The Fool's Adventures In Scrubdom

[quote=Foolamancer]Thanks man. Now, on to the next game! Solo queue this time. [img]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-24at71519PM_zps84f9280a.png] Much better. This is why I jungle [[Jarvan IV]] - because he can take advantage of poor positioning [i]so hard[/i]. Bans were [[Malphite]], [[Hecarim]], [[Blitzcrank]], [[Elise]], [[Vayne]], and [[Kassadin]]. I was last pick, and there was some confusion about who was going where, but I ended up getting jungle anyway, so [[Jarvan IV]] time! I especially love playing J4 in this level because of the free armor he gets from [[Demacian Standard]]. Teams are usually at least a bit AD-heavy, and he just rips up AD teams. Also because no one buys wards and they just rely on their built-in escapes, assuming they even have any. Anyway. Aside from the aforementioned confusion, I was actually more than a little apprehensive about this game. Our AD carry apparently only played [[Graves]] in that role, which usually indicates a lack of experience. Our first pick instalocked support [[Amumu]]. And our third pick took [[Warwick]] top and bought no ward to start. But whatever. It's Silver. Anything works. So I picked up my starting items and got down to business. Standard start: go to red buff so I can gank top immediately after getting blue. [[Warwick]] feeds [[Zed]] First Blood before I get there. He tried to trade with [[Zed]] while standing in the middle of a massive minion wave, with predictable results. Not the most ideal beginning. But it's followed up almost instantly by our bot lane killing [[Tristana]], so it's okay, I suppose. Since [[Warwick]] is dead and [[Zed]] shoved a huge minion wave to the tower, I got some free farm off of top lane. Delicious, delicious gold. Afterwards, I went down to mid and forced [[Fizz]] to [[Flash]] out, and he only escaped with about a hundred health. [[Vi]] tried to gank our [[Nidalee]] while I was farming top, but she didn't accomplish anything, and [[Nidalee]]'s ward caught [[Vi]] heading up top. So I come in for the countergank, and between me and [[Warwick]] we force both [[Vi]] and [[Zed]] to [[Flash]] out, because even if [[Warwick]] sucks, [[Jarvan IV]] is a man. Despite that countergank, though, [[Zed]] was getting ridiculously fed off of [[Warwick]], whom I triaged after his second death in lane that didn't result from a gank. He lost his tower early on, and was 0/4 by ten minutes. He refused to buy armor or wards, as well. In fact, he bought a [[Null-Magic Mantle]], for some ungodly reason. Meanwhile, though, [[Vi]] had apparently decided that camping bot was the order of the day. She wasn't particularly subtle about it, though, and [[Nidalee]] was handling her lane fine, so I could just countergank [[Vi]] all day. [[Graves]] was very obviously not the best with the role or the champion, but surprisingly our support [[Amumu]] was actually very good, and between the two of us we murdered [[Vi]] over and over, along with their bot lane, and were able to get two early dragons and their tower. [[Zed]] eventually left top to come try and roam, and spent a lot of time down bot trying to help [[Vi]], [[Tristana]] and [[Lux]] force down the tower, but to no avail. Between my [[Cataclysm]] and Amumu's [[Curse of the Sad Mummy]], they were just dying over and over. [[Zed]] threw away whatever advantage he won in lane by feeding me off my ass; I only died once during the game itself (my second death was by a misclick that put me on the enemy fountain at game end), and that was when I initiated on [[Zed]] and all four of them burned absolutely everything on me, which allowed the rest of my team to clean up. [[Zed]] was the only member of their team that had any chance of pulling out a win for them, but the armor I built and the early [[Black Cleaver]] my kills afforded me sealed the deal. We took dragon after dragon after tower after tower and there was nothing they could do to stop us. THINGS I SCREWED UP ON: - That one death during the game itself could probably have been avoided. I got the job done, but there was likely a better way to initiate than that.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-24at83638PM_zps4e562643.png] Bans were [[Shen]], [[Blitzcrank]], [[Fizz]], [[Lee Sin]], [[Amumu]], and [[Hecarim]], because apparently the enemy team captain hated junglers. As much as I hate assigning blame for this to somebody just making a terrible champion selection, that's pretty much what it was. Our [[Darius]] picked without knowing what the enemy top laner was going to be, and so, of course, got matched up with [[Garen]]. And our midlane went AP [[Nami]]. Both of these lanes can technically [i]work[/i] - our [[Nami]] was actually pretty good, mechanically, and did some very nice stuff throughout the game - but they just didn't here. I did the standard red into an immediate top gank start, which... didn't accomplish anything, since our [[Darius]] had dropped to about a quarter health before I could come in to gank for him. I just got some damage down on [[Garen]]. Our [[Nami]], meanwhile, picked up First Blood against [[Zed]], so that was good. But from there things just didn't go our way. I got several good ganks in on every lane, but it wasn't enough. Every time I left top it seemed like [[Darius]] would die to [[Garen]]. For some reason he couldn't understand that refusing to buy armor and closing for melee while the other dude was a whirling vortex of knives and pain was a bad idea. So [[Garen]] was snowballing hard. I was ganking continuously while [[Zac]] was doing... well, nothing, but it didn't matter, because his team was just sort of handling themselves. He was free to farm the jungle incessantly and come out of it an unkillable blob of Jell-O, which made tower-diving for an already fed team even easier. We put up a hell of a fight, mostly because people realized that when I called for them to go for an objective it was probably a good idea. We got two dragons, which kept us in the game despite the fact that we had lost three towers, and eventually managed to push and take mid. But teamfights just didn't work. [[Darius]] had no damage because he had been completely bullied out of lane, and any gold he got afterwards was spent on buying armor (too little, too late, sadly). I had no damage because I was donating all my kills and it's hard to get [[Black Cleaver]] on a jungler's income alone. And AP [[Nami]] is just not an actual damage source. She's a good utility mage, sure, but she doesn't actually do that much damage. So [[Graves]] was our only actual damage source, while they had a fed [[Garen]], plus a [[Zed]] and a [[Caitlyn]]. That's about the story of it. Nothing much we could have done. This was lost in the pick and ban phase. THINGS I COULD HAVE DONE BETTER: - This game was pretty much unwinnable simply because of [[Darius]] getting countered and us therefore having no damage, but I could have improved my performance somewhat by making fewer sloppy engages. Granted they were desperate engages made out of lack of options, but they were sloppy, and I died far too much this game.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-24at93959PM_zps96b2d9d3.png] A great start ruined by a troll. Bans were [[Shen]], [[Thresh]], [[Malphite]], [[Caitlyn]], [[Blitz]], and [[Morgana]]. Our last pick didn't speak English, just French, but kept demanding top even after we already had a [[Lee Sin]] top. He ended up locking in "support" [[Singed]], despite the fact that our [[Mordekaiser]] actually spoke some French and tried to convince him to play an actual support. He then proceeded to feed the enemy [[Corki]] and [[Diana]] blatantly for the entirety of the game. What sucks the most about this is that we were stomping super hard in every lane until they each got about four kills. [[Mordekaiser]] picked up First Blood against [[Zilean]], [[Lee Sin]] and I murdered [[Diana]] multiple times, [[Miss Fortune]] was outfarming [[Corki]], and I even managed to pop [[Zac]]'s passive within the first ten minutes by counterjungling. We had a huge advantage in top and mid, and bot was holding its own. And then [[Singed]] started running headlong into turrets while spamming "AHAHAHAHAHA" in /all. He went out of his way to feed [[Corki]] and [[Diana]] off their asses, and they snowballed too hard. Nothing we could do. This will [i]probably[/i] be my last game of the night, as I recognize that I'm on tilt now and probably should stop. Depends on how I feel after I take a break to get some food. EDIT: Also, yes, that [[Corki]] [i]was[/i] exceedingly obnoxious in-game as well. How did you guess?[/quote]

[quote=jhoijhoi]I'm sure you can do it! Believe in yourself :3[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]Thanks, jhoijhoi. I think I can make it to Gold, but it's going to be a hell of a grind just because of how much my MMR tanked from my initial losing streak. I'm getting closer and closer to breaking even from that, but I'm not there yet. Anyway, moving on: [img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-25at103514AM_zpsc8a7fde1.png] Bans were [[Amumu]], [[Master Yi]], [[Malphite]], [[Shen]], [[Blitzcrank]], and [[Nautilus]]. I was first pick for our team and just banned what anyone suggested, as I really don't care. Anyway. Standard start: blue team, start at red buff for an immediate gank top. [[Darius]] was smart enough to not push the wave beforehand, but he didn't know how [[Elise]]'s [[Rappel]] works, and kept running towards her tower every time she used it. There were about three escapes that she shouldn't have had based purely off the fact that he kept letting her [[Rappel]] to safety off of him. [[Hecarim]] showed up top during my second gank attempt there, and we ended up both posturing around there for a while. Nothing was really accomplished on either side by the junglers, but our [[Lissandra]] picked up First Blood on [[Veigar]], at least. Bot lane was pushed to the enemy tower, which isn't surprising since we had a [[Caitlyn]], and [[Lissandra]] was doing the same mid, so all I could do was keep trying to gank top. [[Elise]] managed to kill [[Darius]] once in lane, so [[Darius]] was getting massively outfarmed and zoned. But I know how hard [[Darius]] snowballs, so I was set on getting him back in this. I was going full tank anyway, so if [[Darius]] could end up as a third source of damage, we would basically win on the spot. I eventually managed to get him a kill via a gank from the lane bushes that not only killed [[Elise]] by locking her into [[Cataclysm]] but got the tower as well. Meanwhile, [[Lissandra]] was roaming down bot since she was just keeping [[Veigar]] pinned to the tower, and managed to kill [[Hecarim]] via a countergank. With that, we took an easy dragon, and followed it up by taking the bot and mid towers. That was GG. We just had too much global gold. They never even got a single tower, [[Darius]] snowballed super hard off of that first kill, and their entire team was unable to even scratch me once I picked up [[Spirit Visage]], so tower-diving was a breeze. THINGS I SCREWED UP:å - All three deaths here were entirely unnecessary. They didn't accomplish anything for the enemy team, because they were all me just going YOLO and 1v3ing because I could. They all hurt the enemy team more than they did me, because every time I did it the rest of my team was stacked up and taking another tower in the next lane over, but still, they were entirely unnecessary. I got too cocky. Can't afford to do that.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]I am currently loading into a game that was going well in champion select, everyone had their roles... ...And then our AD carry locked in Pantheon and our support freaked out, said "ADC Leona", and swapped Exhaust for Teleport. This bodes well.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-26at10434PM_zps276298c9.png] Turns out that it does actually bode well. I didn't write down the bans for this game, and I don't remember them. I do remember thinking that jungle [[Malphite]] sucks, and that their jungler would therefore contribute precisely nothing, and being proven correct. [[Malphite]] didn't gank for the first fifteen minutes, and when he did gank, he just died. Anyway. Once we were actually in-game I managed to talk Leona into at least building support and just going for a kill lane, since no one at this ELO knows how to deal with a kill lane anyway. Since we were, again, blue side, I just started at red buff and went up for an immediate gank top. [[Garen]] had no [[Flash]], but he started with a [[Doran's Shield]] and [[Exhaust]]ed [[Kha'Zix]] as soon as I came in to gank, so he survived, albeit too low to continue farming. Following this I went down to midlane and handed [[Annie]] an easy First Blood on [[Vladimir]], who was pushing mindlessly with no ward. Meanwhile, down in bot, [[Leona]] got a double kill somehow. Apparently their [[Lux]] was lagging horrendously (or so she claimed in /all later), so [[Pantheon]] and [[Leona]] were getting free kills. I just camped [[Vladimir]] for about the first ten minutes, since [[Garen]] refused to back after the first gank and was pinned to his tower while bot lane was handling itself. With [[Annie]] successfully snowballing I decided it was high time I tried visiting some other lanes, and I headed down bot because apparently [[Vayne]] was good even though [[Lux]] wasn't, and they were getting pushed back. I came in through the lane bushes just as [[Malphite]] got it into his head to do his first gank of the game. Easy triple kill, free dragon, and we stole [[Malphite]]'s blue to boot. That was game. My early aggression got top and mid snowballing, and bot lane worked out despite the crappy setup. With [[Malphite]] out of the game there was nothing they could possibly do to bring it back. They surrendered at twenty minutes. THINGS I SCREWED UP ON: - Attempting a dragon while I was low and lagging (apparently everyone was getting at least minor spikes this game). There was no chance of an enemy contest, but [[Annie]] and I had to juggle dragon aggro and I lagged out during one switch-off and got executed. Not really so much a problem with my gameplay, but it was still a silly thing to do. My other death was a complete bonehead play on the enemy team's part, since they burned four ultimates to get me, as well as two [[Flash]]es, and my team aced them immediately afterward.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-26at22244PM_zps8f84c1c8.png] Most of these games are utter stomps in my favor. This one is the first ranked victory I genuinely feel like I EARNED. Bans were [[Shen]], [[Thresh]], [[Fizz]], [[Kassadin]], [[Hecarim]], and [[Blitzcrank]]. I was last pick, but ended up getting jungle anyway. Our first pick was the [[Diana]] and obviously knew what they were doing with the champion, though first-picking her was a bit risky. I loved to see [[Soraka]] on the enemy team, though [[Nunu]] and [[Singed]] both made me very nervous and I've yet to see any [[Gangplank]] who contributes anything. My pre-game thoughts turned out to be pretty much one hundred percent correct. [[Singed]] went immediately to proxy farm mode and was a massive pain in the ass through the entire game. My usual early gank against him got his [[Flash]] but nothing else, as he started with a [[Doran's Shield]]. And he bullied our [[Gangplank]] around for the entire rest of the game, with little that any of us could do to stop it. We lost top tower very early. On the other hand, bot lane was handling itself, and [[Zed]] was [i]hugely[/i] aggressive. He was buying wards but was very bad about waiting to place them until I was already waiting in the bush, so I got [[Diana]] snowballing early. Camping [[Zed]] was the order of the day, for the most part, though I did make occasional (usually futile, as [[Gangplank]] has neither the crowd control nor the damage to receive ganks early) attempts to put a stop to [[Singed]]'s antics. [[Nunu]] was the first [[Nunu]] player I've seen who actually counterjungled me somewhat effectively. He managed to steal away two blue buffs, though admittedly this was largely because [[Singed]] was in the area and no one could handle him at that time. However, he had almost no lane presence, and the loss of blue buff was not enough to keep me from murdering his laners. I made several trips down bot as no one ever expects a gank to come through the lane bushes at this level, and both [[Soraka]] and [[Ezreal]] were easy kills, keeping us ahead. However, we lost our early top tower and multiple dragons, and mid fell in quick succession thanks to [[Singed]] using his [[Teleport]] rather smartly. So we had a huge disadvantage coming out of the laning phase: [[Gangplank]] was heavily outfarmed, [[Singed]] was an unkillable monster, and they had more global gold than we did. We were about four kills in the lead total, which is what kept us in the game. Well, that and my warding. Since I never left base without at least two wards in hand, we caught out [[Nunu]] and [[Singed]] attempting an early Baron at about the 23 minute mark (yes, the laning phase did drag out for a long time). [[Diana]] and I were big enough that we were able to murder [[Nunu]] and force [[Singed]] out, giving us a free early Baron. [[Diana]] and I were both very vocal and helped to coordinate the other members of the team, so we were able to turn that Baron into a very nice turnaround. We got their top tower, a dragon, and everything in the midlane including the inhibitor before it wore off. That put us back in the game, but we still couldn't really say we had a lead due to how many dragons [[Nunu]] had taken early and how monstrously farmed [[Singed]] was. No one really had the tools necessary to kill him. Still, we managed to beat them at their own splitpushing game, since I had warded their jungle heavily and their team was very bad about showing their faces when they were in no position to stop us. [[Gangplank]] and I got the inner top turret during one splitpush, and [[Diana]] and I snatched the outer bottom turret soon after. But their [[Singed]] was a god-damned monster this game. He was probably the sole reason this game lasted as long as it did, because he splitpushed like a boss and managed to take out [i]all[/i] of the towers outside our base except for the inner mid tower, so we were still behind in global gold and [[Singed]] still had a monstrous amount of farm. At about the thirty-minute mark, Baron respawned for the first time. The next ten minutes of the game were all about both teams Baron dancing, someone getting engaged on, and both teams taking heavy losses with no one left strong enough to actually attempt taking it. This was the point of the game where I probably made the biggest mistake; I was the one calling for us to try and take Baron, when we honestly should have just grouped up mid and tried to push for the win. They could have tried to take Baron, yes, but they would have given up, at the least, both nexus turrets for it. After about the third slaughter in front of the pit, both teams kind of gave up and wandered off. From there, it became a matter of trying to herd the various other members of the team into something resembling a coherent whole. With [[Singed]] off splitpushing as hard as he was, we couldn't afford to sit around and not try to take objectives, but [[Gangplank]] and [[Varus]] were very fond of wandering off. And, to make it worse, [[Varus]] never bought a [[Last Whisper]], so he did almost nothing in teamfights. This was despite both myself and [[Diana]] telling him how important it was that he buy one, since [[Singed]] and [[Nunu]] were stacking armor so heavily. It became a war of the splitpushes for a long time. [[Singed]] and [[Zed]] took turns splitpushing our top lane, and actually managed to take the inhibitor and one of the nexus towers - but we got their middle inhibitor again in the bargain, and managed to kill [[Zed]] before he could escape, so we got to push in to the top lane inhibitor ourselves (though we failed to take it). We came very, [i]very[/i] close to losing the game at one point. [[Gangplank]] got caught out in the jungle near Baron, died instantly, and gave the enemy team a free shot at it. They took the buff and were all set to push in on mid and end the game, but by this point I was monstrously tanky and could survive diving onto [[Zed]] and [[Ezreal]] with [[Diana]] in tow. Somehow, incredibly, we managed to go four for nothing in that fight, and held out against what looked like certain death. The one who didn't die, by the way, was [[Singed]]. He just flat-out couldn't be killed because he had too much armor and [[Varus]] refused to buy [[Last Whisper]]. The game ended when Baron respawned again and we caught [[Soraka]] and [[Ezreal]] coming out to ward it. We killed the both of them, took the Baron, and pushed in for the win after one of the most grueling matches I have ever played. THINGS I SCREWED UP: - As mentioned, I was the one who made the call to try for Baron as much as we did earlier. That was a mistake. Should have just pushed, and we might have been able to win this a hell of a lot earlier. Other than that, I did very well this game. [[Varus]] and [[Singed]] were the two reasons this took as long as it did; [[Singed]] kept their team in the game via his monster CS, and [[Varus]]' incredibly crappy build made it so that we couldn't do anything about that. EDIT: And yes, I realize my CS was extremely low for a game that went on this long. This is because I spent most of the early game ganking continuously, the midgame acting as a bodyguard, and the late-game donating farm to [[Varus]] and [[Diana]]. I was full tank anyway and was nearly indestructible even with the limited gold, so I made a conscious decision to give as much farm as possible to the carries rather than take it for myself.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]Also, WALL OF TEXT HOORAY The length of that post alone should tell you how much of a slog that game was. EDIT: Another thought. I probably screwed this up in champion select. I was last pick, and could see their entire team. They were all (save [[Ezreal]]) pretty immobile during the early game, and [[Singed]] is going to become a super-tank pretty much no matter what. I should have taken [[Trundle]] against this team composition. I actually play a lot of him in normals, and I'm very confident with him. I just didn't see the opportunity here, as I usually don't think of him as someone I should use in ranked.[/quote]

[quote=Mowen]It's really good that you're recognizing where you can improve. You will for sure get better quickly playing with that attitude and this much. Good luck! :)[/quote]