Learning Lulu - Embracing's Road to Becoming A...

[quote=Embracing]Over the last two seasons, one issue I've always had and recently noticed about myself was that my gameplay would always be affected by enemy / my team's, which is definitely something that is not good for my own growth as a player. I narrowed the main reason down to me not being consistently good on a champion aside from Nidalee. What would happen in games is that I would often go 60/40 in lanes and not be aware of how certain matchups worked for certain champions. This was perfectly fine before in CN / KR - teams always had a clear understanding of how to win a game without taking high risk, low ~ medium reward plays. Over here in NA, however, this sort of playstyle has not been ideal, as players typically enjoy going for high risk x reward plays and losing focus of the steps necessary to win a game, resulting in a lot of missed opportunities and a lack of control of the game if I myself did not do well. As a result, I've decided on focusing my attention to becoming proficient on a champion with a relatively simple kit and effective in becoming a better player - [[lulu]]. From the creation of this post, I will play only Lulu mid / top for one hundred games divided into two sections, one focusing solely on self-improvement, and the other focusing on winning games. [u][b]Why [[Lulu]]?[/b][/u] I aim to become a better and more consistent League of Legends player, which I believe is best done through playing well-rounded champions that are effective in most general scenarios. I don't want to play a champion that fits a certain niche or a champion that can abuse enemy missteps as hard. This sort of playstyle may be effective or have a certain form of depth, but, these are reliant on the scenarios to be present to be effective, which builds bad habits and focuses on improving in a niche way, resulting in learning sub-optimal methods of playing the game. Rather, I want to focus on being able to consistently making the right decisions and win games without having to put myself in disadvantageous scenarios and outplaying myself through them. Also, [[Nidalee]] is consistently picked or banned now, and the other champions I enjoy playing are too mechanically challenging / niche. [u][b]What do I expect coming out of this?[/b][/u] My expectations coming out of this is to become a more well-rounded and consistent player, which is what I hope to be able to to take me to Masters. I firmly believe my decision-making and shotcalling is well-enough to be played at a NA Masters level as I primarily shotcall for my collegiate team in my university, in which I had no problem out-rotating other schools with Masters players. However, I have issues as an individual player, as explained above, and to improve further I believe I need to up my own gameplay first. I also hope this experience will help me utilize my time playing League more effectively, as well. [u][b]What should you expect to see?[/b][/u] In this thread I will post pre-game assumptions and thoughts on matchups and champions / spells to be aware of in team compositions before the game starts, as well as post-game analysis through looking at parts of replays to make sure I am able to notice mistakes I am making, understand why I made those mistakes, know why I shouldn't make those mistakes, and not make those mistakes in game again. I will also post reviews of vods of respectable high-elo players playing [[lulu]] and provide some of my own explanations of their gameplay and see how I can apply that to my own, as well as pointing out concerns that I hope to be able to answer over time with experience. Through this thread I aim to document my own gameplay and keep myself accountable, as well as hopefully provide to those who are interested my own experience and practices on becoming a better player. Maybe I'll add some fancy formatting to this eventually.[/quote]

[quote=TheSilverDust]Good luck![/quote]

[quote=Embracing][h1][b][u]Vod Review 1: Apdo Lulu vs Fizz[/u][/b][/h1] [embed=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwRQwcPKeLk] [b][u]Why Apdo?[/u][/b] Apdo is one of the most ideal players (especially for mid lane) in the world to look at for improving your own gameplay because he does not play the game to "outplay the enemies and get kills" - He does it through playing the champion and lane matchup to deny enemy farm and pressure, shutting down the enemy laner and impacting other side lanes. One important thing to note is that he doesn't just simply play to avoiding enemy jungler pressure. He plays with consideration both the enemy mid and jungler, applying enough pressure to allow himself to impact the map while also wasting the enemy jungler's time / allowing his own jungler to come for an advantageous 2v2 skirmish. Apdo plays to a very risk averse playstyle and makes very meaningful choices which is great for learning how to improve oneself to only take needed risks. Now to the actual gameplay. [b][u]Team Compositions[/u][/b] [columns] [[Renekton]] [[Zac]] [[Fizz]] [[Ezreal]] [[Leona]] [nextcol] vs [nextcol] [[Pantheon]] [[Elise]] [[Lulu]] [[Lucian]] [[Soraka]] [/columns] [h2][b][u]Pre-game:[/u][/b][/h2] [b][u]Team Comp Analysis:[/u][/b] [list] [*][[Renekton]] vs [[Pantheon]] - should be an aggressive lane that's more often pushed into [[Pantheon]]. Could be a highly prioritized gank location by [[elise]]. [*][[Zac]] vs [[Elise]] - [[Elise]] has a lot more pressure early on. In general [[zac]] should prioritize farming and counter-ganking. [*][[Fizz]] vs [[Lulu]] - Ranged vs melee matchup vs a low waveclear champ should indicate that [[lulu]] will prioritize pulling the minion wave and denying cs, poking the enemy [[fizz]] whenever it does not affect the minion waves, and slowpushing the minion wave into tower to deny cs. If played correctly [[Lulu]] should have control and pressure over the lane. [*][[Ezreal]] / [[Leona]] vs [[Lucian]] / [[Soraka]] - Aggressive vs passive lane. This has a lot of room for fuck-up for the [[soraka]] lane and might be a gank priority for the [[zac]]. Should be pushed in the [[soraka]] side. Probably won't be a focus for [[elise]] to gank. In general, bot and top can be pretty snowbally, which might open up more TP opportunities. [[elise]] should be around top early on. [/list] [b][u]Summoner Spells:[/u][/b] [list] [*][[Teleport]] on [[Fizz]] - Not sure if this is a standard into a [[fizz]] vs [[lulu]] matchup or he is respecting the early game jungle disparity between [[zac]] and [[elise]] as [[elise]] is stronger early on. [[Lulu]] should keep in mind counter-TP's. [*][[Ignite]] on [[Leona]] - Just need to take note of support summoners and remember while playing / watching. [/list] [h2][b][u]In-game:[/u][/b][/h2] [list] [*]1:42 - Checks [[Fizz]]'s stats, notices he has 15 AP, 22 armor, and 32 MR, meaning no additional armor or mr runes and flat AP quints. Fizz is probably running a setup of Mpen, hp/lvl, cdr/lvl, AP. [*]1:44 - Adds a point into E, as expected in a lane where he wants to pull the minions / poke fizz without shoving. He is not auto-ing any minions as that will slowpush the wave accordingly. [*]1:42 - He E's [[Fizz]] but doesn't auto when [[Fizz]] comes up to hit a creep to amke sure he doesn't draw aggro from enemy minions, which pushes the wave towards his side. [*]2:05 - [[Fizz]] comes up to auto, he pokes with E and autos but makes the wave start slowpushing into [[Fizz]]. [*]2:31 - He pokes [[fizz]] with EQ, also hitting the minion wave. Wave is now slowpushing towards [[Fizz]]. [*]3:01 - He slowpushes the wave into tower and wards over raptors to gain info. Camp is cleared which means [[Zac]] is probably top-side. He leans towards bot-side and continues to apply pressure. [*]3:07 - [[zac]] tries to gank, but he's positioned well to the point where he will not take damage from that gank, and if they try to chase they will lose a lot of cs in tower. [*]3:21 - Looks top to understand what's going on and gain info. [*]3:22 - Wave is pushing back outside of [[Fizz]]'s tower and he continues to zone [[fizz]] from farming. [*]3:31 - He pulls back and lets [[Fizz]] hit cs. Tries to poke with Q while also farming. [*]3:54 - Apdo is probably playing more proactive in lane because he managed to burn [[fizz]]'s pots quite early on. He's constantly slowpushing the wave into [[fizz]] and landing poke on him. At this point [[fizz]] needs to back because he's too low. [*]4:20 - Fizz TP's top, skirmish top and [[elise]] dies. [*]4:22 - Fizz didn't get anything off of that and wasted tp. Apdo backs after shoving cannon wave to tower. What would Apdo do different if [[Fizz]] walked back into mid / tp'd back to mid tower? [*]4:28 - 950G and he buys a dorans and boots. not sure why he doesn't go for a fiendish codex. [*]4:45 - wave slowpushing back to Apdo [*]5:04 - [[Elise]] is near so he's safe enough to trinket to scout for zac. [*]5:07 - [[Elise]] is ganking so he's trying to bait out [[Fizz]] e without making it an obvious bait. [*]5:22 - [[Fizz]] e is down and [[elise]] is walking up. He W's [[Fizz]] to prevent flashes, resulting in a safe kill. [[Zac]] appeared mid. [*]5:50 - He's full health / near full mana and can use this time to go active place vision and roam. Top is shoved up to [[Pantheon]]. Apdo sees [[renekton]] clearing a regular ward in river brush with a pink but he's really shoved up and sees an opportunity. [*]6:20 - he use w to speed up because he won't need to polymorph renekton. he can just use his ult if necessary in the fight. renekton dies and he uses ult on pantheon (he doesn't need it in lane against [[fizz]] anyways with how pressured [[fizz]] is). He shoves up wave after. He loses some cs mid to tower. Backs with 1250 gold. buys swifties and pots and null magic, which again i dont get. pink ward not spotted so he doesnt need another one. [*]7:10 - wave shoving out, [[pantheon]] ulting mid. he stands ready to W if [[fizz]] comes close, but [[fizz]] just [[flash]]es out. [*]7:22 - slowpushing big wave to tower again, getting blue soon after. [*]7:45 - he goes to get info on [[zac]] before slowpushing the big wave into the tower, finds him at raptors, paying attention to [[fizz]] flank. [*]8:27 - ward in raptors [*]8:40 - [[zac]] bot but he can't tp because the fight happened too quickly as he had to get out of vision to prevent getting cancelled by fizz and then tp, which definitely takes too long. Bot gets double-killed and he knows their jungler is bot so he can freely pressure again. Would he have tp'd if he could, sacrificing lane pressure? [*]8:55 - he's just pressuring mid tower since he knows [[zac]] is bot and [[fizz]] can't do anything. since he's full health he's just going to stay as [[fizz]] isn't pulling the wave. he goes to scout for [[zac]] again, farming raptors in the meantime. [*]10:20 - [[zac]] is top. free dragon as mid is shoved in and bot is all warded, even without [[elise]]. [*]10:40 - [[fizz]] went to blue, [[zac]] is probably there. He backs and buys a QSS to completely neutralize the [[fizz]] as it completely fucks up [[fizz]] ult and any sort of attempt of him playing aggro. not something i would ever do but I can see considering how much pressure he has over the [[fizz]]. [*]11:00 - [[pantheon]] tps bot and he hovers his tp in case some action happens (zac coming / fizz tp, etc). I'll finish the rest some other time. This took a lot more work than I expected [/list][/quote]

[quote=Embracing][url=http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2106855276/34863326?tab=overview][h1][b][u]Lulu Game 1/100:[/u][/b][/h1][/url] [h2][b][u]Pre-game:[/u][/b][/h2] [u][b]Team Compositions:[/b][/u] [columns] [[Malphite]] [[Nocturne]] [[Lulu]] [[Lucian]] [[Nami]] [nextcol] vs [[Poppy]] [[Elise]] [[Karma]] [[Caitlyn]] [[Janna]] [/columns] [u][b]Pregame Team Comp Thoughts:[/b][/u] [[Lulu]] vs [[Karma]] = poke / farm lane? Elise high pressure vs nocturne early on. Avoid skirmishes [[Lucian]] [[Nami]] has pressure advantage. Not sure about [[malphite]] vs [[poppy]] [u][b]Summoner Spells:[/b][/u] [list] [*][[Teleport]] Karma - be aware of big teamfights from tp [*][[Exhaust]] Janna [/list] [img]http://i.imgur.com/RpkdlCe.png[/img] [h2][b][u]Post-game:[/u][/b][/h2] I wasn’t sure about how to approach the [[karma]] lane. Trades seemed to go in favor of [[Karma]] early on with q damage + range and shields so I played passive and was forced into tower. I was down ~10 cs or so but I was managing minions fine. [[Elise]] appeared top side and I preemptively warded top side. She eventually came mid for a while and I was able to waste her time for a while, but I lost a lot of lane control pre 10 minutes. After that I was able to manage lane by constantly shoving in, getting more map control. Action kept happening bot and top and I impulsively roamed without thinking the lane through properly. Although it got me a kill around bot, it affected my own control of the lane. [columns] [img width=800]http://i.imgur.com/iCjjoNS.png[/img] [nextcol] At 15 minutes I roamed top along with [[Nocturne]] to assist [[malphite]] getting chased by [[Elise]] and [[Poppy]] that I thought was dead (he was really low however), hence the lack of TP. My thoughts were that we could force a 3v2, but that was a bad call as [[Malphite]] was really low and [[Karma]] could follow roam really quickly. I died as a result. I should have stayed mid and pushed in as I knew [[Elise]] was top but they didn't know where [[Nocturne]] was, giving me the advantage to push at mid.[/columns] [columns] At 17 minutes I attempted tp at bot but cancelled as I saw both [[elise]] and [[poppy]] bot, with [[lucian]] really split and half hp and [[nami]] alone with low mana. Cancelling was the right idea but [[malphite]] followed tp and I had to come down to assist [[nami]] in escaping. [[Malphite]] however engaged and [[nocturne]] followed suite, which I should have pinged back, as [[lucian]] was backing (4v5). we ended up losing [[malphite]] [[nami]] and [[nocturne]]. [nextcol] [img width=800]http://i.imgur.com/igs5Jcb.png[/img] [/columns] [columns] [img width=800]http://i.imgur.com/gz5OC5B.png[/img] [nextcol]At 20 minutes [[malphite]] roamed mid for a gank. we chased [[karma]] to bottom river brush around mid and killed her with noc ult. We tried for more as their team was around bottom side and [[poppy]] was still top (meaning that was a 4v3 as [[lucian]] was shoved in bot and nami was close), but I make the call to fall back as I see [[poppy]] pushing to around t2 top. We lacked a source of engage but we were relatively close to the enemies, so I'm not sure if we should have forced a fight (since i had flash and ultimate and was half hp), or if we should have rotated mid to kill mid tower and let [[malphite]] deal with [[poppy]]. [/columns] After this we were pressured in a few times as we were behind, but overall we played the map better and I managed to pull ahead quite substantially.[/quote]

[quote=Embracing][url=http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2106946129/227468494?tab=overview][h1][b][u]Lulu Game 2/100:[/u][/b][/h1][/url] [h2][b][u]Pre-game:[/u][/b][/h2] [u][b]Team Compositions:[/b][/u] [columns] [[Trundle]] [[Elise]] [[Lulu]] [[Ezreal]] [[Nami]] [nextcol] vs [nextcol] [[Poppy]] [[Lee Sin]] [[Ahri]] [[Lucian]] [[Bard]] [/columns] [u][b]Pregame Team Comp Thoughts:[/b][/u] [[Lulu]] vs [[Ahri]] = unsure, but I think advantage goes to [[ahri]]?. [[Elise]] vs [[lee sin]] high early pressure junglers [[ezreal]] [[nami]] vs [[lucian]] [[janna]] unsure but might be passive not sure about [[trundle]] vs [[poppy]] [u][b]Summoner Spells:[/b][/u] [list] [*][[Ignite]] [[Ahri]] [*][[Exhaust]] [[Janna]] [/list] [img]http://i.imgur.com/qYXGzMg.png[/img] [h2][b][u]Post-game:[/u][/b][/h2] I'm still kinda sick so this text may not come out as legible. Wasn’t sure how to approach the [[ahri]] lane. I was playing passive at first afraid of QE, but then attempted to play more aggro to try to learn more about the matchup. It worked in my favor as my E + Q completely bullied [[ahri]] out of lane as [[lulu]]'s E is instant, almost guaranteeing a Q as well, making [[ahri]]'s ability to retaliate a lot harder. I took the initiative to ward deep and tried to play around [[lee sin]] to draw aggro, but in one instance one of my deep wards was misplaced and didn’t spot [[lee sin]] and I had to burn [[flash]], losing me a lot of mid pressure. Thankfully i had tp. Afterwards, I drew three people to me three times and managed to play around it twice but the third time i played too upfront and died. I’m not sure if my awareness is down since I’m sick or if I’m normally too focused on the actual lane in front of me. Eventually, we forced advantageous fights with vision control over the enemy red buff since they kept trying to fight, and enemies just ended up forfeiting. Enemy [[ahri]] didn't play too well, but I was able to learn more about how to play upfront drawing pressure while also not giving up any advantages.[/quote]

[quote=Sjaarboenk]Good luck with your Lulu journey![/quote]

[quote=Embracing][url=http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2107443162/227468494?tab=overview][h1][b][u]Lulu Game 3/100:[/u][/b][/h1][/url] [h2][b][u]Pre-game:[/u][/b][/h2] [u][b]Team Compositions:[/b][/u] [columns] [[Rammus]] [[Elise]] [[Lulu]] [[Kalista]] [[Alistar]] [nextcol] vs [nextcol] [[Poppy]] [[Sejuani]] [[Jayce]] [[Jhin]] [[Bard]] [/columns] [u][b]Pregame Team Comp Thoughts:[/b][/u] Unsure about [[Lulu]] into [[Jayce]]. Might be a passive lane levels one to two [[Elise]] vs [[Sejuani]], [[Elise]] has higher early pressure = can force skirmishes around mid? [[Kalista]] [[alistar]] have more lane pressure early on [[bard]] [[jhin]] [[Rammus]] vs [[Poppy]] = ? [u][b]Summoner Spells:[/b][/u] [list] [*][[Ignite]] [[Jayce]] [*][[Ignite]] [[Bard]] [/list] [img]http://i.imgur.com/4lug6UC.png[/img] [h2][b][u]Post-game:[/u][/b][/h2] A very frustrating game for me. I got shoved in early on and [[Jayce]] went for a roam at 6 min while I was shoved in tower. I pinged the moment he left and pinged 10 times after but bot lane refused to back out. If the scenario played right we would’ve had both Sejuani and Jayce at bot lane gaining nothing while I would’ve been able to get a lot of mid lane control and pressure. After, I ping for [[Elise]] to gank as Jayce constantly positioned upfront, and we managed to get a kill off of him. We then rotated top to chase [[Sejuani]] as she was mispositioned, and with a [[Rammus]] flank we managed to get a kill and [[flash]]. I had to back at this point and [[Jayce]] shoved up mid and went for another roam, which I clearly pinged again, and bot lane refused to back once more. After this it was just a matter of people randomly getting caught, forcing fights, and losing objectives. As for myself I misplayed quite a few times with landing my spells and positioning awkwardly, which is something I should look out for in my own gameplay.[/quote]

[quote=H4xDefender]Takes a lot of effort to self-improve like this. Good luck. I still think TF is the best champion to learn to get better since he forces you to do so many things, to each his own.[/quote]