Ranked Game #12

Hey guys, I just got over a large lump of homework and had quite a bit of free time, so I played a ranked game. This was a pretty good game, although it was a little bumpy at the beginning. I went into duo queue with my friend 534N7R0N once again.

I ended up being the captain for my team, with first ban. Here are the bans, with my team's bans (and picks) in  green and the enemy team's in red.


Nocturne, Rammus, Amumu, Shen


The draft:

Dr. Mundo
Singed, Nidalee
Malphite, Ryze
Gangplank, Ashe
Xin Zhao, Tryndamere
Irelia (my friend)


My friend was very excited to have a Nidalee on our team, as she tends to do very well. Her pseudo-squishyness leads the enemy in, allowing her to quickly turn the tables on them with her nukes. Gangplank was a little concerning at first (I've expressed my opinion on him in an earlier post), but I figured if he was playing him in ranked, he knew what he was doing. Their team composition seemed pretty poorly thought out, lots of melee attackers and not a whole lot of damage. Having a bunch of bulk is always nice, but if you can't back it up with a good punch, it doesn't do you much good. Anyway, Nidalee took top solo, Ashe took mid, Irelia was jungling, and I laned bottom with Gangplank. Going into the loading screen, it was evident that Xin Zhao was their jungler.


Early Game
Out of all the enemy champs, I find Dr. Mundo to be the most annoying. Of course, I ended up laning against him, along with Tryndamere. The harassment went back and forth with Mundo's cleavers and Gangplank's Parrrley, with our health slowly getting whittled down. We both stayed in the lane at low health for too long and they decided to go for it, catching Gangplank just outside of tower range for First Blood. I stupidly tried to get revenge, ending up with Tryndamere diving me for the kill. We weren't able to get much on them in the laning phase unfortunately. Nidalee was able to handle Malphite pretty well up top though, holding him off even when Xin Zhao joined the party. She killed them each at least once, and managed to stay alive the entire game. Ashe did okay against Ryze in the middle, they were pretty even in terms of head to head kills. Irelia was able to help out on a few kills here and there, eventually giving us enough leeway to take out their middle tower for the first tower kill.


Mid Game
Here the laning phase ended and our steamrolling began. A key turning point was a struggle over dragon, where we caught Tryndamere alone. They must have had the surrounding area warded, as he tried to run when he saw our team coming. We were able to get him to pop his ultimate by the time the rest of him team arrived, turning it into an all out teamfight. They ended up with the dragon kill, but we were able to pick off all but Ryze as they tried to run away from the obvious disadvantage. While I attempted to chase him down, my team downed their bottom turret and helped in the pursuit. We weren't able to catch him, but we did quickly take out their next turret and escaped without any casualties. At that point the map was pretty much ours. There was one funny incident where Nidalee was running away from a group of 3 enemies, and got them to aggro Baron on her way out. Gangplank immediately popped his ultimate on them, netting at least one kill in the process as they were all pretty low on  health.

Late Game
By now they had no chance to win, even an ace would get them two tower at most, not nearly enough to get the super minions that are essential to any comeback. We gradually pushed all of their towers, getting to the middle inhibitor first. One last teamfight in the bottom lane by their inhibitor tower sealed the game, they foolishly came at us one or two at a time, allowing us to take them out quickly. The tower was pretty much inconsequential for them, as it switched aggro several times but didn't take any of us out. The fight ended when we picked off Dr. Mundo just as the tower fell, clearing the way to kill the inhibitor and nexus turrets. They surrendered just before we were able to take out the Nexus at 42 minutes.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay file: Ranked Game #12 - Singed

What I learned: 
- Nidalee is quite dominant when in the right hands, having one on your team is always good for a combined support/magic damage role
- Singed needs farm to be devastating, which I could not do well at all this game
- Ashe's arrow is fantastic for catching stragglers in a teamfight, if there is better initiation on the team it may be best saved for later
- Gangplank isn't terrible, but I still need to see more
- Being all bulky is pretty much useless when no one builds magic resist, there is more than just physical damage out there kids

My Score: 2/4/14
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature, Giant's Belt

Current ranked record: 7-5 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1256

Another quality game in the books, I feel like I need to play more non-tanks though. Thanks for reading, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

-Chickenmoo