Hit Challenger in 5s Last Night, AMA

[quote=H4xDefender][quote=PsiGuard] I hope you don't mind but I have a lot of questions. What does your communication sound like in game? I'm assuming your team uses some kind of voice chat. Do you guys talk a lot during laning phase? Mid-game? Team fights? How much do you think team work contributes to a good win rate compared to the players mechanical skill (talking gold-plat level teams mostly)? Does champion select pretty much flow like it's soloqueue but you're all in your roles, or do you guys do a little more planning? How much of your champ select is based on synergy + comfort/power picks and how much is based on counter-picking? Do you always pick your solo laners late, do you pick strong laners early sometimes or does it not really matter much? How do you guys plan for level 1? Do you spread out and guard jungle entry points in the river most games or do you group for invades more often? Does your support start with wards or does everyone rely on trinkets until their first back? Any particlar favorite styles of invades? What is your objective in invading (blow summoners, first blood, buff steals, information?) and how much is your team willing to sacrifice during a level 1? How often do 2v1 swaps happen in high elo ranked 5s and do you ever (or often) initiate them? Anything from builds, to champion picks to ward coverage and communication, that changes drastically in ranked 5s compared to your average soloqueue game? I'm assuming you are your team's jungler. Do you habitually camp one or two of your lanes every game or do your gank patterns vary dramatically depending on each lane's gank reception and enemy escapes? How often and early do you give up blue buffs to your mid laner, and would you do so if your mid was diamond 3 instead of diamond 1 (lower skill level than yourself)? How big are your champion pools, roughly? Do you stick to 3 or so champions in each role and spam similar team comps or do you each have bigger pools (say 8 champions) and vary your picks often? I think that's all the questions I have (for now). Thanks in advance! [/quote] I am the main shotcaller for the team, but everyone is pretty vocal about giving me info and suggestions about what to do next. This is a good thing. For teamfights I call targets out, and I also call the rotations for midgame. Teamwork is important, but it doesn't trump individual skill unless the skill levels are really close IMO. Whenever we see any team that isn't full d3+ we smash them in 20 minutes just because we outskill them by so much. In 5s its usually pretty solo queue esque. We plan out more in go4lol. We always go for overpowered picks first in the meta, but allow ourselves to fallback on comfort picks if the matchup is good. We almost always FP jungle and ADC, although if a strong mid laner is up we pick it early. We don't pick renekton early usually. We plan out level 1 during loading screen depending on our CC and ability to check bushes at lvl 1. If our level 1 is bad we spread out and defend. We try to get kills and summoners over anything else. IF we get them we usually stay and take a buff. 2v1s are about 20% of games we play. We usually don't initiate them, but we have before. Meta picks are picked almost always, warding is better, and of course there is voice communication. I jungle differently almost every game. I'd give my mid blue no matter what his elo is. If hes good enough for me to team with him, I'll give him blues. I can play around 8 champions, but not all of us can. We don't really stick to the same comps as we're still figuring out what we like.[/quote]