Going for the Gold Part XXXI: Slow Progress Is Still Progress

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.

I came back to Ranked play with a rather uneventful game. I mean, it was uneventful for me. I was fourth pick and our fifth pick wanted ADC, so I obliged and took Sona, supporting what ended up being Jinx. Our allies were Akali mid, Sion top, and Warwick in the jungle. I laned against Miss Fortune and Malphite. I tried to support Jinx and keep her alive, but she made some bad misplays and fell behind. It happens. Fortunately, the enemy Ahri fed severely, allowing Akali and Warwick to snowball. Sion was up against Riven top, a matchup I'd be worried about, but he came out decisively ahead. The other team had a Xin Zhao jungler who managed to pick up some kills, but not enough to turn the match against us. Warwick and Sion really carried this one, with Akali picking off enemies too for good measure. I just wandered around trying to keep my teammates healthy and had an easy, nonchalant sort of game. Warwick had Blade of the Ruined King, Feral Flare, Frozen Mallet, and Wit's End. On-hit junglers are fantastic now. It's beautiful. I went 3/1/10 in the end. The 24 LP I just got takes me up to a total of 77.

I started another match. This time, I got first pick, so I took my Karthus of course. It was Karthus (me), Darius (top), Udyr (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Braum (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Rengar (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Caitlyn (ADC), and Thresh (support). I was able to farm effectively against Fizz. Udyr went in for a gank when I was only level 3, so I stayed back (I don't take a point in Wall of Pain until level 4 and Fizz wasn't that low anyway). Fizz hurt Udyr and stuck around to go for the kill, so I flashed in and got first blood on Fizz. From there, I won my lane handily, but the other lanes fell behind. I thought we were doomed, but Lucian, who was way behind against the enemy Caitlyn, finally got going. He backdoored and lured enemies out of position. I got fed and would have carried hard if I'd gotten any help at all, but my teammates (except Lucian, who was doing his own thing that was working) practically ignored me and continued to lose fights. I went 15/10/12 and, of course, it wasn't enough. Darius, Braum, and Udyr were really all pretty bad. I don't know why matchmaking keeps putting me with these people. And I'm not saying that because I think I'm so good. It's just that while one bad game on occasion is inevitable, there's a clear, consistent pattern I'm observing here, and I get inept, bickering allies way too often. That loss drops me 19 LP, to a total of 58. The stagnation continues. Or perhaps now that I've pointed it out, I'll lose more and plummet in the ladder. The worst part of it all is that Fizz carried the other team to some extent. Caitlyn and Lee Sin got fed too, but I kept ahead of Fizz and killed him repeatedly throughout the game so much that he really shouldn't have been able to snowball. It didn't matter: my teammates gave Fizz his own catering service.

Coming back after a hiatus consisting of half of July, I did a solo queue match. I'm hooked on Feral Flare junglers now, so I grabbed Udyr. My teammates were Vel'Koz (mid), Olaf (top), Draven (ADC), and Leona (support). The other team's jungler was Amumu. Olaf was up against Tryndamere, Vel'Koz against Diana, and the enemy duo bot lane was Jinx and Lux. Olaf got off to a good start, but our bot lane struggled. I helped out a bit early while clearing jungle camps more quickly than Amumu could. Eventually, Tryndamere disconnected. From there, I mostly farmed jungle camps, occasionally putting pressure on lanes to keep my team ahead. It was 5 vs. 4 and we had already been winning, so the other team caved in and surrendered after 21 minutes. I went 2/1/2 in this silly free victory. I gained 19 LP and am now up to 76.

Work had me too busy to bother with any Ranked games, so I went on another hiatus for the rest of July. Came back on August third and jungled as Udyr. I was with a Nidalee mid, Brand solo top (I thought he was going mid, but he eventually noted top and we were able to fill the other roles after some confusion), and Caitlyn/Nautilus duo bot. We were up against Syndra, Renekton, Amumu, Tristana, and Karma. However, both Renekton and Amumu were no-shows. A 5 vs. 3 could have been an easy, uneventful game, but my allies did poorly early on and then proceeded to freak out. I just kept calm and picked up kills where I could. I went 4/1/0 and was the only person on my team with a positive K/D ratio. Syndra and Karma both got fed and were able to hold my teammates off when they panicked and tried to force objectives at unfavorable times. But of course, it was 5 vs. 3, so we still won. A bit annoying, but a win is a win. And now that I've switched to on-hit Udyr as my nearly exclusive jungler in Ranked, winning is apparently what I do. That's 19 more LP, taking me up to 95. If I win my next match, I get a promo series. But who knows when that will be? I don't have time for this right now.

Came back on September first for another Ranked game. I got first pick, so I tried a Karthus game. I had an easy lane against a Katarina. Top lane we had Vladimir against Riven. Our jungler was Vi and the enemy jungler was Maokai. The bot lane consisted of our Lucian and Braum against Tristana and Leona. The other lanes didn't do particularly well, but they weren't feeding at first either, although bot eventually did. I had enough time to farm up and start wrecking the enemy team. I even teleported in and ganked them when they chased my team, picking up a quadra kill. Of course, it wasn't enough. Lucian was particularly obnoxious, but the whole team was pretty clueless, picking fights when there was no objective for us to take or when we were split, while failing to take objectives unless I led the way personally. Vi held her own for a while, but my whole team, save for myself, became outclassed and died far too much, which doomed us. In the last teamfight, Lucian ran off by himself into the jungle while the other three charged on ahead of me into the middle of the map. They died, of course, and left me alone to defend the nexus against an entire team, which wasn't possible. I went 14/2/4, scoring more kills than the rest of my team combined. But I didn't really need them to pick up kills. I needed them to stop dying so much. They died eight or nine times each. This really was a case of that "can't carry noobs" cliche, although I hate to fall back on it. And this is why I hate Ranked. Even though I kicked ass all game long, all I have to show for it is the loss of 13 LP, which puts me back down at 82. I get the feeling that this will be another entirely Bronze season for me.

A week later, I tried another Ranked game. Guess what happened? If you guessed that I got Karthus but couldn't carry my feeding team to victory, well, it's become such a cliche at this point that you really aren't demonstrating any sort of prescience. I had a Pantheon top, Xin Zhao jungle, Lucian ADC, and Morgana support. The enemy mid laner was Brand, who played passively other than when Sejuani was trying to gank me, so I was able to hold the lane and eventually outfarm him. The enemy top was Malphite, who easily dominated our Pantheon. The enemy jungler, Sejuani, kept aggressively ganking people, which wasn't going to work on me, although I did have to flash away from the first attempt (didn't expect it so early). The enemy bot laners were Tristana and Blitzcrank. For a while, we were ahead on kills solely because I was dominating, but eventually a coordinated team outscales a single Karthus. My allies tried to do some sort of collaboration, but it was haphazard and often stupid. On several occasions, they engaged when they shouldn't have, and I died after picking up kill or two while the rest of my team perished. But they also refused to initiate when we needed it, such as when the enemies were grouping up to push down our mid inhibitor or when they were taking Baron. Essentially, the impression I got throughout this match was that my teammates, while trying their best, were of a lower skill level than me. If even one of them had done well, this match would have been a cinch. But they just kept feeding. I went 18/6/14. At the end, my teammates were wrongly going on about how the enemy inhibitor respawning stole our victory (the nexus had plenty of health left and they all dropped like flies in the fight that took place at it, mostly because they bullied Pantheon into ulting onto it long before the rest of us could get there, so it was 4 vs. 5 in their base). The enemy team was just saying, "gg." It wasn't. It was a stupid game with stupid people in it. I think I blocked most of them. Yeah, I'm bitter. This crap keeps happening! And now I've dropped 20 LP, down to 62.

Got second pick in my next game and mid was wide open with no real bans, but the enemy team had taken Jax and Udyr, so Singed seemed like a safe pick. We ended up with Fiddlesticks (mid), Singed (me), Master Yi (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) against Xerath (mid), Jax (top), Udyr (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Orianna (support). Jax didn't bully me enough early on, so I got a couple levels into my Poison Trail and took over the lane, damaging the outer turret badly and keeping Jax underfarmed while I cleared his minions by running around. I messed up and let Udyr gank me, then Xerath went for a gank as well, which he got, but not before I killed Jax. I took the outer turret and kept farming up for a while. I was annoyed to be 1/2, but the rest of my team was doing well, while the only enemy that wasn't falling behind was Sivir. That let me get enough items to initiate with impunity. Once that happened, the match that was already going our way became so one-sided that the other team surrendered. I went 5/2/9 and got 20 LP, taking me back up to 82, which cancels out the match I lost with Karthus earlier today. Not progress, but it's better than nothing.

For some stupid reason, I tried to do better than breaking even, and joined another queue. This time, it was Ziggs (mid), Gangplank (top), Udyr (me), Draven (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support) vs. Veigar (mid), Riven (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Braum (support). Well, my good fortune with Udyr had to give out at some point, and when it did, it gave out with obnoxious intensity. I did everything I could, but this was not the sort of game for me to be jungling in. I got no help from my teammates, while our opponents took over our jungle. I was ganked in the jungle repeatedly, sometimes by the entire team. I bought a bunch of wards and tried to place them for coverage, but I was ganked before I could. I went 4/11/4, but like I said, I did what I could. This was a doomed, one-sided matchup all around. Losing 14 LP takes me down to 68. Oh, and this match was filled with toxic players too. Riven was fine and Draven tried to help out on our team (although his notion that I should hide behind turrets with him so that I couldn't get killed in the jungle as a jungler wasn't really tenable). And I don't remember Blitzcrank being egregious. The rest of them were jerks. Ranked is starting to get unfun again. I'll try once more anyway.

Well, I should have known. Yeah, I did another Udyr game. This one wasn't quite as egregious in most aspects, and I was able to go 2/6/5. Mid we had a Katarina that mostly outplayed Lux, but got too aggressive when she shouldn't have. Top we had a Nasus that fed Akali like it was his mission, then pretended that it was everyone else's fault. The enemy jungler was Amumu, and my teammates handed him kills too. Our ADC was Caitlyn, the primary offender in giving Amumu kills, exposing herself to obvious Bandage Toss kills on multiple occasions and then expressing surprise that Amumu killed her. We had a Teemo support who griefed us, hogging CS that Caitlyn was trying to take, then counterjungling me (at one point, I used my Smite to take blue, then ran in and got the wight down to a sliver of health before Teemo sniped it over the wall). The enemy Jinx and Blitzcrank easily won their lane, so mid was the only one that held out at all, and none of us could hope to stop a fed Akali. Not only was this profoundly unfun, but I got a lot of senseless blame for things, even by the opposing team. Ordinarily I'd think, "Hey, if even the other team is saying it's my fault, maybe I'm wrong." But these guys were just slinging insults and saying things that made no sense. I muted six people in this one, but that's probably less than average for today. I'm done. I'll come back some other time. No point in playing a game that is only going to torment me. Well, now I'm down to 53 LP. Thanks, matchmaking.

On September 28th, I was invited to a Ranked game by Scott (IMLRG). We did Team Builder with other people after that, but I did get a Ranked game in anyway. So there. Mid was open and Scott suggested I grab Karthus, but mid was still open on the other team and I didn't want to get counterpicked. Unsure of what to do, I picked Veigar in the Ranked match for the first time ever. The enemy team tried to do a counterpick of sorts, taking Zed in hopes of assassinating me out of the game. Top we had Jax vs. Akali, and our Jax got an early lead on her, from which she eventually recovered. In the jungle we had Kha'Zix (bad) and they had Master Yi (dangerous for us). The bot laners were Lucian and Leona (Scott) vs. Caitlyn and Nami. I built up a lot of CS and nuked people, of course. I went 7/4/8 in the end, which was a bit better than my teammates, but not a lot. We were actually behind on kills in the end, but won key teamfights on account of an awesome Veigar deleting enemy damage-dealers as soon as the fights broke out. I really think Veigar could be one of my go-to alternate mid laners. With that victory, I'm up to 72 LP.