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 #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