Three seasons in a row, I sought Gold, but remained stuck in Bronze.
Am I delusional? Let's see what happens this time around. I got a late
start to this season and I've been thrown into Bronze again by placement
matches. This is the story of my attempt to turn reverse the trends of
previous seasons. This is Going for the Gold.
Mid: Annie
Top: Shen (IMLRG)
Jungle: Xin Zhao
Marksman: Kog'Maw (me)
Support: Blitzcrank
vs.
Mid: Cho'Gath
Top: Nasus
Jungle: Diana
Marksman: Jinx
Support: Thresh
Sadly, Scott couldn't deal with Nasus, which became a big problem for us. The bigger problem was that their jungler was making plays and ours wasn't doing much of anything. And even more annoyingly, Blitzcrank fed, raged at me, and stopped supporting me in my lane, leaving me way behind against powerful opponents. They pulled ahead and it could have been completely dominant, but I farmed and got caught up, while Annie racked up some kills to offset our disadvantage. In the end, I suppose that it was reasonably close, and we even came out ahead on total kills, but our team just got outplayed and there was way too much stupidity going on with Xin Zhao and Blitzcrank. I went 9/6/16 despite the oppressive laning phase, but it wasn't enough.
Mid: Vel'Koz
Top: Pantheon
Jungle: Wukong
Marksman: Kog'Maw (me)
Support: Nautilus (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Karma
Top: Teemo
Jungle: Volibear
Marksman: Graves
Support: Leona
I don't remember much about this one. I was sure that I'd sworn off going bot, but I guess I was forced to or something. Looking at the statistics, it seems that they won every lane except top and that their Volibear ran a clinic on our whole team. I went 3/6/4 and of course, we lost. That was four losses in a row.
Mid: Cho'Gath (IMLRG)
Top: Vi
Jungle: Amumu (me)
Assassin Bot Lane: Talon
Support: Malphite
vs.
Mid: Malzahar
Top: Cassiopeia
Jungle/Top: Shaco
Roaming/Jungle/Bot: Katarina
Marksman: Draven
The problem with doing this when I wait too long to blog the results is that I forget a lot of what happened, and I don't recall how this bizarre match got started, although I do remember some events. For whatever reason, both teams had unorthodox position-filling, as can be seen in the roster. Shaco and Katarina both initially went after jungle stuff and attempted to counterjungle me, but I avoided them. Meanwhile, Draven was alone and picked off in the bot lane. I helped Vi early on and both of our side lanes snowballed. Things went pretty crazy after that too, but we started coming out ahead a lot because Talon and Vi were both really fed. Malzahar stomped on us anyway and somehow Draven caught up, but we had enough CC to keep that from causing an upset. I went 4/6/12 and finally broke my losing streak.
Mid: Annie
Top: Singed (me)
Jungle: Rumble (IMLRG)
Marksman: Ezreal
Support: Lulu
vs.
Mid: Zed
Top: Cho'Gath
Jungle: Nunu
Marksman: Miss Fortune
Support: Nautilus
I was bullied by Cho'Gath and whined that I needed ganks, but Nunu counterjungled hard and shut down that possibility. I was sure that I was screwed, then Cho'Gath and Nunu executed this beautifully stupid tower dive on me and gave me a double kill, which gave me the edge I needed to stomp them some more when we met again. Since they couldn't touch me, they proceeded to flawlessly dominate everyone else on my team. No, really, they were behind after failing to kill me in multiple attempts, but somehow, after that, they would instantly blow up anyone else on my team that they met. That led to moments like, "Cho'Gath was 0/2 before I drove him out of lane. I go bot to save it, then go back top to clear the minions, and now he's 10/2? What did you guys do?" I mean, I didn't say that in the chat because I try to be nice, but I sure was thinking it. It seems like we've been here before, but my Singed couldn't become strong enough quickly enough to save my aggressively feeding team. In the end, I went 6/5/13. And I just want to emphasize, since it was so unusual, that the vast majority of my 13 assists were kills that Ezreal sniped last hits on before my poison could finish them off. That sounds petty, but it was done to such an extent that it was surreal. And ordinarily, I'd be fine with the marksman picking up kills anyway, but it was like, nearly all of his kills were ones that I did all the work for and he only showed up to pick off the last hit, which is annoying and not very productive.
Mid: Karthus
Top: Cho'Gath (IMLRG)
Jungle: Trundle
Marksman: Vayne
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Swain
Top: Fiora
Jungle: Maokai
Marksman: Ashe
Support: Alistar
I had a bug splat and died because of it early in one of my Ranked games and I think it was this one. But I came back and supported the crap out of Vayne, who was good and didn't really need that much help anyway. So she snowballed and carried the match. We worked well together and practically moved as a unit. I went 1/5/20 and I think I only missed assists on one or two of Vayne's 19 kills. That's the kind of bot lane I can handle.
Mid: Orianna
Top: Cho'Gath (IMLRG)
Jungle: Udyr (me)
Marksman: Jinx
Support: Janna
vs.
Mid: Annie
Top: Jace
Jungle: Master Yi
Marksman: Tristana
Support: Leona
Scott and I did fine. Mid fed, bot fed, and our team was thoroughly trounced. I went 2/2/3, which isn't bad for a game we lost in 21 minutes.
Mid: Karthus (me)
Top: Olaf
Jungle: Volibear
Marksman: Vayne
Support: Tahm Kench (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Lissandra
Top: Vladimir
Jungle: Shaco
Marksman: Jinx
Support: Blitzcrank
I don't know what it is about Lissandra, but it seems like whenever I lane against one, I put up with a little initial bullying, begin outscaling her and win my lane, and then my teammates run in and drop like flies against her. That would have been manageable, since I was Karthus, but our bot lane failed and Shaco snowballed hard. Olaf killed them a lot, but overall, our team was beaten pretty badly. I went 12/5/7. Ugh.
Mid: Zed
Top: Singed
Jungle: Tahm Kench (IMLRG)
Marksman: Kog'Maw (me)
Roaming: Bard
vs.
Mid: Veigar
Top: Shen
Jungle: Lee Sin
Marksman: Varus
Support: Lux
Well, yet again, I got last-picked into taking the marksman role. And then my supposed support bailed on me after feeding our lane opponents a few kills. Varus was out of control, and no one could get to him with Shen and Lee Sin destroying them if they tried to initiate. I did eventually farm into a full build, but by then, they were way, way ahead. They tried to take our nexus and I fought the fed Varus and Lee Sin by myself, killing both but dying to Cinderhulk's burning damage right as I did so. Then Shen showed up and finished the nexus off. I went 9/12/9 and swore off the bot lane for the umpteenth time.
Mid: Malzahar (me)
Feed: Heimerdinger
Jungle: Kha'Zix
Bot Feed: Vayne
Support: Braum (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Cassiopeia
Top: Pantheon
Jungle: Xin Zhao
Marksman: Caitlyn
Support: Alistar
Vayne and Heimerdinger decided to feed early and feed often. We didn't stand a chance. I went 2/4/7 because when I play Malzahar, sometimes it's fun to keep almost killing them so that you can stay gold-starved and not actually pick up kills. Yay. At this point, I thought that I'd be demoted, but Ranked matchmaking hadn't finished having its way with me yet.
Mid: Karthus (me)
Top: Cho'Gath (IMLRG)
Jungle: Jax
Marksman: Miss Fortune
Support: Sona
vs.
Mid: Viktor
Top: Lee Sin
Jungle: Tryndamere
Marksman: Sivir
Support: Thresh
Viktor is a pretty easy lane for my Karthus. If he throws his laser at me and misses, he has no damage. If I throw my Lay Waste at him and miss, I've lost virtually nothing. Meanwhile I can farm better and stay at a sufficient distance to avoid most of his damage. As usual, this doesn't stop my idiotic teammates from running up to Viktor and feeding him. To be fair, that's not all that happened. The biggest problem was that once Lee Sin barely scored a kill against Scott, he was able to quickly go in and kill anyone on our team with impunity. Fed Lee Sin is one of the most obnoxious things that League of Legends has to offer. So I went 4/7/5. These negative kill/death ratio Karthus games, formerly so rare, seem to crop up a lot now. But what can I do? My first death was Lee Sin running in through our jungle, tower-diving me at full health, and easily surviving what should have been a suicidal gank.
Mid: Karthus (me)
Top: Pantheon
Jungle: Xin Zhao
Marksman: Tristana
Support: Morgana (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Veigar
Top: Darius
Jungle: Master Yi
Marksman: Jinx
Support: Lux
Veigar used to be a matchup where I didn't want to pick Karthus. I didn't like the idea of being outscaled, and Veigar is the one mage that can become an even bigger threat than Karthus ever can. But Veigar was nerfed and while he still packs a punch, I value my team-destroying potential as Karthus enough to brave the king of late-game burst damage. His ult might instagib me, but my ult can pick off his team. And things would have been fine. I was farming well and easily dealt with the aggressive Master Yi. Our Pantheon had what amounted to a bye, with Darius feeding and generally having no lane presence (something that shouldn't be difficult for Darius ordinarily, but maybe the player was really bad). We had this. But my teammates had a dream and that dream involved feeding Yi and the enemy bot laners as much as possible. Scott got pretty frustrated with how stupid Tristana was, and there wasn't anything he could do. So, of course, we lost again. I went 7/6/4. That makes six losses in a row. And it also means a demotion to Bronze III. How couldn't it? I've been losing games with a remarkable consistency, so I'm surprised that I wasn't demoted sooner.
