I had the second pick for my team, and we had second ban:
Rammus, Nocturne, Shen, Amumu
The draft:
Katarina
Poppy, Malzahar
Maokai, Irelia
Blitzcrank, Soraka
Taric, Jax
Nunu
Our team composition was pretty meh to me, with the one thing sticking out like a sore thumb being all melee champs. Also lacking was a source of consistent damage, seeing as Katarina's comes and goes, and Jax has to be able to get in effectively. It worked well for a while, but went downhill as they got bulkier and bulkier. The combo of Blitzcrank and Malzahar was especially scary to me, as grab + knock-up + suppression = one very dead champion. Soraka is also a nuisance to any opponent if she stays out of the line of fire. In a move I've never seen before, Jax said that he would jungle. As the game started, Katarina took the middle, Irelia took top, and Taric and I went bottom. Nunu was their jungler. Also, this was the most skins I've ever seen in one game, with Taric, Irelia and I having one for us, and Malzahar and Nunu having one for them.
Early Game
As is typical by now, the laning phase was difficult for me. We ended up going against Poppy and Soraka, which was quite irritating. Poppy would charge whenever she had the opportunity, take some damage, and get it all back from Soraka. They got first blood on Taric when Nunu ganked us when we extended too far. Katarina had the upper hand on Malzahar in mid, as she was able to get a few kills on him without giving up any. Irelia went against Blitzcrank in the top lane, which was just a bunch of last hitting, no real action went on. Nunu tried to gank a few times bottom and succeeded, while Jax did pretty much nothing from the jungle. Our bottom tower was the first to fall when Nunu came to gank, along with Malzahar, and some poor initiation got three of us killed, leaving me alone to defend the tower. After it was destroyed, Taric and I began roaming around to try and push the other lanes.
Mid Game
By overloading the other two lanes, we were able to take down their top and middle towers without much difficulty. That combined with the fact that Katarina was dominating gave me hope for victory. However, that was dampened a bit when we lost a little dance off at our middle tower, Blitzcrank was able to grab and destroy a couple of us to force us to retreat. Soon after this, there was a weird struggle at dragon that I thought won us the game. They initiated on us, and I thought we were toast for sure, but we somehow aced them easily. I suppose it was because we focused them in the correct order and kept them from running. We were able to take out their middle inner tower with the free time, with their outer bottom one going right after. This is where things took a turn for the worse though. We repeatedly got ourselves caught out of position and in bad situations, resulting in quick deaths. An ace got them our middle outer tower, and an all out retreat got them the next one.
Late Game
They were rolling big time at this point. A bad decision to take dragon without our whole team got three of us killed and another tower lost. We just couldn't make good decisions or initiate well, we were too tentative with our power moves, and we paid dearly for it. Our middle inhibitor was destroyed when we extended too far in the middle lane, and they came up behind us in a huge wave of destruction. Without more than one person to defend, it was easy for them to take whatever they wanted. They drove the knife in our chest with a quick Baron kill and a hard push, getting us to surrender at 38 minutes.
Postgame scoreboard:
Replay link: Ranked Game #15 - Maokai
What I learned:
- I still need to learn a bit with Maokai, as his playstyle is a little different than other tanks. He does better in an offensive position compared to defensive, mainly because he is incredibly slow and not much escapability.
- When Soraka keeps herself out of the way, her team is hard to stop, she has to be a top priority
- Jax isn't that great of a jungler...very little ganking capability
- Taric needs to buy at least one defensive item in order to survive enough to help a team
- Being able to move enemies where you want them is a huge advantage
My Score: 1/4/7
My Build: Rod of Ages, Mercury's Treads, Negatron Cloak, Regrowth Pendant (X2)
Current ranked record: 9 - 6 (0 leaves)
ELO rating: 1301
I didn't do so well in trying something different, but it was more interesting than just playing Singed again. I'll definitely play again Friday night, hopefully with a friend. Suggestions and comments are appreciated, and thanks for reading.
-Chickenmoo
No comments:
Post a Comment