Ranked Game #3

Hey gang, my third ranked game is now done (and I didn't use Urgot this time). This one was a nice easy win, due to the fact that I had a great, cooperative team and the enemy team was a little lacking in ability. This was also my first game that didn't have an ounce of controversy in it, there were no leavers or disconnections and there was also no trolling. This time, I duo queued with a friend from school who has been playing the game quite a bit longer than I have. This was comforting as I knew I would have at least one teammate that I could count on.

For this game, I was the captain of my team again and had first ban. The bans were:

Rammus, Amumu, Malphite, Shen


Having first ban meant they had first pick in the draft, here is how it went, with my pick italicized as usual:

Them: Cassiopeia
Us: Singed, Malzahar
Them: Cho'gath, Annie
Us: Caitlyn, Nidalee
Them: Ezreal, Tristana
Us: Irelia (my queuing friend)


Now with three possible mids there was potential for arguing over who got to take it, but fortunately only Malzahar actually wanted it, so that was easily settled. My friend decided to jungle with Irelia, and Nidalee took the top lane. She's probably one of the strongest 1 vs 2 laners (their team didn't have a clear jungler) out there, with her huge heal and long-range harassing nuke. That left Caitlyn and I in the bottom lane. This team composition felt really good to me, as we had plenty of range, lots of harassment and a large amount of crowd control. On the loading screen, the enemy team did not have anyone carrying Smite, showing that once again there was no enemy jungler. The fact that people choose to go into a game without one is just dumb, the benefits of having one far outweigh the cons.

Early Game
The early part of the match was pretty lackluster, with much of the laning phase consisting of ranged harassing and running around. Nidalee managed to get first blood on Ezreal with a gank from Irelia about five minutes in, and Caitlyn and I caught Cassiopeia with Irelia's help a while later. Right before the laning phase began to break down, Malzahar got the first kill in mid on Annie, which inspired a little taunting between the two. Eventually the top lane got pushed so hard that Nidalee died twice protecting the tower, and it became the first to fall. Fortunately, we were able to take down their bottom and middle towers in quick succession following a small teamfight minutes later.

Mid Game
We started mid game off with a four-man gank of Ezreal, who was defending the top tower from minions at half health. We took town the tower in the process, and this is where the ball started rolling towards our victory. At this point, our team (especially Caitlyn) had effectively warded the upper half of the map, giving us fantastic map control and turning their attempted team ganks in our favor. We were able to kill each of their team members regularly, though Annie gave us problems a few times. She was quite good at positioning and stunning me before i could throw her back towards my team. We were able to take dragon twice, once uncontested and the second time Irelia stole it with Smite. After that, our team pushed mid for a while, gradually whittling down the inner turret. There was a lot of posturing going on at that time, with spells and skillshots being fired, but doing pretty much nothing of consequence.

Late Game
Once that tower was taken down, the game was pretty much won. The middle inhibitor tower and inhibitor were subsequently taken down while the enemy stragglers were picked off by our collective crowd control skills. We began to advance on the Nexus turrets but backed off when the enemy team respawned. While Irelia and Nidalee went back to shop/heal, the rest of us stayed in their base to harass them and keep them from going anywhere. We kept it up long enough for the other two inner towers to be pushed without any contest. When the top inhibitor was advanced on, a teamfight broke out. This actually turned out more in their favor, as they caught us in a bad position and were able to kill four of us, while we only took one. However, this didn't hurt our team at all, as they had to scramble back to defend their base from incoming super minions and thus couldn't even get close to one of our towers. We eventually Baroned and got them to surrender at 46 minutes.

Here is the post game scoreboard:

What I learned:
- Queuing with friends is a good way to assure success in ranked games
- Nidalee is a pretty darn good solo laner
- Stuns cripple Singed's ability to initiate, but he can escape from the most ridiculous situations
- Caitlyn is good at harassing early game, but doesn't have much to offer later
- One person cannot carry a team in ranked, at least not against a competent opponent

My Score: 1/2/14
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature, Giant's Belt, Blasting Wand

Current Ranked Record: 2-1 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: Unranked

Once again I apologize for the lateness, hope you guys enjoy the summary! Comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

-Chickenmoo