Going for the Gold Part L: Bandit Sivir Raids Again!

Here we go again. I forget how many times I've done this and how many times I've rewritten this stupid intro text. I suck at Ranked and have done worse every season. Now it's a new season, I'm getting an even later start than normal, and itemization in League of Legends is so different that I have no idea what's going on. Despite all that, I apparently still call this blog "Going for the Gold."

Placement match 1
Mid: Lissandra
Top: Vladimir
Jungle: Nunu
Bot: Graves
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Aurelion Sol
Top: Volibear
Jungle: Aatrox
Bot: Caitlyn
Bot: Teemo
Our Graves was terrible and my attempts to keep him alive were futile, but it was our Nunu that really fed the other team. They snowballed and easily defeated us. Unwinnable match to start things off, of course. I went 2/5/13.

Placement match 2
Mid: Yasuo
Top: Wukong
Jungle: Vi
Bot: Jinx
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Annie
Top: Ekko
Top: Amumu (mostly roaming, but not using Smite)
Bot: Ezreal
Support: Blitzcrank
Well, this was mostly a worse version of the previous game. Jinx fed aggressively from the start, constantly amazed that Blitzcrank was able to pull her and kill her whenever she overextended, which was most of the time. I went 1/3/8. Two losses down, eight to go.

Placement match 3
Mid: Ekko
Top: Illaoi
Jungle: Nunu
Bot: Ashe
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Fizz
Top: Garen
Jungle: Nidalee
Bot: Tristana
Support: Morgana
Finally got to support an ADC that had actually played the game before at some point in the person's life, unlike the first two placement matches. It went something like this...
"Out of mana. Be back soon. Take care."
"Sona, you're amazing."
"Farm, my love."
"Marry me."
And then I went 2/0/17.

Placement match 4
Mid: Fizz
Top: Akali 
Jungle: Vi
Bot: Quinn
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Kassadin
Top: Gnar
Jungle: Pantheon
Bot: Kog'Maw
Support: Bard
I thought that maybe the trend had reversed, but I got another bad lane partner. Quinn died frequently, often when it would have been easily avoidable. We were behind nearly the entire time. Final team kill score was 52:78. Other team had earned over 5,300 gold more than our team. We were seemingly doomed. But that's why I never give up in Ranked. We were losing here by any metric, and the other team had just killed Baron and were closing in to finish things. To make matters worse, our team split, with Akali and Quinn pushing bot toward an undefended inhibitor turret while the rest of us tried to defend our own base. Baron buff and fed enemies made short work of Fizz. Vi used the nexus turrets to protect herself somewhat, fighting them off briefly before they got her too. I wove between the nexus turrets, fought with everything I had, and ulted from underneath the turrets. With both turrets gone, I shielded myself as the enemy champions jumped on me, then activated Zhonya's Hourglass before they could kill me, then flashed around the corner of the nexus. They gave up the chase and changed targets. Powerful enemies were attacking the nexus, and I had no health and no allies left to stop them. As I watched Sona drift to the platform, the camera whipped up. I assumed that it was showing our nexus destroyed, but it kept going, all the way across the map. My stalling had worked, albeit barely. The backdoor push had gone all the way to the enemy nexus and destroyed it, just as we were about to lose. I went 3/12/20. So yeah, never give up or something.

Placement match 5
Mid: Karthus (me)
Top: Yorick
Jungle: Warwick
Bot: Kog'Maw (Lithormane)
Support: Nautilus (Thatgermanguy45)
vs.
Mid: Cho'Gath
Top: Pantheon
Jungle: Jax
Bot: Varus
Support: Lux
I forget the details or never learned them, but the new Ranked queue system allows for trio-queuing. Our bot laners were Paul (Lithormane) and his friend, whose name now escapes me. I was playing my best champion and got fed. Paul was playing his best champion and got fed. His friend provided a formidable tank for us. How could we lose? Well, one way for us to lose would be for the other two players on our team to leave the game. We had a lot of power, but not really 3 vs. 5 power. And of course, that was exactly what happened. As an aside, hey Riot, it sure is cool that in a placement match, I can have my placement affected because I lost a 3 vs. 5. Placement matches sure are cool and a great way to establish ranking or whatever. Anyway, I went 6/4/5. For those keeping track, that's 2 placement match wins, 3 placement match losses.

Placement match 6
Mid: Ahri
Top: Riven
Jungle: Master Yi
Bot: Jinx
Support: Sona (me)
vs.
Mid: Cho'Gath
Top: Nautilus
Jungle: Olaf
Bot: Miss Fortune
Support: Karma
And the feeder marksmen strike again! How do these algorithms work, anyway? Our Jinx was even worse than the would be ADC players in my other placement matches. Karma would run and hide in the brush, Jinx would overextend, lose 3/4 of her health, retreat under the tower, run out again even after I provided vision of the brush in which Karma was hiding, and die. And then she'd do it again for good measure. Later, they'd almost kill her, but she'd barely survive, then start recalling under the turret with almost no health, at which point Karma would snipe her. And then Jinx would do that again too. There was a complete lack of awareness. If I'd really cared about this, I suppose that I could have been mad at Jinx for feeding, but it didn't matter because the other players on my team fared just as poorly. I went 2/5/5, which was easily the best record of the bunch, even though I was playing support.

Placement match 7
Mid: Brand
Top: Nasus (me)
Jungle: Vi
Bot: Lucian
Support: Braum (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Akali
Top: Tryndamere
Jungle: Darius
Bot: Ashe
Support: Anivia
This one was a duo queue with Scott (IMLRG), for the first time in the season. We got off to a strong start and built a team that could win in a fight, but the fight never happened all game because our team couldn't be bothered to cooperate. We lost skirmish after skirmish, objective after objective, until our base was flooded with Baron-empowered super minions and we lost. In terms of mechanics, no one on our team played that badly. But because our opponents used the power of friendship, we were completely trounced. I went 6/5/10. My Nasus gameplay is fine, but I'm a bit torn on itemization. Still, it could have and should have worked here.

Placement match 8
Mid: Aurelion Sol
Top: Wukong
Jungle: Ekko
Bot: Sivir (me)
Support: Sona (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Yasuo
Top: Malphite
Jungle: Volibear
Bot: Vayne
Support: Nami
For the first time in years, I brought Bandit Sivir back to Ranked. Her voice is ruined, but now her lines are wittier. For the uninitiated, I should explain the idea behind Bandit Sivir. The minions, you see, are merchant caravans. Sivir is a bandit leader, hungry for gold. The enemy champions are caravan guards, intent on killing Sivir. But Sivir doesn't want to actually fight carvan guards, so she avoids them and picks off any vulnerable caravans she can reach. If an easy opportunity arises, Sivir will kill vulnerable caravan guards. She actually prefers to allow her personal bodyguard (support) to strike the final blow in those cases, so they can claim the loot from these enemies and buy more gear to better protect Sivir, who should be getting plenty of gold from merchant caravans anyway. As she accumulates more wealth, Sivir destroys fortifications built along the highway, increasing the vulnerability of the merchant caravans. Once she is filthy rich enough, Sivir elects to retire. So she gathers her bandits and invades the city, destroying everything in her path. Of course, with Scott's help and a greedy enemy Vayne, my return to my bandit ways of old was quite successful. I went 12/4/8.

Placement match 9
Mid: Orianna
Top: Graves
Jungle: Rammus
Bot: Sivir (me)
Support: Sona (IMLRG)
Mid: Yasuo
Top: Darius
Jungle: Amumu
Bot: Draven
Support: Morgana
This one didn't go quite so smoothly at first, in large part due to Morgana, who just seemed to be bonkers good. I eventually farmed up, but then I kept dying because Amumu had a knack for appearing out of nowhere. I never saw him coming until his Bandage Toss had already hit me. Draven started snowballing, but our team was holding out and if I'm going to play Sivir, I have to trust that she can hang in there and keep farming for the late game. Because I wasn't fed, I wasn't the team-destroying multikill machine that I'd been in the previous game, but I didn't really need to be. Graves and Orianna picked up most of the kills. I went 5/5/12. I also dunked four turrets, most of them all by myself. Also, I think that four of my five kills happened after I'd already died five times. So yeah, Bandit Sivir, welcome back. 100% winrate, although that could be attributed to Scott's Sona.

Placement match 10
Mid: Karthus
Top: Garen
Jungle: Wukong
Bot: Miss Fortune
Support: Alistar (IMLRG)
vs.
Mid: Katarina
Top: Gragas
Jungle: Tryndamere
Bot: Vayne
Support: Braum
Well, the problem with this one was that, as with the Nasus game, we couldn't organize. I got fed and was dominating Katarina, but Tryndamere kept jumping on me. Even if I took him down with me, Katarina would then annihilate my whole team. We would have lost this one, but Vayne went AFK, so we managed to win the 4 vs. 5. I went 11/10/13. For those keeping track, this match took my record to an even 5 wins, 5 losses. And of course, such a record warrants placement into Bronze V, because nothing about Ranked gameplay makes any damn sense. In previous seasons, I'd be annoyed. Now I just find it a bit odd. But it doesn't really matter where I am and I don't really think that I can make Gold. So yeah, just hoping to have some fun with a lot more Karthus games and Sivir games.

I'm back

With all of the changes to the game, I anticipated needing a break and some preparation, but it dragged on and on, with work and other things delaying my return to playing League much at all. I've played some games, albeit not always Ranked, in every season of the game. I've seen a lot of changes, adjusted to some and failed to adjust to others. But my waning commitment to put in the hours for this activity combined with the expanse and scale of these new changes has made the game overwhelming. I have a lot of thoughts. I've finally returned to Ranked play, but before I post on that subject, I want to expound on those aforementioned thoughts...

1. I no longer believe myself to theoretically belong in Gold. This is not so much because I think that my circumstances have changed. Gold seems to be a place for serious players. I haven't adapted, and part of my failure to adapt has been due to a need to focus on other priorities. There have probably been some points at which, if my raw gameplay skills were properly harnessed and if I'd played enough games and if I'd had a reasonable amount of good luck, I'd have made Gold. It didn't pan out, but that's fine. Those days are gone. I might never make it out of Bronze and I'm fine with that. I'm just going to try to play and have fun.
2. The above point does not mean that I suck at the game or that I don't think I'm good enough. On the contrary, I'm quite good at some of the things I specialize in. Despite not fully adjusting to the new environment, I have enough experience doing some of the things that are still perfectly good, and doing them well, that I do think I have my own minor claim to some bits of excellence.
3. My Karthus game is still quite good. It's not at its peak just yet, but I think I can surpass my best Karthus gameplay soon enough.
4. I really miss Sivir. Out of all the reworks and champion nerfs and changes, losing my Sivir hurt the worst. It's been a long time and I'm definitely better at the game than I was when I was playing her, but in some ways, I've never fully recovered. When I was maining Sivir, my two preferred roles were mid and marksman, as Karthus and Sivir respectively. When her rework hit and I decided to switch over to other carries entirely, I lost the success of my bot lane performance and never got it back. Now, I did eventually find a niche with on-hit bot laners, mostly Kog'Maw and Kayle. But it's not the same. I've been hoping against hope that I could somehow salvage what I had with Sivir. So I'm going to try. I'm prepared for a frustrating experience, but I really think that with Death's Dance, it just might work.
5. The new draft format seems to have a hidden double-queueing setup in its algorithms. For three normal drafts and then four Ranked drafts, I selected mid as my first choice and fill as my second choice. I was relegated to support in every single match, and nearly all of the failed lobbies, except one in which I was sent bot to be a marksman. When I queued with teammates in my most recent game, I did get mid, but they'd chosen to duo bot together as their first priority. I believe that the algorithms search for matches to both. Since more lobbies that are being built lack supports, it throws any "fill" options into those lobbies, which happens too quickly for the first priority to even matter. If this is the case, so long as supports are in high demand, selecting "fill" as a possibility is tantamount to selecting support. I might be wrong, but something must be going on here.
6. I now own all champions besides one. Pretty cool. Now if only I knew how to play them.
7. My best champions are probably Karthus and Malzahar. My Singed is still quite good too. And yet, I'm primarily an on-hit specialist, even though none of my top three fall into that category. My on-hit junglers are pretty good (especially Udyr, Skarner, and Shen). When I go bot, rather than playing a crit-focused marksman, I go on-hit (particularly Kog'Maw, Kayle, and Kennen).
8. I'm getting sick of the endless barrage of champion reworks. I take a break from a champion and find out that everything I'd practiced is out the window.
9. League of Legends is trying too hard to force counterplay and finesse into the game with minigame-like aspects of new champions and reworks. My favorite champions to play are all older style champions with simple, clean kits that have their own depth of usage.
10. The current, and relatively stable metagame as it now seems to be revolves a lot around big, early plays to snowball into dominance. Farming for extended periods is frowned upon and is now less likely to pay off than in the past. This, perhaps as much as my own inactivity, quashes my dreams of League Gold. I've always been a late game player. And while I don't want to hurt my teams in Ranked, this is not a point on which I'm willing or able to adapt. I play champions and build them with the long game in mind. It's what I do and it's what I know.