Going for the Gold Part XXIX: The Mad Chemist is Back

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.

Well, now I know I'll never ragequit. If I didn't do it this time, nothing is going to make it happen. This match was so bad it was surreal. The matchup was Karthus (me), Aatrox (top), Amumu (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Kayle (top), Shyvana (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Sona (support). People often pick Fizz against my Karthus because they think Fizz beats Karthus, but I've always managed to hold my own, not feed, farm up, and come out ahead. This wasn't so much an exception as it was a deception. All of my teammates, all four of them, seemed to be actively trying to screw me over. It didn't make any sense, and of course I didn't believe that was what they were doing, but it was what I kept seeing. Aatrox disconnected multiple times and eventually ran where I was farming and poached CS from me. Blitzcrank stole my last hits repeatedly and would go in with me, then ditch me suddenly and speed boost away while I got ganked. Ezreal initially seemed to be the least egregious, but used Arcane Shift and Mystic Shot to steal the last hit on a blue buff I was taking, and then immediately (no joke, it was a matter of a few seconds) rushed into the enemy team and died. And then there was Amumu, who would hang out by my lane or even in it, but would just stand around doing nothing (or take off) and let Fizz and Shyvana kill me. I fell behind rapidly and my allies fiercely sabotaged every attempt I made to come back. Reading this, it seems like I must be exaggerating, but I'm actually not. Like I said, it was surreal. I went 3/10/9. I'm not really even discouraged by this one because it was unlike any other game I'd played and I don't expect it to happen again any time soon, if ever. So I'm going to try one more for the night. I'm down to 48 LP. Maybe I can make it up with the next one.

Well, it wasn't as bad as the previous game, but it was pretty bad. We had a first pick Nidalee mid. I should probably have just dodged, since I've never really seen Nidalee mid work. But apparently I never dodge in Ranked. We also had Volibear top and Udyr jungle. Someone picked Nautilus support, so I was left to ADC, something I always manage to lose games doing these days. I picked Kog'Maw for some reason. The other team had Malzahar (mid), Jarvan IV (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Janna (support). We had trouble in the lanes, especially after Xin Zhao killed me twice with tower dives, but Udyr refused to help, calling us stupid for not knowing how Udyr works. That set Nidalee off, and our Nidalee player spammed the chat the rest of the game whining about how bad everyone else was. Udyr griefed, making sure we'd lose teamfights, and eventually congratulated the other team on making sure that Nidalee lost. While Volibear and Nautilus were obviously at least trying to win, they didn't attempt to protect me, so I was picked off all the time. I went 6/12/4. I'm now down to 31 LP. Brutal. We were probably going to lose anyway with the griefer, but I would have appreciated having some help. My teammates pretty much just ignored my existence.

I played seven duo queue matches with Scott (IMLRG). In the first, we had a someone first-pick Poppy for solo top, and another person picked jungle Gragas while Scott took Braum as a support. I was going to mid, but the last person locked in Nasus, so we switched to Poppy mid, Nasus top, and had me take Tristana. Our opponents had Diana (mid), Dr. Mundo (top). Xin Zhao (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Leona (support). We tried to hold bot lane, but didn't have a jungler to back us up, while the other team did. Gragas tried, but couldn't do enough. Poppy was ridiculously aggressive and fed, but also picked up kills while doing so. Nasus was the biggest problem. He had 12 bonus damage on his Siphoning Strike. That means he killed four things with it in the course of the match. He was dead weight and gave the enemy team a gold boost. This was a case in which 4 vs. 5 would actually have been better for us. We were perplexed at how someone would be playing Nasus in Ranked games without actually bothering to use his abilities. I went 7/5/0 in the end. Scott and I both reported Nasus as unskilled. Then I checked out the player's information on "LOLKING." It turned out that our Nasus player had 9 wins, 25 losses in Ranked this season, and was in Silver V. Oh. Riot, please?

Then we had Karthus (mid), Mordekaiser (me), Volibear (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Braum (Scott) vs. Sion (mid), Xin Zhao (top), Fiora (jungle), Graves (ADC), and Sona (support). This was my worst Mordekaiser game ever. I couldn't do any damage to Xin Zhao for some reason. It was like he was the one with the shield, instead of me. He picked up two early kills on me, but I got him back on the second one with my turret. He was still bullying me, when Volibear showed up and got destroyed instantly when he came to gank, leaving me exposed when I advanced to help him, so I died again. From there, Xin Zhao had complete control of the lane. Meanwhile, AP Sion and Fiora murdered the rest of my team. We tried to mount a comeback and started to catch up, but our team didn't coordinate well enough for it, and we were aced and defeated. I went 6/14/18. This match was total bullshit, but whatever. Moving on.

Not wanting to go out on such a depressing finish, we tried again. This one got screwed up. We had AP Tristana as a mid against Kassadin, which I was very apprehensive of. We also had a Rammus jungler to their Diana jungler, which I felt better about. Scott took Braum as a support and I was going to go on-hit Kayle to carry alongside him, as we already had Tristana on our team anyway for long range attacks. Our last pick failed to see that I was going bot, and picked Varus. He was nice about it once he saw his mistake, and I was going to let him have it, but Scott looked up the match and saw that the enemy Sion had AD runes and masteries. Kayle has no problem with AP Sion, but can't stop AD Sion all that well. So I asked Varus if he'd solo top anyway, which he did. That left Scott and I to face Jinx and Lulu in bot lane. It didn't hit us at first, but this match was very one-sided. Varus had no trouble with Sion, so he got farmed and fed. Tristana didn't feed Kassadin, and Rammus destroyed Kassadin and Sion, getting both lanes even further behind. Bot was where the only real challenge was, as Jinx maneuvered skillfully, poking us and keeping up with my CS. Eventually, we caught her when she got too isolated without Lulu's shield on her. I hit her with Reckoning, then used Flash and Ignite to pick up the kill. The lane remained challenging for a while, but we pulled ahead, then dominated the other team. I was 8/3/5 by the end.

Next, I tried some Singed games. In the first of those, it was Veigar (mid), Singed (me), Rengar (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Sona (Scott) vs. Lux (mid), Talon (top), Jax (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Leona (support). Rengar couldn't shut the hell up and Caitlyn was intermittently spamming pings, but we were initially ahead. Veigar disconnected and I had to work hard to keep us from falling behind. Eventually, Veigar came back (level 6 when I was level 14, I think). That gave us the edge we needed to win teamfights and, subsequently, the match. I went 4/3/14.

We had someone that wanted Master Yi in the lobby, so Scott first-picked Yi for a trade. But Scott wanted to support and the other person turned out not to own any, so Scott was stuck with Annie as a support. I had already picked Singed again by this point, and we got a Ziggs mid, so the last pick, protesting at not being the worst in the world at ADC, took Ashe. Our opponents had Fizz (mid), Heimerdinger (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Corki (ADC), and Morgana (support). True to her word, Ashe fed and couldn't accomplish anything, which left Scott underpowered too. Fizz also got fed. Yi was initially picking up kills, but started getting picked off too. Fortunately, I had enough time to get my Singed going. I was, in the words of our Yi, "LCS proin." I used Fling to feed my team, then my Poison Trail's devastated the enemy team and I picked up some kills for myself too. Scott asked me to carry him, so I did. I went 10/2/14. Singed is back and he's here to stay.

Figuring I was on a roll with Singed, I picked him again. We already had a Ryze mid anyway. We got Tryndamere as our jungler. Scott picked Braum to support again and our ADC was Lucian. We were up against the intimidating team composition of Fizz (mid), Shyvana (top), Volibear (jungle), Varus (ADC), and Thresh (support). I've never done well against Shyvana with Singed, and Volibear is problematic for him too. But the real problem in this match was that Tryndamere disconnected. He was the one picking up our kills, and we lost him. Our whole team fell behind. Eventually he came back, but the damage had been done. Even though our team was way behind on kills and on objectives, it turned out that Scott and I could tank the other team surprisingly well. For a while, I thought we'd win that way. But our teammates just never brought the damage (except Ryze, who usually did) to fights. Impressive as it was to see how long it took the five enemy champions to kill our Braum and Singed, taking a long time to die wasn't going to save us by itself. Frustrating, but I understand that it happens. I went 4/9/9 in my first Ranked loss as Singed.

Finally, Scott talked me into one more try. This time, I had him ban Kassadin so I could pick Karthus. My teammates had Teemo (top), Trundle (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Braum (Scott). The other team had Heimerdinger (mid), Garen (top), Xin Zhao (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Leona (support). I complained that I can't catch a break anymore as Karthus. This one had a few problems, but the main one was feeding teammates. That make me sound arrogant, but it did happen. Heimerdinger pushed aggressively and I held him off, which Karthus can do, but he got help and I did not, so he pulled way ahead on CS and took my outer and inner turrets. We killed each other a lot, and he picked me off sometimes, but I killed him more. He made up the deficit by slaughtering my teammates. Scott thought the enemy Heimerdinger was just good. My impression was more that people shouldn't run into his turrets like chickens with their damn heads cut off. So Heimerdinger got fed. But another problem was that Teemo was incredibly toxic. I was the primary target of his ire, but he also went after Sivir, although sometimes it seemed like he had the two of us mixed up, which was bizarre. He only went after Scott when Scott pointed out that he was saying things that were factually incorrect. Teemo stopped trying to help and started only caring about picking up kills for himself, which helped put us behind. But I was pretty well farmed and would still have wrecked the other team if not for Garen. He harassed me, revenge-killed me when I took out Heimerdinger, and was a constant threat. I was mad about Teemo and annoyed about my teammates feeding in general, but I have to admit that I was impressed with the enemy Garen. In the end of this one, I went 14/11/12. I'm now down to 29 LP.