Ranked Game #2

Hey guys, my second ranked game is now in the books. Unfortunately, it was a loss, but it was a well fought game. It was not without controversy though, as one of the members of my team disconnected twice in the middle of the game, critically hurting our chances. During the game it was mentioned that this was the first ranked game for a couple members of my team. That was comforting, as I knew that they would stick it out until the end. Nevertheless, it was a very intense game with the overall momentum shifting in each direction several times. I think that is enough introduction, so onto the game.

This game was once again in solo queue, with one dodge before getting into the game. I was the captain of my team and we had first ban. They went as follows:

Rammus, Vladimir, Malphite, Amumu

Since we had first ban, they had first pick. Here's how the draft went, with my pick italicized:

Them: Teemo

Us: Urgot, Jax

Them: Kennen, Mordekaiser

Us: Shen, Renekton

Them: Alistar, Garen

Us: Nasus

Before going to the loading screen, we decided our roles. As the only ranged champ, I took mid. Renekton said that he would jungle, so that was taken care of. I'm glad that people have been willing to jungle so far, it's good that they see the importance in it. After Urgot, the strongest solo laner in our team was Nasus, so we had him solo top. That left Shen and Jax in the bottom lane. Now our team was quite tanky, so I had high hopes. Also having a Shen is always great, his ult is just unbelievably good for teamfights. Going into the loading screen, it was evident that they did not have a jungler, raising my hopes of victory even further. I didnt think it would be easy though, as they had three pretty beefy champs.

Early Game

Now Renekton didn't take smite, so Nasus helped him get his jungle started and then went to his tower. Jax was able to get first blood on Kennen pretty quickly, which turned out to be his only kill for a while. Soon after, I got Teemo down to a sliver of health and Renekton snuck behind the tower and ignited him for the easy kill. We picked at them gradually, with each of us getting a kill here and there in the early going. Unfortunately the other team was able to take down our middle and bottom towers early, setting us back a bit. At this point laning pretty much broke down.

Mid Game

This is when the momentum began to shift in our favor. We were able to repeatedly catch them out of position and alone or only with one other champ and just burst them down. There was one teamfight which started when we ganked Garen in the top lane and took him down quickly. We took down their top tower, and then the rest of the enemy team showed up and got themselvers killed. By the time we got to attacking the tower, they had respawned and initiated another fight. This time, their two squishies got themselves killed again, but the tanks forced us to back off. This was a real turning point in the match, as we only lost one champ in the entire fight, and that was when we were retreating. It was probably the most intense teamfight I've ever been a part of, plus it got me 5 kills. There were several more teamfights that we won handily, so it was looking like victory for our team at this stage. This is also when Jax disconnected twice, once at level 8 and another time a while later.

Late Game

Eventually, the teamfights began shifting in their favor as their tanky champs all had huge amounts of armor. They would catch us at a disadvantage and pick us off one by one. We were also focusing their tanks unnecessarily, myself included. I know this is kind of a lame excuse, but their squishies tended to hide right next to the tanks, making it hard to target them. Besides that, they positioned themselves very well, staying out of harm's way while still attacking. The Jax disconnections hurt us here, as he was underleveled and was easily killed once he jumped (literally) into the fight. We did get Baron once, but our resultant push failed and got a couple of us killed. In their counter-push, our middle inhibitor was taken down and we couldn't recover. At that point we only played defense. They got Baron twice and pushed down another inhibitor, and eventually took out our Nexus at the hour mark.

The postgame scoreboard can be seen below:

What I Learned:

- Having a tanky team is almost necessary for victory in long games

- Being a man down is quite crippling, no matter the skill level of said person

- Alistar is quite hard to kill with his ult up, the CC reduction and damage mitigation is significant

- Having a jungler isn't great if they don't gank at all

- Yordles can hide well in teamfights

My Score: 18/7/18

My Build: Manamune, Mercury Treads, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Banshee's Veil, Black Cleaver, Guardian Angel

Current ranked record: 1-1 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: Unranked

This summary was a little longer than I would have liked it to be, but I suppose that is a function of the game being an hour long. Thanks for reading, suggestions are welcome in the comments!

-Chickenmoo