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.
This
weekend is destroying my Ranked record. I queued up for a new game in
the division I just got demoted back to. I was fourth pick. The person
with last pick called support. Our first pick took Jax top. Second pick
took Ahri mid. Third pick took Twitch, but also said "jungle" and
grabbed Smite. Seeing that we had an ADC jungle and that I was
filling the carry role bot lane, I figured my on-hit Kayle would be the
best bet. When my teammates asked, I clarified that I was going on-hit.
So our last pick took Nami. Jax whined that we needed an ADC, so at the
last second Nami switched to Miss Fortune. Now we had two ranged AD
carries. And of course, both fed. But that's not so strange, as our
whole team fed. Ahri lost lane to Annie. Aatrox outjungled Twitch, which
is about as predictable as it gets. The enemy bot lane of Lucian and
Morgana beat me soundly while Miss Fortune mostly just hid in the brush
(and got killed every once in a while). Jax held out in a stalemate
against Irelia, but that wasn't enough to save his lane with Aatrox
there to help. My hope was that we could stall long enough to catch up
with our incredible late game potential. If we'd lasted, we would have
had one of the highest scaling late game carries, a second ranged carry,
one of the highest scaling melee fighters, a mobile burst mage, and my
on-hit Kayle That would give us good poke, good initiation, considerable
utility, and more damage than the other team. But getting there was
looking unlikely. I was going to try, but no one else on my team wanted
to. They outvoted me and surrendered. So I went 1/5/0. I have no respect
for people who surrender in Ranked games. We had a chance, however
slim. And these morons just decided it would be better to give away
their LP than fight for that chance. Unacceptable. Anyway, that's eight
losses in a row. I lost 16 LP and am down to 59 LP in Bronze III. I'm
also down 29 wins, 32 losses. I can't believe how poorly Ranked is going
for me now. I'd say something about bad luck, but it seems so pointless
right now.
Well, I got my first pick Karthus, and for
the first time this season, I didn't get fed. We had Karthus (me), Kayle
(top), Wukong (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Leona (support) against
Katarina (mid), Teemo (top), Fiora (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and
Alistar (support). I say I didn't get fed, and it's true, but I didn't
quite get carried either. What happened was that my lane opponent didn't
try to roam, so I easily outfarmed her and avoided being killed.
Meanwhile, Wukong got fed off the side lanes and through counterganks in
the side lanes, as both junglers ignored mid. Twitch also got fed, so
by the end those two had 13 kills each. Because they were getting fed,
there weren't opportunities for me to get an edge by picking off enemies
with my ult. In teamfights, my CS, much higher than anyone else's,
allowed me to contribute, but kills were taken out from under me, even
when I did all of the damage except for getting the last hit. I
eventually made a mistake, thinking Leona had my back in the jungle and I
got chased down and killed by Miss Fortune and Katarina while I still
didn't have Sorcerer's Shoes. I also picked up a kill on Teemo when I
finally got an opening to finish someone off without having it taken
away by a teammate. But 1/1 isn't fed. In the very last teamfight, I was
the cleanup crew. My allies finally overextended in an effort to take
the nexus, and they got caught, allowing me to score three more kills.
So my final score was 4/1/15. Very underwhelming compared to my other
Karthus games this season. But we did win. At long last, the losing
streak has been broken. I just got 20 LP, bringing me up to 79. I can
hardly believe that losing streak has finally been put to a halt.
Yet
again, I got first pick, and was set to play Karthus against Ziggs.
Then someone dodged. Well, I got mostly the same people, and mostly the
same situation, even though I wasn't first pick. So our team consisted
of Karthus (me), Jax (top), Vi (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Nautilus
(support). The other team had Ziggs (mid), Wukong (top), Volibear
(jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Thresh (support). And this time, I did
get fed. The enemy Ziggs tried to harass me, but I'm ready for that, so
I survived and outfarmed him, then started killing his teammates. To be
clear, our Jax and Jinx were also fed in this game, and Vi and Nautilus
were doing a good job of supporting them, so that I got fed too, and
not as hard, was really just the icing on the cake. I went 5/1/4 before
the enemy team surrendered. This victory has propelled me into a promo
series. If I win two out of my next three games, I make it back into
Bronze II just a little worse for the wear (my MMR will be lower from
all the losses, but at least I'll be back there). Still, I haven't
gotten there yet. But I'll do those games before I post this update, so
you'll see soon enough. I'll probably even put it in the title, so it's
not even a mystery by this point.
For the first game in
the new series, I was last pick, and everyone else called everything
but ADC. I haven't given up on playing the role, but I'm on a
self-imposed hiatus from it until I figure some things out. I have a
nearly 80% loss ratio as ADC this season, and I pointed this out to my
allies. First pick offered to trade with me if I could support as
Morgana, but was vague about whether or not it was happening when I
responded. To be safe, I took Tristana. In the last five seconds, the
first pick did make the trade request, and I accepted and switched my
runes and masteries to Morgana ones. I forget if I've mentioned it here
before, but I've done pretty well with Morgana as a support. However, I
actually play her as what I call a "fake support." I take the same runes
and masteries as I would for a Swain solo lane, and I don't buy any
support items whatsoever, although I do buy and place wards. Instead of
support items, I buy expensive mage items like Rod of Ages, Liandry's
Torment, and Zhonya's Hourglass. As a support, I get gold-starved doing
this and progress is slow, but Morgana as a support isn't about raw
power, but about timing, maneuvering, and landing skillshots, none of
which require items. Support items would give me more early game
capability, but I take the risk of assuming that I can grind out some AP
items and become a strong mage for teamfights. In this particular game,
it worked. My carry didn't play very well, but the enemy botlane was
also technically deficient, so I was able to keep bot lane under
control. It was pretty close for a while, and then I got a triple kill
with my ult that let us push into their base for the first time. We
didn't win right away, but they reacted poorly to losing the teamfight
and never really got organized again so that they could beat us. In
total team kills, the game was close up until the end, 39 to 35 in our
favor. Renekton got fed, but Warwick and Quinn got fed too, while Thresh
put up a good performance supporting. We only won because our opponents
failed to adjust after losing a few key teamfights, clearly arguing
amongst themselves instead of trying to adapt and recover, which let us
win fights that we should have lost. Our Udyr gave up a lot of kills and
was too focused on stacking Feral Flare rather than on not feeding. Our
Malzahar came out behind and insulted the Tristana who did about as
well in the game as he did. Fortunately, I came back from a precarious
laning phase to wreck my enemies with CC, ultimately going 6/4/16. If I
can just win one out of my next two matches, I'll be able to start
undoing some of the damage wrought by the events of my previous post.
For
the second game in the series, I got last pick again. They asked for
Morg, so they got Morg. Specifically, we had Gragas (mid), Volibear
(top), Kha'Zix (jungle), Quinn (ADC), and Morgana (me) against Orianna
(mid), Renekton (top), Jax (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Blitzcrank
(support). I gave up first blood trying to help Quinn, but shook it off,
ran back to the lane, and picked up a kill when Kha'Zix couldn't quite
finish Ashe off. From there, we got Quinn fed. The rest of the team did
fairly well (Volibear had problems and Kha'Zix got too aggressive, but
Gragas got pretty fed and Quinn continued getting extremely fed), and
our opponents fell behind and were dominated. I went 6/3/19. So now, I'm
back in Bronze II! I have 33 wins and 32 losses, so my MMR can't be that bad. Let's try this again, Bronze II. But not today. Some other day. I've accomplished what I wanted to. I've mostly cancelled out the horrible losing streak that bumped be out of Bronze II in the first place.
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