Ranked Game #28

I had some time to kill between studying for exams, so I played my next ranked game. I feel like I need to find someone reliable to duo queue with to prevent losing like this all the time. I mean I do have acquaintances from readers of the blog, but I don't play with them enough to build a good rapport. The friend I usually play with had his computer's graphics card die on him, so he can only play at 5 frames per second, which is obviously far from ideal for any sort of competent gameplay. Anyway, this was a solo queue game.

I was the captain of my team and had first ban:

Nocturne, Shen, Amumu, Rammus

Draft:

Xin Zhao

Singed, Warwick

Kassadin, Cho'Gath

Malzahar, Garen

Katarina, Ashe

Caitlyn

I feel like that this an ideal team composition at this level of play, it has everything a standard team needs. Having two suppressions is like a dream come true, it can guarantee one kill, or make two incredibly likely. Plus it forces the other team to buy Quicksilver Sashes to counter it, taking an item slot away. I was happy to have Garen, as the majority of the ones I've seen recently have done very well. Their team was somewhat intimidating due to the fact that they were packing three blinks, making their chasing/closing ability amazing. Cho'Gath also tends to be a very underrated tank, his knockup and silence are quite irritating.

Lane Matchups
Top: Malzahar vs Ashe, Katarina
Middle: Caitlyn vs Kassadin
Bottom: Singed, Garen vs Cho'Gath, Xin Zhao
Jungle: Warwick vs none

Early Game
It's not very promising when someone talks the way Malzahar did at the beginning of the game. He seemed pretty overwhelmed by the fact that we wanted him to go top, and he talked kind of strange on top of that. It sounded like he was a little kid, but that's just my opinion. Malzahar just sat at his tower until the enemy got in range, and then he would do something. First blood ended up happening there when Warwick failed at ganking, but stayed in the lane to help push it. He managed to get himself caught by Katarina, with Malzahar dying immediately after. When we told him to go mid, like he wanted in the first place, he refused. Warwick continued with his failed ganks, getting himself killed again in the top later, and then once more in the bottom when he walked in a bush filled with Cho and Xin. Garen got himself killed a couple times in the bottom, but neither side made much progress in regards to towers. Caitlyn did pretty well for herself in the middle, killing Kassadin once and netting the first tower kill of the game. That is where the laning phase broke down.

Mid Game
Our top tower fell pretty quickly when Malzahar decided to leave the top lane without having anyone cover. After that, much of the action was concentrated in the middle of the map at our tower there. The game seemed to move a bit in our favor when we engaged them right after they took a dragon kill and managed to kill two of them while they were retreating. This allowed me to take out the bottom tower uncontested, with the top one going down a couple minutes later. The scale tipped towards their side big time a little while later though, when I made a pretty stupid move. We saw them going for dragon, so we followed and waited in the bushes on our side of the river. I foolishly went on ahead to the small bush in the middle, where their entire team happened to be. Needless to say, we got destroyed and lost three without getting any kills, which lost us two of our middle towers very quickly. While we waited to respawn, they took Baron without trouble.

Late Game
Here is where our team started fighting with ourselves, blaming others for our own failures. We had no plan of action of our targeting order, which came back to bite us several times. Our team engaged in a bad situation near their wraiths where they all targeted Cho'Gath and got their asses handed to them. Most of us managed to escape, only to be confronted at our middle inhibitor tower by their entire team. They took us out pretty easily even with the tower on their side, giving them super minions with the death of our inhibitor and one Nexus turret. By the time they went back to heal and approached our base, we had all respawned. Unafraid, they pushed hard and won the game with a Nexus kill at 39 minutes.


Post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #28 - Singed

What I learned:
- Warwick has very little utility outside of jungling and ganking, one who can't do either is a waste of a pick
- Three blinks is indeed quite annoying, makes the enemy very difficult to catch
- Having two strong solos is essential, Malzahar does not seem to be the greatest in a side lane
- Communication is half the battle, as knowing when ganks are coming and where they are coming from makes a huge difference
- I still need to buy more wards, just because I can tell what it means when my teammates are pinging doesn't mean my lanemate does.

My Score: 0/5/5
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature
Summoner's spells: Ghost, Flash

Current ranked record: 14-14 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1251

Two games in a row with zero kills is kind of depressing...and sad. I'm not letting that happen in my next game, I need to keep my record over .500. I may consider using Jarvan in my next game, as I've been playing him more lately and he's pretty fun. Thanks for reading, comments and suggestions are welcome!

-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

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 #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

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 #11

Hey guys, I played this game a couple days ago right after game number ten. However, I had other things to do that night and also didn't really want to have two game posts in the same day, so I put off the summary until now. This game was kind of out of spite to the last one, as that one just made me mad. I duo queued with my friend 534N7R0N.

I was the captain for my team, with second ban. I am going to try something new with the picks and bans here, making my team green and the other red. Here are the bans:

Nocturne, Shen, Rammus, Amumu


And the draft:


Singed
Teemo, Jax
Malphite, Poppy
Mordekaiser, Twisted Fate
Nunu, Irelia (my friend)
Shaco


This team composition seemed questionable when the draft was through, seeing as we had all the bulk in the world, but limited damage output. Poppy seems to be kind of hit or miss, Nunu is only deadly when built straight AP, and Irelia usually can't be relied on to be the main source of damage. My friend (Irelia) took his typical jungling role, I took top solo, and Nunu took mid (never seen it before, he wanted it). That meant that Malphite and Poppy would take bottom lane, which seems like a decent combo at first thought. Malphite's skills can easily allow Poppy to get in position for her charge attack and drive the enemy out of position. Their ganking ability with Shaco and Twisted Fate had me worried a bit, but the rest of their team didn't seem like it'd be too tough to deal with.

Early Game
The action got started early in the middle lane with Nunu against Teemo, as Shaco attempted to gank at level 2. However, Nunu was able to get to his tower, just in time for Irelia to swoop in and grab First Blood on Teemo. Nunu then chased Shaco back to his mid tower and managed to kill him with an Ice Ball before he got away. He got a few kills on Teemo, and died a few times when Shaco came to help. I was pitted against Mordekaiser in the top lane, with him having the advantage most of the time. He would whittle my health down whenever he could, and eventually spring Children of the Grave on me for the kill. He killed me a couple times, but I wasn't able to do the same to him. The bottom lane had a lot of action, as kills were traded back and forth several times throughout the laning phase. Twisted Fate and Jax also tended to overextend at low health, making it easy for Irelia to come in for the gank. We were ahead in kills for the entire game, but our top tower was the first to fall after I died to Children of the Grave a second time. This is where the laning phase ended and a lot of roaming began.

Mid Game
There were a lot of little teamfights at this stage of the game, no full 5 on 5 ones quite yet though. Twisted Fate and Shaco consistently put themselves in bad situations that would net them a kill, but cost them their own lives shortly after. The momentum seemed to be going in their favor when we lost a teamfight at our middle tower and quickly lost it, along with half of the inner tower, but we were able to chase them down and get them to retreat upon reviving. Jax and Twisted Fate also happened to be going after our bottom tower at the time, which they succeeded in taking out, but we caught them, killed them, and took down their tower as well. There was one teamfight in the middle of the map that was foolishly initiated by Teemo, but ended up in 3 deaths for their team and momentum for ours. The sequence that won us the game started with us catching Mordekaiser way out of position at our top inner tower, and then taking Baron in a kind of spur of the moment move. Jax disconnected right afterwards, with them surrendering soon after we destroyed their middle tower. They surrendered at 30 minutes.


Here is the post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #11 - Singed

What I learned:

- Mordekaiser is annoying as hell, I don't know how to play against him, especially solo

- Nunu can handle mid just fine, contrary to what I once believed. His Ice Ball is on a short enough cooldown to make it work

- Malphite needs to use his ultimate to be the most effective, which this one did not do at all

- I'm learning the situations when grabbing Baron is ideal...in this case it was that they only had 3 up, when we had all five

- Disconnectors are annoying, the win feels a bit tainted because of that

My Score: 6/4/9

My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Negatron Cloak, Regrowth Pendant (X2)

Current ranked record: 6-5 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: 1213

Well there you have it, hope you enjoyed the read. I probably will play again tomorrow night, as all of my homework will be out of the way then. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

-Chickenmoo

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #6

I got around to playing a ranked game this afternoon with my friend, Quexolan. However, it did not turn out at all like we had hoped. It was probably one of the most frustrating games I have ever been a part of. There was also a lot of bickering between the five of us, I just wanted to get out of the game as fast as possible after a while.

I was captain and received the second ban. Heres how they went:

Rammus, Malphite, Shen, Amumu


The draft with my pick italicized:

Us: Singed
Them: Xin Zhao, Nocturne
Us: Miss Fortune, Nidalee
Them: Nasus, Kassadin
Us: Warwick, Akali (Quexolan)
Them: Cho'Gath


While the draft went on, Warwick said that he would jungle, which was promising as he's obviously one of the best jungling champs out there. We decided to have Miss Fortune go mid and Nidalee solo top, as they were the clear choices with their range. That left my friend and I with the bottom lane. I liked the combination of Singed and Akali, as the former can throw champs out of position and into an area that is safe for Akali to blink into and burst the crap out of them. I also had high hopes for the Nocturne (who I assumed was jungling) to be bad and feed us all day long. However, the rest of their team was pretty bulky, save Kassadin, which was a tad worrying as those teams are typically difficult to take out efficiently. When the loading screen came up, my thoughts of Nocturne jungling were confirmed.

Early Game
The game was quiet for a while, we pushed our bottom lane to their tower to try and get the upper hand quickly. It was risky and didn't end up doing us any good, but it didn't get us killed either. Nocturne never really tried ganking more than once in our lane. Cho'Gath got first blood on Miss Fortune during a failed gank by Warwick. She died while typing to scold him, which was very telling of what was to come later in the game. Warwick did take out Cho while he tried to escape though, for his only kill of the game. Once we let the bottom lane get pushed to our tower, a 2v2 fight broke out with us against Kassadin and Xin Zhao. We miraculously got Kassadin and eventually Xin, but that was probably the highlight of the laning phase. Our middle tower was the first to fall, with the bottom going down soon after.

Mid Game
This is where all hell broke loose for our team. We kept getting caught out of position alone and thus died very quickly. Warwick and I were especially guilty of this, as I would try to initiate at bad times and get myself killed, while he would ult in and die right away. Someone proposed surrendering at 20 minutes, but it got shot down 3-2. At one point they had picked enough of us off to easily take out the outer top tower and our inner mid tower. There was one teamfight in the middle of the map that gave me a little bit of hope for redemption. I flung Cho'Gath at our team while he was alone, and by the time we had killed him the rest of the enemy team had showed up. Eventually, it was down to just Nidalee, Miss Fortune and Xin Zhao alive. Miss Fortune was down to one or two bars of health, so she began to run away when Nidalee initiated on Xin. Nidalee got the kill on him, but neglected her teammate's low health and allowed her to die before getting the kill. So we had aced them, but with only one team member alive, we couldn't push anything. We were unable to stop their steamrolling at that point, so after a bit of defending and lots of dying, we surrendered at 38 minutes.

The postgame scoreboard can be seen below:

Replay link: Game #6 - Singed

What I learned:
- Nasus is quite formidable in the right hands, Wither is a very devastating spell when trying to run away
- Warwick is not a foolproof jungler, as ganking is an art that all junglers need to learn
- Singed is not as invincible as I thought, he needs lots of farm or a bit of time in order to get to that level
- Cho'Gath is probably the best tank that doesn't need tank items, which is why they nerfed him i suppose
- Playing Nocturnes in every game is annoying

My Score: 4/8/8
My Build: Rod of Ages, Boots of Swiftness, Force of Nature

Current ranked record: 4 - 2 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: Unranked

Guess I jinxed myself in my last post with that winning streak talk. Oh well, each game is a learning experience, even the miserable ones. Hope you guys enjoy the read, comments and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo

No game today/thoughts on Nocturne

Hey guys, sorry I haven't played a game in a couple days. I've had quite a bit of homework to do, but I will definitely play one tomorrow (Wednesday). Hopefully I'll be able to duo queue and keep my winning streak alive.

I have made a couple champion purchases recently, Singed and Nocturne. I played Singed a lot during his free week last week, so buying him at 1350 IP was an easy choice. But obviously, Nocturne is the more interesting one at this point in time. I bought the Frozen Terror bundle with RP, and have used him in a few normal games so far. The results haven't been good so far, one 15 death game and another 8 death game, each with very few kills. However, I think I'm gradually getting a better feel for him, learning his chasing limits and such.

For those who don't know, he's primarily a melee dps champion, with two skills (Q, R) scaling off of attack damage and one (E) scaling off of ability power. His Q does a nice amount of damage, especially in the laning phase, and the movespeed increase is good for chasing. The attack damage increase while in the trail is also a huge bonus, as 20 bonus damage per attack (at level 1) in the laning phase is huge. His E is probably more useful though, as fear is pretty good CC. It starts pretty short, but gets up to 2 seconds at level 5. The tether range is easily kept by chasing with his Q. The passive attack speed increase with his W is fantastic (20% at level 1, 40% at 5), but I can never remember to use the spell shield in fights.

Paranoia is a great ult and probably overpowered at this point, but I've had difficulty finding good times to use it. It's obviously good for ganking, but it's more difficult to use in a teamfight, as there is a bit of delay from when you take out the enemy vision to when you can trigger the giant blink. To give somewhat of a picture of the blink's range, it is about the distance from your inhibitor to your outer tower in the same lane.

I've been building him with only AD and armor pen, as he gets enough attack speed from greaves and his W. I''ve tried jungling, but I feel like I need some armor runes to succeed at it.

That's all I have to say for now regarding Nocturne, if you have any questions leave them as comments. Once again, I'll be playing my next ranked game sometime tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

-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