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.

Going for the Gold Part XXIX: The Mad Chemist is Back

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.

Well, now I know I'll never ragequit. If I didn't do it this time, nothing is going to make it happen. This match was so bad it was surreal. The matchup was Karthus (me), Aatrox (top), Amumu (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Kayle (top), Shyvana (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Sona (support). People often pick Fizz against my Karthus because they think Fizz beats Karthus, but I've always managed to hold my own, not feed, farm up, and come out ahead. This wasn't so much an exception as it was a deception. All of my teammates, all four of them, seemed to be actively trying to screw me over. It didn't make any sense, and of course I didn't believe that was what they were doing, but it was what I kept seeing. Aatrox disconnected multiple times and eventually ran where I was farming and poached CS from me. Blitzcrank stole my last hits repeatedly and would go in with me, then ditch me suddenly and speed boost away while I got ganked. Ezreal initially seemed to be the least egregious, but used Arcane Shift and Mystic Shot to steal the last hit on a blue buff I was taking, and then immediately (no joke, it was a matter of a few seconds) rushed into the enemy team and died. And then there was Amumu, who would hang out by my lane or even in it, but would just stand around doing nothing (or take off) and let Fizz and Shyvana kill me. I fell behind rapidly and my allies fiercely sabotaged every attempt I made to come back. Reading this, it seems like I must be exaggerating, but I'm actually not. Like I said, it was surreal. I went 3/10/9. I'm not really even discouraged by this one because it was unlike any other game I'd played and I don't expect it to happen again any time soon, if ever. So I'm going to try one more for the night. I'm down to 48 LP. Maybe I can make it up with the next one.

Well, it wasn't as bad as the previous game, but it was pretty bad. We had a first pick Nidalee mid. I should probably have just dodged, since I've never really seen Nidalee mid work. But apparently I never dodge in Ranked. We also had Volibear top and Udyr jungle. Someone picked Nautilus support, so I was left to ADC, something I always manage to lose games doing these days. I picked Kog'Maw for some reason. The other team had Malzahar (mid), Jarvan IV (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Janna (support). We had trouble in the lanes, especially after Xin Zhao killed me twice with tower dives, but Udyr refused to help, calling us stupid for not knowing how Udyr works. That set Nidalee off, and our Nidalee player spammed the chat the rest of the game whining about how bad everyone else was. Udyr griefed, making sure we'd lose teamfights, and eventually congratulated the other team on making sure that Nidalee lost. While Volibear and Nautilus were obviously at least trying to win, they didn't attempt to protect me, so I was picked off all the time. I went 6/12/4. I'm now down to 31 LP. Brutal. We were probably going to lose anyway with the griefer, but I would have appreciated having some help. My teammates pretty much just ignored my existence.

I played seven duo queue matches with Scott (IMLRG). In the first, we had a someone first-pick Poppy for solo top, and another person picked jungle Gragas while Scott took Braum as a support. I was going to mid, but the last person locked in Nasus, so we switched to Poppy mid, Nasus top, and had me take Tristana. Our opponents had Diana (mid), Dr. Mundo (top). Xin Zhao (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Leona (support). We tried to hold bot lane, but didn't have a jungler to back us up, while the other team did. Gragas tried, but couldn't do enough. Poppy was ridiculously aggressive and fed, but also picked up kills while doing so. Nasus was the biggest problem. He had 12 bonus damage on his Siphoning Strike. That means he killed four things with it in the course of the match. He was dead weight and gave the enemy team a gold boost. This was a case in which 4 vs. 5 would actually have been better for us. We were perplexed at how someone would be playing Nasus in Ranked games without actually bothering to use his abilities. I went 7/5/0 in the end. Scott and I both reported Nasus as unskilled. Then I checked out the player's information on "LOLKING." It turned out that our Nasus player had 9 wins, 25 losses in Ranked this season, and was in Silver V. Oh. Riot, please?

Then we had Karthus (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Volibear (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Braum (Scott) vs. Sion (mid), Xin Zhao (top), Fiora (jungle), Graves (ADC), and Sona (support). This was my worst Mordekaiser game ever. I couldn't do any damage to Xin Zhao for some reason. It was like he was the one with the shield, instead of me. He picked up two early kills on me, but I got him back on the second one with my turret. He was still bullying me, when Volibear showed up and got destroyed instantly when he came to gank, leaving me exposed when I advanced to help him, so I died again. From there, Xin Zhao had complete control of the lane. Meanwhile, AP Sion and Fiora murdered the rest of my team. We tried to mount a comeback and started to catch up, but our team didn't coordinate well enough for it, and we were aced and defeated. I went 6/14/18. This match was total bullshit, but whatever. Moving on.

Not wanting to go out on such a depressing finish, we tried again. This one got screwed up. We had AP Tristana as a mid against Kassadin, which I was very apprehensive of. We also had a Rammus jungler to their Diana jungler, which I felt better about. Scott took Braum as a support and I was going to go on-hit Kayle to carry alongside him, as we already had Tristana on our team anyway for long range attacks. Our last pick failed to see that I was going bot, and picked Varus. He was nice about it once he saw his mistake, and I was going to let him have it, but Scott looked up the match and saw that the enemy Sion had AD runes and masteries. Kayle has no problem with AP Sion, but can't stop AD Sion all that well. So I asked Varus if he'd solo top anyway, which he did. That left Scott and I to face Jinx and Lulu in bot lane. It didn't hit us at first, but this match was very one-sided. Varus had no trouble with Sion, so he got farmed and fed. Tristana didn't feed Kassadin, and Rammus destroyed Kassadin and Sion, getting both lanes even further behind. Bot was where the only real challenge was, as Jinx maneuvered skillfully, poking us and keeping up with my CS. Eventually, we caught her when she got too isolated without Lulu's shield on her. I hit her with Reckoning, then used Flash and Ignite to pick up the kill. The lane remained challenging for a while, but we pulled ahead, then dominated the other team. I was 8/3/5 by the end.

Next, I tried some Singed games. In the first of those, it was Veigar (mid), Singed (me), Rengar (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Sona (Scott) vs. Lux (mid), Talon (top), Jax (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Leona (support). Rengar couldn't shut the hell up and Caitlyn was intermittently spamming pings, but we were initially ahead. Veigar disconnected and I had to work hard to keep us from falling behind. Eventually, Veigar came back (level 6 when I was level 14, I think). That gave us the edge we needed to win teamfights and, subsequently, the match. I went 4/3/14.

We had someone that wanted Master Yi in the lobby, so Scott first-picked Yi for a trade. But Scott wanted to support and the other person turned out not to own any, so Scott was stuck with Annie as a support. I had already picked Singed again by this point, and we got a Ziggs mid, so the last pick, protesting at not being the worst in the world at ADC, took Ashe. Our opponents had Fizz (mid), Heimerdinger (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Corki (ADC), and Morgana (support). True to her word, Ashe fed and couldn't accomplish anything, which left Scott underpowered too. Fizz also got fed. Yi was initially picking up kills, but started getting picked off too. Fortunately, I had enough time to get my Singed going. I was, in the words of our Yi, "LCS proin." I used Fling to feed my team, then my Poison Trail's devastated the enemy team and I picked up some kills for myself too. Scott asked me to carry him, so I did. I went 10/2/14. Singed is back and he's here to stay.

Figuring I was on a roll with Singed, I picked him again. We already had a Ryze mid anyway. We got Tryndamere as our jungler. Scott picked Braum to support again and our ADC was Lucian. We were up against the intimidating team composition of Fizz (mid), Shyvana (top), Volibear (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Thresh (support). I've never done well against Shyvana with Singed, and Volibear is problematic for him too. But the real problem in this match was that Tryndamere disconnected. He was the one picking up our kills, and we lost him. Our whole team fell behind. Eventually he came back, but the damage had been done. Even though our team was way behind on kills and on objectives, it turned out that Scott and I could tank the other team surprisingly well. For a while, I thought we'd win that way. But our teammates just never brought the damage (except Ryze, who usually did) to fights. Impressive as it was to see how long it took the five enemy champions to kill our Braum and Singed, taking a long time to die wasn't going to save us by itself. Frustrating, but I understand that it happens. I went 4/9/9 in my first Ranked loss as Singed.

Finally, Scott talked me into one more try. This time, I had him ban Kassadin so I could pick Karthus. My teammates had Teemo (top), Trundle (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Braum (Scott). The other team had Heimerdinger (mid), Garen (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Leona (support). I complained that I can't catch a break anymore as Karthus. This one had a few problems, but the main one was feeding teammates. That make me sound arrogant, but it did happen. Heimerdinger pushed aggressively and I held him off, which Karthus can do, but he got help and I did not, so he pulled way ahead on CS and took my outer and inner turrets. We killed each other a lot, and he picked me off sometimes, but I killed him more. He made up the deficit by slaughtering my teammates. Scott thought the enemy Heimerdinger was just good. My impression was more that people shouldn't run into his turrets like chickens with their damn heads cut off. So Heimerdinger got fed. But another problem was that Teemo was incredibly toxic. I was the primary target of his ire, but he also went after Sivir, although sometimes it seemed like he had the two of us mixed up, which was bizarre. He only went after Scott when Scott pointed out that he was saying things that were factually incorrect. Teemo stopped trying to help and started only caring about picking up kills for himself, which helped put us behind. But I was pretty well farmed and would still have wrecked the other team if not for Garen. He harassed me, revenge-killed me when I took out Heimerdinger, and was a constant threat. I was mad about Teemo and annoyed about my teammates feeding in general, but I have to admit that I was impressed with the enemy Garen. In the end of this one, I went 14/11/12. I'm now down to 29 LP.

Going for the Gold Part XXVIII: Reaching for Bronze I to Close Out Spring

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.

There's apparently a rune sale running through the end of the month, so I've been trying to figure out what runes I should buy. I've been pretty happy with my current runes, but I have a lot of IP left over and I might as well get runes now, while they're cheaper. So I was browsing the store and a player on my friend list that I didn't remember at all, and who apparently didn't know who I was either, decided to invite me to duo Ranked. He was Darksaber240 and he'd just gotten into Bronze I himself. We got into a lobby and, finding myself second pick and with none of my usual options looking good, I played a champion that I've never played in Ranked, but that I knew I could solo top with. We ended up with the rather unusual team composition of Soraka (mid), Nasus (me), Udyr (jungle), Caitlyn (DarkSaber240), and Morgana (support). Our opponents had Kennen (mid), Teemo (top), Kayle (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Thresh (support). As I've mentioned, a lot of people are under the impression that Teemo top counters Nasus, but that's heavily dependent on how the laning phases go and on junglers. Yeah, Teemo can kite Nasus, poison him, blind him so that he misses his Siphoning Strike stacks, and be a nuisance. But as a ranged AP top, Teemo lacks burst, and Nasus can hold the lane by lifestealing from minions, waiting things out until Nasus has enough magic resistance to actually fight Teemo. That was what I tried to do in this game, and to an extent, it worked. My biggest concern was Kayle. A good Kayle can murder Nasus. Kayle was as problematic as I feared. On top of that, our Udyr charged in on Teemo early on and gave him double buff, which gave him a substantial lead on me and let him kill me after I stupidly forgot how much damage red buff would do to me. Udyr gave up several early deaths and I was behind for a long time, with my teammates asking me to help as our opponents started grouping up and pushing. But I kept grinding, and even though things looked bad initially, circumstances changed in our favor. Despite being behind, I managed to kill Teemo by myself. My inexorable pushing top lane drew attention from the other team, but they overextended when they tried to close in on me after sieging mid, and we won some close teamfights. I got caught up on stacking Siphoning Strike and also got items to tank the enemy team. Meanwhile, Udyr, who had been frustrating the rest of us early on, got fed and made an impressive comeback. No, really, I was impressed. I thought our Udyr was a feeder and that we were unfortunate, but he turned things around and ended up being the star of the show. As for me, I went 7/5/5 and had the typical late game Nasus domination that I'd been trying to build up to. We won, and my first win in my second foray into Bronze II has taken me up to 23 LP.

After nearly a month, I got back to Ranked play, in part just to prevent LP decay. Our bans were all over the place. We had a first pick Xin Zhao jungler and third pick wanted mid, so I took Mordekaiser top and let the other player, who picked Syndra, take mid. Our bot laners were Varus and Nami, who invited me to that Curse Voice thing, so I was in chat with them, which didn't really help, but I guess it was worth a shot. Our opponents had Annie (mid), Kha'Zix (top), Wukong (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Braum (support). I got the first two kills by dominating lane against Kha'Zix, but Wukong ganked me aggressively and eventually I fell behind, as did the rest of our team. Xin Zhao never helped any of us. Not once. So it was basically 4 vs. 5. My final K/D/A was 5/9/4. That brings me down to 7 LP.


Queuing up for another one. I'm already apprehensive. Our bans make no sense again and these guys are arguing in a way that makes them all look stupid. Yeah, I'm already frustrated with my teammates and we haven't even started yet. Anyway, we've got Lee Sin (mid), Trundle (top), Master Yi (jungle), Tristana (me), and Nami (support) against Talon (mid), Renekton (top), Kayle (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Taric (support). It turned out to be even worse than I feared. Lee Sin was a feeder, so that meant Talon was able to snowball and burst me down whenever he could catch me, which turned out to be three times. Master Yi ran around in the jungle doing very little, but liked to rage at me for playing too passively. Nami also raged at me for playing passively, while simultaneously failing to ever set anything up. Trundle was fine, but was camped by the enemy Kayle. I went 4/3/1 and didn't even get close to the firepower I'd have needed to salvage this disaster. There go my LP again.

For my next match, I first-picked Karthus. My allies had Darius (top), Amumu (mid), Jinx (ADC), and Karma (support). We were up against Lissandra (mid), Yorick (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Morgana (support). Other than Amumu, my allies were rather bad. But mainly, Jinx and Karma constantly fed Tristana. I had no chance to get going and carry. When I finally did get an opening in a teamfight and ace our opponents, Jinx and Karma rushed to Baron Nashor and died, then raged at the rest of us. They were very, very bad. I ended up going 6/5/8, which is pretty terrible for me as Karthus, but not so terrible when the match falls apart so quickly.

Then I go last pick, but still took Karthus. My allies had Yorick (top), Vi (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Zyra (support). Our opponents consisted of Yasuo (mid), Darius (top), Teemo (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Morgana (support). I easily outfarmed Yasuo, but all five of my teammates were terrible players. On top of that, I eventually discovered that my passive was bugged! Yeah, when I died, my passive failed to go off. I'd still get seven seconds of Defile if I had it toggled on before I died, but I could not cast spells, so I was forced to watch low-health enemies run around right by me without being able to finish them. That made me pretty mad, but I'd still have done well if not for my feeding, bickering, raging, clueless, uncooperative teammates. Ultimately, I went 8/4/9. With this bullshit, I'm in danger of being demoted. Again.

I tried another match. This time we had Gragas (mid), Jax (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Kog'Maw (me), and Nidalee (support) against Kennen (mid), Darius (top), Warwick (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Morgana (support). My lane opponents weren't very good, so I was able to farm pretty effectively. Eventually, the enemy team positioned themselves badly against me in a couple of skirmishes and I got fed. It wasn't over with that, though, as the enemy top and jungle had become very powerful. Warwick's ult was able to shut me down a few times, and I had a hard time convincing my teammates to group up. But eventually, we pushed as a team and won. I went 13/6/8. That match has taken me up to 20 LP. No demotion just yet.

I queued with Scott (IMLRG) for two Ranked games. In the first, we had Malzahar (me), Renekton (top), Elise (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Sona (Scott) against Vel'Koz (mid), Wukong (top), Warwick (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Nami (support). Elise tried to go commando, avoiding our team and going trying to fight multiple enemies alone, which went poorly. Renekton was like that too, only twice as bad. This gave our opponents an edge. They had Vel'Koz, Nami, and Wukong cover a wide area with damaging spells so that Warwick could initiate on any fool who wandered into the firing znoe and Vayne could pick off stragglers. I tried to herd my team out of these deathtraps, but they weren't having it. With Karthus, I might have been able to follow them in and dish out damage on everyone, but Malzahar needs to target one person at a time, and I couldn't make it work. I went 7/4/2, but we lost badly and I dropped to 3 LP.

When we tried again, it was with Cassiopeia (mid), Singed (top), Udyr (me), Quinn (ADC), and Braum (Scott). Our opponents had Tristana (mid), Pantheon (top), Rammus (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). I had my red buff stolen, which slowed me down, and couldn't find any good early gank attempts, so I worked on building up stacks for Wriggle's Lantern and Tear of the Goddess. Progress was slow for me. Our Cassiopeia was very bad and I spent a lot of time trying to keep mid from collapsing. Singed turned out not to know how to fight Pantheon (or perhaps just how to play Singed in the first place). So we started to fall behind, but our bot lane came through, then bot laners roamed and dominated the map. The enemy team did adjust to fight the roaming duo, but that bought me the time I needed to get my items. Feral Flare really changes things for my Udyr build, but it takes time. I ultimately went 5/1/8, but it was the bot laners that did most of the work. I think Scott got 24 assists in this one. He and Quinn were responsible for the comeback. So now I'm back to 23 LP, which, as I can see from the top of this post, is where I'd been at the end of last month. My MMR may have dropped a bit, but I'm back to 23 LP.

I was fourth pick, and I was pretty apprehensive with the other picks. But I didn't have much choice in the matter, so it was Mordekaiser (mid), Tryndamere (top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Sona (me) vs. Diana (mid), Garen (top), Master Yi (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Xin Zhao (support). This became an epic 63-minute match. Some of my teammates kept assuming that we'd lost, but we held on and counterpushed, keeping our nexus turrets safe the whole time. Kills were tied up or close to it and all of the inhibitors except in the ones in the bot lane went down multiple times. Fortunately, our Tryndamere was pretty good. And of course, our team had an awesome Sona to back them up in teamfights. I used to build Sona less tanky, and I'd hide back and spam spells. In this match, I was wading into the other team, nuking squishies with my passive, blocking damage with shield items, and stunning the other team with my ult. It was pretty intense. With Yi being Yi, even I thought we were in trouble. I kept worrying that he'd backdoor our nexus, but we were able to keep defending it. After over an hour, the other team got out of position and we took advantage of that. I flashed to snipe the super-tanky Garen before he could escape, which left Vayne alone to face most of our team. We stormed their nexus and finally finished it. In the end, I went 9/6/41. That victory took me up 21 LP, to a new total of 44 LP. I'm also tied on my win/loss ratio now: 37 wins, 37 losses.

Finally, I did a solo queue match and got first pick, so I had my Karthus. We also had a Lee Sin jungler, a Vladimir top, and a Jinx ADC with Xin Zhao supporting. Our opponents had Ziggs (mid), Shyvana (top), Rengar (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Morgana (support). My lane opponent played somewhat passively. I easily outfarmed Ziggs and picked up some kills with my ult to get ahead. Our Vladimir fed hard, but our bot lane came out ahead too. Because Shyvana was fed, she was able to keep the match close for a while, but my damage output let Jinx easily snowball and pick everyone off, and when she couldn't kill our enemies, I did, leading to an early and decisive victory. I went 5/0/9. Up to 64 LP now. I'm not back to Bronze I yet, but I think I'm getting there. I took April and most of May off. It's not June 1st. If I get some more Ranked matches in, I can potentially reach Bronze I before Spring is over.