Going for the Gold Part VII: Support OP

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 got some more ranked games in. Five of them, actually. My position in the ladder is a bit better than it was before. I now have 73 LP. My overall record is 33 wins and 33 losses. By using arithmetic and paying attention to these posts one could hypothetically ascertain that I must have won three games and lost two since my last update. But who has time for that?

My losses were, well, losses. I wasn't happy with them, although one of them may have potentially been avoidable, but probably not. Both were frustrating. Two of these wins though, might be personal favorites of mine. Last post ended on something of a sour note, albeit hopeful. I had won four in a row, then lost three in a row. What happened after that was different.

The same day that I'd lost one ranked Karthus game, but after I posted my previous update, I tried Karthus again. Our jungler was a no-show. Our bot lane was dominated and the enemy jungler was able to help compound that problem. I played carefully, hoping for something to turn things around. I did pick up some kills and assists, but the pressure of playing 4 vs. 5 was too much and we were easily beaten. My final score was 3/2/6 (it actually should have been 4/2/6 since Caitlyn and I were killing each other, but Renekton took our nexus down so quickly that Caitlyn was made invulnerable a tiny fraction of a second before she would have died).

So at this point, I had just lost four in a row, and the last two had both been as my main. I'd thought I accounted for myself in both, but the games were impossible to win (feeders in the first and a leaver in the second). It was getting late and I was not in the mood, but I clicked to play another anyway. I got first pick again, but someone left the lobby. I thought about leaving the queue since I didn't feel like playing anymore, but I stuck around. I got into another lobby, this time as the fourth pick. I moped around while my teammates made their picks. It got to me and the only roles left were ADC and support. I picked Kog'Maw. At first, I thought our last pick was AFK, but then the person picked Caitlyn, which led to argument in the chat. I invoked pick order because I was already frustrated with how my games were going and didn't want to add to that by supporting some random that didn't even seem to communicate (that was unfair, since I hadn't been communicating much either, but whatever). It didn't matter, since the Caitlyn-picker insisted on having "called it" and wouldn't budge. Two people wanted me to pick Thresh for some reason. I guess because Thresh wasn't banned, but they weren't clear on it. At the last second, I switched from Kog'Maw to Thresh. I made a show of being pissed off about being bullied into supporting Caitlyn, but it was a ruse: I had no intention of supporting. I have never played Thresh as a support, although before this point I'd only played him against bots. I tried a Thresh build that looked good and I've stuck with it ever since.

I started out not taking Exhaust, like half my allies demand when I play a support and taking boots and potions instead of wards, which did get some commentary but no real rage. It wasn't that I was trying to make my team rage at me, but I figured it was a foregone conclusion. They'd see me rushing Bloodthirster and they'd flip out. That, or my lack of experience with Thresh would cause me to fail miserably. Or both. I'd take too much CS or too many kills and the ADC would start the rage. Only it never happened. Instead, I went into the lane and got fed. I carried the fuck out of this game. My final score was 13/2/9 right before the enemy team surrendered. I built The Bloodthirster, Mercury's Treads, and Frozen Mallet, but by the time anyone noticed, they were too busy cracking up about how apparently Thresh was carrying and Caitlyn was supporting (technically, I'd let her have most of the CS, but I took the kills). So yeah, my first PVP Thresh game ever turned out to be a Ranked game, I faked out supporting, and I thoroughly dominated. I'm not saying Thresh is OP, but I just might be focusing on him more in the future.

I came back the next day still pretty thrilled about my ridiculous Thresh game. I didn't focus on Ranked, but I did get a Mordekaiser game in. My lane opponent was no problem, but they had a Hecarim jungler, so I had to be careful. Hecarim camping me cost me one death (they got me with a tower dive, then killed our mid when he showed up to help only after I had died, then took the tower). But I recovered. Unfortunately our bot lane fed and we were outplayed as a team. My final score was 3/4/4.

At this point, my wins were lagging behind my losses by two games. I was hoping to dig myself out of the hole. I took Kassadin mid against a Fiddlesticks, a lane that I figured would be annoying, but probably wouldn't stop me. I outdamaged Fiddlesticks, but neither of us could really kill the other at first and I had to give up some CS in order to keep my health high. My problem was that their jungler was a constant threat while mine decided to give my lane opponent a couple of free kills. That left me two levels behind Fiddlesticks for a while and I was worried, but it became apparent that our Vayne was going to carry anyway. This was the closest Ranked game I've had to a "get carried" experience. I won lane, more or less, and my final score was 4/2/4, but I was partially piggybacking off someone else's dominance. Still, a win is a win.

I wanted to get one more in for the day, hoping to catch my wins up to my losses. In the lobby I was last pick. I had a feeling that I'd end up supporting, and I was right. I played Sona. I guess so far, and I hadn't realized this, my undefeated champions in Ranked are Kassadin (five wins), Sona (three wins), and Thresh (one win). It was a very good game for me and I'm probably somewhat bigheaded right now about my Sona gameplay. I protected our Corki, got him fed, and made sure we controlled objectives, putting pressure on mid and helping two of our lanes to snowball simultaneously. Our Corki decided I should leave him and babysit our Garen, who was failing. I went top and helped Garen catch up. In teamfights, my auras and my ult gave us a huge advantage and we ended up with a very decisive victory. My final score was 2/1/31, which is fine, but what I liked about this game was that I gave us advantages in so many aspects, making use of my poke, my healing, my speed boosts, my stun, my auras, Clairvoyance, wards, securing two Flash/Hymn kills, knocking over towers with Power Chord, and generally doing what I envision a support doing under ideal circumstances.

So yeah, two great wins (both as supports, although technically that designation probably doesn't apply in the Thresh game), an unremarkable one, and two losses. Well, this ladder is grueling but I just might be making progress.