25 Game Summary/Overview

I felt like 25 was a good number to stop and look back on, so I am writing another summary for all of my games so far. The review will consist of a count of all the bans I've seen, all the draft picks I've seen, along with some miscellaneous stats and my general thoughts on the "metagame" at the ELO I've been hanging around.

Summary of Games

Game 1: Win as Urgot (30 minutes)

Game 2: Loss as Urgot (1 hour)

Game 3: Win as Singed (46 minutes)

Game 4: Win as Amumu (30 minutes)

Game 5: Win as Urgot (42 minutes)

Game 6: Loss as Singed (38 minutes)

Game 7: Loss as Urgot (48 minutes)

Game 8: Loss as Amumu (25 minutes)

Game 9: Win as Taric (47 minutes)

Game 10: Loss as Urgot (24 minutes)

Game 11: Win as Singed (30 minutes)

Game 12: Win as Singed (39 minutes)

Game 13: Win as Teemo (47 minutes)
Game 14: Win as Singed (49 minutes)
Game 15: Loss as Maokai (38 minutes)
Game 16: Win as Teemo (47 minutes)
Game 17: Loss as Urgot (35 minutes)
Game 18: Loss as Amumu (37 minutes)
Game 19: Loss as Nunu (39 minutes)
Game 20: Win as Corki (40 minutes)
Game 21: Win as Singed (25 minutes)
Game 22: Loss as Urgot (28 minutes)
Game 23: Win as Singed (39 minutes)
Game 24: Loss as Urgot (34 minutes)
Game 25: Loss as Nunu (46 minutes)

This leaves me at a 13-12 record and an ELO of 1271, which is nearly 100 points higher than when I last did an overview

Champions Banned
21 times: Shen, Rammus
19 times: Amumu
16 times: Nocturne
10 times: Malphite
2 times: Vladimir, Zilean
1 time: Brand, Evelynn, Karthus, Maokai, Master Yi, Pantheon, Teemo, Tryndamere

It is clear that Nocturne has become more prevalent as a ban in this metagame, which is understandable as he can be difficult to counter without coordination. The best tanks still reign supreme though, with Shen, Rammus and Amumu taking the top spots, and Malphite following a bit behind them. An interesting absence is that of Singed, who is seen at the next best tank and quite an annoyance with his ability to move enemy champs.

Champions seen (including myself)
12 times: Ashe
11 times: Singed
9 times: Irelia, Urgot, Warwick
8 times: Nidalee, Teemo
7 times: Jax
6 times: Amumu, Cho'Gath, Malzahar, Mordekaiser, Nasus, Nunu, Xin Zhao
5 times: Alistar, Dr. Mundo, Twisted Fate,
4 times: Akali, Annie, Blitzcrank, Garen, Jarvan IV, Katarina, Kennen, Malphite, Maokai, Rammus, Renekton, Taric
3 times: Fiddlesticks, Gangplank, Leblanc, Lux, Miss Fortune, Nocturne, Ryze, Shaco, Tryndamere, Vladimir
2 times: Caitlyn, Corki, Evelynn, Kassadin, Kog'Maw, Lee Sin, Master Yi, Poppy, Shen, Sivir, Soraka, Tristana, Trundle, Zilean
1 time: Anivia, Cassiopeia, Ezreal, Galio, Heimerdinger, Janna, Karthus, Morgana, Olaf, Pantheon, Rumble, Sion, Sona, Udyr

I'm not surprised by Ashe taking the top spot here, as she is commonly known as the best AD carry out there. Having Jax so high up is kind of interesting, seeing as he isn't a "top-tier" champion. Though he is one of the best steamrollers, which tend to dominate at this level of play. The biggest thing I noticed though, was the lack of support champions being played. They don't seem nearly as important here as they do in high ELO play.

Overall KDA
114/142/251
Ratio (kills+assists/deaths): 2.57:1

This number is lower than what I had in my last summary, showing that I need to improve when carrying.

Other stats
24 turrets destroyed
2,570 minions killed
236,709 gold earned

General Metagame Thoughts
It seems that at this level of play it only takes one dominant player to win a game. When one champion gets on a roll, the other team starts trying really hard to end that roll, getting themselves killed in the process more often than not, fueling the steamroll even more. It is much more of a pubstomping game dominated by one or two people, instead of a balanced team game where everyone has an impact on the outcome. The tunnel vision of most players at this ELO is what determines who wins.

The idea of support and roaming champions is not very prevalent, but they do tend to make a positive impact when they are involved. The lanes that have healers tend to do very well, especially with Nidalee and Taric. Those champions will almost always win their lanes due to their ability to sustain without having to go back to base.

My last thought is about junglers. A team with a good jungler obviously can win the majority of the time, regardless of playing level. However, at the ELO I'm at, laners are less cautious when it comes to pushing lanes and leaving themselves exposed, making having a good jungler more important. A dominant jungler will seem to be omnipresent in the lanes, ganking when opportunities present themselves and helping secure global gold for their team.

Well, there you have it, a summary of my first 25 ranked games along with a few brief thoughts on the metagame at my ranking. If you readers have any questions or comments, or would like me to talk about a certain topic, let me know in the comments section below.  As always, thanks for reading!

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #25

With no class again today, I played a ranked game this afternoon. It was a fantastic example of why I don't jungle, it was pathetic and I felt useless. This was a solo queue game.

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

Amumu, Nocturne, Shen, Rammus


Draft:

Ashe
Alistar, Renekton
Rumble, Zilean
Nunu, Anivia
Jarvan IV, Annie
Kog'Maw


I thought we had a pretty decent team here, Renekton is always nice to have with his pursuit ability and teamfight goodness, while Anivia has the potential to be devastating if she gets on a roll. I wish we had a different AD carry though...Kog'Maws seem to do well only on rare occasions. I wasn't really planning on jungling in this game (though I guess I  never am), but I took on the role out of necessity. Their composition was pretty good, even though it was pretty heavy in the AP department. Jarvan can tank, but then he tends to be ignorable in terms of damage, leaving Ashe as the only real AD champ on the team. I was also excited to see Rumble on their team

Lane Matchups
Top: Renekton vs Ashe
Middle: Kog'Maw vs Annie
Bottom: Alistar, Anivia vs Rumble, Zilean
Jungle: Nunu vs Jarvan IV


Early Game
The game got started with quite a bang when the other team went for a 5-man gank of me at my blue buff right away. Zilean had me scoped out with his Clairvoyance, and I foolishly went snooping around for them. They caught me and Annie ended up getting the kill for First Blood. Due to that, I had to start my jungling elsewhere, hampering me experience-wise for a while. I didn't get many ganking opportunities, as my team pushed just a bit too much in their lanes and so I died often when I tried. As for Jarvan, he ganked a lot with his flag-pull combo, racking up quite a few assists in the process. Top lane was an even match, no kills went back and forth and the lane never got pushed enough to matter in any direction. The middle lane ended up being a win for us, as Annie went down to the bottom lane to gank quite a few times, giving Kog'Maw openings to wear down the turret. He died a few times to her in the lane though. The first turret kill came in the bottom lane for our side, as Alistar and Anivia did pretty well. There weren't a lot of kills, but they made them count. The tower fell when a teamfight broke out in the middle, and a large minion wave dealt the final blows. Their middle turret was taken down soon afterwards.


Mid Game
While laning had mostly broken down at this point, pretty much everyone took a turn manning the top lane while the rest put down roaming offenses in the other lanes. The majority of the battles took place in the middle of the map and near dragon. By now I felt we were in pretty good shape. I mean, we were behind in the kill count, but we were ahead in towers and they couldn't seem to adequately defend them all at once. Our team laned pretty well, but unfortunately we did not discuss a strategy for teamfights, and it came back to bite us in the ass big time. We would never target the same champion, resulting in our quick deaths in the big cluster, and then getting kited by Ashe when we tried to run. One battle near dragon got us running far enough away that they were able to get their first tower kill in the middle. We were able to retaliate with a small offensive attack in the bottom lane to get their inner tower, but that was the last positive event for us in this game.


Late Game
The sequence that lost us the game started as a 4-man gank in the middle where we destroyed Zilean, but the rest of them ran away. We proceeded to go after their inner middle tower, when they came back at us and mauled us with no mercy (we were probably too focused on the turret to react). As a result, four of us died, and they were able to get a free Baron kill. We played defensively from here on out, as our loss was inevitable (though I was stubborn). They gradually wore down turrets from all sides with their superior firepower and made it to our base with only a casualty every once in a while. For their game winning push, they aced us in our last-ditch effort, and took out our Nexus at 48 minutes.


Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #25 - Nunu

What I learned:
- I need to find a new jungler. I have plenty possible ones and have tried them out, but I need to buy armor runes to make it all the way
- Renekton is pretty monstrous in teamfights with his ultimate, he turns into a whirling dervish of damage
- Ashe is so good at kiting, it's absolutely ridiculous
- Philosopher's stones on a caster with no health? Very dumb idea
- Zilean is very good with his saves, I don't know why he isn't played more often

My Score: 0/8/5
My Build: Mercury's Treads, Doran's Ring, Aegis of the Legion, Abyssal Scepter

Current ranked record: 13-12 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1271

The 25 game overview will be coming soon. If there's anything specific you readers would like to see, let me know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #24

I was feeling good from my last game and I had some free time, so I decided to play another ranked game right afterwards. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so good. I probably made a mistake in my champion selection, which I regretted immediately after making it. This was a solo queue game.

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

Amumu, Nocturne, Zilean, Malphite


Draft:

Shen
Evelynn, Rammus
Trundle, Leblanc
Teemo, Mordekaiser
Twisted Fate, Urgot
Ashe

I should not have picked Urgot. I should have picked someone bulkier, someone like Jarvan or Maokai. However, I just kind of made a pick on a whim and didn't really think about it like I should have. As a result, our team was pretty disappointing. Three super-squishy champs and a mediocre jungler (Trundle) doesn't make a good team. Having Shen was nice, but that was the only real strong point. Their team on the other hand, was pretty daunting. Huge map control with Teemo, death from out of nowhere with Evelynn's stealth and Ashe's giant arrow, and the ever annoying Rammus with his powerballing-taunting goodness. It appeared that we were overmatched from the loading screen.

Lane Matchups

Top: Urgot vs Mordekaiser

Middle: Twisted Fate vs Ashe

Bottom: Leblanc, Shen vs Evelynn, Teemo

Jungle: Trundle vs Rammus

Early Game

The amount of talking before minions even spawned was troubling. There was a lot of trashing each other and arguing; it just didn't bode well for the game to come. First blood didn't happen for a while, when Rammus and Trundle decided to go to the bottom lane at the same time. A small fight ended up happening under our tower, and Trundle was Rammus' first victim. The lane itself did ok, Leblanc died a couple times, but Shen stayed alive. They didn't get any kills though. Twisted Fate did pretty bad in the middle, he fell victim to Ashe a few times without getting any kills in return. A couple of his deaths were aided by ganks from Rammus and Evelynn. I feel I did fine against Mordekaiser, though I couldn't ever push the lane at all. I died once when Evelynn came to gank me. The jungling difference was huge, as Rammus ganked all the time, and Trundle ganked pretty much never, allowing them to push however much they wanted. Twisted Fate and I switched lanes at one point, which left me exposed to even more ganks and thus, more deaths. Our middle tower was the first to fall when no one covered it after I died one time.

Mid Game

This game was pretty horrible for us, there weren't too many, if any, strong points. When the first tower fell, we lost all semblance of laning and coordination, and just kind of wandered around wherever we felt like. As a result, there was always one of our towers that was under attack by minions or a champion, leading to their gradual destruction. I feel like Twisted Fate was trolling the entire time, as he would get caught in really stupid situations, and he also built a Sword of the Occult. It seemed like he wasn't trying at all. Anyway, the event that lost us the game was when some of our team decided to go challenge their Baron kill, but got caught with their pants down when the enemy initiated. They all got killed except for me, and so their team stormed into our base and started tearing down our towers. We ended up surrendering at 34 minutes.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #24 - Urgot

What I learned:
- Junglers need to gank to be at all worthwhile, end of story
- Warding the key entry points into a lane via the jungle is crucial, especially when there is a Rammus in play
- Vision wards counter Evelynn hard, too bad we didn't buy any
- Cottontail Teemo is too damn cute
- Trolls are obnoxious...along with people who rip into others about quality of play when they aren't contributing much themselves

My Score: 2/6/4
My Build: Manamune, Mercury's Treads, Aegis of the Legion

Current ranked record: 13-11 (0 leaves)
ELO rating: 1292

It seems like every game that I have lost in the past couple weeks, we get absolutely destroyed and take out no towers. I never lose close games, just huge blowouts. It's pretty frustrating that it's always like that, I'd be happier if these were contested losses. Anyway, I bought Rumble and Taric today, so I'm giving them some run now. I would like to play Taric in my next ranked game, but obviously who I choose depends on the rest of my team. After the next game, I will do a summary like I did after my first ten games. If there's anything special you all would like to see in the summary, let me know. As always, thanks for reading!

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #23

The first of the two games I played on Monday night was very exciting, momentum shifted several times and we really came together as a team throughout the course of the game to do everything we needed to do to win. This was a solo queue game.

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

Amumu, Nocturne, Shen, Rammus


Draft:


Singed
Mordekaiser, Lee Sin
Trundle, Maokai
Nasus, Akali
Caitlyn, Lux
Jax


I felt our team was kind of meh when it came to firepower, but we had all of the components of a good team, at least at this level of play. Good tank, good jungler/off-tank, decent AD carry, serviceable AP carry and a supportish/tank guy. I don't think I've seen Trundle jungle before, but I figure his ganks are pretty good with the pillar, it can be so devastating to trap people with it. As for their team, I thought it was pretty poorly put together. Lee Sin is pretty bad, and Akali and Jax are pretty limited in their utility, especially when put together. The lack of a ranged attacker was also pretty significant.

Lane Matchups
Top: Singed vs Mordekaiser
Middle: Lux vs Jax
Bottom: Caitlyn, Maokai vs Nasus, Akali
Jungle: Trundle vs Lee Sin


Early Game               


DISCLAIMER: LoLReplay is bugging out right now...so the summary will be light on detail

The first bit of action came in the bottom lane, where Maokai got First Blood on Akali a few minutes into the game. They had a pretty good matchup down there against Akali and Nasus, being able to harass from range all day. They ended up dominating the lane and let them nowhere near their own tower while laning. Lux did ok in the middle, she was killed by Jax a couple times, but she was able to keep him at bay otherwise. The top lane was uneventful, just a lot of pushing back and forth with no kills being exchanged at all. Lee Sin came to gank once or twice, but really didn't do anything while the rest of us were laning. Trundle didn't do a lot either, he basically covered lanes when people needed to go back to base. Caitlyn decided to switch with Lux about halfway through laning for a better matchup with Jax, which allowed for the first tower kill in the middle. After that everyone but me and Mordekaiser started roaming, and eventually the enemy bottom tower was taken out in a 4-man push.

Mid Game
Eventually I joined in on the roaming as well, so we went for the top turret with our entire team. We were able to take it down when they were only defending with two, but then the rest of them showed up. This caused a teamfight by their small golems, and we got ripped to pieces thanks to a lack of strategy. We hadn't discussed beforehand who we would kill first, but that fight certainly triggered the topic. That battle gave them the momentum and lessened the kill count gap, even though we had a large tower kill advantage. Another teamfight happened in the middle shortly after where we weren't really coordinated, and initiated poorly. As a result, three or four of us got killed, as did our middle two turrets. We all thought we were screwed for sure at this point, as they seemed to be on an unstoppable run and we couldn't stop them.

Late Game
They continued their push to try and take our inhibitor turret, so a lot of dancing and spell flinging happened, which was to our advantage due to having two ranged attackers. As a result, we were able to catch a couple of them out of position and kill them, forcing a retreat. In their retreat, we pushed to their middle inner turret and took it down easily. In an incredibly bold move, we went for a Baron kill, carefully warding so we would know when to back off if necessary. They showed up just as we were about to finish him, with Jax poorly timing his jump to try and steal it. As a result, we smoked him on the spot, along with Lee Sin who had also come to play. We retreated to get away from the rest of the enemy team and to recover. For some odd reason, they started trying to attack our other towers alone, allowing us to easily pick them off and get a numbers advantage. In the ending sequence, we took out their middle inhibitor, and then moved on to the top one, picking off the enemy champions as they showed up to contest us. We destroyed their Nexus at 39 minutes.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #23 - Singed

What I learned:
- I finally learned how to lane against Mordekaiser, that was a huge bump for me, so now I won't auto-lose a lane against him
- No ganking from the jungle is pretty lame, it can help control a lane immensely
- A Mordekaiser with Rylai's is quite annoying, I didn't know that Children of the Grave would apply the slow on every tick
- Stealing Baron is hard without a ranged attacker...as is laning in the middle

My Score: 3/5/13
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature, Giant's Belt

Current ranked record: 13-10 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1314

Games like this are always fun, even if you don't win (but winning makes it 100 times better). Unfortunately this game was followed by a pretty awful one...the summary is coming soon. Thanks for reading, comments and suggestions are always welcome!

-Chickenmoo

No game tonight *UPDATED*

Hey guys, I didn't really have time to play a ranked game tonight. It will definitely come tomorrow, maybe two to give you all something to do during the server downtime on Tuesday. On an unrelated note, I'd really appreciate any feedback regarding the formatting and such of my game summaries. Like do you guys like what I write about? Are there certain things that you would like to see mentioned that I don't talk about? Any general questions regarding my thought process or playstyle? Don't be shy, I want to know what you all think.


EDIT: So I did end up playing two games tonight, the first was a pretty exciting win, while the other was another depressing loss. I will do the write-ups first thing tomorrow, hopefully I'll get them done by the time the servers are back up, as I need to get some action in with Rumble.

On an unrelated note, here's a drawing of Singed surfing that I did for a few Riot Points

-Chickenmoo