Ranked Game #16

I played another game on a whim tonight, since my friend asked me to. The other team ended up being pretty bad, and we got carried hard. The game got drawn out for a while though when the enemy team stopped pushing, even when we were running. This was a duo queue game with 534N7R0N. This summary is going to be a little shorter because I don't really feel like writing at the moment, plus it was a pretty easy game.

I was the captain of my team, with first ban:

Nocturne, Rammus, Malphite, Shen


The draft:

Amumu
Teemo, Jax
Nunu, Nidalee
Leblanc, Nasus
Ashe, Akali
Irelia


Pre-game thoughts
I liked our team composition, though playing with a Jax always worries me, as its usually feast or famine with them. Our backdooring capability was fantastic should the situation have arisen, with Nasus' Siphoning Strike and Jax's Relentless Assault. Also, having two of the games best steamrollers in  Jax and Leblanc is fantastic, along with the map control of Teemo. Irelia (my friend) jungled, I went bottom with Jax, Leblanc went mid and Nasus went top. They had a pretty balanced team as well, having two of the best kiters (Ashe and Nunu) out there promised to be tough to deal with. Having Amumu was also troubling, especially combined with Nunu. Akali appeared to be jungling, as she locked in with Smite, but Nunu ended up filling that role for them.

Early Game
Laning was fun, seeing as I actually won my lane for once, even though I had very little to do with it. Jax and I went again Akali and Amumu, and Jax absolutely dominated. We First Blooded Akali very quickly near her tower, and proceeded to kill her and Amumu several times before the laning phase ended. Leblanc went against Ashe, who was probably one of the best I've seen, she was very aggressive and gave little ground, spaced very well. Ashe got one kill on Leblanc on a Nunu gank, and that was it (I think). Nasus laned against Nidalee, who became the target of ganks from Irelia due to her constant overextending. Nunu ganked often and everywhere, getting me once or twice. The first tower to fall was their bottom one after a Jax double kill (he was fed, hard).

Mid Game
Here is where laning ended, and all of the action shifted to the middle lane. Top and bottom were essentially ignored except to clear minion waves threatening towers for a long time. There was a pretty funny sequence when Jax decided to go kind of backdoor the bottom lane, where he got a quadra kill from the other team coming at him one at a time, and then killed the tower while he was at it. This allowed us to take out their outer middle tower, and the inner one came down a few minutes after that. Their strategy at this point was pretty poor, they would initiate one at a time and get themselves killed in seconds. At this point they were all raging because of Jax's domination, which was pretty comical.

Late Game
The game began to drag on at this point, as we were on their doorstep, but unable to do anything. They would just sit at their tower, throw their spells, and run away if we moved at them. We took Baron to get even more of an upper hand, but it still didn't do much. At this point Jax had us all go top to kill towers and distract them, while he backdoored bottom some more. He was able to destroy an inhibitor, forcing them to play defense more. They were pretty good at locking down their base besides that, it was the only chance they had to make even a little comeback. It never came to fruition for them though, as eventually they wandered far enough out of the base for us to gank them, enabling a quick sweep of the base and finishing with a Nexus kill at 47 minutes.



Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #16 - Teemo

What I learned:

- Wriggle's seems to be a better first item than Philosoper's Stone for Teemo in my first trial with it, the lifesteal is great when you're attacking more than once per second. That does leave me mana starved though

- Jax is truly a game changing champion when he gets a few early kills, Leap scales ridiculously well

- I never thought that a fragile champ like Ashe could be so annoying at the same time. Knowing the enemy's range instantly gives you a huge advantage in a 1v1

- Having Amumu is not an automatic win

My Score: 3/5/14

My Build: Wriggle's Lantern, Bezerker's Greaves, Malady, Nashor's Tooth, Madred's Bloodrazor, Negatron Cloak

Current ranked record: 10 - 6 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: 1344

Eh, I guess the summary ended up being about the same length as usual. Being carried is fun, but going up against an airtight defense like that is not. Also I feel like my friend needs to play someone else when he queues with me next time, as I'm sure you guys love seeing Irelia in every other game. My next ranked game will be sometime this weekend. Thanks for reading.


-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #15

My fifteenth ranked game is now done, and it was a disappointing one to say the least. We had a good roll going at one point, but our coordination broke down and we paid dearly for it. I changed it up a little with my champion selection, going with someone I hadn't rolled with in a ranked game before. This was a solo queue game.

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

Ranked Game #14

Hey guys, sorry this is so late. I just wrapped up my 14th ranked game. It was a bad game for me, especially early on, but I was able to recover and we ended up steamrolling them a bit. I went alone again for this one.

I had the second pick on my team, with us having the first ban:

Rammus, Nocturne, Amumu, Shen


Here's the draft:


Vladimir
Zilean, Singed
Cho'Gath, Sion
Warwick, Karthus
Corki, Irelia
Ashe


Our team seemed to be pretty balanced, though a little heavy on magic damage. Having Warwick jungle is never a bad thing (which he did), and Zilean's life-saving abilities are unmatched by any champion out there. This was a good team composition, very promising. The enemy team was kind of scary though, with four bulky champions paired with a supreme carry in Corki (a rare sight for me). If we let them get rolling, we would be toast for sure. As for our laning assignments, Warwick took the jungle, Ashe took mid, Karthus took top, and I went bottom with Zilean. Irelia jungled for the enemy team.


Early Game
The beginning of the game was quite rough for me. We got matched up against Cho'Gath and Sion, who apparently are a great laning combo. Whenever I would go and try to poison a minion wave, I would get Ruptured and stunned right away, taking away half my health, so as a result I got very few minion kills. I was the victim of first blood when Zilean had gone back to base, and I was alone under my tower with less than two bars of health. I ended up dying two more times while laning, while Zilean died a couple times as well. Ashe went against Vladimir in mid, which was a lot of harassment back and forth with Vlad getting a couple kills on Ashe later. Karthus against Corki in the top lane was uneventful, with no kills happening between them. Warwick and Irelia didn't really do much ganking, they mostly just leveled in the jungle, showing up every once in a while to cover or push. Our bottom tower was the first to fall after one of my deaths, and laning ended after that.

Mid Game
For this section of the game, almost all of the action was concentrated at the middle of the map. They tried to push our tower several times, but nothing came of it besides a few tower diving kills for them. Corki stayed in the top lane however, and eventually took down our tower up there. A small teamfight near dragon allowed part of our team to kill their bottom tower, while taking a few of them along with it. In our retreat, they decided to push down our middle tower, starting a teamfight. We were able to kill three of them easily without any casualties, forcing them to back off. This allowed us to destroy their middle tower and shifted the momentum in our direction. We started coordinating our attacks very well, focusing each of their bulky guys down one by one until they tried to run away. We began to show our muscle at this point, particularly in a teamfight near their blue buff. We caught them all grouped up in a bush when Irelia initiated on us. Cho'Gath did pretty poorly in protecting his team, which got us an ace and their top outer tower (and confidence).

Late Game
Our dominance continued in several more teamfights, with another ace happening in the jungle near their wolves camp. They were all sitting in a bush again, and were surprised when we decided to come after them. This ace got us their middle inner tower. Soon after this, we caught them trying to sneak a Baron kill. When we showed up, they decided we were more important and promptly got themselves in a bad situation. In their retreat, we took out Baron for his buff in no time. This gave us a chance to push down several towers, along with the middle inhibitor. We went for the bottom one next, but the tower greatly aided in their cause, resulting in our team getting aced. Fortunately, they spent the free time defending their base from the incoming super minions and didn't do anything of real consequence. One Baron kill and another inhibitor later, we destroyed their Nexus at 50 minutes.



Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #14 - Singed

What I learned: 

- I'm not very good at laning...definitely the thing I'm worst at right now

- When only one person on your team builds magic resist against a team of magic damage, you are screwed

- Cho'Gath and Sion is a pretty sweet laning combination

- Global gold makes a huge difference, I think we had 3 dragon kills and 2 Baron kills, compared to none of each for them

My Score: 11/6/20

My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature, Frozen Heart, Negatron Cloak, Blasting Wand

Current ranked record: 9-5 (0 leaves)

ELO rating: 1346

Yes I know my creep score is god awful, I feel behind early and couldn't catch up. I'm also beginning to realize that I'm pretty bad at laning in general, but manage to pull myself up a bit once thats done. Once I focused on my positioning a little bit more, I started to do much better. As always, suggestions and comments are appreciated, and thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo