Going for the Gold Part XXXIX: Shaky 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.

Almost a week after finally being promoted, I queued up for my first match in Bronze I of the season (I had over a hundred games in Bronze I last season). I was fourth pick, with my teammates already taking Twisted Fate (mid), Yorick (top), and Jinx (ADC). Last pick had requested to either go top or jungle, so I grabbed Sona to support the Jinx, with our last pick taking Xin Zhao to jungle. We were up against Azir (mid), Ryze (top), Aatrox (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Braum (support). I tried to get Jinx off to a good start, but she gave up a few early kills and made our lane problematic, although I managed to stay alive and keep the outer turret from falling too soon. Our jungler was good and managed to punish the enemy bot lane for getting greedy, but some counterganks by Aatrox mitigated that, so I was still struggling. Twisted Fate fell a bit behind, but eventually got his ult and started helping with ganks. Yorick won his lane, of course, but it wasn't going to be enough to save us. The other team had a bit of a lead, much of it on their ranged ADC, and we needed to turn things around. Since I was playing Sona, all I could really do was look to support my teammates and look for openings. We won some skirmishes, then we lost some. Yorick and Xin Zhao started to get further ahead of our opponents, and I picked up a couple of kills too, so I was able to build some tankiness and become a bully for mid teamfight pushing. It worked. We caught up and stayed ahead, winning multiple pushes on mid turrets and punishing them for attempting to push other lanes. After 22 minutes, they surrendered. I was 3/0/15. That win gave me 26 LP. It also makes my current record in solo queue 62 wins, 60 losses. I was so happy to get promoted in my previous match that I didn't even notice the fact that it was the match that finally took me to a positive win/loss ratio for the first time this season. Well, let's see if I can keep this going.

It's weird. I started emphasizing on-hit Udyr as my main jungler, and I was really on a tear for a while. Now, I just can't catch a break with Udyr. I'm playing the same as far as I can tell, but my allies, with seemingly no exceptions, are playing very differently. They tend to back off when I try to initiate for them, and they lose their lanes and fall back into our jungle, stealing camps from me and making it even harder from me. That just happened with a new level of intensity. I was with a Zilean (mid), Riven (top), Lucian (ADC), and Anivia (support) against Zed (mid), Pantheon (top), Fiddlesticks (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Heimerdinger (support). I just couldn't catch a break. Most of my deaths came from four or five enemies jumping on me, either when I tried to help my allies or when I tried to clear camps in my own jungle, desperate to catch up. At one solitary point I caught an enemy alone, quickly and easily killing my victim (the fed enemy Jinx). The rest of the match, I felt terrible: nothing I tried worked. I ended up going 1/8/7. While I'd be despondent, this loss couldn't have happened to a worse set of teammates, excepting the weird support Anivia, who was OK. As for the other three, they were extremely toxic and also bad players. That's a loss I'll just have to accept. Maybe I can bounce back from it. I'm not even discouraged from playing Udyr because if I'm not getting allies with a modicum of brainpower anyway, another jungler wouldn't serve me much better. Oh, I'm down to 13 LP now. But I still have a positive win/loss ratio, albeit barely.

And there goes my positive win/loss ratio. I tried. I really did. But it wasn't even close. Just another terrible match. We had a Fiora top and a Master Yi jungle. One person picked Fiddlesticks as a support and our last pick wasn't saying anything. I took Kog'Maw as an ADC. Last pick took Volibear...support? Yeah, Volibear ignored Fiddlesticks, so Fiddlesticks agreed to switch and go mid. The other team had Fizz (mid), Azir (top), Hecarim (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). Remember how I tend to lose in Ranked when playing ADC? This one was way worse than usual. Volibear gave up an early kill and generally didn't do anything to protect me, so they killed him again and then killed me under the turret. From there, Tristana kept killing me under the turret. When I teleported top to take minions there, Hecarim charged in on me and almost killed me. Then I left and got killed under mid and bot turrets a few more times. I couldn't do anything all game except get killed in turret dives by enemy champions that were way too powerful for me to actually fight. Meanwhile, Yi was off doing his own thing and Fiora was busy complaining about everyone. Fiddlesticks tried, though. So for both of the matches I've tried so far on October 19th, there's been one teammate who wasn't a consummate asshole. Well, I went 1/11/7. And now I'm down to 1 LP. My win/loss ratio is neutral. So much for that hot streak. Bronze I is beating me down harder than it did last season. Or maybe today just isn't my day.

Well, the next day I came back and tried some Ranked with Scott again. The first game saw Karthus (me), Wukong (top), Maokai (Scott jungling), Corki (ADC), and Sona (support) against Katarina, Nasus, Amumu, Draven, and Nami. My lane was uneventful, with the enemy Katarina putting too little pressure on me to stop me from farming. Wukong initially outlaned Nasus, but wasn't stopping his farm, which became a problem. But it was bot that doomed us, feeding at an alarming rate. I thought Corki had good escapes and would be a good candidate against Draven and Nami, but I think ours was just too unskilled. Draven snowballed, then Katarina, Nasus, and even Nami joined the party. It was simply too early in the game for my Karthus to compete with the level of domination our opponents had. I went 6/5/7 in the end. Not to whine, but our feeder bot lane made this one unwinnable. Even though I played my main and held my own, I suffered a brutal loss and saw my LP drop to 0 and my win/loss ratio go negative again. Damn.

In the second game of the day, we had Fizz (mid), Sion (top), Cho'Gath (Scott jungling), Kog'Maw (me), and Soraka (support). We were fighting Lux (mid), Darius (top), Rammus (jungle), Tristana (ADC), and Leona (support). This one was really frustrating. I was annoyed at how underpowered I seemed to be and I was raging a bit, but Scott reminded me that the real problem in the bot lane was Soraka, who was very, very bad. I'm not mad at Soraka: the player was either lagging heavily or was not sufficiently skilled to have been placed into this match (I never found out which, and I thought I saw evidence for both). Fizz was nearly as bad. Sion was initially ahead, but fell behind against Darius and played too aggressively to stop that from spiraling out of control. So we lost all of the lanes. I eventually got the damage I needed to kill things, but none of my allies protected me in any way the entire time. Looking back, I don't see how Paul was doing so well with Kog'Maw this season: I'm consistently getting teammates that make it hard for me to carry. I went 5/9/3, which was better than it could have been, considering how badly the rest of the match went. Scott held his own too, but it was a battle we just couldn't win.

On October 22nd, I managed to get back to Ranked, this time in solo queue. I got first pick, so we had Karthus (me), Talon (top), Volibear (jungle), Sivir (ADC), and Leona (support). The other team consisted of Twisted Fate (mid), Akali (top), Warwick (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Zilean (support). Even in the pre-game lobby, our Sivir whined that we were going to lose. There was some bickering, I forget by whom, that it was a mistake for me to pick Karthus into Akali (incorrect), but it turned out that Akali was top anyway, so that was a moot argument. Sivir continued to complain once bot lane lost an early scuffle and our team was slightly behind on kills. But Leona did a good job of holding the lane and Volibear came to the rescue multiple times, so bot wasn't a disaster. Talon got fed and was snowballing so hard that he got greedy and bought Sword of the Occult. My own progress was slower and more inexorable, as I outfarmed everyone and picked up kills and assists from distances too great for the other team to retaliate. Eventually, Sivir started getting fed too, and the other team surrendered at 30 minutes in, concluding what had become a very one-sided match. I went 7/1/10. Well, now I've got 63 wins, 64 losses and I'm at 25 LP.

After winning one in solo queue, I teamed up with Justin (Schweizerhof) for two more games. I got first pick again and took Karthus. The rest of the team consisted of Kennen (top), Udyr (jungle), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Janna (Justin). In the laning phase, I was fighting a Fizz that couldn't kill me without dying under my turret, but he got a few free kills from Udyr making bad plays, so he came out ahead and used that to farm up and become strong. Top lane was an AFK farmfest, but the enemy Ryze was able to capitalize on that moreso than our Kennen. Our bot lane fell behind too. In the end, I went 7/4/2, but our team fell behind too much and failed to coordinate for necessary base defenses, so we lost. That took me down to 9 LP.

We queued up for another game and, yet again, I was first pick, taking my Karthus. My lane opponent was a Katarina. Justin picked Lee Sin top. He was going to switch to jungling when he saw the enemy team take Ryze, but he stayed top when he saw that they also took Nunu. We ended up with a Warwick jungle. Bot lane we had Jinx and Leona against Twitch and Lulu. Justin gave up early kills and fell behind against Ryze, who farmed continuously. I easily avoided Katarina and farmed myself, but she and Nunu helped pressure bot lane, so that was where the action was. As Ryze kept getting stronger and more difficult for Justin to deal with, I switched with him. He was able to handle Katarina while the farmfest in top lane worked out for me. After I picked up a double kill with my ult and won a teamfight that was going on in the mid lane without ever actually leaving the top lane,  I was surrounded and killed by a five-man gank. That gave Ryze the time he needed to pass me up in CS, but I came back and started killing his allies. I got fed and helped Jinx and Warwick get fed too. Justin finally got the items he needed to start catching up, so he turned things around too. We pulled way ahead and started winning every teamfight. I went 7/3/11. And now I'm up to 34 LP. Since arriving in Bronze I, I've won three matches and lost five, but technically I have climbed the ladder. Progress is shaky, but for now, it is happening.