-I did decently at thinking about what I wanted to do at least as far as the early game went.
-I had a couple of flubs on this in the Mid game that cost us two Drakes, one of which was an Infernal.
-I need to direct my team if I see them in the wrong place or using too many resources in the wrong place.
-I need to move to the edge of the fountain when buying.
-The gamble I took to secure the first infernal drake was too big of a gamble with the information I had and the resources I had available.
-Did remember to drink my potions a couple of times when it was imporant
-Did fail to use my Stopwatch when it was important (use your actives!)
-Try to communicate with your laners what you need in the early game.
--Ask them to cover your jungle
--Ask them to ward the opposite side scuttle crab
--Tell them to collapse on them if they see them
--It makes the enemy jungler feel like they can't count on their team (the enemy Kindred pinged the heck out her Zed)

Above all decide which lanes you want to play around by which objectives are on the map and prioritize around where you team is strong. 1-4-1 ADC, 4-0-3 Mid laner. Focus around Mid lane and the objectives you can secure from there.

Your team is going to do silly things and even throw away leads and games. Sometimes you are going to have to direct them to do the right thing. If you are focusing on the right things:

-Which objectives
-How do I want to path there
-What can the enemy do under the circumstances
-And executing when you get there

You'll have more success and the games will feel like less of a roll of the dice.

---

Something I picked up from the coaching session I had today was after your first clear, think about which lanes you want to play around.

Why after your first clear? Because enough things are likely to have happened around the map to determine which lanes you have an advantage in, possibly through your efforts and possibly through your laners efforts or more likely a combination of the too.

So first point. At least in Gold ELO, Xin Zhao destroys Kindred 1 v 1. If you get on her she has to Flash or die. So that makes a Blue side of the map start easy.

You take your Red with a leash starting at 1:30. You kill it by 1:45ish. You then have 10-20 seconds to kill before Scuttle spawns at the 2 minute mark so what are you going to do? Mid gank is generally the easiest. You can probably guarantee a blown flash if nothing else. If you can get a kill too, great. Go take Scuttle crab.

Now if you are smart you asked your Top laner nicely to ward the scuttle crab on the top side of the map at 125.

Olaf told me "maybe".

I told him if we spot her on the ward we can all come kill her. He liked that idea and warded.

We spotted Kindred on the ward, Olaf collapsed on her, she ran to Poppy. Poppy killed Olaf in the exchange, but I killed Kindred and by that time Swain had roamed up so he helped me kill Poppy and even though Olaf died, we came out ahead since they both got assists.

Reviewing the replay of the game, I need to stand at the edge of the summoner's platform when buying. Midbeast literally only leaves one foot of his characters model on the platform. This is so I can cut out the distance from the center of the platform after I've completed my purchase.

Then I had to ask myself, which lane do I want to focus on? Zed's with Ignite always like to go aggro and I wanted to play to that side of the map overall because an Infernal Drake was the first drake spawn.

I took Raptors while scoping out Mid lane. It didn't look like anything was going to happen in Mid lane (everyone was level 4 or so, and the action would likely go down around level 6) so I walked Bot lane and attempted a gank there to try and relieve some pressure since my laners were a little beat up. The enemy Bot lane handled the gank well, but I spotted the enemy Nami heading to the tri bush to ward it. She caught sight of me and used one of her spells to speed herself up, but that separated her for Xayah, so I went on the Xayah and killed her. Then I went to my Gromp to reward myself with a camp after a successful gank.

My Red wasn't quite up yet and since I didn't have anything else to do I jumped over the wall into the drake pit and soloed the Infernal. This was a pretty dicey choice as I did not have a Control Ward, was low on mana, and I didn't really have any lane pressure or know where Kindred was exactly. I did know that a mark had spawned on the Top side scuttle so since their Bot lane was part dead and part fled I took the risk. Fortunately I had two charges of Smite which kept me healthy enough to finish it off and Kindred didn't show up. In retrospect it was a risk that paid off, but it was actually a high risk play because if I had gotten interrupted I would have lost the infernal drake and probably given over a kill, so not worth without better information on the location of various enemies.

At about the 8:15 mark I was back in base after taking my Red and my Raptors so there was nothing on the Bot side of the map to get besides a tower. There was a Kindred mark on my Gromp and my Wolves and my Blue were also up. Now Olaf was not particular strong as he had died a number of times to Poppy or from Kindred ganks, but Swain was strong and what sealed the deal was that Rift Herald would be spawning at 9:50 so I wanted to be there to try and take that.

As it turns out there was a gank opportunity in Mid as Swain went aggro on Zed, Zed ulted him, Swain utled. Zed came out on top but I laid down enough damage on Zed that Swain got the kill. I then decided to head for the Bot scuttle as it had a Kindred mark on it. Kindred showed up to contest, but I already had it low enough that I used Smite on it and walked away and then I decided to do my Krugs since their Bot lane was pushing in to my Bot lane and since Kindred was on that side of the map I wanted to be there in case a play went down.

The gank didn't look like it would work so I back off and pinged my laners that I was backing off and I went and took my Raptors since a Kindred mark had spawned on them. My pal Swain walked over to check them without me even prompting him. Good Swain!

I had a good chunk of gold on me so I returned to the fountain to spend my gold. On the way back out I hope my goal was Rift Herald. But Swain got chunked by Zed so I just went and ate the remaining wave in Mid. I saw a fight brewing in Bot lane so I headed there, but my laners died before I could get o the action.

Then Olaf caught Kindred trying to steal camps in my Top side jungle. Good guy Olaf. You got a stayed cool point for that because you got your *** beat by Poppy even though you did try (he didn't seem to know to step on her shield or that the second part of her Q does quite a bit of damage).

I moved over to assess the situation and parked myself in the bush near river thinking that I might try to cut Kindred off, but I saw Poppy coming down so I didn't want to commit to a skirmish. With Poppy there, Kindred got brave again and they went in deep so I took that opportunity to blast cone over and get a good engage on them. They managed to get back to their side of the river, but Swain showed up again. Good guy Swain! So we ended up mauling them after Kindred's ult wore off.

Should have probably taken Rift Herald after that. Instead I went and check out her jungle which was empty and I did not have any wards to place. On the way back out her raptors spawned so I took all except one. (Time not entirely wasted as it got me their Raptor camp and information about where Kindred might end up going - but I did NOT process it appropriately in order to act on it to the most benefit to my team - we lose a drake over this mistake).

I was still low from the fight so when Zed went on Swain I was eating up the river fruit because I didn't want to commit to trying to fight Zed on such low health. That may have been a mistake and if it was, sorry ol' pal Swain.

Full cleared my Top side jungle and then based. I was healthy at that point and could probably have taken Rift Herald or ganked Poppy but I had a lot of gold on me. They got the Dragon, so i did lose sight of the prize. So need to continue to think while I'm out on the map. What objectives are up and how can I get them for my team while being efficient with my time?

So after killing Poppy and Kindred we should definitely have taken Rift Herald, based to spend my gold, and then gone to my Bot side to look for the Drake. (So in this case counter jungling the Kindred prevented me from being there to kill Zed before he killed Swain and resulted in us losing the Drake).

Ran back to Top lane and ended up holding Top since Olaf had died again. I killed Poppy and held the tower with a sliver of health left on it. I decided at this point that I was going to try and get first tower gold, but Kindred showed up to push me off the tower. Walk back to deal with the Kindred mark on Gromp. I did not want to walk into the river directly because the enemy minion wave would have showed which way I was going. And then I finally at 16:32 minute mark (remember I wanted to do it around 9:50 when it spawned!) take the opportunity to start Rift Herald.

Kindred showed back up in Top lane to tower dive Olaf with Poppy. They ended up getting first tower. Olaf killed the Kindred and I and Swain teamed up to kill Poppy.

Still I'm pretty sure I should have gotten off of Rift Herald and gone to help Olaf as getting the first tower gives them a decent chunk of gold and Swain had walked up to support me. So that is probably one of those on the margins calls since we later used Rift Herald to take out their Mid lane inner turret and get a chunk of health from their Mid lane base turret, but I didn't know that would happen at the time.

With Swain away from Mid they take our Mid lane outer. I kill Zed. The rest of them get away. I base. Vayne goes full attack dog mode and chases Xayah, Swain misses two grabs, Vayne ends up dying. I run my wat to the fight. Kindred ults to survive and then Flashes over the raptor wall. I drop Rift in Mid. We get their inner turret and some damage on the base turret before backing off because Rift gets popped and Poppy is mauling Vayne at our Top inner turret. I rotate on the Poppy and kill her, but the rest of my team comes too so we lose our Mid inner turret. Sad panda.

I should have had enough presence of mind to send a chunk of our team to our Mid turret. We only needed two to cut Poppy off. That was a mistake. Pay attention to if your team is allocating more resources than they need or are not doing it where it is needed. In my first ranked game of the day for some reason after we got Rift Herald my entire team ran up to a lane where we had already gotten the turret and all they did was eat the wave. I told the sillies to go to Mid lane where Rift would be useful since we wanted to use it to break the turret there.

My team chases them into our jungle mostly blind and gets wiped. We lose the Infernal Drake. So, not getting my team to the right place was a very costly mistake. We get some gold back when Olaf takes the Top outer turret.

I rotated to kill Poppy again, my whole team follows me again, except Swain wises up and goes back to Mid lane. Poppy ults me out and gets out with the blast cone. Swain manages to get himself run down. Vayne takes their Bot out turret. The prize on the map at this point is Baron.

I try for a flank, but think better of it. On the way back I run into Zed and almost kill him, but he gets away by going over the wall by Gromp. Their team rotates on me so I need to be out of there Olaf hits the go switch so the rest of my team follows into the Xayah who has played pretty well. Janna saves our butts by Flash ulting which gives us enough health to continue the chase. Swain cleans up. I die. The only one left up on their team is Poppy and she is on the opposite side of the map so I tell my team to go Baron since Kindred is dead.

We secure Baron and then a fight breaks out in Mid and we burn a lot of ults. I think my team realizes this so we back off and just start pushing out waves and taking jungle camps.

And Infernal Drake is up for grabs next. We get over their and their team is split. We go on Xayah and Nami and chunk them, but they managed to get out. I am my team gives chase and we lose the Infernal Drake. So another misplay. Afterwards we wipe them but I go down due to a wall slam from Poppy. I had a Stopwatch that I failed to use. So two mistakes. My team gets their Bot inner and Bot base turret. I'm pinging out respawn timers so my team back off instead of going for the inhibitor.

I catch out Kindred and Poppy in my Top side jungle and we kill them. My team presses them, though I had to go the long way round because of Nami's ult. I catch up to Xayah and Nami and kill them both. I have my team run to the open inhibitor to take it out. Steal their jungle on the way out (good!) and grab my Red which has a Kindred mark on it. Then ping my team to head to Baron which will spawn in 30 seconds (should have been aware of this earlier!).

Swain manages to grab Xayah forcing out her ult. We walk into them forcing them off of Baron. Swain manages to catch them clumped together with Vision of Empire and holy moly does it chunk their team. Poppy goes on Swain separating herself from her carries. I dodge the Nami ult and get a lock on Xayah, killing her and Nami in the process. GG.