Going for the Gold Part XL: The Return of the Clamps

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 did one solo queue Ranked game on Halloween. We needed a top and an ADC. My track record this season as an ADC has been terrible. I wanted to win, so I took Singed, with whom I've had considerable success this season. I was immediately counterpicked by the other team, using Jayce. Well, crap. Singed does have a few problematic matchups, and Jayce has generally been the worst in my experience: he can poke Singed, kite Singed, close the gap on Singed, break away from Singed, outdamage Singed, and farm while doing all of it. I let my team know that I'd probably be useless for most of the match, but that I'd do what I could. The lineups were Annie (mid), Singed (me), Master Yi (jungle), Ezreal (ADC), and Morgana (support) vs. Ziggs (mid), Jayce (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Alistar (support). I was able to stay alive against Jayce, but he was increasing the CS gap between us and keeping pressure on me from the start. I eventually completed my Catalyst and got a Glacial Shroud. Even when I started poking my head out and poisoning waves of minions to catch up, Lee Sin showed up with gank attempts that kept the pressure on me, but I survived and kept my turret standing. Annie lost lane to Ziggs, but Morgana was able to bully bot initially. Yi just kept on rushing Feral Flare. The combination of Ezreal holding his own, Morgana getting an early lead and playing aggressively, and Yi having farmed so much gave our team an edge in mid-game skirmishes, while I slowly caught up to Jayce in CS and managed to avoid every Lee Sin gank attempt. It was a close match up to that point, and then my Singed tankiness reached a critical point: Jayce stopped being able to bully me and started struggling to hold his lane against me at all. He proved the value of having a farmed up Jayce in teamfights, and together with Jinx he managed to kill my allies quite a bit. But soon I got my Rylai's and had Singed do what Singed does. When the enemy team chased mine, I snuck into a lane and pushed it. And when I showed up to contest objectives, we won every fight. Eventually, I went bot to push alone and the whole enemy team tried to five-man gank me. I survived it and didn't even try to escape, opting to weave around the bot lane and the enemy jungle, wearing them down until my own team showed up and forced them to retreat. Then I recalled, teleported top, and we pushed hard on two lanes while the other team was recovering in their base. That was the beginning of the end for them. They simply couldn't kill me. I went 4/0/5 and accumulated 351 CS. That brings me to 59 LP and a neutral win/loss ratio of 65 wins, 65 losses.

Queuing up for another solo queue match on November 1st, I initially got into a lobby with first pick and was all set to play Karthus, but we were requeued and I ended up with a different team. It was Veigar (me), Jax (top), Sejuani (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Soraka (support) vs. Gragas (mid), Riven (top), Amumu (jungle), and Jinx and Wukong (kill lane). At first, Sejuani was AFK, so I was pretty worried that this would be an automatic loss. Sejuani made it back though (some problem with the player's son) and started catching up. I farmed up a whole lot of Q stacks, but the deciding factor in this match was the top lane, where Riven inexplicably posed no threat to Jax, then roamed and mainly gave up kills, including a few to me. I was farmed and fed and so were Jax and Lucian, so this quickly took a turn toward domination. The enemy team surrendered just as we were destroying their nexus turrets. If they blamed weird feeder Riven, they wouldn't be wrong. I went 11/4/5. Now I have 66 wins, 65 losses. I'm at 84 LP. Silver is closer than it has been in a long, long time.

I got first pick in my first Ranked match on November 2nd. So of course I took Karthus mid. My allies were Jax, Amumu, Ezreal, and Morgana. Our opponents were Fizz, Fiora, Malphite, Lucian, and Janna. My lane opponent tried to be aggressive at first, but got caught by my Lay Waste too much for that and had to back off, which let me farm easily. Amumu's ganks helped me get ahead even more and kept our bot lane from falling behind. But top failed and Fiora snowballed. I was 6/2 for a while, then 7/4, and ended the game 8/8, with my teammates falling behind as well, but the thing that enraged me was that all four of them elected to surrender when the other team wasn't even attacking our base. We lost some jungle skirmishes, yet again, and fell a bit more behind, then they just abruptly surrendered in what had mostly been a close match. I have no patience for that crap. If you're going to just give up in a Ranked match, don't play. They also kept failing to group up when I begged them to, which was a big part of why we were falling behind, but sometimes we accomplished things that way, hence the pretty close match. I'm not mad that my teammates often made very bad decisions in this, as I made some myself and it's part of the game. But to just suddenly give up when we still had a chance? Despicable. And I was getting so close to a promo series too! Now I'm at 66 wins, 66 losses, and 66 LP.

I tried again and got first pick again. For some reason, I picked Karthus even though I just keep losing Karthus games now. He really is my best champion, but things just keep going badly. We had Karthus, Darius, Amumu, Varus, and Leona against Viktor, Garen, Kha'Zix, Lucian, and Thresh. Varus gave up first blood when the enemy team invaded our jungle, and then Leona proceeded to flame him and insist that he lose his promo. She succeeded. I tried to talk her down. Amumu ignored it at first, then saw her hide behind the turret when he went for a gank and started raging at her, which made the bickering continue. I just kept asking them to stop and to try to win, but Leona refused, saying that her goal was to make sure that Varus and Amumu lost. We stayed slightly ahead for a while, but the 4 vs. 5 eventually wore us down. I went 6/2/15. Down to 51 LP. League of Trolls.

Well, I got fourth pick, and my allies already had Akali (mid), Darius (top), and Warwick (jungle). Our last pick could pick at the same time as me, so I waited and saw last pick take Morgana. That meant I was designated to be the ADC, so I picked Kayle, of course. No one complained, although Morgana and Darius did ask about it, but seemed cool once I said that I knew it worked. Our opponents had Talon (mid), Pantheon (top), Diana (jungle), Twitch (ADC), and Sona (support). Initially, our lane was pretty brutal, but we gave as well as we got. Morgana supported competently enough, but the two of us weren't always coordinating with each other as much as we could have. Twitch outfarmed me, but also died a bit more, with neither bot lane carry really doing much at first. Progress was slow as I fell behind on CS and this was one of the roughest Kayle games I've had lately, but eventually the power of on-hit Kayle triumphed, and I went 6/4/7 as well as catching up on CS and passing up almost everyone else. But it didn't really matter: Akali snowballed and scored two pentakills, so the enemy team surrendered after just 26 minutes. I'd imagine that Talon's teammates were none too pleased with him, since he was the one to drop the ball moreso than anyone else for this match. It happens, though. This takes me up to 70 LP.

With mid and jungle already settled and a Jayce in the enemy top lane, I decided to just take Sona and hope I could support a random sufficiently. We had Heimerdinger (mid), Jax (top), Lee Sin (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Sona (me). Our opponents were playing Lulu (mid), Jayce (top), Volibear (jungle), Ashe (ADC), and Thresh (support). This one went badly everywhere. The Lucian I was supporting turned out to be incompetent and also disconnected a lot. Jax was even worse, and Heimerdinger just kept overextending and getting killed. Lee Sin was toxic. This match was a disaster. I went 2/8/3 and could have played better in a few cases, but my teammates were always there to compensate for any of my successes anyway. Back down to 52 LP. Silver is looking a whole lot less attainable than it was yesterday.

Next up, I did a match with Ahri (mid), Ryze (top), Skarner (me jungling), Jinx (ADC), and Sona (support) against Yasuo (mid), Wukong (top), Warwick (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Thresh (support). Ahri initially held her lane, but eventually fell a bit behind. Ryze dominated top. Our bot laners did poorly at first, but they were definitely trying. Eventually, Yasuo got fed, and the only thing that was going to save this match for my team was a scorpion with a penchant for destroying everything in his path, which was exactly what happened. I got to my full build. On-hit Skarner strikes again. I went 14/4/6. Now I'm up to 76 LP.

On the 8th, I got one Ranked game in. Karthus (me), Singed (top), Sion (jungle), Jinx (ADC), and Vel'Koz (support) vs. Fizz (mid), Irelia (top), Riven (jungle), Lucian (ADC), and Janna (support). Fizz laned passively against me, then roamed and went for ganks on bot all the time, which let me farm up and become powerful. The bot lane became very chaotic. Jinx got an early lead, but Fizz and Riven both showed up to help, which got Sion involved, and eventually that even drew me in some of the time. Unfortunately, Singed fed Irelia pretty hard. We had the advantage for a while, but Sion and Vel'Koz did their own thing and didn't capitalize on fights that we won, while Singed continued to perform poorly, although he did eventually start doing better. We destroyed their nexus turrets, but they managed to fend us off. Twice, we got horribly baited at Baron and nearly lost. My teammates were whining and saying "gg" a lot, but we worked together to defend and were able to keep our nexus alive, albeit barely. I had full build for a while with this match. They pressured us, with Irelia and Riven attempting to sneak our inhibitors at various points, but eventually we got all of our inhibitors back up and started pushing. Finally, we caught them in an advantageous fight and pushed into their base. I kept my Teleport ready to save our nexus if Irelia went for it, but she didn't, and we finally won after 67 minutes. Irelia's teammates cried that we should report her, but I'm not going to fault someone who almost managed to carry her team and lost a 67-minute match just because she appeared to be AFK in the final few seconds. Anyway, I went 16/6/27 in this one. I'm back to a positive solo queue win/loss ratio (69 to 68) and I'm at 95 LP. Well, this is awkward. No matter what, if I win my next match, I at least get a series. I think I stand a good chance of winning that series and closing the season in Silver V. But if I lose my next match, I'm dropping in LP. I probably won't have enough time to push for the series again. The season is ending in a couple of days, I'll be out of town for work anyway, and I just won't have enough time...

November 9th will almost certainly be my last day to try for Silver. I queued up and got fourth pick. Last pick really wanted top, but picked Riven into Yorick and fed hard. "I can't jungle." Yeah, well you can't solo top either. Our first pick was LeBlanc, who did beat Diana in lane, but then went too aggressive and, ultimately fed the enemy team. Bot lane we had Vayne and Leona. Vayne farmed quite effectively, picked up kills, and kept us going for a while. Leona mostly just caused Vayne and LeBlanc to whine with her uncanny kill-securing, but in the end, she did more than anyone else besides Riven to lose us the game, refusing to initiate when our inhibitors were under attack. Having had success the first time I tried it in Ranked, I picked Skarner. I got ambushed by Kha'Zix at red early on, nearly killed him, but messed up. Kha'Zix snowballed, but I shut him down multiple times. It wasn't enough. My teammates were oblivious around Kha'Zix and simply focused him last even though he was killing them. I hoped we could turn it around with the damage output that Vayne and I had, but the other three people had absolutely no sense for teamfights. I went 10/7/12 and now I'm down to 81 LP. I really wanted to win this one, but it was not possible. Skarner gave me a better chance than most champions might have, but my team was just outclassed this time. This probably leaves me stuck in Bronze at the end of yet another season, but I'll take one more shot at that promo series.

Trying again, I ended up on a team of Ziggs (mid), Darius (top), Skarner (me), Miss Fortune (ADC), and Blitzcrank (support). Our opponents had Fizz (mid), Vi (top), Jarvan IV (jungle), Vayne (ADC), and Braum (support). I noticed that the loading screen was taking a long time. Checking back after a bit, I saw that Vi's loading percentage hadn't moved and that Fizz hadn't shown up at all. Fearing the worst, I reset my client. Sure enough, the match was underway. But I wasn't the only one it had happened to. Multiple players on both teams had experienced problems. Not having any other options. I raced into my forced late start in the jungle. My team got the better of the disconnections, with bot land snowballing. Mid got fed too, despite Ziggs also getting a late start. I was only 2/1/1 when the other team surrendered at 25 minutes in. And that took me up to 99 LP. Yeah, 99. This means that even if I were to win my next match, I would only be qualified for a series and would still have to win the best of five to complete it. That's too much. If I'd had the series now as a guaranteed thing, maybe I'd go for it. I don't know. I had other plans for today. I think this is the end. So close. Just one LP off. The clamps are back.