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 #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 #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 #10

Howdy all, I played my tenth ranked game just a little while ago. It was a rather frustrating loss, and a very quick one at that. I queued with my friend 534N7R0N for this one.

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

Shen, Malphite, Rammus, Amumu


Heres how the draft went:

Us: Urgot
Them: Annie, Singed
Us: Alistar, Fiddlesticks
Them: Nidalee, Ashe
Us: Katarina, Irelia (my friend)
Them: Nocturne


After the draft I was a little concerned because we didn't really communicate much during it. Fiddlesticks and Katarina didn't say a word, and essentially insta-locked their champs. But we had a good balance of attack damage and magic damage, so I didn't think it would be too bad. Fiddlesticks locked in with Smite, so we figured he was jungling, leaving my friend to lane with Irelia. He definitely prefers jungling with her, but I trust him to do well in any role. He laned with Alistar bottom, while I took mid and Katarina took top solo. Their team worried me a bit, as the combo of Ashe's and Nocturne's ultimates can be ridiculous, usually meaning instant death for the target. Also, Annie's stun and Nidalee's heal are pretty irritating.

Early Game
The action got started early, as their team decided to try and gank Fiddlesticks at blue buff. I foolishly walked into the small bush closest to Baron, and into the enemy team. I managed to escape to my tower, but then made another mistake and went back in when they started harassing Katarina and Fiddle, getting myself killed for First Blood. Katarina went up against Singed in the top lane, with the pair trading a few kills back and forth. I drew Nidalee in middle lane, which ended up being a lot of harassment, though I managed to stay alive. Ashe had a nasty tendency to join in on the fun, which was annoying, but I managed to get a kill on Nidalee at my tower. Fiddlesticks contributed pretty much nothing in the laning phase, as he was underleveled and couldn't do much damage. The bottom lane had quite a bit of action though, especially when Nocturne decided to gank. The kills went both ways, but mostly we were at a disadvantage. They eventually took out our bottom tower, and laning broke down after that.

Mid Game
We were pretty much helpless at this point, with no pushing capability and pretty poor defenses. We couldn't even get one tower down, we took them down to half health at most. They continued to push our towers hard, taking out the other two outer ones pretty quickly. When we did get an opportunity to push, Ashe's giant arrow would come flying in for the stun, followed by Nocturne on his ult. Obviously this would shut down any chance of a push. It was just a poorly played game from the beginning, with getting myself into bad situations too often, and Alistar never participating in a teamfight. Fiddlesticks and Katarina pretty much had no damage dealing capability, while Irelia cannot succeed as a primary damage dealer (meaning after I died).
We ended up surrendering at 24 minutes.

Here is the post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Ranked Game #10 - Urgot

What I learned:
- There are so many good combinations with Nocturne's ultimate, he is nearly impossible to stop if all of your team's attention isn't on him
- I take back what I said last time, Fiddlesticks is one of the worst champions out there
- Not all Katarina's steamroll
- Nidalee is deceptively squishy, once again I will say that her heal and spear are super annoying in lane
- The best way to kill Urgot is when he overextends trying to use Acid Hunter, as his escape capability is poor

My Score: 2/6/2
My Build: Manamune, Mercury's Treads, Long Sword, Long Sword

Current ranked record: 5-5 (0 leaves)
ELO Rating: 1176

So I have finally reached the 10 game mark, and can now see my ELO after every game (and also my peak, which apparently was 1320). I actually played my eleventh game directly after this one, as I wanted to redeem myself, but I won't post that until tomorrow sometime. The replay is up if you're really curious though. Anyway, I'm now going to write up a summary of my first ten games, with various stats and trends, stuff like that. If there's anything in particular you guys would like to see, let me know. As always, thanks for reading.

-Chickenmoo

Ranked Game #7

Hey dudes, I played another ranked game last night, but I didn't have time to write the summary, as I had other more important matters to attend to. This was a somewhat balanced game, with several changes in momentum throughout. However, the other team was able to do quite a bit more with theirs, giving them a good victory with little resistance at the end. I went in alone on this one, as 534N7R0N was busy.

For the first time, I was not captain. I had the third pick. We had second ban, so here they are:

Maokai, Rammus, Karthus, none

Yes, they only banned one champion, I didn't even know that could happen. Anyway, here's how the draft went:

Us: Amumu
Them: Twisted Fate, Leblanc
Us: Teemo, Urgot
Them: Warwick, Pantheon
Us: Cho'Gath, Gangplank
Them: Nasus


I was excited about this team composition compared to the enemy's. We had a good amount of bulk, and nice residual damage capability with Teemo and Gangplank. We also had a nice even mix of attack damage and ability power so they couldn't just build one type of armor and brush us off. I also liked that they had three champions that are typically built as glass cannons, meaning that if we could catch them out of position, we could break them very easily. Amumu took the jungle, Teemo soloed top and I soloed mid. That left Cho'Gath and Gangplank to take the bottom lane.

Early Game
I ended up laning against Leblanc, so this part of the game for me was just a lot of harassment between us. We could never quite kill each other without help. The same went for Teemo in top against Nasus, neither got a kill while laning. It was a completely different story with Cho'Gath and Gangplank though, who went up against Twisted Fate and Pantheon (Warwick was jungling). Gangplank gave up first blood off of a double stun, and then Cho'Gath died quickly after. He was able to take out Pantheon in the process though. The rest of the laning phase consisted of Cho and Gangplank dying constantly to the double stun combination, coupled with some ganks by Warwick bottom and middle. As a result, our bottom tower was the first to fall. At this point, the momentum was in their favor and the laning phase had broken down.

Mid Game
Here is where we began to lose towers quickly. They began traveling in small packs, wearing down towers when opportunities presented themselves. Eventually our remaining two outer towers were taken out. Several teamfights occurred in the middle of the map, usually initiated by Warwick's Infinite Duress. This was quickly followed by Pantheon's stun and Leblanc's burst, getting a couple quick kills. At this point Twisted Fate would come in with his stun to take out another, forcing a retreat. After one such fight, they killed four of us, allowing them to take down the inner middle turret easily. There was another one later on that helped us quite a bit though, shifting the momentum in our direction for a short amount of time. Cho'Gath and Amumu caught Twisted Fate off guard, killing him as the rest of our team arrived. The fight broke out, and we were able to take them all down, save Pantheon. While he retreated back to his base, we were able to destroy two towers in the middle, and bring the inhibitor tower down halfway.

Late Game
The hope we had gained from that teamfight was soon flushed down the drain though. They were able to take down four of our team members in a quick teamfight thanks to a poor initiation by me, and some shoddy Rupturing by Cho'Gath. They quickly took out our inhibitor and headed for Baron. By the time we had all respawned and ran over to surprise them, it was too late. The buff and their stuns got them an easy ace in our retreat. Following their super minions, they took out our Nexus at 48 minutes.

Here's the post game scoreboard:

Replay link: Game #7 - Urgot

What I learned:

- Leblanc's Distortion is one of the best escape abilities out there, its deception possibilities are vast

- A Cho'Gath that can't land Rupture is pretty much useless

- Jungle Amumu is indeed a great ganker, I hadn't seen it in action before

- Gangplank just isn't that great of a champion, his early game is fine but after that he's pretty much ignorable

- Pantheon is still the king of steamrolling

My Score: 7/11/9

My Build: Manamune, Mercury's Treads, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Banshee's Veil, Guardian Angel

Current ranked record: 4-3 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: Unranked

Sorry this took so long to write up, today was a long day. I'll certainly be more prompt with my next game, which will either be Sunday or Monday. Hope you enjoyed reading, comments and suggestions are 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 #2

Hey guys, my second ranked game is now in the books. Unfortunately, it was a loss, but it was a well fought game. It was not without controversy though, as one of the members of my team disconnected twice in the middle of the game, critically hurting our chances. During the game it was mentioned that this was the first ranked game for a couple members of my team. That was comforting, as I knew that they would stick it out until the end. Nevertheless, it was a very intense game with the overall momentum shifting in each direction several times. I think that is enough introduction, so onto the game.

This game was once again in solo queue, with one dodge before getting into the game. I was the captain of my team and we had first ban. They went as follows:

Rammus, Vladimir, Malphite, Amumu

Since we had first ban, they had first pick. Here's how the draft went, with my pick italicized:

Them: Teemo

Us: Urgot, Jax

Them: Kennen, Mordekaiser

Us: Shen, Renekton

Them: Alistar, Garen

Us: Nasus

Before going to the loading screen, we decided our roles. As the only ranged champ, I took mid. Renekton said that he would jungle, so that was taken care of. I'm glad that people have been willing to jungle so far, it's good that they see the importance in it. After Urgot, the strongest solo laner in our team was Nasus, so we had him solo top. That left Shen and Jax in the bottom lane. Now our team was quite tanky, so I had high hopes. Also having a Shen is always great, his ult is just unbelievably good for teamfights. Going into the loading screen, it was evident that they did not have a jungler, raising my hopes of victory even further. I didnt think it would be easy though, as they had three pretty beefy champs.

Early Game

Now Renekton didn't take smite, so Nasus helped him get his jungle started and then went to his tower. Jax was able to get first blood on Kennen pretty quickly, which turned out to be his only kill for a while. Soon after, I got Teemo down to a sliver of health and Renekton snuck behind the tower and ignited him for the easy kill. We picked at them gradually, with each of us getting a kill here and there in the early going. Unfortunately the other team was able to take down our middle and bottom towers early, setting us back a bit. At this point laning pretty much broke down.

Mid Game

This is when the momentum began to shift in our favor. We were able to repeatedly catch them out of position and alone or only with one other champ and just burst them down. There was one teamfight which started when we ganked Garen in the top lane and took him down quickly. We took down their top tower, and then the rest of the enemy team showed up and got themselvers killed. By the time we got to attacking the tower, they had respawned and initiated another fight. This time, their two squishies got themselves killed again, but the tanks forced us to back off. This was a real turning point in the match, as we only lost one champ in the entire fight, and that was when we were retreating. It was probably the most intense teamfight I've ever been a part of, plus it got me 5 kills. There were several more teamfights that we won handily, so it was looking like victory for our team at this stage. This is also when Jax disconnected twice, once at level 8 and another time a while later.

Late Game

Eventually, the teamfights began shifting in their favor as their tanky champs all had huge amounts of armor. They would catch us at a disadvantage and pick us off one by one. We were also focusing their tanks unnecessarily, myself included. I know this is kind of a lame excuse, but their squishies tended to hide right next to the tanks, making it hard to target them. Besides that, they positioned themselves very well, staying out of harm's way while still attacking. The Jax disconnections hurt us here, as he was underleveled and was easily killed once he jumped (literally) into the fight. We did get Baron once, but our resultant push failed and got a couple of us killed. In their counter-push, our middle inhibitor was taken down and we couldn't recover. At that point we only played defense. They got Baron twice and pushed down another inhibitor, and eventually took out our Nexus at the hour mark.

The postgame scoreboard can be seen below:

What I Learned:

- Having a tanky team is almost necessary for victory in long games

- Being a man down is quite crippling, no matter the skill level of said person

- Alistar is quite hard to kill with his ult up, the CC reduction and damage mitigation is significant

- Having a jungler isn't great if they don't gank at all

- Yordles can hide well in teamfights

My Score: 18/7/18

My Build: Manamune, Mercury Treads, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Banshee's Veil, Black Cleaver, Guardian Angel

Current ranked record: 1-1 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: Unranked

This summary was a little longer than I would have liked it to be, but I suppose that is a function of the game being an hour long. Thanks for reading, suggestions are welcome in the comments!

-Chickenmoo

First Ranked Game (and win!)

Howdy, I just finished my first League of Legends ranked game. Now I've read a lot about ranked play and its seemingly plentiful feeders and trollers on various forums, which has placed my expectations of its playing population very low. Unfortunately this game pretty much hit that assumption square on the head, though thankfully it was not my team. This was in solo queue, I didn't any friends online to duo with. I ended up being the captain for my team and had first ban, so I consulted my team about bans. The bans were, in order:

Rammus, Master Yi, Evelynn, Pantheon

Now at this point I was a little confused, as they banned two easily countered champs. I obviously banned Rammus as he is the bane of everyone's existence, and then Pantheon by the suggestion of my team. In my opinion, he is one of the toughest champs to stop if he starts steamrolling so its justified.

They had first pick, so this is how the draft went, my pick is italicized:

Them: Ashe

Us: Urgot, Singed

Them: Kennen, Maokai

Us: Amumu, Vladimir

Them: Janna, Sivir

Us: Jax

Amumu decided that he was going to jungle and Vlad said he would mid, so I would take top. That left Jax and Singed in the bottom lane. When going into the loading screen and seeing their summoner spells, I was a little confused. They had no jungler, or at least no one with Smite, and Janna and Sivir had Rally and Teleport as their spells. I suppose this was a good precursor to the game that was forthcoming, in that it was kind of silly.

The game started out quite odd, as they sent three top (Ashe, Sivir and Janna) to kill me, but the latter two towerdived separately for some reason and gave me a double kill. After respawning, they headed mid with Ashe and made quick work of the outer turret there. The took out the bottom outer turret in this fashion as well. Personally, I felt a little panicked at this point, but I also had gold from them feeding quite a bit, so it was pretty easy to recover. I wouldn't say there was a real turning point in the game, I mean we did ace them 8 minutes into it, but it didn't really mean too much. 

Our team pretty much did whatever we wanted with them, the only time they really threatened was when there was a large minion push up top with Kennen and Janna helping. They got to our inhibitor turret but stopped there. The teamfights went largely in our favor, as they would always initiate with one squishy champ and get demolished. Amumu did a fantastic job with his Bandage Toss and Curse of the Mummy, nabbing us many kills in the process. Jax also did very well, he was talking half health with just his Jump attack. He also backdoored a lot of turrets while we were pushing mid, helping us end the game quickly. The game ended with a Nexus kill at about 30 minutes. The postgame scoreboard can be seen below.

What I learned:

- Ranked play has trolls, just like all the horror stories

- Jungle Amumu is fantastic, I can't wait to try him out

- Jax is a hard champ to stop when he's fed, harder than most I mean

- Overloading a lane at the word go can actually be effective, especially with the recent minion buff

- Having a jungler is important, as it allows three champs to be at a higher level than the rest instead of just one

My score: 11/4/12

My final build: Manamune, Brutalizer, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Banshee's Veil

Current Ranked record: 1-0 (0 leaves)

ELO Rating: Unranked

I hope you guys enjoyed my first game post, if you have any suggestions leave them in the comments. 

-Chickenmoo