Going for the Gold Part XXXIII: Promoted With Scott

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.

Previously, I'd qualified for a promo series. And that's the point at which I left off last season before the ladder reset. I got on and did a duo queue with Scott, hoping to finally make it into Bronze I for the first time this season. The matchup was Fizz (Scott) vs. Akali mid, Singed (me) vs. Ryze top, Diana vs. Warwick jungle, and Sivir and Zilean vs. Jinx and Braum bot. Diana helped me get first blood against Ryze and I was able to bully him in the laning phase, but the other lanes fared poorly and our team was thoroughly crushed. I ended up going 3/6/3, but Jinx and Akali consistently destroyed my teammates before I could attempt to tank for them in teamfights, and we were generally unorganized.

With one loss in my promo series, I was determined. Scott and I tried again, with a team of Mordekaiser (mid), Fiora (top), Udyr (me), Ezreal (ADC), and Braum (Scott). Our opponents were Teemo (mid), Yasuo (top), Sion (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Nami (support). This was just a weird and very frustrating match. Fiora got an early advantage and became fed, but Yasuo got fed too. Neither one was as fed as Tristana, though. For my part, I just couldn't get help when I needed it. My teammates would ping, I'd rush in for a gank, and then I'd see, too late, that my teammates were running directly away from me for some reason. I fell behind and started getting ganked in my own jungle. In the end, I was 2/6/0, never once getting my allies to coordinate with me at all (even though I was in a Skype call with one), I picked up two kills on enemies that were retreating and happened to head in my direction. With that, I failed to qualify and was dropped back into Bronze II.

Only partly deterred by those defeats, Scott and I decided to shake it off and try again. This time, we had Yasuo mid, Dr. Mundo top, and Elise jungle. Scott and I took the bot lane together, with him supporting my on-hit Kayle as Braum. I'd played Kayle before in Ranked, but Scott was surprised. Well, I chose her pretty deliberately this time, as we were up against an imposing enemy bot lane in Caitlyn and Morgana. Scott had wanted to play Braum, his main, and that combination was liable to put a lot of pressure on us. I had last pick, so I took a champion that I knew I could use to hold out against that kind of harassment. The enemy team also had Xerath mid, Jarvan IV top, and Amumu jungle. I told Scott that I should be able to use Kayle to farm underneath the turret if necessary, and that we could probably hold the lane against our opponents for a long time. It ended up working better than that. They put up a fight, but we bullied them and won lane handily. Scott died in ganks, but I started to snowball and I was pretty sure we'd win. The game took a weird turn, though, with both mid-laners becoming very fed. Yasuo and Xerath were each destroying each other and their other respective opponents, so they almost cancelled each other out, but our Yasuo came out ahead. Yasuo aside, our team would have been at a slight disadvantage, but, like I said, I was starting to snowball. I went 7/4/5. With that victory, I was on my way back up the ladder.

I logged on to find that Scott had just lost his first match in a promo series. He was in Bronze I, so he had up to four more matches in his series. We decided to team up again and try to turn his series around. Our first match in the session consisted of Ziggs (mid), Swain (me), Kha'Zix (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Alistar (Scott) vs. Zed (mid), Xin Zhao (top), Blitzcrank (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Thresh (support). I was worried about a possible invasion, and my concern was vindicated: Blitzcrank and Xin Zhao went after our blue buff and Xin Zhao attempted to kill Ziggs, but got caught by my snare and I killed him for first blood. From there, Blitzcrank mainly eschewed the jungle, camping top for a duo lane against me. I held out and eventually got help from Kha'Zix. Bot was in trouble, though, and mid was pretty close. Twitch apologized for feeding, and eventually farmed up enough to contribute. Once that happened, I was fed, Kha'Zix was fed, and Twitch was fed. The fed enemy Lucian couldn't compete with that, and the gap between our teams grew as we pushed lanes and won decisively. I went 16/3/18. That was enough to qualify me for another promo series. It also tied Scott's record in his promo series, so we were effectively in the same spot: best of three to advance. Not bad.

It didn't last. We queued up again and somehow the client didn't register me attempting to pick a champion, so we were dropped. That added a virtual loss onto my promo series, although Scott's record was unaffected. Now, in order to advance, I had to win both of my next two matches. Of course, I wasn't happy about this. Well, after we waited for the time penalty and finally got into another match, it was Fizz (mid), Garen (top), Udyr (jungle), Kog'Maw (me), and Scott (Braum) against Annie (mid), Sion (top), Aatrox (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Thresh (support). With my abysmal ADC record this season, I wasn't particularly hopeful. Scott tried to protect me, but I died multiple times in lane against the relentless pressure that our opponents brought. Fortunately, the other two lanes did well, which gave our jungler the freedom to focus on helping us. I thought I'd be stuck behind the whole game, but I should have given Kog'Maw more credit, as that little guy can really pack a punch. I caught up, which put our whole team way ahead. They couldn't kill Braum without exposing themselves to me, and they couldn't kill Garen at all. I went 7/6/5, which isn't amazing, but it's a nice comeback from 0/4/1, so I was satisfied. This also meant that if Scott and I won our next match, we'd both be promoted.

Scott got first pick, and we decided to do the Braum/Kayle bot lane again. Since I wasn't last pick this time, we had to explain to our allies that I was going bot with Kayle, and that it really would work. Scott told them that we were both in promo series, to emphasize our seriousness about the matter. Our teammates were still apprehensive. I replied, "Trust." They didn't have much choice, so they went along with it. They took Vladimir mid and Garen top. Our last pick cycled between Diana and Master Yi to jungle, and Scott thought Yi was the better choice. Our opponents had Zed, Ryze, Jarvan IV, Tristana, and Janna. Scott thought it was a good sign that they picked Janna into Braum, but he was worried about Ryze top against Garen. That ended up working out. Garen outfarmed Ryze by a bit and didn't die to him. But it was in the bot lane that the real plays happened. Janna ran into a brush that Scott had warded, and Tristana wasn't close enough to save her when he attacked and hit her with Exhaust. I used Ignite and finished her off for first blood, then bullied Tristana for the rest of the laning phase. I proceeded to demolish the entire enemy team. Zed put up a fight, but the rest of them didn't stand a chance. I went 20/5/9. I got multiple triple kills. After a while my teammates were claiming that Kayle was free LP. And with that victory, I have finally returned to the place I spent all of last season. But just as I arrived in Bronze I, Scott left it. He's now in Silver V.