Going for the Gold Part XI: Recovering

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, by now you know the drill. I took a bit of a break after plummeting to 2 LP in Bronze I, but I recently came back. I've completed seven Ranked games since then...

Game 1 as Sivir
Our team: Sivir (ADC), Cassiopeia (support), Malzahar (mid), Lee Sin (jungle), Maokai (top)
Their team: Renekton (top), Fizz (mid), Draven (ADC), Janna (support), Amumu (jungle)
I was terrified that the Cassiopeia support would backfire on me, but we won lane. I didn't catch any outright trolling on the enemy team, but they fell behind and ended up surrendering early on.
K/D/A: 2/1/2

Game 2 as Udyr
Our team: Udyr (jungle), Varus (ADC), Cho'Gath (top), Lux (support), Brand (mid)
Their team: Hecarim (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), Teemo (top), Nami (support), Twisted Fate (mid)
I got coerced into jungling, kind of. It's not that I mind, it's that I wanted to win. Well, our bot lane struggled and our top lane was completely trounced, but I picked up some kills and helped Brand pick up even more. He got fed and carried. I had a neutral K/D in the end because I started getting destroyed by their fed Caitlyn before I could reach anyone with Udyr's melee-only capability. I went from 8/3 to 8/8. Still, we won.
K/D/A: 8/8/6
Udyr W:L ratio: 3:1

Game 3 as Maokai
Our team: Maokai (jungle), Kassadin (mid), Corki (ADC), Sona (support), Akali (top)
Their team: Jax (top), Master Yi (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), Karma (mid), Volibear (support)
Another jungle game for me, but it became my first Ranked Maokai win, so I was thrilled. This would actually have been a very easy game, but Akali fed the crap out of Jax. Kassadin and Corki were huge jerks, so the only person I liked in this game was our Sona. Jax ended up killing any of us pretty easily, but we were ahead enough against the rest of his team that we still pulled it off.
K/D/A: 4/5/15
Maokai W:L ratio: 1:4

Game 4 as Karthus
Our team: Karthus (mid), Olaf (top), Nasus (jungle), Graves (troll), Vayne (ADC)
Their team: Jarvan (jungle), Viktor (mid), Singed (top), Leona (support), Sivir (ADC)
The Graves player had last pick and hadn't been communicating in the lobby. Apparently he didn't want to support, so he decided to play a different game: "Compete against Vayne in bot lane, then pretend she's the toxic player in the allchat." I had my hands full with a strong Viktor player (the new skin made him momentarily popular, it seems), but I was Karthus, so it was fine. But our bot lane was dominated enough that we fell behind on objectives. With Sivir and Singed to split-push we fell even further behind. Graves was spamming the allchat with caps lock lies about our Vayne. We lost, of course. Well, I'd won three in a row and wasn't expecting to be able to keep it up forever. Does Riot have special androids that join queues with me and activate "troll mode" when I play Karthus? I mean, that's crazy talk. But I can't prove it doesn't happen...
K/D/A: 8/3/7
Karthus W:L ratio: 13:15

Game 5 as Sona
Our team: Sona (support), Viktor (mid), Garen (top), Olaf (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC)
Their team: Hecarim (jungle), Sivir (ADC), Mordekaiser (top), Diana (mid), Blitzcrank (support)
I was last pick and our enthusiastic Caitlyn player seemed to think I should play Sona. I acquiesced. Caitlyn was too aggressive, but that managed to get her some unlikely-seeming kills, even if she died to get them. I ended up having another one of my awesome Sona games, which started to wear them down. Hecarim attempted to use ganks to bully us and ruin our positioning for teamfights, but I blocked some of that with my ult. It started out fairly even (their top was crushing ours, while we were a bit ahead elsewhere), but turned into a great game for our team.
K/D/A: 5/0/13

Game 6 as Sona
Our team: Sona (support), Singed (top), Elise (jungle), Fizz (mid), Caitlyn (ADC)
Their team: Warwick (jungle), Mordekaiser (mid), Corki (ADC), Fiddlesticks (support), Olaf (top)
The Caitlyn player from the previous game asked to duo queue with me. This person was sort of odd, seemingly wanting to always play Caitlyn and always ban Corki and Fizz. Things were going poorly for us from the start, but I figured I'd just keep healing and try to hold Corki and Fiddlesticks off until we could get strong enough to outpoke them. Then our Elise came in, with less than full health, for a psychotic gank when Corki and Fiddlesticks weren't even overextending. Elise got killed while Caitlyn chased Fiddlesticks down the lane. I tried to save Elise, being too far back to save Caitlyn. Corki killed all three of us, and then the rage commenced. I think mid and jungle might have been a duo queue, because they raged about all three of the other players, despite not doing well themselves. The game was a total disaster.
K/D/A: 0/8/12
Sona W:L: 4:3

Game 7 as Sivir
Our team: Sivir (ADC), Wukong (top), Lux (mid), Diana (jungle), Leona (support)
Their team: Akali (mid), Pantheon (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Nami (support), Ezreal (ADC)
I don't want to be too hyperbolic about this one. Anyway, let's see. On the downside: Wukong being an asshole in the pre-game lobby spamming about how we needed to give him top because he's smurfing and blah blah blah I added him to my ignore list before the game even started, Diana being a pompous idiot about my inability to kill the Akali she was chasing through our jungle with no wards, and Leona having to take a phone call and not really paying attention to the game for the first part of it. On the upside: me. No really, I was being outfarmed by Ezreal and ganked by Xin Zhao at first, but then I decided to win, so I did.
K/D/A: 9/3/5
Sivir W:L: 6:6

Lifetime W:L: 43:46
Current LP: 33