It has been a bit since I posted anything and I've a got a few ideas floating around so I'm going to try to write them down.

Ranked

I've noticed I have a tendency to steer clear of ranked if I care about how many LP I have. If I can get that out of my head I can play and just try to do my best come what may.

I've managed to rack up a 5 game win streak, some of which were hard fought, and I am pleased with those successes. Hoping to make it into the promotional series soon and make a go at Silver 4.

Zac

I've been getting some good mileage out of Zac since Sejuani and Gragas are pretty close to perma banned at my ELO. Unstable Matter is great for chunking tanks in team fights as they tend to cluster. Elastic Slingshot is good for ganking from angles that other junglers can't. And Let's Bounce is mega disruptive in team fights.

I do need to get better at managing his health on his first jungle clear. Because if you are good at that you can clear the entire jungler before backing* and even take dragon (or at least you could before they bumped up its damage) without using a single health pot.

I've learned that if you mess up on your first clear and your passive pops, the jungle camp will kill your cells (at least if there is a big creep still up in the camp). ?Tested? (where is the embarrassed emote when you need it?) versus Red and Krugs.

Picking up your blobs gets easier as you purchase more health because you character model and hit box get bigger.

You can Smite while flying through the air.

You can simultaneously cast Stretching Strikes and Unstable Matter.

Elastic Slingshot spawns a bloblet for ever target you hit. This gives you a lot of regenerative power so take advantage of it.

*not necessarily advocating this as there are some advantages to be had by going back to base after your third or fourth camp and upgrading your jungle item.

4v4 Howling Abyss

While I was taking a break from ranked some acquaintances invited me to play some 4v4 on Murder Bridge. I took it as opportunity to try out some champions I have interest in learning better. Gnar for Top Lane, Azir for Mid Lane, Vladimir for Mid or Top Lane, Twisted Fate for Mid Lane, Garen for Top Lane.

Gnar is actually quite fun. Really interesting windows of power that can be strength to strength, but are sometimes weakness to weakness. Really squishy but fairly mobile in mini-Gnar form and a slow but tanky CC monster in Mega-Gnar form. This is a champion I will be putting more time into in the future.

Azir is a tad awkard. I've played him about three times before this so I was somewhat familiar with his kit. I would definitely want to hit some more guides on him and see some video footage on how to setup and pull off his various combos. He does feel like he has some opportunities for outplay potential and his ultimate, Emperor's Divide can be flipping beastly in certain situations.

Oh funny but true story, I forgot his passive, Shurima's Legacy, allows him to create turrets on the bases of dead turrets until almost of the end of the game, which if not costing us that game, made my team's life a lot harder then it could have been.

Also need to not get excited and dive into the middle of the enemy team with Shifting Sands unless that is really what I want to do.

Vladimir I still don't get Vlad. I mean I've been in a game where I was ADC, Vayne, IIRC so short ranged as an ADC and had a support versus a Vlad and he stomped us. By himself. Which he really shouldn't be able to do, but he did. The point of that story being, that some people just seem to be able to stomp with Vlad and I R not one of them. I know to keep his Tides of Blood stacked. I know to use his ultimate, Hemoplague, before using his other abilties for the damage amplification, but it never seems to be enough.

;tldr needs much more practice.

Twisted Fate is just fun on ARAM for the poke. Blue, Red, Gold is the card order when you activate Pick A Card. Always. I think after you lock a card the order starts in that order. So if you lock a red card, the next card when your activate the ability is going to be a Gold card. I know the blue card does the most single target damage including to turrets as well as giving you mana back. I know the red card does AoE damage and has an AoE slow effect to damaged targets, Gold card does the lowest single target damage, but will stun the target.

Destiny - I find to be marginally useful on Howling Abyss as most of the time enemies are traveling in packs so going in that far ahead of your team is more likely to get you killed than result in you picking up a kill. Destiny is also occasionally useful for vision even if you don't use Gate to follow-up.

;tldr I would need to devote the mental space to keep track of which card was up next to get more mileage out of TF.

Garen is Garen. He can be pretty annoying on Howling Abyss with just a Sunfire Aegis and a Spirit Visage, everything else is kind of gravy unless the enemy team is good/has characters that are good at kiting. Except now there is Mark and Dash. Waaaaahhhhhaaaa! >:-)