiser (top), Udyr (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Sona (support). We got off to a good start fighting off an attempted invasion. Paul had some setbacks, but came back stronger and won his lane. The enemy Mordekaiser was terrible and our fed Yasuo ended up carrying anyway. It still took a while and the enemy Ziggs, Varus, and Udyr held their own. But Mordekaiser's feeding gave us a lead and we used that lead to win decisively. I went 4/4/11. Paul went 10/9/9. This game launched Paul into a promo series.

We tried a duo bot lane. It was Vel'Koz (mid), Poppy (top), Shyvana (jungle), Jinx (Paul), and Leona (me) against Talon (mid), Olaf (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Annie (support). Unfortunately, this was one of my worst Leona games and also one of Paul's worst Jinx games. To make matters worse, our other lanes failed too. Talon roamed bot and helped them beat us up even more. Poppy raged and ended up going AFK, but our whole team was thoroughly trounced. My final score was 1/6/2. Not a good way to start a promo series.

We attempted duo bot again. The lineup was Nidalee (mid), Lulu (top), Volibear (jungle), Kog'Maw (Paul), and Sona (me) against Morgana (mid), Kassadin (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Thresh (support). This was a very weird game. We were fine at first, but fell behind bot lane as the laning phase progressed. Lulu won lane, but Nidalee lost lane badly. In skirmishes, we finally started to catch up. Well, I did. I began picking up kills and managed to avoid dying. In fact, I scored more kills than anyone else on our team, and had fewer deaths. Paul got some kills, but we couldn't protect him in teamfights and he couldn't catch up. I should have played Alistar like we'd originally planned. He opted to split push, knowing he'd just get killed in fights. As a team, we were behind and it was looking bad, although not hopeless. With everyone alive, Lulu snuck top lane with Paul to help backdoor while the other three members of our team engaged all five enemies in our bot lane. They took our inner turret and tried to back off, which I thought was in attempt to save their base from Paul. We pressed them, killing Thresh, but losing Nidalee and Volibear. Instead of trying to recall and save their base in a 4 vs. 2 fight, they chased me. By this point I had Muramana and Zhonya's Hourglass, so I was able to make it into our base, where they struck the final blow to kill me just before Paul destroyed their nexus. I went 7/3/7. Paul went 6/10/6. He was annoyed that we won by enemies being stupid, but hey, it worked. My Sona is just so irresistible that people would rather use four champions to kill her than recall and avoid losing.

Paul needed just one more win to advance into Silver III. He wanted to ADC again, but not to play Kog'Maw after what happened in the last match. So we wound up with LeBlanc (mid), Malphite (top), Wukong (jungle), Tristana (Paul), and Sona (me). Our opponents were Kassadin (mid), Lee Sin (top), Evelynn (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Nami (support). Paul enjoyed trying to bait our lane opponents into diving, but it was a stalemate bot lane until Wukong helped us, after which we easily took the lead. Our mid failed pretty badly though (people are way too flippant about not banning Kassadin anymore), so it was a close match for a while. We lost an inhibitor, fell behind on kills, and started losing more objectives. But I was Sona, so I took matters into my own hands, killed some people, and we pushed into their base and won despite having been behind on kills and objectives. I went 5/2/14. Paul went 9/6/11. He's now in Silver III. I'm at 85 LP in Bronze III, so I'll have to see what the next few matches hold, as I may or may not get a promo series before filling in this post.

I tried a solo queue game, hoping to win and get a promo series. My teammates were weird in the lobby and didn't make much sense most of the time, but none of them seemed to want to jungle and I was far down in the pick order (fourth, I think), so I grabbed Udyr and decided to try the new Wriggle's Lantern on him. Yeah, experimenting in Ranked. I know, I know. But it worked pretty well. I cleared camps very quickly and I got fed. So did the other team. We had Katarina (mid), Shen (top), Udyr (me), Draven (ADC), and Thresh (support) against Malzahar (mid), Renekton (top), Jax (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Alistar (support). Actually, in this match, the bot lanes were bad on both sides, so they cancelled each other out. But our mid and top were beaten badly, and that was enough. Fed Udyr is strong, especially with Feral Flare, Muramana, Iceborn Gauntlet, and Wit's End. Fed Renekton, Jax, and Malzahar all working together are even stronger. I went 8/5/10 and prolonged the inevitable by becoming such a bruiser, but it wasn't nearly enough. That's dropped me 15 LP, down to 70.

For my next match, I was last pick, and forced to support as usual. That's not so gloomy as it was last season: I am now apparently a wrecking ball with Sona. My team was Katarina (mid), Nasus (top), Master Yi (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Sona (me). The enemy team consisted of Lux (mid), Tryndamere (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Leona (support). Our lanes got stomped, and Yi got killed a few times in the jungle. With the enemies all getting fed, my teammates whined that it was "gg" early on (because people can't seem to remember what that actually means). And so I adopted my typical Sona approach of "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." This actually caused Yi to rage, because even though he had no kills before I started picking them up, he somehow thought every single one I was getting while he was anywhere on the map was stolen from him. He said he was quitting. Repeatedly. But he stuck around. Katarina had a different outlook, asking me to carry the team. We kept fighting, and eventually Katarina snowballed, while Nasus and I tanked. It was actually a pretty incredible comeback. With a fed Trydamere and exposed nexus turrets for so long, I wasn't sure we'd actually pull it off, almost up until the very end. But we did. And I mean "we." I don't want to be cocky about this. If Katarina had been bad, she wouldn't have been able to snowball. Nasus was competent enough to tank for us in the end, compensating for having fed Tryndamere. Yi is overpowered and that damage did help us in fights. And even Lucian managed to chip in. It's not like I could have done this if my allies had been complete feeders the whole time. And I build Sona more as a tank than as a dedicated killer. All that being said, I did go 8/1/36. This win has given me 24 LP. Now I'm up to 94, so I still need another win to secure a promo series.

After a break, I logged on and joined Scott (IMLRG) for Ranked games. As fourth pick, I grabbed ADC and went Tristana. That gave us Anivia (mid), Cho'Gath (Scott soloing top), Malphite (jungle), Tristana (me), and Leona (support) against LeBlanc (mid), Garen (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). I was worried, especially when Leona stayed behind our turret, unmoving until well after fighting had started. She kept standing around, doing nothing while I struggled against two opponents. Garen overwhelmed Scott, and LeBlanc devastated our Anivia. Malphite did well, though. Leona inexplicably raged at me for not being able to easily solo bot, so she abandoned me and went top, to the consternation of our team. Scott helped me survive bot, and I did get fed, but Leona fed enough on her own to make up for that. I had the damage output we needed, but my teammates refused to protect me, because apparently losing was a more attractive option than helping me help them. I went 9/7/4, with almost all of my deaths coming late into the match from LeBlanc bursting me down. Scott went 2/7/9. I forget how many times our Leona died and I'm not inclined to watch the replay to find out, but it was a whole hell of a lot. I think our whole team reported her, as it was really out of hand. After the last bit of barely intelligible rage before ditching me, she stopped communicating with the team and fed constantly, so that seems pretty egregious. This loss bumped me down to 78 LP. I just can't catch a break as Tristana.

We tried again, this time with Nidalee (mid), Singed (me), Master Yi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Annie (Scott supporting). Our opponents had Ryze (mid), Renekton (top), Evelynn (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Lulu (support). Renekton, especially with an Evelynn jungler to back him up, had me worried, but I survived and eventually outfarmed him and took his outer turret when he tried to roam. We spent a lot of time just farming top and holding the lane, as neither of us could kill the other. His team was doing better without him than mine was without me, so I was annoyed, but couldn't think of a solution. The problem solved itself: a farmed Singed is a late game monstrous tank that can force-feed his teammates. So I did. My final score was 0/0/12. Scott went 2/9/11, loyally supporting our struggling Jinx to the end, with her finally getting fed thanks to my disruption of the enemy team, which was good because Yi wasn't really doing that well for us and we needed more damage in fights. Kills? I don't need them. I pushed lanes, controlled objectives, wiped out minions, and brought the CC. So glad to have my old Singed back. He could become one of my default Ranked champions. It's actually kind of amusing for me to think about it, but last season I relied heavily on champions like Sivir, Kassadin, and Mordekaiser, but struggled and didn't get anywhere. In contrast, although I've started out a lot lower this season, I'm falling back on some of the first champions I ever had, Singed, Tristana, and Sona. I'm getting back to my roots and, other than the horrible luck I've been having with Tristana, it's working out very nicely. That victory did it. I now have another promo series. If I win two out of my next three matches, I'll be in Bronze II.

Going for the Gold XXIII: Now With More Tristana Failure

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.

For my first game in Bronze III, I had third pick. The enemy team had a Ziggs and no one on my team had even mentioned mid, so I figured I might as well take it. I was tempted to grab Kassadin, but the nerfs combined with the fact that I was undefeated with him last season and hesitate to break from tradition by losing with him caused me to take the safe option instead: I know I can hold a lane against Ziggs with Karthus. We had Karthus (me), Xin Zhao (top), Master Yi (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Thresh (support). The other team had Ziggs (mid), Pantheon (top), Vi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). I easily held my lane despite harassment from Vi, but I couldn't snowball with kills using my ult, so I was stuck farming while the other lanes failed. Our Xin Zhao was never really useful, although Caitlyn and Thresh, floundering early on, eventually caught up and did moderately well for themselves. None of it mattered, though. Feral Flare is completely overpowered and our Yi did what Yi always does since the advent of Feral Flare. In my duo queue games with Paul, we were able to, with considerable planning and coordination, stop Feral Flare Yi from carrying. My opponents in the game, however, could not do that. I can see why not: it's pretty tough to pull off. Yi picked up two pentakills and snowballed so much that it was an easy win. I went 6/1/6, which isn't really remarkable. But hey, Yi's practically a mandatory ban again and people should realize that.

I catch a break with Tristana. Well, maybe I would if I played her in games that were more favorable. As soon as I saw the Yi on the other side, I figured my only chance as ADC would be to use Tristana's capacity to escape. It was Fizz (mid), Jax (top), Amumu (jungle), Tristana (me), and Sona (support) against LeBlanc (mid), Jayce (top), Master Yi (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Lulu (support). I tried. I really did. But the enemy bot laners were actually pretty good, and my support was not. She kept getting caught. She apologized for it, rather than blaming it on me, which was a nice change. And then, of course, Yi snowballed and our team was dominated. I went 3/6/1, with most of my deaths being against the inescapable Yi. I could ult him, Rocket Jump away, and he'd still catch me and kill me. I raged pretty hard.

In my next match, I was fourth pick, but last pick wanted ADC over support, and I accommodated that. I'm such a nice guy! Fortunately, Yi was banned this time (our first pick was smart, and ended up carrying us). We had Kha'Zix (mid), Fizz (top), Nocturne (jungle), Draven (ADC), and Alistar (me) against Yasuo (mid), Aatrox (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Soraka (support). I'm not particularly proud of this one. Our bot lane failed hard, although it was actually 3 vs. 2 much of the time and our jungler never showed up to help us. But that meant I was an underleveled tank trying to help turn around a losing game. I did what I could, but I just wasn't strong enough yet. Kha'Zix saved us, jumping onto enemy champions and destroying them. That bought us the time we needed for me to get tanky. It was still a close game, but my initiations gave us an advantage, and Draven was finally catching up too, although Kha'Zix was most of our damage output. Pretty close, but I should have done better. I went 3/4/27.

 I feel bad about this Ranked game. I queued with Scott (IMLRG). He had first pick, and took Jax. Mid was open, and I saw the enemy team take Fizz, so I picked Karthus, knowing I could probably survive to carry. Our full lineup was Karthus (me), Jax (Scott), Vi (jungle), Draven (ADC), and Lux (support). Our opponents had Fizz (mid), Garen (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Sona (support). Before minions spawned, I warned my allies that Fizz would try to roam, and to be ready for it. When I started laning, it turned out that my opponent didn't know what to do. I thought maybe I was up against a really bad Fizz. He seemed to be trying to make me extend for a gank, but really he just let me farm. I was well-positioned to carry, but unfortunately, things were a disaster everywhere else. Garen was destroying Scott, and the enemy Jarvan helped win bot lane. I didn't have enough items to start carrying, but I fought anyway because there was too much pressure for me to be able farm safely. It was looking like I was our team's only hope, and a slim one at that. I was 5/0/0 and easily outfarming everyone else on both teams. But the total team K/D ratio was 9/19 in our opponents' favor, and three of our turrets were down. Just after I'd picked up a double kill, between mid lane and the bot river, I backed up to recall, hoping I could help my allies, who were trying to fight a push by the other three enemies on our top inhibitor turret. And then I disconnected. My internet completely cut out. That was about 20 minutes in. I tried resetting the modem repeatedly, but we have no internet service now, for whatever reason. It's after midnight, and I couldn't call the ISP anyway, because it's not my account and I don't even know the number. So now I'm typing this, about 45 minutes into the game, seeing everything frozen in the state it had been in when my internet abruptly shut off. My team has long since lost by now. So yeah, for the first time, I've been that guy who disconnects in a Ranked game without returning. It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose, since no internet connection is 100% reliable 100% of the time. But yeah, this sucks. Sorry, Scott. I tried, but nothing worked. It turned out that Comcast had a service outage: I was without internet for about twelve hours.

I later queued up with Scott again for some more Ranked games. In the first of these, we had Morgana (mid), Akali (top), Master Yi (jungle), Tristana (me), and Alistar (Scott) against Malzahar (mid), Lee Sin (top), Pantheon (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Volibear (support). Scott had trouble against Volibear, but he managed to protect me and I did get ahead on CS initially. We were camped by Pantheon, though, and our own jungler turned out to be useless (I'm used to thinking that Yi is easy to play, but apparently it's possible to fail dramatically with him). Our AD Akali solo top fed Lee Sin harder than I've seen anyone feed in a while, and Lee Sin easily carried the game. I ended up going 2/4/0. Three of my deaths were to Lee Sin. Poor Scott went 0/8/4.

Then we got an even more messed up game. Someone declared "mid or AFK." Well, another person took mid and then the troll picked Sona, but still went mid. That meant we had a duo mid and I was left to solo bot as Tristana, which is a depressing circumstance. I did what I could with it, but that's only so much. Our lineup was Karma (mid), Sona (mid), Jax (Scott), Fiddlesticks (jungle), and Tristana (me soloing bot). The other team had Akali (mid), Warwick (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Morgana (support). Our Fiddlesticks was a very toxic player and not particularly helpful, but got fed because our opponents tried to duel him and then failed to focus him in teamfights. Ultimately, I went 14/11/11. Scott was ahead at first, but ended up going 7/17/16.

For the third game in a row, I found myself filling the ADC role. I used to think it was one of my better roles, and I've commented on that before. I can't really justify that right now, considering my 80% loss ratio with Tristana this season. Yes, we lost again. This one took me down to 0 LP and demoted Scott. Frustrating. Our team was Ahri (mid), Jax (top), Vi (jungle), Tristana (me), and Alistar (Scott). The enemy team consisted of Xerath (mid), Olaf (top), Warwick (jungle), Corki (ADC), and Lux (support). I held my own, but Xerath got fed and nuked my team. I went 8/7/5 in this one. Scott went 2/8/9. Although it wasn't as egregious as the previous matches, it was another case of mid and jungle both failing hard and fast enough that I couldn't do anything about it. So yeah, three Ranked Tristana losses in a row and my record with her this season is 2 wins, 8 losses.

We tried one more Ranked game. This time, I got first pick. Free LP, guys. It was Karthus (me), Teemo (top), Nunu (jungle), Sivir ADC), and Blitzcrank (Scott) against LeBlanc (mid), Xin Zhao (top), Nocturne (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Alistar (support). I was pretty annoyed at the fact that, despite not letting LeBlanc kill me while also occupying her attention so she couldn't roam much, my lane opponent got fed anyway because everyone else on the team underestimated her damage. Don't worry: I still wrecked them eventually. After all, I was playing Karthus. I went 11/5/11. Scott went 2/12/12 (our bot lane struggled the whole time, but I won't complain, as they demanded enough attention that Teemo and I could use the opportunity to get fed). That win took me back up to 25 LP.

Going for the Gold Part XXII: Strut That Ass Into Bronze III

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 updated my introductory paragraph. Take a look. That my Season 3 placement matches put me in Bronze II, way higher than I am currently, no longer seems particularly relevant. But I didn't want to rewrite the whole thing because Season 3 is where this journey started, even if I took one step forward and four steps back at the beginning of Season 4. It's starting to seem naive to think that I could actually make Gold, since I couldn't make Silver last season and I'm on track to repeat that performance this season. Actually, I should say a little something about that. I have played nearly 150 Ranked games so far, which is a pretty good sample. I've now, through placement matches, landed in Bronze twice. All of my games have been in Bronze. I've been demoted about as much as I've been promoted. Based on all that, it's unrealistic for me to deem myself a Gold player who's just down on his luck. The math doesn't bear that out. And yet, I'm keeping at this. Here's why...

1. I've played with Gold players who I think were worse than me.
2. I have reason to suspect that climbing Silver may actually be easier for me in some ways than climbing in Bronze (but that's a topic for another time).
3. I'm having fun. I see this as a challenge, and so it's something that makes the game fresher and more appealing to me. Ranked games can be incredibly frustrating, but they also provide an environment where I'm challenged to play my best.
4. I'm stubborn and egotistical.
5. I'm optimistic because of the games that happened in this update. Oops, spoiler alert?

So, despite an agonizing second game in my promo series, my last update was pretty positive. I dominated some games as Karthus, and I climbed into Bronze IV. Well, I'm starting this new update continuing that note of triumph: I just won my first game in Bronze IV. Also, I've now played five Karthus games in a row (excluding non-Ranked games), and won four of them. See, this is what happens when people let me play the Deathsinger! I'm happy about this latest match, but I can only be so happy about it, because it was actually a bit much: all of my teammates did well and our opponents weren't very good. I mean, yeah, I still carried: 11/2/10 with by far the highest CS on either team. But our team K/D ratio was 40/15. It went something like this. I had third pick, and our team banned Tryndamere, Amumu, and Blitzcrank, while the other team banned Leona, Jax, and Fizz. Our lineup was Karthus (me), Volibear (top), Aatrox (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Soraka (support). The enemy team had Katarina (mid), Lee Sin (top), Master Yi (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Morgana (support). This was probably the best jungle Aatrox I've ever seen, landing a perfect gank on Katarina right as I hit level 4, so I was able to slow her. She flashed, but I flashed after her and picked up the kill about a second after our Jinx got first blood. From there, I dominated mid, Aatrox continued jumping on enemies and slaughtering them, Volibear got massively fed off of Lee Sin, and our bot lane won handily. Soraka was the only one on our team who didn't get fed, and she made up for it with her well-timed heals and general utility. It was so obnoxiously one-sided that even though I'm thrilled to have another Karthus domination, I'm also annoyed at how bad matchmaking can be. The error was in my favor this time, but usually it isn't.

For a long day of Ranked games, I did a duo queue with Paul (Lithormane). We hadn't played much Ranked together before, but we'd teamed up a lot in the past for normals and such. Paul was coming off a win and is currently in Silver V. Things started off a bit awkwardly, as some of our teammates made weird and confusing calls in the lobby, but we eventually ended up with a team of Yasuo (mid), Singed (me), Aatrox (jungle), Tristana (Paul), and Leona (support) against Kassadin (mid), Lee Sin (top), Master Yi (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). I haven't mentioned it in this particular series, but I have a weird position on using Singed competitively. Singed was my first champion ever: I started playing in the summer of 2011, just after Wukong came out, and Singed was a free week champion at the time, then I went on to buy him with IP once he rotated out. Singed was nearly the only champion I played until I bought Karthus, and Singed was still my default. For most of Season 2, I'd have described myself as a Singed main first and a Karthus main second.Eventually, I moved on to other champions and didn't play Singed as much, but I knew I was comfortable with him and I had my build down and everything, so I didn't worry about it. Then they changed items and masteries, and I couldn't make my Singed work. I experimented, but throughout Season 3, I neglected Singed. I never played him in Ranked and almost never played him in other modes. But I never gave up on Singed entirely. He is the mad chemist after all, and I am a mad chemist myself. We mad chemists have to stick together. I have a smurf account (A bad person) on which I only own Singed, and I play him against bots on that account when I don't feel like playing on my main account. So in this lobby, with people whining that we should have champions with knockup effects for Yasuo to exploit, I entered my first Singed Ranked game ever. It went pretty well. Aatrox ganked Lee Sin, and then I got ahead, bullied him, and killed him before taking his outer turret. I then roamed and helped the rest of the team, which was already a bit ahead, so I got them even further ahead. I went 1/0/8. Paul carried, going 11/3/2. It wasn't one-sided the whole time, but it was pretty decisive.

Because Paul is much, much nicer than I am, he tries to actually let people call lanes in Ranked. Because people were trying to call everything, he suggested that I just support him, because we'd have a good duo bot lane anyway. So our team was Katarina (mid), Riven (top), Warwick (jungle), Kog'Maw (Paul), and Leona (me). The other team consisted of LeBlanc (mid), Tryndamere (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Morgana (support). We did well in our lane and Paul was able to cut through our opponents with Kog'Maw, but there was one big problem: Riven fed the crap out of Tryndamere. Tryndamere would have wrecked our team enough to beat us, but my crowd control and Paul's backdooring were enough to put a stop to that. I went 1/2/12. Paul was 10/7/4.

For our third duo queue game of the day, I was last pick, so I filled, taking Leona support again. Our lineup was Ahri (mid), Poppy (Paul), Master Yi (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Leona (me). The other team had Akali (mid), Miss Fortune (top), Nocturne (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). This match was weird. Poppy is rather atypical as a top lane in competitive matches now, and Miss Fortune as a solo top is just strange. Our Ezreal, who was neither doing well nor doing particularly poorly, flipped out and decided to rage at the rest of the team for making him lose. Akali got fed and nearly carried, but our Master Yi, Poppy (Paul), and Leona (me) were able to coordinate and grind away that disadvantage. A fed Akali is a force to be reckoned with, but, as I told Yi, I am so good at this game. Nah, I'm kidding: it was a team effort—a team effort spearheaded by a skilled Leona. Oh! With that win, I was launched into a promotional series. By winning two out of my next three games, I could get out of Bronze IV (which I'd only gotten into a day ago). Paul said he had time for another game, so we proceeded on, hoping to continue our winning streak.

The next game started out sort of like the last one, with me getting last pick and support while Paul picked up solo top. We had Yasuo (mid), Trundle (Paul), Udyr (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Sona (me). Actually, Vayne whined about being garbage at the ADC role, but locked in anyway, even though I would have been happy to take it. The other team had Kassadin (mid), Jayce (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Soraka (support). Vayne kept overextending and taking damage. I tried to keep healing her, but I'd run out of mana while she waded in, accomplishing nothing. I advised her to take Condemn so she could self-peel, but like all bad Vaynes, she was putting early point into Silver Bolts, which she couldn't proc anyway. So then she'd get ganked because she was overextending, and she'd rage at me for "standing around." For some of those ganks, I was even backing off because I knew they were coming through wards and my Clairvoyance, but Vayne still decided that her deaths must all be my fault somehow. So yeah, that lane went badly. We tried to make up for it in teamfights, and for a while I thought we had a chance, but our Udyr was just as stupid and belligerent as our Vayne, charging into multiple enemies by himself and then blaming the team for it. I ended the game, of course, as a starved support, going 0/3/6. Paul went 5/4/2, but it wasn't enough to hold off the onslaught we faced.

Paul didn't want to go out on that note, so we queue up for another game, agreeing that we should duo bot again, rather than letting some random screw it up. But once again, things got weird, this time with our first pick taking Brand as a jungler. It worked about as well as I thought it would, which is to say it did not. Once it was understood that apparently Brand was jungling, the person who had called mid wanted Katarina, but decided that Paul or I should pick for her and that she'd trade (Paul doesn't own Katarina, but I do), concealing the Katarina pick from our opponents initially. Of course, this person didn't actually let me pick my own support for the trade, so I got Blitzcrank, and the enemy team took Thresh, which I really wasn't liking. The teams ended up being Katarina (mid), Shen (top), Brand (jungle), Tristana (Paul), and Blitzcrank (me) against Zed (mid), Ryze (top), Evelynn (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Thresh (support). Blitzcrank isn't one of my specialties, but I guess I consider myself to be an adequate Blitzcrank support. This match actually has me toying with the idea of trying it more, as I just think it requires some patience to work, waiting for the right opportunities to make the right plays, and I think I can do it. I still wouldn't want to play Blitzcrank against certain matchups though, and Thresh is one of those. Anyway, Brand being useless held us back, and Paul gave up some early deaths that made things harder for us bot, but we were able to get him caught up eventually. When laning stopped mattering as much and it came to skirmishes, Shen's ult is overpowered, and the combination of Blitzcrank's skills and Tristana's skills helped us kill enemies despite their efforts to escape. That gave us the edge we needed to help Katarina snowball, and then, even though we had been pretty badly thrashed early on, we got way ahead on kills and pushed for a big teamfight ace and victory. Paul came back from being shut down early to go 9/6/6. I went 1/0/12. Can't kill Trollcrank.

I had one more left in my series, and Paul decided that he had time for just one more game after all. This time, we got the duo bot we actually wanted I switched from my elegant Silent Night Sona skin to the much flashier Arcade Sona. This time,  I was determined to have a good Sona game. Our team was comprised of Zed (mid), Darius (top), Jax (jungle), Kog'Maw (Paul), and Sona (me). Our opponent had Kassadin (mid), Shyvana (top), Master Yi (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Leona (bot). This game started off beautifully. We controlled bot lane and got a nice early lead for Kog'Maw. Our other lanes weren't faring badly either. It was the jungle that nearly ruined things. The enemy Yi was everywhere, murdering all of us. It started to be the case that in most of the fights, he'd do so much damage that we couldn't handle it. We were rapidly losing our lead and at least one person on the other decided the game was over, spouting that obnoxious "gg" in the allchat when it is assumed that the most recent teamfight has decided the outcome of the match, even when it might not have, which in this case it had not. We respawned in time to defend our base. A lot of factors made the difference, the raw damage output of Paul's Kog'Maw being most prominent, but also our Zed and Darius being fed enough to contribute their own damage in fights was important. Still, it might not have been enough, and Yi might have carried his team, if not for the support who decided that, instead of killing her team, the Wuju Bladesman was going to dance, dance, dance for her. Oh yeah. I rule. I went 1/4/21. Paul went 18/7/4. And with that, I have earned my second promotion of the season.

Matchmaking is going to have to step the bullshit up a notch if it wants to keep me from climbing out of Bronze. Uh, that's not a challenge or anything. Please don't actually do that, matchmaking.

Going for the Gold Part XXI: I'm No Longer Stuck in Bronze V

After playing League of Legends for over two years and accumulating over a thousand normal games, I finally entered ranked play. In my own, totally objective, assessment, I am skilled enough for Gold. My placement matches disagreed, and threw me into Bronze II. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

Well, there's no guarantee that these next games will be my exit from Bronze V, but I think I have a pretty good shot. If I can win two of my next three games, I get promoted. Let's see what happens...

Things start out well: I'm first pick in my first match of the series. I ban Kassadin and Shen reflexively, hoping to pick Karthus and carry. I ask for suggestions for the third ban, because I'm cocky enough to think I only need two. The first request is LeBlanc, but I know I can deal with LeBlanc, so I said as much. The next request was Jax, so I banned him. The other team banned Blitzcrank, Vi, and Vel'Koz. I picked Karthus and got that giddy feeling when I know I'm about to wreck some scrubs. Uh, no offense. Anyway, we ended up with Karthus (me), Nasus (top), Wukong (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Nami (support). Our opponents had LeBlanc (mid), Teemo (top), Amumu (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Taric (support). Well, I declined to ban LeBlanc when it was brought up, and she was picked. Caitlyn was freaking out at being counterpicked, and I could see how their team would have some advantages against us: more mobility, more early damage, more range, and Amumu's ult for teamfights. Well, I get to brag, because I carried as Karthus again. Actually, it was fairly close. I got us ahead, picking up some kills with my ult and then killing a few more of them in skirmishes before the other team managed to kill me even once. But then, even though I was fed, we started losing some teamfights. My teammates were able to adjust, and we eventually pushed into their base and won, but they did win some fights over objectives before that, and another bad fight might have cost us the match. In the end, I went 16/3/10.

Well, that's one match down. I now get two more chances to earn my promotion. I can lose this next one and still make it, but let's try to make that irrelevant. Or not! I got first pick again. I banned Kassadin, Blitzcrank (someone asked), and Veigar (none of them owned Shen). The other team banned Akali, Fizz, and Jax. Our team consisted of Karthus (me), Volibear (top), Wukong (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Gangplank (feed). The other team was Yasuo (mid), Cho'Gath (top), Vi (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Leona (support). All four of my allies were completely incompetent. Ashe and Volibear were trying, but were obviously outclassed. I don't actually believe that Wukong and Gangplank got to level 30 on their own, as they showed no signs of understanding out to play the game. It would have been over very, very quickly if I hadn't been Karthus. I got fed, of course, and wrecked the enemy team as much as I could, but I can't win 1 vs. 5. Matchmaking blatantly screwed me over on this one. For a game with no a single obvious troll or leaver, this was probably the most rage-inducing session I've ever had. There was no reason for this to happen. I should never, ever be matched up with people this bad in Ranked. I don't care what the bullshit algorithms are and what the justification might be: it's a heaping pile of crap. It's one thing that most losses are beyond my power to have turned around, but this is something else entirely. Hey Riot, this kind of match is totally unacceptable.

So now I'm despondent. Let's get it over with. Go ahead, matchmaking: kick me back down into the Bronze V ladder, where you've decided I must dwell, no matter how I play. Third pick this time, so probably no chance I'll get Karthus and give myself the best shot I can get. I'm too pissed off to read what these people are typing now. For all I know, it won't work out anyway, because it's another match like the last one. We ban, let's see, Amumu, Wukong, and Nasus. They ban Fizz, Renekton, and Akali. Ugh, I just accidentally read the lobby chat and these people are idiots. Dammit. Fuck it, I'm forcing Karthus. Someone asked nicely for mid, but I'm not falling for that crap. The other team first-picked LeBlanc, so I'm not walking into a counterpick. I can do this. Well, maybe I can. I'm certainly going to try. So yeah, it's Karthus (me), Teemo (top), Diana (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Thresh (support) against LeBlanc (mid), Jax (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Volibear (support). OK, so we won, but that game was kind of annoying too, as our Teemo fed and raged at the same time. Somehow it was everyone else's fault that Teemo overextended and died to his own lane opponent, and he wanted all of us to know it. The fed Jax was problematic, but our team, other than Teemo, were able to persevere. We had a better jungler, and I was able to farm more than in the previous games, so I managed to snowball too. Thresh and Jinx also fared well enough, so we were able to catch up, cancel out Teemo's feeding, and take their turrets so we could get farther ahead. I went 10/1/7.

Well, I climbed a tier. On one hand, I know from past experience that climbing out of higher other divisions is going to be a lot harder. On the other hand, at least I can climb out of Bronze V. And it only took me 16 games (which is too many if I want to make it to Gold, considering how often I play).

Going for the Gold Part XX: My First Season 4 Promo Series

After playing League of Legends for over two years and accumulating over a thousand normal games, I finally entered ranked play. In my own, totally objective, assessment, I am skilled enough for Gold. My placement matches disagreed, and threw me into Bronze II. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

I'm trying that whole "blog my games in progress instead of summarizing them all after the fact" thing again, just because I feel like it. So we have Karma (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Wukong (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Nami (support) against Malzahar, Olaf, Master Yi, Sivir, and Kayle. Their Yi has Smite, so I'm assuming Olaf top and Malz mid. Don't usually see Kayle supports, but maybe it's happening this time. Well, my lane against Olaf was quite one-sided. I bullied him, denied him CS, farmed easily, killed him multiple times, and took his outer turret early on. The rest of the game was one-sided too, just not in the right way. I warded heavily to protect myself from Yi ganks, which worked very well for me. Everyone else on my team fed Yi as hard as they could. I ended up going 8/6/6 and felt like I was the only competent person on my entire team. Well, sometimes it feels that way, but in this case, I think it was actually true. Blah blah blah, whining about a team full of feeders. I should calm down, look at this differently, and be reasonable. It isn't productive to rage about this. And I think what would really help my attitude would be for matchmaking not to give me four feeders on my team. So yeah, I went 8/6/6. If the kills that I would have gotten with my ult, but that others technically picked off before my ult finished the job count, I could easily say that I got more kills than the rest of my team combined. Well, that brings me down 14 LP, to a new total of 51 LP in Bronze V. Ugh, let's try this again.

They ban Blitzcrank, Vi, and Fizz. We ban Leona, Yasuo, and Heimerdinger. I'm seeing a lot of unusual bans. Is it because I'm in Bronze V? The other team first picks Kayle. Our first pick takes Amumu, and second pick takes Ryze mid. The Ryze player then whines about being counterpicked by Brand, so we ask if he wants to take top instead. He fails to respond, so I hastily pick Mordekaiser to go top. That leaves us with Ryze (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Amumu (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Soraka (support) against Brand (mid), Nasus (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Kayle (support). Wow, I never used to see Kayle supports, and this is the second one in a row. Also, I'm playing Mordekaiser again. This is daunting. A little advice from my own take on lobby etiquette: if you're going to whine that you were counterpicked, don't sit there saying nothing when people offer to switch lanes with you, then at the last second blurt that you'd do badly in the other lane too. Anyway, Ryze made up for it. Our laning phase was almost appalling. I was against Nasus, so of course he couldn't kill me by himself, but he was able to kill most of the minions despite my attempts to zone him. He stayed alive and tried to stack his Siphoning Strike, while I tried to bully him. Meanwhile, the enemy team racked up kills. Our Ezreal was feeding and constantly apologizing for it. But after the laning phase ended and there were more skirmishes, we made a big comeback, and in the end it wasn't even close. I went 16/1/11. Ryze asked me to duo queue, so that's what we'll be doing for the next match.

So yeah, with that duo queue, there went my "cover games immediately" plan. I went bot with my duo partner, Mclovin2477. We had Heimerdinger (mid), Nasus (top), Volibear (jungle), Vayne (Mclovin2477), and Blitzcrank (me). The enemy team was Ziggs (mid), Teemo (top), Master Yi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Amumu (support). Unfortunately, my partner got killed in an early turret dive trying to pick off Jinx, and they pressed the advantage. Our Nasus was, for whatever reason, ineffective. Our Heimerdinger wasn't too bad, but the enemy Ziggs was better. On top of all that, Master Yi got fed. I tried, though. I definitely made things harder for the other team. In the end, I went 9/1/11. But it wasn't enough.

My duo partner wanted to try one more game for the night. This time going Diana mid. Our other positions were Pantheon (top), Wukong (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Sona (me). The other team had LeBlanc (mid), Malphite (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Nami (support). This was a weird game. The enemy LeBlanc and Xin Zhao scored a lot of kills, while Caitlyn and Nami both disconnected many times, but not simultaneously. Because we had a 2 vs. 1 bot lane for nearly the entire laning phase, I was able to let Vayne free-farm, which should have really helped us, but Vayne turned out not to be very good. What saved us was that this turned into another one of my "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself" Sona games, much to the bewilderment of both teams. My allies were worried that the support racking up kills would leave carries underpowered and hurt our teamfight capability, while the other team couldn't believe they were getting wrecked by a Sona. Well, I went 12/5/17 and we won. That takes me to 88 LP. With no clamping in Bronze V, one more win could launch me into a promo series. We'll see.

I queue up for another game, but I already know I have trolls. Two of the players on my team keep whining about my bans and talking about how bad I must be, or whether I might have Down syndrome. It's Karthus (me), Pantheon (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Soraka (support) against Fizz, Wukong, Warwick, Ashe, and Taric. Our Pantheon and Tristana were trolling me in the lobby, and I can tell that I'm a bit tense over that. I need to relax: I'm playing my main here. Well, Pantheon continued to insult me once the game started, but Tristana let it go. Fortunately, all of them were fairly competent. Our Pantheon was our worst player, and the enemy Wukong was unskilled, so that didn't matter. My lane opponent wasn't aggressive enough, and I was able to farm well from the beginning, so it quickly became a dominant Karthus game. I went 10/1/9. Sure enough, that game qualified me for a promotional series.

Well, I was considering getting more Ranked games in tonight, but I think I'll take a break, having qualified for this promo series. My current record is 10 wins, 13 losses.

Going for the Gold Part XIX: The Return

After playing League of Legends for over two years and accumulating over a thousand normal games, I finally entered ranked play. In my own, totally objective, assessment, I am skilled enough for Gold. My placement matches disagreed, and threw me into Bronze II. This is the story of my attempt to prove them wrong. This is Going for the Gold.

 It's not that I didn't want to play Ranked anymore, just that I was in the perfect position for a hiatus. LP decay couldn't bother me while I sat at the bottom of Bronze V. I had other things to do and wasn't playing League of Legends much, so not playing Ranked, given all the circumstances, just made sense. Previously, I'd played placement matches with Nick, and it turned out to be disastrous (not that it was Nick's fault). I had 3 wins, 7 losses, and nowhere to go but up.

After my placements, I took the rest of January off. I took February off. I took March off. I told myself I'd eventually get back to Ranked. What did it was being invited to duo queue by another player, Scott, who goes by IMLRG.

In my first return match, we had Fizz (mid), Cho'Gath (Scott soloing top), Hecarim (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Leona (me). The other team consisted of Heimerdinger (mid), Teemo (top), Dr. Mundo (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). Unfortunately for the other team, their Miss Fortune was a no-show, so we won easily. I went 3/2/11 and helped get our Twitch fed, but it wasn't hard to do that, as it was 5 vs. 4.

After that first game, I went back to playing Ultra Rapid-Fire mode, but I returned to Ranked play with Scott again a couple of days later. This time, I jungled. We had Annie (mid), Kayle (top), Amumu (me), Jinx (ADC), and Sona (Scott). The other team was Orianna (mid), Zac (top), Nocturne (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Leona (support). Annie and I both got fed, but our Kayle seemed determined to lose and our Jinx really was determined to lose. She fed constantly, raged at the rest of the team, and eventually disconnected. I still ended up going 7/5/14. Every time my teammates stayed behind me and let me initiate fights, we killed the other team and gained ground. But those fights were outnumbered by other fights, in which Jinx and Kayle overextended before I could help them, the enemy Leona initiated, and their team subsequently won the 5 vs. 3 teamfight. It was frustrating, but we reported Jinx and moved on.

Then it happened again. Well, not in exactly the same way, but it was pretty bad. We had Lux (mid), Cho'Gath (Scott), Kha'Zix (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Sona (me) against Akali (mid), Wukong (top), Aatrox (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Alistar (support). I noticed that our Jinx was obviously deficient, but I kept her alive and used her as bait to pick up first blood for myself. Then they started putting more pressure on our bot lane. Jinx was terrible. She'd stay back when she needed to attack and she aggressed at all the worst times. I worked hard to let her escape, but then she'd stay in the lane with less than 50 health, even while I pinged her to retreat multiple times and we even had players in other lanes urging her to go back. Even if Jinx had been competent, it might not have mattered. The other lanes were shut down too, and Akali snowballed. It was a complete route. I went 1/8/15, which is about what I'd expect given my description.

Having just lost two Ranked games in a row due to a toxic ally Jinx, Scott decided that we should force bot lane for our next match. He took Kog'Maw, then we also got Ziggs (mid), Tryndamere (top), Evelynn (jungle). I picked Alistar and we traded. The other team had Akali (mid), Renekton (top), Shaco (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Soraka (support). Scott was able to protect me against Soraka and Vayne, although not against all of the Shaco ganks, but still, we won lane. So did Akali, and we experienced another Akali snowball game. Evelynn disconnected. And then Tryndamere also disconnected, leaving us in a 3 vs. 5 against a team that included a fed Akali. I was pretty sure we'd lose, but Kog'Maw does not go down without a fight. We held them off for a while. Akali was able to jump me and kill me before I could attack her a couple of times, but I also caught her sometimes, and the rest of their team couldn't handle me. Eventually, Tryndamere reconnected, cursing Windows updates. That was all it took. He was way behind, but he was another body. I kept killing enemy champions, having a full build, and we were able to push and win the 4 vs. 5.

 I tried a solo queue Ranked game. In my first queue I had the chance to take mid and picked Malzahar, but it was not to be. Someone dodged and I was requeued as last pick. It was Ziggs (mid), Akali (top), Evelynn (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Alistar (me) against Zed (mid), Fizz (top), Malphite (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Leona (support). I guess I did what I was supposed to and supported. I ended up going 0/1/9. Our Akali snowballed, but the enemy Fizz was really bad. While we were in their base, killing two of their inhibitors, Fizz was in our bot lane, pushing down our outer and inner turrets. When the other team raged at their Fizz, he responded by point out that he got two turrets, while they accomplished nothing. Technically correct! So yeah, I reported Fizz as unskilled. And anyway, we won by quite a bit.

In the subsequent game, I was going to play Swain, but changed it up and went with Ryze. We had Gragas (mid), Ryze (me), Jarvan IV (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Volibear (support). The other team was comprised of Ziggs (mid), Riven (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Karma (support). I was actually able to bully Riven in lane, but Xin Zhao showed up multiple times to help her. Jarvan could never gank for me, not even when both of them were pushing my turret, for some reason. But I still held on for a while and farmed more than anyone else on my team. Bot failed, though, which was the beginning of our demise. It was a long, slow defeat. They took our mid inhibitor before we had taken a single turret, then they worked on the other inhibitors. Four of us were trying to make a comeback, but Volibear wouldn't have any of it, and repeatedly charged in alone, feeding. When asked to stop, Volibear responded that we'd already lost, so it didn't matter. We went on to win several teamfights, while losing all of our turrets and barely holding the enemy minions at bay. I went 9/8/16, dying a lot because Ryze has no mobility and I was stuck defending doomed objectives or jumped on after my allies overextended and left me alone. Volibear will almost certainly go on to ruin games for plenty of other people.

I should have titled this post "Every Jinx Player Sucks." I got last pick, also known as forced to support, again. We had Annie (mid), Wukong (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Sona (me) against Syndra (mid), Teemo (top), Warwick (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). As per tradition, our Jinx cost us the game. She overextended against Leona and got jumped on by Tristana and killed before I could do anything about it. She did this early, and she did it often. Because she was doing it so much, I was stranded alone and had to recall a lot. At one point, while I was on my way back, she did her thing again, running in front of brush with no vision into it, and then getting ambushed by Leona and Tristana again. Then she said, "omg sona." I asked what that was about, and she whined that it was my fault somehow, so I immediately muted her. She was apparently complaining the rest of the game, as I saw other people telling her to shut up. Warwick also got fed somehow, and we got destroyed by the fed Tristana and Warwick. My final score was 4/6/7. Not bad, considering how one-sided this game was. I don't want to be arrogant, but I think I'm actually pretty good with Sona. The problem is that I hate supporting in solo queue, because crap like this happens so often.

If I won my next game, I could still break even on games played since my return. And finally, I got mid. Well, none of my preferred bans had been made, so I went Malzahar, just to see what would happen. We had Malzahar (me), Shen (top), Master Yi (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Nami (support) against Kayle (mid), Wukong (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Thresh (support). At first, everything seemed pretty even. Lee Sin ganked me multiple times, but I picked up a couple of my own kills and was outfarming everyone, with our Master Yi right behind me on CS and no one else even close to us. They took my turret by having four people gank me, while my allies sent no one to help. So we fell a bit behind, but we had some advantages. Master Yi was dealing a lot of damage to them and picking up kills. Also, I knew when I saw that I was laning against AP Kayle that I'd be able to outscale her. Oh, and Shen is overpowered (which I why I ban him if I can). They won the laning phase bot, lost it top, and ended it mid by grouping up on me. Teamfights didn't work out as well for them, and once I got fed, we pulled ahead on kills and objectives. My teammates kept inexplicably falling back when we could have pushed their mid inhibitor, but then Master Yi would split push and keep the pressure on them. I know we could have won earlier, but I was the only one that seemed to want to. Kayle got blamed for the loss, which was completely unjust: she was trying to stop Yi from split pushing, and then their team lost the subsequent 4 vs. 4 teamfights. My teammates apparently agreed with the other team, and acted like Kayle threw the game. I pointed out that I was fed and was dominating, but apparently that doesn't count for much. Look at that silly 10/3/7 Malzahar: he thinks he mattered! The fact is, even though they game ended with our team very slightly behind on kills, it was never even close, and was closer still than it could have been if we'd pushed harder as a team. We destroyed 8 turrets to their 4. We won fights whenever objectives were on the line. Also, I carried. Cool.

So yeah, I'm back. My record for the season is now 7 wins, 11 losses. I'm at 65 LP in Bronze V. Gold is looking just about as far away as possible, but I'll be changing that soon.