VexRoth - All That Is Ranked

[quote=VexRoth]Thoughts as of 6-18-2018. [u]Hiatus[/u] Back from a hiatus from ranked play. Had a couple of lengthy camping trips which cut into my time to play so I kept it to normals when I did have time. Also patch 8.11 and patch 8.12 dropped with significant changes to the game and I wanted to see how those shook out. [u]State of the Game[/u] At my level of play most people are still playing standard. I think that is still a strong way to go assuming you pick one of the ADCs that is good. There are very few tanks being played and I get it to some extent. It feels bad when you've stacked 400+ armor and their [[Tryndamere]] can still 3 shot you because he is going 35% true damage via [[Conqueror]] + the re-worked [[Infinity Edge]]. But I still think tanks are perfectly viable and in fact give your team a strong leg up in winning a game in the face of a team lacking a tank. I do however want to try and get advantageous lane match-up that I feel comfortable executing on because the game is so snowbally. Or to put it another way. If my Bot lane gets stomped, I need to be in a position to wreck on the other side of the map to offset the differential. Going neutral in lane isn't good enough unless you can pull of a [[Teleport]] play that either cements your teams lead or turns around a lane that is in danger of being a detriment that you cannot overcome by winning in other areas of the map. And your are not always going to get that opportunity. So winning lane and then winning your other lanes is, in my opinion, the most viable path to victory. [u]Top lane champion pool[/u] I've been playing a lot of [[Malphite]] of late. His wave clear is actually pretty good with some points in [[Ground Slam]] + [[Iceborn Gauntlet]]. Against squishies if you build AP early you can actually poke them out of lane or to the point that you can easily all-in them at level 6 assuming you don't let yourself get poked out too much. And having the ability to engage or counter engage should not be left out of the discussion of his pros. His cons are that there are some match-ups (mostly tanks) that he is basically a non-entity in. He just doesn't do enough damage to poke them out or get them low enough to all-in while he may be susceptible that in return given that he has no "sustain" other than his passive [[Granite Shield]], which is easily blown through before you've built some health, especially now that Q [[Seismic Shard]] draws minion aggro. Doing some research I can see that [[Dr. Mundo]] deals pretty well with some of the champions that [[Malphite]] struggles with and while he doesn't offer the engage that [[Malphite]] does, the good doctor can still be tilt inducing (a characteristic that LS suggests when looking at who to play) with how hard he is to kill with items under his belt. Bonus is that even in match-ups that he isn't that great into he can always Q [[Infected Cleaver]] farm unless they can tank the cleavers. And of course I never can just play one or two champions so there are some others on my radar screen that will probably enter the mix such as [[Kled]] or [[Illaoi]]. I've thought about [[Singed]] since he has so few match-ups that he straight up loses, but I don't feel that I get the champion well enough to make good used of the mad chemist. [[Quinn]]? Did I mention the problem that no one else on most of teams play tanks? Also I feel like she took a hit from the ADC itemization changes and the nerfs to [[Fleet Footwork]] to the point that I myself am not able to get the advantages in lane that I've sometimes managed to create with her in the past. I feel like [[Rumble]] is actually pretty strong at the moment and his Mid game team fights are back to being close to unparallelled, so he may enter my rotation of champions given the right match-up. I've also been practicing some [[Jayce]]. He is a lot of fun, but mechanically difficult enough that I have some questions marks about using him in ranked as I sometimes still finding myself button mashing on him. But the later is probably to be expected with only three or so games played so far. [u]Jungle champion pool[/u] I'm still planning on jungle as my secondary role. I find it less tilt inducing when I don't play it all the time. I don't plan to get fancy with it. Just [[Graves]] and [[Udyr]]. I'd like to play [[Xin Zhao]] since he is strong, but I just can't seem to keep myself alive when I play him. And having a jungler with some semblance of knowing how to play the role can make the difference between a win vs. a loss. [u]Autofill/Support champion pool[/u] I'm on the fence on dodging if I get the support role. I have found that I like playing [[Rakan]] so I'll put him in as a potential option if I get the role, though I'll try to get some reps on him in normals when I play with my local friends. [u]Current and Season Goals[/u] I'm looking forward to try to finish the run into Gold. Third time is the charm? And hopefully higher as I still intend to make Platinum this season. [br] ------------ [br] [table border=1 width=900] [tr] [th]Role[/th] [th]Champion[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Jungle[/td] [td][icon=Graves size=75] [icon=Udyr size=75][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Top[/td] [td][icon=Malphite size=75] [icon=Dr. Mundo size=75] [icon=Illaoi size=75] [icon=Kled size=75][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Autofill Support[/td] [td][icon=Rakan size=75][/td] [/tr] [/table][/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/ac0384559b0edd3447992818ef5b598b.jpg width=900] [br] You can poke [[Aatrox]] a little in the early game if he chooses not to switch to healing, so maybe worth it if your jungler is going to gank Top at level 2, just don't do like I did and poke him so much that you run out of mana and have your [[Graves]] and then [[Yasuo]] into into feeding Aatrox and [[Rengar]] two kills. To be fair to the Graves, Rengar had just moved into position for a lane gank and the only sign I saw of him was when he passed into the nearest lane bush. You can't do much to him in lane other than match his waveclear and try to roam when you can, but don't let him catch you out in lane with four stacks of his passive up as he'll probably kill you if you can't dodge his knock-up. Aatrox didn't know you could cancel the Rift Herald by CCing the person channeling it, so I prevented that thing from spawning. Too bad I got three or four manned right after that even though I asked my team for help. I was pretty busy trying to live at the time. Apparently [[Yasuo]] got waylaid on the way there and so [[Graves]] head to Mid lane. We ended up losing a Tier 1 and Tier 2 in Top in exchange for a Tier 1 in Mid, which I was not super happy about, but under the circumstances I suppose taking what we could get was the right call. Might be worth picking up and attack speed slow after [[Glacial Shroud]] rather than finishing [[Iceborn Gauntlet]]. That does lead nicely into finishing [[Frozen Heart]] as your first item which also gives you CDR and mana. It does not however help with your waveclear as much. Given that they had a [[Vayne]] I was not sure about what health item to build or if I should just rely on my base health under all the armor I build. Some health would help with non-% max health true damage, which [[Aatrox]] had through [[Conqueror]].[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth]And dodge since my Bot lane had a combined win rate of approximately 47.5% and they were planning on playing [[Lux]] and [[Brand]] in Bot lane with very few games played. So, how do we take towers? Slowly they say. Mmmm, no thanks given the enemy team was running a traditional comp with a decent amount of bulk and CC to protect [[Miss Fortune]].[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/8ba18f10364e3942ee9f9578dbd34439.jpg width=900] [br] [[Aatrox]] picked after me two games in a row. Fun. I do like [[Frozen Heart]] vs [[Aatrox]] as a first item. The attack speed slow helps make him clip some autoattacks. Now, sitting in between him and [[Zed]] when they both had [[Blade of the Ruined King]] was a different matter. I think [[Janna]] might be my go to ban for the moment. [[Athene's Unholy Grail]] is retarded on her. I ulted [[Miss Fortune]] and [[Yasuo]] ulted her and we couldn't kill her through everything Janna threw on Top of her and I've had that happen in two games now. [[Zed]] was so silly fed that he could kill the rest of my team pretty much by himself.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/7f5389c832893f85f35ab645f5a0c945.jpg width=900] [br] Should have taken the thirty minute dodge penalty. Team came unglued toward the end game. [[Hecarim]] was off split pushing and dying to [[Fizz]], despite the fact that we were mopping the floor with their team when we actually engaged as a unit. I pulled a whoopsie at one point when I forgot that Hecarim was off by himself and engaged right as [[Yasuo]] threw up a [[Wind Wall]], which blocked a lot of our follow-up. [[Yasuo]] wasn't a horrible match-up, just annoying in that you can't actually damage him since he always has his flow shield up and you basically only have your Q for poke. I imagine a good Yasuo would be harder. I would like to have a couple of games where my team isn't pushing double digit deaths on most of its members. After Irelia got caught near Bot lane it was a 3 v 4 since [[Hecarim]] was off dying to the Fizz. Zoe at about 150 health while sandwiched between three heavies and she gets mad at me for not diving into that. I made the determination that we couldn't turn it so I stayed out of the fight. I might have been able to do something about their taking Baron, but I chose to clear the wave left in Top lane instead. Given that we were probably going to lose if they had Baron, not trying something was likely a mistake on my part as it would have been a decent use of keeping myself out of the fight.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/44e68761709439a6e26355376062740b.jpg width=900] [br] Kind of hard to win when your Top laner ints the last half of the game. I did get bitchy about it in chat when his stupidity got me killed. Dude just walk the fuck away we were out clean. But noooooooo. Let's try to kite the [[Volibear]] followed up by the [[Darius]]. I ended up laning against the [[Aurelion Sol]], which worked out okay other than the early game being painful. Need to remember he is actually kind of tanky once he finishes [[Rod of Ages]]. I will stay out of chat unless it is to praise or do some cheerleading. But honestly the rest of my team got the picture after Ryze's 4th or so solo death. Dude was not playing smart if not strictly inting.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/56768fa2d8397dfa5e524d63a6f3bc4d.jpg width=900] [br] I still hate [[Azir]]. He has too much damage and too much self-peel so even when you think you've got him you don't and in the meantime he is shredding your team. If you get passed his soldiers you should be rewarded with killing the bastard. Game went well despite our ADC having a like a 35% winrate on [[Jhin]]. Guess he has been hating the bruiser Bot lane META or something. Game went pretty much by the numbers. Although [[Nocturne]] didn't end up with a bunch of kills he was generally in the right place at the right time and never really went in too deep. [[Blitzcrank]] hit some nice hooks. [[Rumble]] is kind of annoying. I screwed up and didn't respect his level 6. I had lost some XP harrassing [[Rengar]]. [[Fizz]] and I killed him, but I had to blow my [[Flash]] to do it, so I didn't have it when I let myself get too low to Rumble. Why Rumble is decent into [[Dr. Mundo]]. 1 He can tank the damage from your [[Infected Cleaver]]s with [[Scrap Shield]]. 2 He builds all the magic penetration items so even if you build MR he still hurts 3 He can slow you in kind with [[Electro Harpoon]] which makes it hard to get on top of him 4 [[The Equalizer]] makes him a better team fighter than you. 5 He can out shove you and get damage onto you through the minion wave with [[Flamespitter]] Had a miscommunication with Fizz about diving the Azir. He was waiting for me to clear the minion, wave, I am like Bro, I can tank the turret. So anyway, we didn't time our efforts right and ended up both dying for our misplay.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/8a461bf63a0919eab86b8ae4f67dee3f.jpg width=900] [br] Okay I admit to yoloing this one with [[Kayle]] first pick. I regreted my decission about level 5 or so as [[Camille]] started handing me my ass. Like initially I could trade with her if I got [[Press the Attack]] to proc, but she hit level 6 first and stomped on me like a bug. But we made it to late game I my ult came in pretty handy in a couple of situations. It was still something of a nail biter as we had enough autoattackers that Jax was really hard to deal with. Fortunately our two big carries, [[Swain]] and [[Vayne]] were nice and fed and not idiots. I wouldn't say our team played really well together, but we did stick it out through two or three Barons and an Elder Dragon, which is saying something for a soloqueue game. Incidentally I may actually pick Kayle up as she fills so holes that [[Malphite]] and [[Dr. Mundo]] don't, but I won't pick her unless it is a favorable match-up because yee gawds a bad match-up really prolongs you from getting the items you need to be effective.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/47dfe07f3ad19f6fac0fcb1eaba01c97.jpg width=900] [br] [[Yorick]] early wasn't too hard to deal with. [[Yorick]] with a Maiden and a [[Sheen]]. Ouch. Basically don't get caught in his though shall not pass circle and then murder the Maiden if he leaves it unattended. This gets easier with some resistances. Yorick made a good push on Top lane while we were mixing it up in Mid and then he DCd, so fairly easy win with [[Kai'sa]] coming on line and me doing pretty well for myself. [[Trundle]] apparently lost a fight to [[Taric]] over a [[Control Ward]] I had placed. Might need to review that one as that ended up getting me killed by the [[Yorick]]. Taric's ult played a role in that, but I am still confused how Trundle lost a 1 v 1 vs Taric. Maybe there is something I don't know about Taric? Because Trundle doesn't lose too many 1 v 1s. Trundle did not have his ult, so that may have played role.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][img=https://i.gyazo.com/cfc55379ced1fc36585b9e2e9e1471da.jpg width=900] [br] And no.[/quote]