Ranked Game #22

Ugh...this was a horrible game. This is the first ranked game I've played where I genuinely got mad at my team. I was pissed off, and it affected my play as I starting playing way too aggressively. Hopefully my next game is fantastic, as I need to get this one off of my mind. This was a duo queue game with my friend 534N7R0N.

I was the captain of my team, and I had second ban:

Shen, Nocturne, Rammus, Amumu


Draft:

Urgot
Morgana, Singed
Sona, Lee Sin
Garen, Xin Zhao
Warwick, Cho'Gath (my friend)
Ashe


I didn't like this team composition very much, setting up a wonderful prelude to the game to follow. Sona and Lee Sin did not communicate with us at all...they pretty much just said "i'm gonna pick x" and didn't really contribute much to the team composition discussion. Sure, we had a tank, jungler and support, but having two AD-central champs is not ideal, especially when one is Lee Sin. Did I mention I hate people who are dead set on playing a certain champion? Anyway, their team was pretty scary, it was incredibly balanced and quite bulky. Garen is always irritating with his giant sword from the sky, and Singed flinging everybody all over the place. Fortunately, it looked like that I would lane against Ashe, which is a matchup I should win every time.


Lane Matchups
Top: Cho'Gath vs Morgana, Singed
Middle: Urgot vs Ashe
Bottom: Lee Sin, Sona vs Garen, Xin Zhao
Jungle: Warwick vs


Early Game
The bottom lane was a huge disaster for our side, Lee Sin and Sona were outmatched from the word go. Sona died for first blood pretty early after getting exhausted. Each of them died several more times without getting any kills themselves. I did ok in the middle lane against Ashe. I didn't get any kills, but she didn't get any either. As the laning phase went on, they tried ganking me a few times from the side lanes, but were only successful one time when I stupidly walked into Xin and Garen in the river bush. I wasn't as aggressive as I should have been in the early going, as I easily could have gotten a couple kills by burning my summoner's spells. As a melee champ going 1v2, Cho'Gath was at a disadvantage in the top lane. He was backed up to his own tower constantly only getting some relief when Warwick ganked once or twice. He was able to get a couple kills in those situations, but obviously he couldn't push at all. Warwick didn't gank much, he mostly had to cover for the bottom lane when they failed spectacularly. When he did gank, he was usually able to make an impact and get a kill. As a result of bottom lane getting dominated, our tower down there was the first one to fall.

Mid Game
We fell apart even more at this point. When the tower fell, most of the fighting moved to being concentrated at the middle tower. There was a lot of dancing around for a while, pushing and counterpushing back and forth. From time to time one or two of them would split off to try and push another tower, so we would have to go defend it. We tended to be able to pick them off when that happened, but our resulting pushes went nowhere.  Our team was too hesitant when it came to teamfights and we also had no real solid plan of who to kill first. As a result, we pretty much got destroyed whenever one happened. At one point, we got ourselves aced in front of our middle tower, resulting in its quick destruction but a failed surrender. Our poor play continued until another huge loss in a teamfight in the middle, where we voted to surrender at 28 minutes.


The post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #22 - Urgot

What I learned:
- Urgot is meant to be played aggressively, which I did not do. That was a factor in my failure to do anything useful in this game
- Lee Sin is horrible, he has very little utility. Sure, two blinks are nice, but only if you can do damage along with it
- Garen is pretty freaking dangerous when damage is built on him, he turns into a whirling dervish of death and destruction
- Junglers need to be able to gank to be effective, plain and simple
- Morgana seems to be pretty underrated, her ult can be devastating if coordinated well with the rest of her team

My Score: 0/5/4
My Build: Manamune, Ninja Tabi, The Brutalizer, Cloth Armor, Null-Magic Mantle

Current ranked record: 12-10 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1291

Yep, that was my worst and most frustrating game so far. I promise that I will do better next time, it was just inexcusable. Comment if you would like, thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #21

I have no class tomorrow (hooray!) so I got around to playing another game. I hated our team composition big time going in here...but it turned out pretty darn well for us. We had complete control almost the entire game, they only threatened us for a short amount of time, and were quickly shut down. This was a solo queue game.

I had the third pick for my team, and we had second ban:

Rammus, Zilean, Shen, Amumu


Then the draft:

Taric
Jarvan IV, Lux
Nocturne, Singed
Warwick, Ryze
Jax, Irelia
Tryndamere


Uhh....we had no ranged champs, and no real mid laner, so I was pretty worried about how we were going to do. It was another one of those situations where someone didn't talk at all (Jax), and another decided who he was going to be way before he picked (Irelia). Fortunately, we were able to secure Nocturne as a great jungler, and the best support in the game (in my opinion) in Taric. Their team was certainly constructed better, but not much so. Three offish-tanks is nice, but having one dedicated tank is always better. The one thing that scared me about their team was all the traps they had, with two-ish snares and a suppression to enable Tryndamere to destroy those who were immobilized. Other than that, the key to beating them would be shutting down Lux and Tryndamere to avoid a steamroll.


Lane Matchups
Top: Singed vs Jarvan IV
Middle: Jax vs Lux
Bottom: Taric, Irelia vs Ryze, Tryndamere(ish)
Jungle: Nocturne vs Warwick, Tryndamere(ish)


Early Game
Our bottom lane had a pretty good laning phase, which was encouraging for the rest of the game. Taric was able to secure First Blood on Ryze with a stun as soon as the minion waves met. They pretty much dominated down there, as they consistently got kills on Tryndamere when he overextended, and Ryze when he was left alone. The weird matchup between Jax and Lux in the middle went mostly our way, as whenever Jax was able to land his jump and stun, Lux was toast. She did get some help on occasion from Warwick and Tryndamere, killing Jax at least once. I had a pretty lackluster laning phase, as it was just a bunch of last hitting and poisoning minions for me, with an occasional fling to keep Jarvan at my health level. I was able to get a kill on Warwick when he ulted me under my tower, but that was pretty much all my action up there. Nocturne attempted a few ganks in the middle and bottom, but didn't really do much in the process. The same went for Warwick, he ended up getting himself killed more often than he killed others.


Mid Game
This game was so short that I'm going to put the rest of the laning phase into the mid game section. A nice little teamfight in the bottom lane where we picked them off one by one near their tower allowed us our first tower kill. They got theirs at almost the same time when they took out our top tower that was left alone when we had four in the bottom lane. Another teamfight followed immediately after that I wasn't a part of because I had gone back to base. It started at their blue buff, and they actually did pretty well, killing two of our team members while losing either one or none. This was their one glimmer of hope, but we shut it down pretty quickly. There was a series of dancing and fighting in the middle of the map where we were able to roll them easily with our stuns and slows, netting  us another tower kill. The finishing blow was an easily won teamfight in the top lane, where we actually tower dove to take out two of them after killing two others. Jarvan had gone AFK right before this, so they surrendered at 25 minutes.


Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #21 - Singed

What I learned: 
- Two junglers on the same team...not the best idea if you aren't going to counter-jungle
- Taric is awesome, I need to buy him eventually. I suppose he'll be next after Rumble
- Jarvan isn't really someone to be afraid of if he builds no damage items, as the only significant damage he will do is with his passive every 6 seconds
- Farming well does wonders for a build, glad I finally got a nice game in that sense
- All melee team isn't horrible, just gotta catch the ranged enemies out of position first

My Score: 2/1/6
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Giant's Belt, Chain Vest

Current ranked record: 12-9 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1316

This was a really nice game to end the day on, I had a pretty frustrating hour long normal one earlier where we defended our base for almost half an hour uselessly. Like I said earlier, I have no class on Thursday, so I will probably play another one then. Thanks for reading, you should post comments or suggestions for the blog if you have any!

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #20

My twentieth ranked game is now in the books, and I used another new champion this time. It wasn't a very good game on my part, but my team picked me up very well, especially Singed. This was a solo queue game.

I had the second pick for my team, which had first ban:

Malphite, Nocturne, Shen, Amumu


Draft:

Kassadin
Singed, Corki
Renekton, Warwick
Katarina, Olaf
Evelynn, Mordekaiser
Rammus


Our lack of range (besides me) was worrisome, but I felt better about it due to the fact that their entire team was melee, even with how little Kassadin counts as a melee fighter. I was also excited to have two great tanks in Rammus and Singed, with Rammus jungling potentially setting up awesome ganks. Olaf is deceptively powerful, and Katarina is the classic steamroller, making this a pretty solid team in my opinion. Now their team had the great potential to be annoying with Kassadin constantly blinking, Evelynn stealthing and Mordekaiser being Mordekaiser, but a little teamwork would easily shut them down and render them useless.

Lane Matchups
Top: Singed vs Renekton
Middle: Corki vs Kassadin
Bottom: Katarina, Olaf vs Evelynn, Mordekaiser
Jungle: Rammus vs Warwick

Early Game
Things got started off with a bang, as Renekton tried to dive Singed very early and got himself first blooded. He did well in his lane, but didn't push much as he just mostly farmed. Kassadin and I were even in the middle lane as we didn't kill eachother at all. However, Warwick and Evelynn tried to gank me several times, sacrificing themselves for a kill a couple times. I don't laning against Kassadin at all...I can never get kills on them. The bottom lane was complete dominance for our side. Katarina and Olaf rarely died...if at all, while absolutely destroying Mordekaiser and Evelynn. Warwick never really ganked much, and so didn't impact the laning phase very much. Rammus ganked a few times, with success, with him getting revenge on Evelynn for me in the middle. Evelynn tended to roam around the map a lot, seemingly without reason. She was able to get kills, but usually got herself killed every time. Our middle tower ended up being the first to fall even with our sizable kill lead, as they had a big minion wave and three champs all mid, while we were either healing or pushing other towers.

Mid Game
The roaming began very early, but we couldn't really push anything for a while. They ended up getting our bottom tower after a few more minutes in a four man push, which we did not contest too much. We were able to get our first turret kill in a bit of a struggle up top. It was an extended teamfight where I ended up dying, and the wave was pushed each direction a couple times. Once Singed joined the fight though, we were able to push them back and take out the tower easily. Their middle turret fell soon after while they were recovering. The momentum tipped heavily in our favor over a couple of teamfights, the first coming near their wolves camp. Three of them showed up and promptly got caught with their pants down, resulting in an easy victory. This allowed us to take out their inner middle turret. A few minutes later, we destroyed them in a teamfight near Baron, where Singed flung them out of position beautifully and got us four kills. We chased down Warwick for the ace, and demolished the inhibitor turret with the free time.

Late Game
After healing up and such, we headed to Baron to see if they would try to catch us by surprise there. One of them showed up but immediately ran, so Rammus powerballed to chase him down. In a really weird initiation that shouldn't have gone our way, we killed four of them, along with their middle inhibitor to start the heavy flow of super minions. At this point, Evelynn was trying to backdoor us so we had to scramble back to put that down. In order to prevent that from happening again, we had to pick our spot carefully to make our finishing move, to win with authority. This happened in another strange teamfight where they caught Singed and Rammus alone, but failed miserably at focusing either one of them down. The rest of our team eventually got there and wiped the floor with them, forcing a surrender at 41 minutes.


Scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #20 - Corki

What I learned:
- I wasn't ready to break out Corki, or I was too aggressive...as usual
- Having Evelynn roam is an interesting idea, seeing as her stun comes out of nowhere
- I haven't played Singed since they changed his ultimate, but man it's a pretty nice change
- Corki needs at least one defensive item to be able to stick his nose into anything without melting instantly

My Score: 3/7/10
My Build: Manamune, Mercury's Treads, Banshee's Veil, Phage, Sheen

Current ranked record: 11-9 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1295

So there you have it, twenty games in and I'm around 1300 ELO, with 2 more wins than losses. While I obviously would have liked more wins, I will certainly take this as I gradually improve my game (while continuing to get lucky sometimes). I'll do a big overview at 25 games, as it seems like a good milestone to take an analysis from. Thanks for reading, please post comments or suggestions if you have any.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #19

Well, it appears that I still have some work to do on jungling. Maybe I need to find another jungler to learn, like Shaco or Cho'Gath. I mean I would go for Amumu, but he's banned too often to rely on. So yeah, I just got done with a game where I jungled. It was in solo queue, and I went alone.

I had the fourth pick for my team, and we had second ban:

Nocturne, Shen, Brand, Amumu


The draft went like this:

Rammus
Malzahar, Nidalee
Vladimir, Nasus
Warwick, Jarvan IV
Nunu, Miss Fortune
Alistar


My thoughts on this team can be summed up with the following: Meh. Rammus is nice, but the guy only took him because he didn't want the other team to have him. I would have rather him have been someone he could jungle with (he listed a few, but not Rammus) so then I wouldn't have to, and do something I'm a little more comfortable with. Vlad is nice, always a good steamroller if he gets a couple early kills. Nasus and Miss Fortune are not my favorites, seeing as their CC is very limited. The Miss Fortune guy  was insistent on playing her, so our options were kind of limited. I always get a bad feeling when there is no real discussion on who's playing who, when everyone is just like "I'm playing X" and stops talking, or just locks in without a word. Anyway, as for their team it was clear that stopping Malzahar and Warwick's ults would be a priority, along with keeping Nidalee out of the action.

Lane Matchups
Top: Nasus vs Nidalee
Middle: Vladimir vs Malzahar
Bottom: Rammus, Miss Fortune vs Jarvan IV, Alistar
Jungle: Nunu vs Warwick


Early Game
This was a pretty weird game in terms of momentum, they did a lot of the killing, but we did a lot of the pushing. First blood occurred in the top lane, when Nidalee managed to chase Nasus quite a ways past his outer tower to take him down. After that, not much really happened there, though Nasus managed to push quite a bit more. The matchup in mid was pretty even, if only because of Warwick's constant ganking. Vladimir was able to get kills by being extremely aggressive and pushing as hard as he could to back Malzahar up to his turret. He died a few times trying to retreat though, which greatly aided Malzahar and Warwick later on. The bottom lane produced little action in the early going, and was the target of a few unsuccessful ganks. I tried ganking a few times, but wasn't really able to do anything worthwhile. All of the lanes were pushed hard in our favor, and their middle tower was the first to fall. A few minutes later, we took out the top one, and also their bottom tower.

Mid Game
At this point, I thought we were in pretty good shape. We had three towers down to their none, though we were a bit behind in kills. The one teamfight we were victorious in happened in the middle lane, near where their outer tower once stood. We took out their bulky guys and forced a retreat, enabling us to destroy their inner middle tower for even more momentum. The troubling sign at this point was the fact that we had half as many kills as they did, suggesting that their gold advantage would eventually win over the tower advantage. The turning point in the game was the next big teamfight in the middle of the map. We initiated on Alistar (dumb idea) and killed him, but by the time we did that, their big guns were in there firing away. Warwick ended up getting a quadra-kill, and we got aced. Luckily the kills were far enough apart that they didn't do anything with the downtime, but it changed the momentum all the same.

Late Game
The steamrolling began here, and boy it was rough. Our team continued pushing at various towers to try and take back the momentum, but we were met by their team every time and were forced to retreat with casualties. They rolled around in a pack, taking towers as they pleased and smashing whoever stood in their way. At one point they took Baron, and were able to reach and destroy our middle inhibitor with ease. It was all over from there, as we had to scramble to protect our base from large minion buildups from each lane. They came back at full strength, and beat us handily in our base, getting us to surrender at 38 minutes.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #19 - Nunu


What I learned:
- I need to learn how to jungle better, I just don't have a real good strategy in regards of how and when to gank, when to farm in the jungle and when to go out into a lane.
- Picking a champion just to keep them off the other team isn't the greatest strategy...just ban them instead
- Carries need to stay in the back of the pack, as over aggression hurts the team greatly
- Alistar should never be focused, ever. His ultimate is just too good
- Double suppression team is pretty sick

My Score: 3/5/7
My Build: Mercury's Treads, Banshee's Veil, Rod of Ages

Current ranked record: 10-9 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1271

So my first shot at jungling didn't go so well. Anyone have any suggestions or tips regarding jungle Nunu. I think I'm going to give Amumu some test runs in customs and normals while jungling to see if I can do better. Thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo