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 #18

I had lots of free time today, so I got around to playing my latest ranked game. I was able to pick one of my favorite champions, but the game went horribly. It was a very frustrating game that should have gone better...in theory. I queued with my friend 534N7R0N for this one.

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

Rammus, Nocturne, Shen, Malphite


Here's the draft:

Amumu
Malzahar, Blitzcrank
Nunu, Kennen
Tryndamere, Dr. Mundo
Gangplank, Miss Fortune (534N7R0N)
Galio


This was certainly not my favorite team composition ever, but I suppose it wasn't too bad. Having three AOE ultimates was certainly a strong point, and could make for some fantastic teamfight destruction. I'm not really that big a fan of Gangplank, Miss Fortune or Kennen though, as they tend to be mediocre in most situations. Our Gangplank wanted to switch with me, but I refused, so he decided to random and that's who he ended up with. That kind of made me mad...but I lived with it. Nunu said he would jungle, Kennen took the top lane, Miss Fortune went mid and I went bottom with Gangplank. Their team worried me with the massive amount of bulk they had, along with the ability to pick people out of the crowd and absolutely destroy them. Their Tryndamere jungled, which I had never seen before.


Early Game
The laning phase was pretty slow, lasting almost half of the game. First blood didn't happen until about ten minutes in, where Malzahar was able to take out my friend with his ultimate. That matchup in the middle was pretty even with a couple kills going to each side. More action happened right after that, when Nunu ganked Blitzcrank and Galio in the bottom lane, with us being able to take out the former. That matchup was pretty even as well, though we never got at all close to their tower, most of the laning phase was fought on our half. Tryndamere ganked quite a few times, or at least tried to, but without much success. Kennen went against Dr. Mundo in the top lane, and just played harassment back and forth with their Q's for a while. The only kill occurred late in laning when Mundo tried to towerdive and was unsuccessful. After one small teamfight near dragon, where we ended up foolishly chasing them into our death, our middle tower was destroyed for the first tower kill. Our bottom one fell soon afterwards when I got caught too far out by Malzahar's ultimate and Blitzcrank's skill combo.

Mid Game
Here is where the laning finally ended, and we began to get demolished. Our teamfight strategy was pretty poor, which definitely lost us the game. We targeted Malzahar and Tryndamere first like we should have, but if/when they managed to escape, we wouldn't know what to do and everyone would start attacking a different champion. As a result, we lost most if not every teamfight in this game. The only time when we had some hope was when we forced a retreat from a teamfight, and went for one of their towers. Unfortunately, they had stationed Malzahar and Blitzcrank there, as a fantastic tower defending combo. We couldn't touch it, and had to retreat pretty quickly when Gangplank got killed. In the meantime, the rest of their team was storming our towers, with two of our inhibitor towers being taken down by the time we got back to base. To seal the deal, they Baroned and absolutely destroyed us when they ran into us on their way to our base. This triggered a surrender by us at the 39 minute mark.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #18 - Amumu

What I learned: 
- Tryndamere isn't that great of a jungler...or this one was just bad
- Malzahar and Blitzcrank is a great combo, Rocket Grab into Power Fist into suppression is too good
- Disables need to be saved for channel ults like Galio's and Nunu's, as they are too good to be allowed to complete
- Nothing against my friend, but Miss Fortune doesn't have much utility outside of large damage output
- Galio's recent buffs were pretty nice for him

My Score: 2/5/6
My Build: Philosopher's Stone, Mercury's Treads, Aegis of the Legion, Force of Nature

Current ranked record: 10-8 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1293

Another day, another game without a tower kill by my team...hopefully this run of bad luck ends soon. I might try Corki in my next game, I'm getting more comfortable with his positioning and such. Janna is also a possibility, I'm trying to learn to play her this week. Hope you enjoyed the read, comments and suggestions are welcome.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #17

I apologize for how much time has gone by between games here, I've had a lot of things to do, along with the fact that I'm trying to cut down on the number of games I play. As fun as it is, I was making LoL too important in my daily life, but I think I've found a good medium for the time being. Anyway, this was a really frustrating game, a pretty bad loss with the blame spread out pretty evenly among my team. I duo queued with 534N7R0N.

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

Nocturne, Shen, Rammus, Amumu

Here's how the draft went:

Urgot
Fiddlesticks, Warwick
Teemo, Renekton
Garen, Ashe
Blitzcrank, Cho'Gath (534N7R0N)
Nidalee

I liked our team going into this one. Other than the lack of a real AP carry, it looked pretty good on paper. We had a fantastic potential combo with my ult and Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab to really screw over an enemy by moving them way into our territory. Having a good self-sustaining jungler (Cho'Gath) was also a plus. We felt pretty confident going in, seeing as they didn't really have a true tank. Nidalee is pretty annoying, but also helped compose an overall squishy team with the likes of Fiddlesticks and Ashe. As for lane assignments, Renekton went top, I took mid, and Teemo went bottom with Blitzcrank. Cho'Gath jungled for us, and Warwick did the same for the enemy team.

Early Game
We made a kind of silly decision at the start to try and gank Warwick at his blue buff starting point. One of us ended up walking in a Nidalee trap and gave our position away, so they were ready for us. None of us died, or got hurt really, but those of us who went were at an early disadvantage due to the lost experience from not being in lane. Cho'Gath was especially hurt, as he needed extra help to be able to start his own jungling at blue. Renekton was able to get First Blood pretty quickly in the top lane, and had a kill advantage on him during the laning phase, though neither tower got pushed too much. I went up against Ashe in middle, and neither of us had room to get the killing shot on the other. Warwick came to gank me a couple times and did very well at it, giving them the advantage. The bottom lane was pretty eventful, kills were traded back and forth a few times, and that is where most of Cho'Gath's ganks were attempted, though not too successfully. A couple crucial teamfights happened near dragon, usually getting 3 or 4 of us killed opposed to like 2 of them. We made the mistake several times of trying to take Warwick on 1v1, where he clearly has the advantage against a team without any grievous wound capability.

Mid Game
The laning phase lasted a long time in this game, the first tower didn't fall until about the 20 minute mark, right after the second dragon fight. They took out our bottom outer tower at the same time as when I was trying to defend the middle one from Ashe. She unfortunately was able to take it out easily, right about when the rest of her team showed up and plowed on through the next tower in line. This was about the time when we had almost  no chance to win unless we were to somehow ace them in a teamfight. We sealed our fate by foolishly engaging in a teamfight where we were at a clear disadvantage but didn't retreat, and traded a Warwick kill for 3 of our lives. Backed up inside of our base, Blitzcrank tried pulling them in and ended up getting Ashe. Somehow we managed to not kill her, and instead got aced inside our base with all the towers standing when her team came to save her. After a bit more attempted turtling, we surrendered at 35 minutes. I did manage to pull Nidalee in for a fountain kill right before though, which was kind of funny.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #17 -

What I learned:
- I need to relearn Urgot, my game with him has fallen off a cliff lately
- Warwick should never be taken on alone unless you have huge burst damage
- Garen can be an effective primary tank if the rest of your team buys a little bulk as well
- Keeping fights at your tower is crucial when you are clearly overmatched, they make an enormous difference
- Pushing towers is how you win games and gain momentum...we barely touched them

My Score: 5/8/4
My Build: Manamune, Mercury's Treads, The Brutalizer, Randuin's Omen

Current ranked record: 10-7 (0 leaves)
ELO rating: 1319

That was just a bad game all around, hopefully I can string together a few wins this week and break 1400. The next game will come within the next two days. Thanks for reading, please comment if you have any suggestions on my general strategy (if you watch the replays), build, or on my blog in general.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #12

Hey guys, I just got over a large lump of homework and had quite a bit of free time, so I played a ranked game. This was a pretty good game, although it was a little bumpy at the beginning. I went into duo queue with my friend 534N7R0N once again.

I ended up being the captain for my team, with first ban. Here are the bans, with my team's bans (and picks) in  green and the enemy team's in red.


Nocturne, Rammus, Amumu, Shen


The draft:

Dr. Mundo
Singed, Nidalee
Malphite, Ryze
Gangplank, Ashe
Xin Zhao, Tryndamere
Irelia (my friend)


My friend was very excited to have a Nidalee on our team, as she tends to do very well. Her pseudo-squishyness leads the enemy in, allowing her to quickly turn the tables on them with her nukes. Gangplank was a little concerning at first (I've expressed my opinion on him in an earlier post), but I figured if he was playing him in ranked, he knew what he was doing. Their team composition seemed pretty poorly thought out, lots of melee attackers and not a whole lot of damage. Having a bunch of bulk is always nice, but if you can't back it up with a good punch, it doesn't do you much good. Anyway, Nidalee took top solo, Ashe took mid, Irelia was jungling, and I laned bottom with Gangplank. Going into the loading screen, it was evident that Xin Zhao was their jungler.


Early Game
Out of all the enemy champs, I find Dr. Mundo to be the most annoying. Of course, I ended up laning against him, along with Tryndamere. The harassment went back and forth with Mundo's cleavers and Gangplank's Parrrley, with our health slowly getting whittled down. We both stayed in the lane at low health for too long and they decided to go for it, catching Gangplank just outside of tower range for First Blood. I stupidly tried to get revenge, ending up with Tryndamere diving me for the kill. We weren't able to get much on them in the laning phase unfortunately. Nidalee was able to handle Malphite pretty well up top though, holding him off even when Xin Zhao joined the party. She killed them each at least once, and managed to stay alive the entire game. Ashe did okay against Ryze in the middle, they were pretty even in terms of head to head kills. Irelia was able to help out on a few kills here and there, eventually giving us enough leeway to take out their middle tower for the first tower kill.


Mid Game
Here the laning phase ended and our steamrolling began. A key turning point was a struggle over dragon, where we caught Tryndamere alone. They must have had the surrounding area warded, as he tried to run when he saw our team coming. We were able to get him to pop his ultimate by the time the rest of him team arrived, turning it into an all out teamfight. They ended up with the dragon kill, but we were able to pick off all but Ryze as they tried to run away from the obvious disadvantage. While I attempted to chase him down, my team downed their bottom turret and helped in the pursuit. We weren't able to catch him, but we did quickly take out their next turret and escaped without any casualties. At that point the map was pretty much ours. There was one funny incident where Nidalee was running away from a group of 3 enemies, and got them to aggro Baron on her way out. Gangplank immediately popped his ultimate on them, netting at least one kill in the process as they were all pretty low on  health.

Late Game
By now they had no chance to win, even an ace would get them two tower at most, not nearly enough to get the super minions that are essential to any comeback. We gradually pushed all of their towers, getting to the middle inhibitor first. One last teamfight in the bottom lane by their inhibitor tower sealed the game, they foolishly came at us one or two at a time, allowing us to take them out quickly. The tower was pretty much inconsequential for them, as it switched aggro several times but didn't take any of us out. The fight ended when we picked off Dr. Mundo just as the tower fell, clearing the way to kill the inhibitor and nexus turrets. They surrendered just before we were able to take out the Nexus at 42 minutes.

Post game scoreboard:

Replay file: Ranked Game #12 - Singed

What I learned: 
- Nidalee is quite dominant when in the right hands, having one on your team is always good for a combined support/magic damage role
- Singed needs farm to be devastating, which I could not do well at all this game
- Ashe's arrow is fantastic for catching stragglers in a teamfight, if there is better initiation on the team it may be best saved for later
- Gangplank isn't terrible, but I still need to see more
- Being all bulky is pretty much useless when no one builds magic resist, there is more than just physical damage out there kids

My Score: 2/4/14
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature, Giant's Belt

Current ranked record: 7-5 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1256

Another quality game in the books, I feel like I need to play more non-tanks though. Thanks for reading, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #5

Hey guys, I played my fifth ranked game earlier today, using Urgot. It was a good victory and an interesting game, a real back and forth battle. We also had quite a character on our team, a Blitzcrank with the new Piltover Customs skin (very jealous). He made a lot of silly comments kept the mood light at the beginning of the game. There was also quite a bit of trash talking between the teams, which was good motivation. In this game I duo queued with my friend 534N7R0N again.

I was captain again, which is getting a little ridiculous at this point, and I had first ban. Here's how the bans went:

Rammus, Amumu, Shen, Malphite


And the draft:

Them: Alistar
Us: Urgot, Kennen
Them: Dr. Mundo, Nidalee
Us: Kog'Maw, Blitzcrank
Them: Katarina, Ashe
Us: Irelia (my friend)

As he did in my previous game with him, my friend decided to jungle with Irelia. They didn't have a clear jungler, so we had to decide who would 1 v 2 top and who would mid. My friend pointed out that Urgot would probably do better in the 1 v 2 situation out of our three potential solo laners, so I took top. We left mid to Kog'Maw kind of arbitrarily, but it didn't really matter to much at that point. That meant that Kennen and Blitzcrank would take bottom. The enemy team composition was a little worrying, as they had three healers, one of them being an AOE healer (Alistar), so Irelia vowed to get Executioner's Calling at some point to cut that down. When we went into the loading screen, it was confirmed that they did not have a jungler.

Early Game
This portion of the game was mostly quiet, at least for me. I drew Alistar and Ashe in my lane, so with the former's heal and latter's Volley harass, I was backed up to my tower pretty much the whole time. Kog'Maw went up against Nidalee, and the Kennen/Blitzcrank combo got matched up with Katarina and Dr. Mundo. Nidalee was the target of Irelia's first gank, resulting in first blood for her. However, she got herself and Kog'Maw killed in the process, as Dr. Mundo came around at about the same time. Irelia tried to gank my lane at one point to relieve the pressure of the 1 v 2, but it failed, luckily without getting either of us killed. Kennen and Blitzcrank did pretty well for themselves, killing Katarina and Dr. Mundo several times. However, at this point the enemy team had the upper hand, as Kog'Maw and I could not prevent the middle tower from falling first. Soon afterwards, Alistar Pulverized and Heabutted me out of position and got me killed, which resulted in the top tower falling.

Mid Game
Mid game was where we began to gain the upper hand. There was one teamfight in the middle of the map that ended well for us, I initiated with my ult to nab an easy kill, and then we mopped up the rest pretty effectively thanks to Kennen's AOE stuns. This allowed us to push down their middle tower, and then catch Ashe who had escaped from the previous fight. Minutes later their bottom tower was killed by a minion push. With the tower kill count even at 2, the map control was back in balance. We took the opportunity of the lull in the action to grab some global gold by killing dragon. They had it warded/Nidalee trapped, but they deemed it a mistake to engage us again. After this there was a lot of roaming around, trying to push down towers and such. We were able to catch Dr. Mundo out of position in our jungle several times, punishing him for it each time.

Late Game
A crucial teamfight occurred at our middle inner tower that shifted the momentum of the game largely in our favor. They were trying to take out our tower, but were quickly met by the full force of our team. I switched places with Ashe with my ult to get her killed and exhausted Nidalee to prevent her escape and ultimately kill her as well. My teammates did most of the work here though: Kog'Maw with his Living Artillery sniping, Kennen with his super stunning ability, and Irelia with her huge burst. Blitzcrank's knock-ups were also crucial to whittling down their tanks. This fight resulted in an ace, allowing us to take out their inner and inhibitor towers in the middle. We also ended up taking out the inhibitor while in their base. They soon respawned and came at us hard, forcing a retreat. Another teamfight happened in the middle where i ulted in (and got myself killed) and eventually got them to back off after taking out their squishies. This allowed us to take Baron and make the game-winning push. We took out the enemy Nexus at 42 minutes.

The postgame scoreboard is shown below:

What I learned:

- When played correctly, Alistar is quite good, as he has one of the few AOE stuns, and can throw anyone out of a fight

- Chasing Nidalee is almost as difficult as chasing Singed, exhaust or another heavy slow is mandatory to take her out

- The new Blitzcrank skin is way too awesome, I love it

- I still need to learn how to effectively use Urgot's ult, I got myself killed almost every time using it this game

- A Kog'Maw that sits far away from the fight and bombs it is a good Kog'Maw

My Score: 5/4/9

My Build: Manamune, Mercury Treads, Brutalizer, Banshee's Veil, B.F. Sword

Current ranked record: 4-1 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: Unranked

I just got back to school after having spring break last week, so the games may begin to get a little further apart. Thanks for reading, comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

-Chickenmoo

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