The Fool's Adventures In Scrubdom

[quote=Foolamancer]Heeee-llo everybody. Foolamancer here. I'm just some random scrub in Silver V, NA servers. Why am I making this thread? Because I'm a scrub, as mentioned, and I'm tired of being a scrub. I'm tired of inconsistent performances and getting carried by friends that are better than I am. But I tend not to play much, so improving is difficult. This thread is to give me some motivation to keep playing and improving. So I'm going to keep updating this thread with reports of ranked games, and possibly some practice normals, to chronicle my attempts to escape Silver. I highly doubt that I'll actually make it to Gold before the season ends, but it'd be nice. In addition, I'm going to use this thread to force myself to think over each game more carefully, whether victory or loss, and look for ways I can improve. Some games just can't be carried, but there's always something you can work on anyway. Some background information before I actually begin, though: - I admittedly didn't earn Silver. I was pressured into playing ranked with my younger brother, who is a much more experienced player than myself, well before I felt comfortable enough to do so. I consistently sucked throughout all of my placement matches, but he was able to carry me to a 7-3 finish. Because I was placed higher than my actual skill level, I went on about a thirty-game losing streak when I first started playing ranked, and my MMR subsequently tanked to the point that I was getting matched with Bronze V players. I have since pulled my ranked score to almost 50% wins, but I'm not quite there yet. I think I will be there soon, but I'm not yet. - I am a jungle main, with a side of support and AD carry. I am admittedly bad at top and mid, as I only have a handful of champions for either lane that I actually enjoy playing. While I'm a competent Gragas, Shen, and Wukong, I don't have as much experience with them as with supports and junglers. - I, unfortunately, don't have a gaming mouse. The one I'm using is an ancient trackball, which wouldn't be so bad except that the ball has a gouge on one side. This means that, the more rapidly I have to move the cursor, the more likely that the ball will "catch", which makes it impossible for me to move the cursor again until I "reset" it. It only takes a fraction of a second, but it makes last-hitting repeatedly in lane somewhat difficult. As such, despite my having experience with AD carries, I try to avoid the role because I know my CS will suck. - I tend to favor tanky initiators and crowd control heavy champions over pure damage dealers, and prefer teamfighters to lane dominators. [[Jarvan IV]], [[Maokai]], [[Sejuani]], and [[Nautilus]] are some of my favorite champions, just to give you an idea. When playing support, I tend to favor [[Lulu]], [[Leona]], and [[Sona]]. As such, I'm not usually the guy who snowballs out of control and wins the game on his own (save for a few games where I get fed as [[Jarvan IV]]), but I tend to be very good at getting other people snowballing, and controlling teamfights well enough to let them do their thing later. I'll be playing my first game in just a moment. Stay tuned![/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-08-28at113108AM_zpsc91a4029.png] Nice way to start this off, I think. Still, I did say I'd be analyzing the game whether I won or lost, so here goes. I was first pick for my team. Bans, as far as I remember, were: [[Amumu]], [[Shen]], [[Thresh]], [[Blitzcrank]], [[Hecarim]], and [[Master Yi]]. Since it's kind of hard to counterpick [[Jarvan IV]], I don't usually bother banning jungles when I plan on playing him. Even if I do get counterpicked, it's very rare that anybody actually knows enough about the game to counter[i]play[/i] him, so. We had a [[Zyra]]/[[Varus]] bot lane where the Zyra was, by her own admission, not going to bother playing support and instead build AP - but she would buy wards, at least, so that was something. At this ELO, it's not like it usually matters anyway. Everything works so long as you're not utterly incompetent. The real issue was that our last pick instalocked [[Warwick]] top, and took both [[Ghost]] and [[Flash]]. Again, anything works, but apparently he wasn't paying attention. He thought it was going to be [[Nidalee]] top rather than [[Garen]], and there isn't much a [[Ghost]]/[[Flash]] [[Warwick]] can do against [[Garen]], in my experience. If that wasn't enough, he started with a [[Hunter's Machete]] and five [[Health Potion]]s, because he "wanted [[Spirit of the Ancient Golem]]". As you can see by his end-of-game build, he didn't actually [i]buy[/i] it, so. Pretty sure he just had no idea what he was doing, especially since even a [[Ruby Crystal]] start would be better than that. Anyway. On to the game itself. I started at blue buff. I would usually start red, but with a [[Nidalee]]/[[Caitlyn]] bot lane on the enemy side, I wanted to try and get an early gank against them before they had the chance to fill the place with too many traps. This was, in hindsight, a mistake; I should have started red, as the enemy jungle [[Rammus]] did, and come in to countergank him when he came in on our wardless [[Warwick]]. Our bot lane pushed hard during the first few minutes anyway, so I couldn't have ganked there even if there wasn't a single trap. So my start was a failure, while the enemy [[Rammus]] immediately handed First Blood to [[Garen]] by just walking into lane and autoattacking our [[Warwick]] to death, despite his [[Ghost]] and [[Flash]]. From what I saw, he [[Flash]]ed as soon as [[Rammus]] appeared, then tried to [[Ghost]] away, but got hit by [[Puncturing Taunt]] before he could get out. This set a bit of a pattern for [[Warwick]]. He died three times in the first ten minutes, and the latter two times were without jungler intervention. And, while he was alive, he pushed mindlessly, so I couldn't offer him any help. Bot lane was also having issues. As [[Zyra]] and [[Varus]] didn't have any actual sustain on them - [[Varus]] had started with a [[Doran's Blade]] - [[Caitlyn]] and [[Nidalee]] were just zoning them pretty much entirely and keeping them shoved to the tower. I did gank successfully for them twice, the first time forcing both of their [[Flash]]es and the second time handing [[Varus]] a kill on [[Nidalee]], but the fact that [[Nidalee]] was warding extensively in addition to filling the place with traps made it difficult to do much. Bot lane got angry at me for not helping them as much as they thought I should, and they [i]might[/i] have been right. I'm not sure I could have made anything happen even if I had camped bot, due to how hard it is to get the drop on those two champions, and farming the jungle at least ensured that I would be able to do something later rather than just wasting time on a futile endeavor. But I still might have been able to help more than I did had I been more aggressive. [[Diana]] was, for the most part, also on her own, but she also didn't need my help. Despite the fact that she continually pushed her lane, it was deliberate and she did so intelligently. [[Ryze]] was very aggressive with his [[Teleport]], and was constantly going to top or bot to try and get kills. He got a couple that way, though I also stopped a few through counterganks. [[Diana]] continuously pushing the lane kept his opportunities for [[Teleport]]s limited, and kept her up in throughout the laning phase. We lost both the top and bottom towers early on, but that was the farthest they really got. I was spending whatever leftover gold I had on wards to donate to [[Warwick]] and [[Diana]], allowing [[Warwick]] at least an opportunity to farm safely and keeping their [[Garen]], who started roaming the moment his tower was down, from accomplishing anything. So we stalemated them for a bit with counterganks and careful warding. The game turned around in our favor when one of my wards up at top lane caught [[Garen]] trying an overly aggressive attack on [[Warwick]]. [[Diana]] and I collapsed on the position and killed him just as the enemy [[Rammus]] arrived. We killed him as well, getting a double kill for myself, then went immediately to take the dragon. After that, I snatched a [[Brutalizer]] and an [[Emblem of Valor]], and our team stacked up in mid to try and take their tower. We honestly wouldn't have made any progress, but their [[Ryze]] had pretty crappy positioning, and I was able to engage on him and lock him down long enough for [[Diana]] to take him out. Between [[Zyra]]'s [[Stranglethorns]] and my [[Cataclysm]], we wiped out four of their five team members and were able to take both of their mid towers, as well as their outer bottom tower. I then went to splitpush for a minute and grab their top turret as well, which gave us the turret lead for the first time in the game. From that point on, it was just a matter of systematically taking every objective and choking them out of the game. [[Rammus]]' early aggression got [[Garen]] extremely fed, but [[Garen]] himself never actually did anything with his lead. His roaming didn't kill anyone, and he was rarely with his team, so he kept getting caught out and feeding us. [[Rammus]], [[Caitlyn]], and [[Nidalee]] were all pretty good, but [[Garen]] contributed nothing and [[Ryze]] kept getting out of position in team fights and letting me lock him down. I did get caught out at one point while positioning for dragon, though. We were already well in the lead at that point, and my team were able to kill everyone immediately afterwards, but I need to watch out for that in future.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-08-28at125839PM_zpsbefa19f9.png] Not used to having to take screenshots on the victory screen, hah. So this is what you get. I was duo-queue'd with one of my friends, a Gold III. Somehow, despite being last pick, I got jungle (as our second pick had [i]wanted[/i] to jungle, but apparently the [i]only[/i] jungler he had was [[Sejuani]], who was banned). Our team was [[Jayce]] top (my duo), [[Nautilus]] jungle (yours truly), [[Annie]] mid, [[Draven]] AD carry, and [[Nami]] support. Theirs was [[Wukong]] top, [[Zac]] jungle, [[Master Yi]] mid, [[Ezreal]] AD carry, and [[Zyra]] support. Honestly, this game started out pretty boring. I had taken [[Nautilus]] as our team needed a tank who dealt magic damage and had good crowd control, and with any weaker gankers I wouldn't be able to assist the lanes at all - [[Wukong]] and [[Ezreal]] are really hard to bank, let alone when there's a [[Zyra]] backing them up. I started at red, as we were blue team and I wanted to go for an immediate gank on the [[Wukong]]. He had a ward, but I was hoping to catch him as he came out to place it - only for our [[Jayce]] to win an immediate First Blood while I was still clearing blue. After that, I basically just wandered around in circles and farmed. I donated wards to all my lanes, since their [[Zac]] was actually really good and was ganking constantly. I managed to countergank most of them, but he was still very aggressive, and was the only reason their [[Wukong]] was still in the game. I got one successful gank against [[Wukong]] early on, and two against [[Master Yi]], while nothing much happened bot. Other than that, pretty much just a farm-fest as I worked my way up to [[Spirit of the Ancient Golem]] and [[Locket of the Iron Solari]] so I could tank sufficiently in teamfights. [[Jayce]] got killed by one successful bank from [[Zac]], as did [[Draven]], but we had a large early lead; if I remember correctly, it was something like 14 to 7, with us up two towers and a dragon. But, when teamfights rolled around, our team's weaknesses became apparent. Firstly, [[Draven]] was a complainer who took a single bad teamfight as a signal that it was GG in their favor. Honestly, part of this probably [i]was[/i] that I didn't peel for him enough during the first fight, and I should have paid more attention there. Note the "first" there. During the subsequent teamfights, though, it became obvious that he just had positioning issues. He liked to "backdoor", which meant "sit in bot lane and farm all day while the enemy team is pushing mid", and only showed up to fights when it was too late to make a difference and using the most dangerous possible route. Still, [[Jayce]], [[Annie]], [[Nami]] and myself had a hell of a lot going for us. Even though we lost teamfights, we managed to make them pay for each victory, to the point where they couldn't capitalize on their victories. So, even though teamfights weren't going our way, they couldn't take any objectives. Their team also had one massive, glaring weakness: pretty much every single kill they had was on their [[Zac]]. Having a fed jungler is great and all, and he was pretty incredibly beefy in teamfights, but [[Zac]] is not exactly the most snowball-y of champions. He was even building full tank, so his damage wasn't that incredible. It just took forever to kill him. [[Draven]] kept saying that it was GG, though, simply because [[Zac]] was so fed. He also outright dismissed my advice to build some magic resistance, as [[Zac]] was the only champion on their team with any real items. He just said it was "too late" and that it "wouldn't make a difference", and continued to position badly in fights (when he wasn't off "backdooring"). The rest of just carried on without him, and continued to take dragons - their team didn't seem particularly concerned about them, so they were mostly free gold for us. The winning point of the game came when four of us - everyone but [[Draven]] - were engaged on by their entire team. We got caught out in their red jungle, which was silly of us. We got too aggressive trying to kill their [[Master Yi]], and it almost cost us the game. Fortunately, [[Annie]], [[Jayce]], [[Nami]] and [[Nautilus]] just have so much AOE damage between them that we were actually able to trade four for nothing in that fight. It helps that [[Nami]] was actually very good, and knew how to chain her crowd control with mine. I would snare [[Master Yi]], then keep him pinned with [[Depth Charge]], and [[Nami]] followed up with her [[Aqua Prison]] and [[Tidal Wave]] in perfect form to keep [[Master Yi]] - and most of the rest of their team - locked down for pretty much the entire fight. Meanwhile, [[Annie]] and [[Jayce]] just did carry things and murdered people. From there, we were able to take their middle inhibitor and control of the game. They had no [[Locket of the Iron Solari]], so teamfights were pretty easy from that point on. We ended it by taking Baron, killing four of them, and just pushing through their base while ignoring [[Ezreal]] entirely. Things I screwed up on: - Peeling for [[Draven]] in the initial teamfight. Granted, he was out of position most of the time, and their team had great initiation to capitalize on that, but if [[Nautilus]] can't peel, nobody can. - Going too deep into their red jungle. It worked out for us in the end, but it was still a very risky move that we probably shouldn't have taken. Things that saved us: - All their gold was concentrated on [[Zac]], who, while tanky, couldn't actually win fights on his own. - [[Zac]], despite his gold advantage, didn't buy a [[Locket of the Iron Solari]]. Since I had one, this gave our team a massive edge in fights and kept us from getting facerolled during their initial snowball. - Their [[Master Yi]] was of the school of thought that he could solo the team, despite the fact that he had died in lane multiple times and had very little gold. Whenever teamfights happened, he would just [[Alpha Strike]] in as deep as he could and start autoattacking [[Draven]] or [[Annie]]. After I realized that I needed to peel better following the initial failure, this meant that he basically just put himself in range of my anchor - and [[Highlander]] can't save you from [[Depth Charge]]. He consistently failed to contribute anything in teamfights.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-08-29at32134PM_zpsab42f485.png] A pretty easy game overall, but here goes the analysis. I was second pick for my team. Bans were [[Shen]], [[Zac]], [[Ahri]], [[Sejuani]], [[Fiora]], and [[Blitzcrank]]. Our team was [[Jax]] top, [[Jarvan IV]] jungle (me), [[Morgana]] mid, [[Twitch]] AD carry, and AP [[Nidalee]] "support". Theirs was [[Tryndamere]] top, [[Master Yi]] jungle, [[Lux]] mid, [[Lucian]] AD carry, and [[Sona]] support. [[Twitch]] and [[Nidalee]] were duo, which was pretty obvious from [[Twitch]] (our first pick) saying "OMG 5th pick is godlike at top" in champion select. When [[Jax]] took top anyway, they went bot lane together. [[Nidalee]] was one of those players who thinks [[Bushwhack]] makes up for not buying wards, so you can guess how their lane went (which is to say, not as badly as it could have; [[Twitch]] was competent, at least, and managed a couple kills, even though he ended up getting zoned a lot). Anyway. I started red, because [[Tryndamere]] had no [[Flash]] and no ward at game start, so he was an easy gank. I walked into lane and forced both of his summoners, then left to go mid, as their [[Lux]] was pushing hard and had no ward either. I handed First Blood to [[Morgana]], then went immediately back up top and gave a kill to [[Jax]] because, for some reason, [[Tryndamere]] hadn't figured out that having no ward when I was around was a bad idea. Bot lane pushed mindlessly and didn't ward throughout the lane phase, so I couldn't gank for them and even [[Master Yi]] could murder them, despite his crappy ganks. As their idea of trying to handle getting ganked consisted of standing there and trying to fight back in a 2v3, I kind of ignored them and let them handle themselves. They lost their tower before ten minutes after [[Master Yi]] killed [[Nidalee]] while I was on the other side of the map murdering [[Tryndamere]] again, but that was really all he was able to do for the entire game, and both myself and our other lanes were stomping them. From there, it was pretty much a blatant stomp, as three out of their five team members had no [[Flash]] and thus were easy kills whenever I decided to Thunderdome them. [[Cataclysm]] just utterly destroyed them every time. We took dragons, took towers, took their buffs... it was just a faceroll, despite bot's early tower loss. I struggle to see anything that I really did wrong this game, as I only died once and that was during the only real teamfight this game had - and, since I was initiating and acting as tank, that's sort of my job. Everybody else just cleaned up afterward. I wouldn't call my play perfect by any stretch, but there are no obvious mistakes that I can see. I got top and mid snowballing hard with repeated, successful ganks that handed them easy kills. I donated wards so that [[Master Yi]] was even more useless than he would have been otherwise. I tanked up and initiated well. The only thing I can really think of that I did wrong here isn't really a gameplay issue - I just tend to hold down spacebar and keep the camera centered on my champion too often. I'm still working on fixing that.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]Not a game report, but more a statement about a common problem I see in these games: no one buys defensive items. Like, ever. Most players actually act insulted if you recommend it, or start adamantly maintaining that their damage won't be sufficient unless they spend all their gold on carry items. Defense wins games, people! This is a public service announcement from a fellow scrub. Having nothing but damage items doesn't matter if you aren't alive to use them. If you are getting vaporized before you can do anything, build some defenses. Yes, this applies even if you're a carry, and yes, if you're that far behind, you [i]should[/i] put that Infinity Edge on hold for a minute and pick up some armor. Buying defensive items does not lower your damage output. It enables you to use the damage that you already have more fully. Defensive items also tend to be less expensive and more cost-efficient than offensive ones, and a little bit of resistance can go a long way. Never underestimate the value of even a single Cloth Armor. Bottom line: if you are behind, buy defenses. They make you less behind. Offensive items just keep you the same distance behind.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer][img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-08-29at53736PM_zpsac70aacd.png] First loss, woooooo I was duo'd up with MrDanceMan, the brother who, as previously established, basically carried me to Silver during my placement series. Bans were [[Shen]], [[Vayne]], [[Blitzcrank]], [[Amumu]], [[Thresh]], and [[Malphite]]. This game was all about their [[Elise]]. She just completely went to town on us. Our toplane [[Master Yi]] and our support [[Lulu]] also obviously had no idea what they were doing. I started red, because I wanted to gank [[Akali]] early. However, Yi apparently took this as a statement that he should push as hard as he possibly could, and by the time I cleared blue, he was shoved to tower. So I went mid instead, to try and gank the enemy [[Lux]]. Got both of her summoners out of it, but while I was in mid, [[Elise]] just came up top and murdered [[Master Yi]]. All downhill from there, I'm afraid. The score was 0 to 8 at ten minutes in. Only one of the deaths was mine. From that point on, it was pretty much lost. [[Karma]] couldn't really do anything, even though I got her a kill from one gank. [[Lulu]] just fed the enemy bot lane out of their minds. While [[Caitlyn]] wasn't too bad, she couldn't really do anything against a [[Tristana]] that was up at least a level on her for the entire game. And when [[Elise]] started tower-diving, no one was safe. [[Caitlyn]], [[Karma]] and I at least managed to avoid feeding, and in several instances actually managed to catch one or two of them out and get some kills. But with an 0/9 [[Lulu]] and a [[Master Yi]] who was 0/4 by ten minutes, and whose only kills were taken from [[Karma]], there wasn't much we could do. And, as you can see, absolutely nobody but me bought any magic resistance against a team that was pretty much entirely magic damage. [[Karma]] did pick up an [[Athene's Unholy Grail]], but that was going to be her first item anyway, and she didn't bother building any other defenses. Despite my repeatedly advising the team to buy some magic resistance and thus keep [[Elise]] from just eating people wherever she went, no one wanted to deviate from their predetermined build path, even if it would cost them the game. Ah, well, can't win 'em all. But I can at least try to figure out how to avoid this next time. My biggest mistake this game was not warding the entrances to my jungle well enough. My last two deaths were both last-ditch efforts to save our nexus turrets and couldn't really have been avoided without just going AFK flat-out, but the first was my fault. I was farming wraiths at around level 4 and half or so health, and [[Elise]] [[Rappel]]'d over the wall and pretty much one-shotted me. While the game as a whole was probably just one of those that couldn't have been salvaged, I could have avoided that death if I'd been more cautious. (I also should have seen this loss coming. For some reason, whenever my brother and I duo, our team loses no matter how well we do personally. Note to self: do not duo with brother.)[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]Unfortunately, I'm moving iRL and have just been informed that our new house won't have internet for up to a week after our arrival. This thread may have to be put on standby for a bit.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]A brief update: while I still haven't given up on this thread, I'm currently without a stable internet connection from which to play League, and likely will be until the 19th. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up again then. But that makes getting Gold by Season 4 even more unlikely than it was. Sigh... at least I'll be able to become less of a scrub before the preseason. And, on the bright side, I finally have an actual gaming mouse, so I can practice my AD carry, mid and top, and hopefully become less confined to support and jungle before I start up again.[/quote]

[quote=Foolamancer]So I finally have stable internet again, and can get back to trying to claw my way out of Silver. Unfortunately, I continue to be retarded. I allowed myself to get conned into duoqueueing with my brother again, despite the fact that we both know we get worse teams when we duo. The result was entirely predictable. [img=http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/Maestro134/ScreenShot2013-09-24at43521PM_zps7a07f1f1.png] This was one of those incredibly infuriating games where everything is going great at the beginning, but when it comes time to start teamfighting, it becomes apparent that nobody else has any idea what they're doing and the lead you worked so hard to build up ends up going down the drain. Bans were [[Shen]], [[Vayne]], [[Tryndamere]], [[Thresh]], [[Blitzcrank]], and [[Kassadin]]. I started off at red buff and let [[Poppy]] know that I intended to give her an early gank against [[Jax]]. Unfortunately, like all Silver players, she took this as an indication that she should push as hard as physically possible. I still managed to force a [[Flash]], but it would have been a kill if she hadn't had [[Jax]] pinned to his tower, so that was frustrating. The enemy [[Zed]] was warding extensively and our bot lane was pushing up to tower (which is understandable as they were [[Caitlyn]] and [[Sona]], but still frustrating when I'm looking for gank opportunities), so I mainly just camped top lane this game. I handed [[Poppy]] three kills in the laning phase, all from situations where [[Jax]] was about to kill her, and spent most of the rest of my time farming. [[Fiddlesticks]] accomplished nothing. The first real event of the game occurred at 7:30, when [[Fiddlesticks]]' blue buff (which I had warded at around 5:30) respawned. Our bot lane and midlane were pushed up to tower and could thus roam to back me up, so I called for an invade. Unfortunately, I screwed up an E-Q combo and got caught in the [[Crowstorm]], getting my first death of the game. This, however, left the enemy mid, bot, and jungle trapped between my own mid and bot, all low and with no escapes or major cooldowns left, so [[Katarina]] got an easy triple and [[Caitlyn]] picked up the [[Zed]]. Not the ideal outcome but better than me dying and us accomplishing nothing. Things went smoothly from there for a while. [[Fiddlesticks]] was bad about showing his face at the wrong time, which let me get in and steal multiple blues and reds, as the laning phase was dragging on and on and on. We picked up an easy dragon as well. [[Poppy]] lost her tower but didn't die, and our bot got that tower in answer. Then teamfights happened. Oh, lord, this was when everything disintegrated. I had decided to go full tank since we already had three threats from the rest of the team ([[Poppy]] was fed enough by this point to actually be one, despite how weak the champion is). I really couldn't be killed in teamfights, but Jesus our [[Sona]] was bad at warding, and [[Caitlyn]] was even worse at recognizing danger when it presented itself. I was warding as much as I could - I never once left base past spawn without at least two [[Sight Ward]]s in my pocket - but [[Sona]] liked to sit on her [[Ruby Sightstone]] and do nothing with it. This left a lot of blank spaces on the map, and oh boy if those didn't attract [[Caitlyn]] like someone was advertising Earl Grey. "Teamfights" consisted of [[Caitlyn]] getting [[Crowstorm]]ed, [[Death Mark]]ed, and [[Leap Strike]]d in rapid succession. This was not an isolated event. This happened [i]every time[/i], no matter how much we pinged to back away from a bush or to peel for her, and she had the bad grace to insult the rest of us for her not having paid attention. Meanwhile, [[Poppy]] was wasting the gold I gave her early on by doing nothing but chasing [[Ezreal]] and [[Taric]] for the entire fight. Keep in mind that, at this point, [[Ezreal]] had almost no farm and did basically no damage, so she was trading one of our best sources of damage during teamfights for... nothing. And she continued to do this despite how much we tried to impress upon her that she [i]had[/i] to kill [[Zed]] or [[Jax]], because they were the only real threats. So with only [[Katarina]] dealing damage and myself to tank it ([[Sona]] took any sign of a teamfight as a cue to run the opposite direction without even dropping [[Crescendo]]), teamfights didn't go so well. And neither did the rest of the game. [[Poppy]] spent her time wandering around the jungle, just looking for kills, and refused to group up with the rest of us. [[Caitlyn]] would decide that there were two CS in top lane she just [i]had[/i] to have as we signaled frantically for her to rejoin us while the enemy pushed in. And [[Sona]], on multiple occasions, facechecked bushes that we had literally [i]just seen[/i] the enemy team walk into. So that was how the game went. To make matters worse, [[Caitlyn]] decided to pick up a [[Statikk Shiv]] instead of a [[Last Whisper]], so her already-negligent damage output dropped to nothing. [[Katarina]] and I managed to pull off several miracle fights where we at least managed to go even instead of getting 0-for-3'd, but it wasn't enough. The real breaking point came when we attempted a desperation Baron, since all of our outer towers were down and we desperately needed an edge of some sort, but [[Caitlyn]] recalled halfway through to try and kill [[Jax]], who was pushing in on top lane. Keep in mind that this [[Jax]] had very obviously solo'd her in the past. Predictably, she died, and without her damage to supplement ours ([[Poppy]] was dead and I was full tank, so there wasn't much being put out) we couldn't take the Baron before their team respawned and came in to contest. We didn't lose any more, as we backed off before they could engage, but that was the point where we knew there was no coming back. And... that was it. It was just a series of hopeless teamfights with [[Poppy]] hitting people that were not priority targets and chasing mindlessly, [[Caitlyn]] positioning badly and letting herself get murdered, and [[Jax]] snowballing out of control despite how hard I worked to shut him down early. THINGS I COULD HAVE DONE BETTER: - The first invade on [[Fiddlesticks]]' blue went poorly. I screwed up my E-Q and died as a result. Should have been more careful, and it could have easily been a 4-for-nothing that would have given us their blue [i]and[/i] a dragon. - At one point early in the game I had 3000 gold in my pockets and didn't recall to spend it early enough. That left me with only a [[Spirit Stone]] and [[Boots of Speed]] during the enemy's first group push on mid (everyone went back to their lanes afterward, oddly enough). I died as a result of not being tanky enough. Should have followed my gut and gone to buy beforehand, even if it meant not contesting the tower. As it was I just gave them the tower and a kill. - I should have invested in more pink wards. [[Zed]] needed to get ganked more than I could without them. - Following from the above, I should have camped mid more than top this game. [[Jax]] needed to be shut down, yes, and getting a few ganks against him was great, but [[Poppy]] had proven that she was going to continue to lose to him in lane despite the kill advantage I gave her early. She wasn't a good choice of anchor. EDIT: Another questionable choice. I bought a [[Negatron Cloak]] at about the 15 minute mark. It was for protection against [[Crowstorm]], as I got armor passively from [[Demacian Standard]] and thus [[Fiddlesticks]] was at that time the only real threat. I'm not really sure it was the best choice overall, though. Should probably have just gone straight for more armor, considering how much AD their team had.[/quote]

[quote=XeresAce]You can do et[/quote]