Season 3 Begins

Well, I don't know if this is the official beginning of Season 3 for League of Legends, but my ELO has certainly been reset, even though the item changes have not gone through yet. As such, I will probably be playing pretty sparingly until those go through and subsequently I familiarize myself with the new items.

However, I have played my first placement match and played an instrumental part in securing the win as--what else?--support. I'm going to take this opportunity to change up the format. Each game will be accompanied by a screencap of the postgame lobby. I think it will be interesting to look back and see all the scores... and all the trashtalk. I'm also going to attempt to break up the posts when the games are on different days, which is something I did very inconsistently during Season 2.

Game #1 (WIN - Unranked) (Support: Taric)

I tried to be optimistic about this game, but I was somewhat worried during champion select for a number of reasons. We had Heimerdinger and Fiddlesticks (jungle) on our team and they had Graves and Katarina, two champions that are well known for pubstomping hard. However, my worries evaporated when Heimerdinger got first blood (with Fiddle's help) and proceeded to dominate his lane. Graves/Nunu proved more formidable a combo than I had previously imagined (seriously, Nunu's ultimate does way too much damage) but we managed to pull through because I am a very experienced Taric and Caitlyn was very strong. She didn't once overextend and kept up with Graves in farm for the most part. She pulled off several hilarious Ace in the Hole kills as well. Overall it was a really nice start to the season; I made sure to honor my teammates as well.

Elo Finale (?)

Game #121 (WIN): I got 5 kills on Janna, haha. I'm really glad I played her because our Twitch was amazingly reckless. No other support would have gotten him out of trouble as effectively.

Game #122 (LOSS): Every lane lost so hard. Nothing I could do.

Current ELO: 1287

Elo Underground

Game #116 (LOSS): Five losses in a row! I'm on my way to 1100, baby! Most farm in the game, snowballed laning phase, Lee Sin 0/3/0 in the first ten minutes (on our team). Pretty much sums it up.

Game #117 (WIN): Actually, that last game was my sixth loss in a row! I finally managed to break the losing streak with some Hecarim jungle. I never realized how strongly he synergized with Lulu. I liked our strong late game team comp: We had Hecarim, Vayne, Lulu, Anivia, and Teemo (ok, not so much on that last one.) We were all able to peel and/or zone for Vayne to keep her safe for the most part. Teemo's shrooms, Anivia's slows and wall, my speed, knockback, and initation tool, and of course Lulu's veritable toolbox of spells. Really fun game.

Game #118 (LOSS): I should really just dodge when someone picks Teemo. I did well in the jungle but it was pointless because we had no team fight since we had AP Teemo.

Game #119 (WIN): I swear to god I win every time I play support. I'm not saying I carried this game, but I certainly helped bottom lane win. Diana going 10/0 in mid lane had nothing to do with me, however. 

Game #120 (LOSS): Played Kennen and won lane against Darius. Everyhing was going according to plan. We had a strong AoE initiation team comp. However, Corki ruined everything with his absolutely appalling map awareness. He was constantly in the front of the team and getting caught. In the last fight, he wasn't even present, y'know, when they were pushing into our Nexus turrets? He kind of just hung back. I hate losing because of stupid shit like this.

Current ELO: 1273

Elo Crevasse

Game #112 (LOSS): Well, Rengar is absurdly OP, but that's not why I lost lane to him. Our Xin Zhao ganked my lane at level 2. He had no Exhaust and no Audacious Charge. Silly me, I assumed he would have his gap closer when he came in for a gank. He baited me into burning both my summoners, completely eradicating my lane pressure. Soon aftewards, Maokai ganks and gives Rengar first blood. Rengar snowballs out of control and I become completely helpless. I stack armor and Rengar rushes a Last Whisper. Xin and Annie refuse to pressure my lane. Rengar tower dives me completely. I have no idea what I could have done.

Game #113 (LOSS): Get two successful ganks on bottom lane in the first 10 minutes. Bottom lane still loses. Yaaaay.

Game #114 (LOSS): Honestly? I don't think I've been playing/practicing enough lately. I'm definitely not playing up to par. I'm not even upset about this loss because I know I could have played a lot better and I was definitely part of the reason we lost. Yes, Graves got caught out in the front of our team, but that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. My game knowledge/decision-making is still pretty good, but mechanically, I played pretty poorly this game. Just need to start hitting it hard again. 

Game #115 (LOSS): I'm kind of just trolling at this point! I went Kha'zix mid and did pretty well in the midgame, but once teamfights rolled around, I couldn't do anything to Malphite + Kayle protecting everyone. :D Of course I was blamed for the loss. I don't really mind.

Current ELO: 1275

Elo Bus

Game #110 (WIN): Season is drawing to a close! I most likely will not be hitting gold, considering the relative infrequency of my ranked games. However, after watching the World Finals (go TPA!), it was refreshing to come back to Ranked and win a game. I played Orianna against Diana. I knew she would have a really hard time killing me without jungler pressure, so I bought plenty of wards. I bought at least 10 during the course of the game, usually 2 at a time to keep my ramps covered. As such, I was fairly safe from ganks. Although we did end up winning this game (and in fact I had a lot to do with it), I was definitely at fault for not exerting more pressure during the laning phase. I can't think of a single time I left the lane to gank, although I did assist Amumu by keeping jungle entrances warded and coming to his aid any time he was in trouble. We managed to clean up in teamfights. Even though they had a Malphite, Command: Shockwave + Curse of the Sad Mummy was too much for them to handle, not to mention Sona's Crescendo. I had the most CS in the game at 190 (at 32 minutes), but I know I can do so much better. I'm probably just a little rusty. Just need some more practice.

Game #111 (LOSS): I didn't want to play Yorick. He's one of the most boring champions in the entire game. I get no enjoyment from playing this champion. What's worse, I was tasked to lane against Nunu, who hardcounters Yorick in pretty much every way I can think of. Nunu has better mana and health sustain, and better range on his primary harassment tool. Addtionally, Yorick has nothing in his kit that can interrupt Nunu's ultimate. Eventually, he just tower dove me whenever he felt like it. Just a miserable, miserable game. 

Current ELO: 1323

Elo Afternoon

Game #108 (WIN): Man, when I play Taric, I love good Graves players. It's just so easy to land kills. it also significantly improves your team's morale when first pick calls support. Good things to take under consideration. I'm pretty sure if I keep playing Taric I'm just going to farm ELO.

Game #109 (LOSS): On the other hand, I very much dislike playing Ashe/Taric. It's an entirely pointless lane. Ashe does not have enough lane pressure to make use of Taric's CC and burst. Ashe needs babysitting in lane, and Janna does that job much better. She really should have picked someone else. She also started with a Doran's Blade and rushed two damage items before grabbing PD or LW. Simply an inexperienced AD carry player; her stats were very misleading. 

Current ELO: 1323

Behold, the Glorious Evolution (Not a Viktor Post)

I have been maintaining a spreadsheet of my ranked games since July 26th. I played plenty of ranked games before this point, but I didn't really start taking it seriously until then. If I had to guess, I'd say my lowest ELO would be around 1120 or so; I'm not entirely sure. Over the course of this exercise, I have only gained around 100 rating, with my Season 2 high sitting at 1344, from 1220 when I started. Although I am loathe to admit it, this probably means I am at about the right spot. However, I will continue to improve my play and see just how high I can get.

Based on the data I've collected, the only thing I've discovered is that when I play my favored role (AP mid), I lose more than I win. This is a sobering realization. I think I've collected enough information to draw a firm conclusion from that. I'm not as good at AP mid as I thought or I'm not picking the right champions. The role has brought me a great deal of frustration recently, so I'm trying to diversify. I've been playing a lot of Irelia in normals and I like her a lot. Assuming you farm reasonably well and don't outright lose your lane, she can contribute a great deal to teamfights with her mobility, crowd control, and durability. Her extra tenacity makes her an ideal anti-carry. Killing the enemy carry in an otherwise even game will often win you the teamfight and eventually the game.

I also love Renekton to death, but after playing against a few different matchups, I can safely say he's a very niche pick. Against opponents that are even remotely tanky, his damage is completely insignificant. Squishies, however, mortally fear his Q +W combo. Level 2 first bloods are not unreasonable. If he gets going, he's an amazing asset to the team, but it's important that he farms well, and farms fast. He needs a big damage item and he needs a big defensive item, or he loses relevance.

So far, my forays into ranked solo top have not been entirely successful. I lost my sixth consecutive Lee Sin game (not entirely my fault but I will acknowledge some error) and before I was experienced with Irelia, I did rather poorly. I'm not familiar with Renekton's favorable matchups yet, so I threw a game there as well. I annihilated a Lee Sin top with Darius, so he will be my go-to counter for... well, any melee champion? When they don't have a strong ganking jungler, it's pretty much a free win for the lane.

The most surprising trend I've discovered, however, is that I almost always win on supports. As of this post, my W/L with supports (since July 26) is 18/5. That's pretty damn strong. Granted, a lot of those games come from duo queued with Rob who is a very strong AD, but there were plenty of pugs in there as well. I consider myself a very good Taric and Janna player, and definitely passable on Sona/Soraka. I'd like to pick up Lulu but have little to no interest in learning Alistar.

I feel like my strengths as a player overall include positioning and focus in teamfights, as well as capitalizing on advantages and mistakes made by the enemy team. As has been stated multiple times on this blog, my main weakness is probably creep score. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to consistently get adequate CS scores. My poor CS is partially due to missing a few here and there, but I think primarily it's because I leave lane at the wrong times, or harass at the wrong times. Some champions I'm better at it than others, but it's the main thing I need to work on. Maybe that's why I'm so good at support, because it doesn't even factor into the equation?

Elo Canyon

Game #105 (LOSS): Can't win with Lee Sin. Tristana built double BT. Mid built no damage items. Skarner got caught at Baron. Overall a terrible game on everyone's part.

Game #106 (WIN):  I was worried about Sivir/Sona against Graves/Taric, but her spellshield doesn't matter much when we 1.) bait it, or 2.) blow up Sona 100-0 in seconds. Just a sicknasty combo, and the Graves player was competent enough to play off my engages. I love me some Taric.

Game #107 (WIN): This time we had to play against the Graves/Taric combo. I'm pretty sure their Taric wasn't anywhere near as good as I am. xD Also, I played Janna this time (with Miss Fortune) and provided a massive amount of peel for Miss Fortune while she unleashed fury. She made some pretty poor decisions throughout that game, but fortunately with the help of Kyle on Jarvan jungle, we were able to consistently win fights. Jarvan helped snowball Ryze's lane, and Singed just kind of... well, he did his whole Singed thing and became a huge nuisance. Good game.

Current ELO: 1325

Elo Forest

Game #98 (WIN): Evelynn is a pretty good pick against Gragas. Eve can troll Gragas with Hate Spikes all day and can dodge his barrels with relative ease. Getting hit with a Body Slam is bad news, but assuming both are level 6, Eve should be able to win the trade easily with her ultimate. He's a hard one to pin down, but he didn't put enough pressure on me stop me from ganking sidelanes or blowing up teamfights. The main thing I need to work on, as always, is CS. I've been having a rough time of it lately.

Game #99 (LOSS): Jayce versus Cho'Gath is a very rough lane! I definitely should have picked someone who could easily dodge Rupture or who isn't completely shut down by a 3-second silence. I was completely helpless in this particular matchup. 

Game #100 (WIN): My farm on Ezreal is consistently mediocre but I played well. Positioned appropriately in team fights, remembered to always auto attack to get free damage whenever it was safe, and poked well. Used Arcane Shift to dodge Amumu ultimates, Nevermoves, and whathave you. Overall, I did well. I just need to farm better.

Game #101 (LOSS): I suck at Irelia. I was up against Jayce. I had two unfavorable options available to me. I could try to farm while being trolled with auto attacks constantly or I could engage on Jayce and get knocked back... at which point he trolls me with more autos. Basically, all he has to do is poke and poke and poke until I'm low and then jump in for the kill. I didn't actually feed him or anything, but it was impossible for me to get anything done. Meanwhile, bot lane loses really hard. They had Tristana, so there really wasn't much of a point in continuing. I don't know how everyone does so well with Irelia.

Game #102 (WIN): For once in my life, I had excellent farm! I always seem to farm pretty well on Renekton. By all accounts, I won my lane against Wukong, but it honestly still pretty even. I zoned him out of some CS and there was no way he could ever kill me 1v1. Unfortunately, he landed the first kill on me (at about 16 minutes in) due to a gank from Fiddlesticks when I was already at half after doing some quick counterjungling. I guess he got revenge! Anyway, this was a really annoying one because their team comp seemed designed to make it difficult to pin anyone down. They had Janna/Fiddlesticks/Wukong/Corki/Ahri, which is just so frustrating for someone like Renekton with long cooldowns. Another issue was Amumu building full AP and asking me to build tanky, but we won't get into that. 

Game #103 (LOSS): Not sure how I feel about Renekton sometimes. If I can't rush a big damage item, I have a rough time. Jarvan took literally no damage from any of my abilities, and all he really did was stack health. As a result, I didn't get the chance to get fed. Compounding matters was the fact that Amumu came in and turned a gank into an 0-2 exchange, which was not a fun time. Somehow, this terrible Amumu ends up going legendary with something ridiculous like 18 kills. How many kills does Ashe have? 1. Maybe he should have played less like a carry and more like a tank. 

Current ELO: 1315

Elo Peninsula

Game #95 (WIN): First Katarina game in ranked, haha. She is pretty good. Her reset is borderline broken in teamfights. The laning phase was a little rougher than I imagined, because I kept expecting our top lane to follow up on my ganks, but I guess it's just something I'll have to get used to with time.

Game #96 (LOSS): Ryze had no MR in runes or masteries. Lost lane to Vladimir, a champion he hardcounters. When I came to gank, they were both at 1/8th health. He still couldn't get a kill on him. Even with my full combo. Auto attacks and ignite would have done the trick but Ryze just decided to peace. Meanwhile, Olaf is lurking in the bushes and I die. Game just snowballed from there. Gotta look these people up.

Game #97 (LOSS): Too much jungle pressure. Lee Sin camped my lane. He always camps my lane. I guess I play too aggressively. But I just can't stand that passive play style. Makes me sick. Junglers really are frustrating sometimes. I'm beating my opponent and I lose lane because it's essentially 2v1. Meanwhile, my jungler can't get any ganks in because he's Nunu and doesn't have anywhere near the mobility of Lee Sin. 

Current ELO: 1318

Elodrome

Game #87 (LOSS): Should have been an easy win even though both lanes were extremely rough matchups (Vlad vs Fiddlesticks and Singed vs Yorick). We managed to hold our own in our lanes but then we came to the rough conclusion that our AD carry simply did not want to fight, no matter how strong he was. Vlad 1v2ing Nautilus and Fiddle, kiting them around? Ezreal farms. 4v5 team fight at mid with most of their team half health? Ezreal farms. His complete unwillingness to join fights fucked us over in the long run. I can't carry a game where I'm against a hard counterpick.

Game #88 (WIN): Blitzcrank and Ezreal against Sivir/Sona. It was actually a pretty rough matchup at first! We were able to make a lot of plays throughout the game, including catching Sivir away from her team at the very end. With our team comp, that was suicide, and a thrown game.

Game #89 (LOSS): Alistar and Corki against Ezreal and Nunu. Another really rough matchup! Unfortunately, Malphite lost lane to Cho and Vlad didn't stop Karthus from roaming. The bottom lane's ridiculous poke sealed our fate on this one.

Game #90 (WIN): You know, Soraka's actually pretty good. She sustains pushes, she has a silence with a lot of uptime, and has decent DPS with Starcall for those early 2v2 fights. Makes Graves quite a bit tankier, too. Probably not a bad choice a lot of the time.

Game 91 (WIN): For once I got "stuck" with solo top. On a random whim I decided to roll Darius against Lee Sin. I knew it was a rough matchup, but it's rough on both sides. I had a really hard time against him, and I want to say he got first blood on me. Eventually, I just out traded him immensely.  After a few kills, I just snowballed out of control. Ended the game with 22 kills, which is something I almost never do. First time Darius in ranked, as well, aside from once in a silly kill lane. Built pretty much full tank. The only damage items were Maw and Phage.

Game 92 (LOSS): Lose AP mid every time, no matter how well I do in lane. Yay! Not enough damage on our team, AD carry wasn't sure how to right click, etc.

Game #93 (WIN): BATTLE TARIC OP'

Game #94 (LOSS): Lost game to poor AD carry positioning and decision-making. She had to be new to the role. 

Current ELO: 1329

Elo Waterfall

Game #82 (WIN): Bloodstone Taric OP.

Game #83 (WIN): Blitzcrank even more OP. What's worse, we had jungle Alistar on our team as well. Our carry? Rob on Kog'Maw. No one could even dream of getting close to him.

Game #84 (WIN): They keep letting me have Blitzcrank! I don't like Blitz/Cait as a lane, but I did an EPIC gank mid lane against Ryze. I ran straight up mid, flashed over minons, grabbed, knocked up, and ulted. Meanwhile, Orianna hit me with the ball and ulted as well. Dead Ryze, from full health. So awesome.

Game #85 (WIN): We decided to go Ashe/Janna versus Fiddle/hard engage comp! Worked out pretty well, except for the one time I knocked everyone out of Zyra's ultimate. We protected Ashe from their asshole Malphite.

Game #86 (LOSS): All lanes lost hard. I dislike Vayne.

Current ELO: 1333

Elo Festival

Game #76 (WIN): Wow, it feels really good to win a game on Kennen, and against someone I consider to counter him (Vladimir). My farm was very good the first 10 minutes but then everything kind of snowballed out of control as we put tons of pressure on mid lane.

Game #77 (WIN): Lots of lag spikes this game! I wouldn't say I carried this game, but I performed adequately. Got some good kills off on Morgana (with the help of Juddy on Shyvana) and used my ult appropriately in team fights (read: used restraint + zhonyas). My Kennen win ratio is finally positive. I feel like I somewhat deserve my three skins now.

Game #78 (LOSS): Well, this game was just silly. I was dominating Lux in lane, in CS as well as harass. I had much more presence than she did. Unfortunately, their Amumu fed her kill after kill and she ended up smelling like roses because of it. Our Ezreal/Soraka lost hard to Miss Fortune/Taric, and Ezreal didn't build TF or Phantom Dancer. His only source of AS was Berserker Greaves. Not surprisingly, he was completely unable to carry come mid game. Hate builds like this. Ezreal was almost completely unwilling to enter fights, regardless. I guess his build didn't matter much in the end.

Game #79 (LOSS): Two major factors here. One, Taric completely and utterly hardcounters Draven, even with Cleanse. I should have banned him. That was my mistake. Two, I had lag issues throughout the first half of the game, making last-hitting impossible. Even still, I massively out-traded Vayne. But everything about Taric is anti-Draven. The armor, the sustain, the stun to prevent him from catching axes, the burst. Ban Taric.

Game #80 (WIN): Kennen and Nunu is such an amazing bottom lane combo, holy shit. Will definitely do this again. Even though Taric is as obnoxious as usual to play against, we managed to come out ahead, partially because Vayne is extremely reliant on landing consecutive hits, which is hard to do versus stuns/slows. 

Game #81 (LOSS): Same combo, still just as devastating. Unfortunately, our team was way too hard to carry. I was 3/0/1 by 3 minutes and we still couldn't win. That's an amazingly bad team right there. Not going to say I made all the right calls. If I had, I definitely would have won. It's just really depressing. 

Current ELO: 1299

Elo Mesa

Game 73 (WIN): Varus and Sona is OP! Graves/Janna couldn't stand up to it at all. CS was adequate but could always be better! Around 140 by 20 minutes, not that good! But I got fed, so I think it's ok.

Game 74 (LOSS): Varus and Sona blow against Leona/Caitlyn! I don't even like that lane combo or think it's very strong, but Leona completely destroyed us. Our team comp was amazing but we played it so badly on so very many levels. As a side note, I think we could have won this lane if I had gone Cleanse instead of Ignite. I don't take the summoner very often and there wasn't really anyone else on the team that I would have needed Cleanse for, so I opted out. I regretted it. The lane (but perhaps not the game) could have gone entirely differently. 

Game 75 (LOSS): Anivia vs Twisted Fate. Win lane, lose game. Unspeakably awful Ezreal and Taric (with no Flash). There was really nothing I could do. No one wanted to initiate, and Miss Fortune and Teemo (of all fucking champions) were chewing up our team. We had to deal with Renekton initiating fights. He'd go in, get focused, do zero damage, and then we'd lose the fight. 

Current ELO: 1301

Elo Ocean

Game #68 (WIN): Ezreal/Taric again! Ashe/Janna is really fucking annoying, so I lost out on a TON of CS, but it's fine. Me, Juddy, and our Nunu carried the game anyway despite two feeding solo lanes.

Game #69 (LOSS): I will be the first to admit that I didn't perform up to par this game, but I think it was an error in champion selection more than anything else. My CS was adequate but not great. Orianna has synergy with instant gap closers and we had none, aside from Nocturne ult, which often breaks the tether to the ball, anyway. Furthermore, our AD carry was terrible, as is so often the case. I can't trust anyone to do it but me.

Game #70 (LOSS): I probably shouldn't play Morgana, and especially not against Vladimir.

Game #71 (LOSS): Well, won bottom lane as usual with Ezreal/Taric, this time against Ashe/Blitzcrank. Shyvana, however, got extremely fed, and so did their Annie, who went something like 9/0/6. Ahri was 0/6/0 by the end of the game. Our Teemo also ragequit. Can't carry them all. There were a few times where I overextended, but I was trying as hard as I possibly could to contribute to the team

Game #72 (LOSS): Corki with a random Nunu against Ezreal/Janna. I don't really know what's wrong, but I'm just not playing very well tonight. It didn't help that we had zero jungle presence (from Garen, of course) and they had a hyper aggressive Maokai. No, I never got caught by him, but Nunu sure did. Soon enough, Ezreal towered over me with superior farm and a whole lot more kills. A mix of a bad team and bad play from me. 

Current ELO: 1315

Elo Mountain

Game #66 (WIN): Ezreal with a random Taric against Vayne/Soraka. Well, they couldn't do anything to us, but of course they were a little more difficult to kill than average. Still went 10/5/18 and carried pretty hard. One thing I really need to be concentrating more on is CS. I think I just need to focus. I'm not ending up with the CS score that I think I should have.

Game #67 (WIN): Ezreal with another random Taric! Juddy played Rumble and we both went legendary! Yay! 

Current ELO: 1353

Elo Car

Game #64 (WIN): First Twisted Fate game in ranked, I believe. Did very well. Topped CS (I think) and didn't die a single time. Will definitely play him more often.

Game #65 (LOSS): We had a first time Rengar on our team and he went 1/9. Fun times. Lost 16 fucking elo for this game. So mad.

Current ELO: 1334

Elo Wonderland

Game #60 (WIN): Caitlyn/Taric versus Corki/Janna. Quite simply, I was a better support than Janna. <3 Me and Rob have good communication when we duo.

Game #61 (WIN): Same combo, raping souls. Corki on their team went something like 2/9. Yeah. It was nasty. 

Game #62 (LOSS): Corki/Taric. Did fine in lane against Graves/Sona, but their Diana and Veigar both got massively fed. Diana died instantly in fights, but Veigar could pretty much kill everyone by himself.

Game #63 (WIN): Varus/Blitzcrank, this time with a PUG. He wasn't that good but my epic grabs saved the day many a time.

Current ELO: 1340

Elo Horse

Game #57 (WIN): Sona/Ezreal versus Janna/Ashe. Pretty easy win for us. I'm a pretty decent support, as I said.

Game #58 (WIN): Ezreal/Taric. Once again did extremely well in lane with Ezreal. Fortunately for me, we won this time.

Game #59 (LOSS): Ezreal/Taric, but with a random this time. Corki first blooded me because Taric decided to try to kill Corki at level 1 with Exhaust. Because I'm an idiot, I followed suit and got counter exhausted and killed. Taric of course backed out and survived. Corki snowballed from there. 

Current ELO: 1319

Eloyoyoyo

Game #51 (LOSS): Well, we didn't make the most of the Jayce/Blitzcrank combo. Too many missed hooks and missed opportunities. At the same time, as soon as we got anything done, Sion was in our lane cleaning up. Brand of course never followed Sion when he left lane and every lane snowballed. I still hate Sion.

Game #52 (WIN): Ashe and Janna versus Miss Fortune and Taric. We of course got zoned early on, but I did the whole Ashe thing and just farmed my ass off. We had Nocturne and TF, so we had tons of map control versus a team with almost no escapes (Yorick/Miss Fortune/Lux/Xin Zhao/Taric). I positioned myself pretty well, but that's very easy to do with Ashe when not only do you have Janna, but you're against a team with minimal gap closers

Game #53 (WIN): I'm getting pretty good at support, I think. I played a bunch of games with Rob and practiced Sona, Janna, and Taric and it paid off. I kept Graves (relatively) safe during the laning phase and he went on to do his job admirably well in team fights. I peeled and slowed whoever we were chasing and popped Shurelias to catch up. Luckily, Kyle was on jungle Shyvana so he was able to contribute to the intiation/damage side of things.

Game #54 (WIN): Corki and Taric versus Ezreal and Janna. Me and Ezreal had pretty much identical builds and were pretty even in lane.This was actually a really close game. Our CS was pretty even and no one dominated in the laning phase. If I had to guess what won us this game, it was probably the fact that Cho'gath outscaled Darius immensely. He was just so much more useful in teamfights.

Game #55 (LOSS): I really shouldn't play Karthus. I'm not good with him.

Game #56 (LOSS): 18/4/15 on Ezreal. Loss. Morde mid and Vlad top, both terrible. GG.

Current ELO: 1307

Elo Desert

Game #49 (LOSS) First loss on Riven since I started this exercise, I think. Won lane against Mordekaiser (with help from Kyle on Skarner) but was unable to carry. Bottom lane did poorly and mid did poorly. Apparently, mid randomed in champ select. He had Flash/Exhaust on Swain, too. Didn't learn shit from this game.

Game #50 (LOSS) Well, we were doing great all game. We won our lane hard and our jungler was doing really well. Their Mundo was completely invincible, but it was fine because we initiated on Akali every fight and won handily. However, Jarvan decided to dive their tower at the very end and we got aced with no casualties to them. They then decided to push for the win. No reason to have lost this game. 

Current ELO: 1310

Elo whatever.

Game #47 (LOSS): Played Kennen and I shouldn't have. Got massively out CS'd (Karthus had 100 on me by endgame). Our first pick grabbed Sivir and she was free food because she had no positioning and no get out of jail free cards. Our jungler (Xin) built Bloodrazor and Boots of Swiftness and generally had no idea what he was doing. Our Yorick lost lane to Cho'gath and he became an unstoppable engine of destruction. Yorick, of course, became a complete nonfactor in fights because he's Yorick. Not even sure what to say about this game. I should have farmed better, but I guess Kennen's not my strongest champion, and it's hard to clear waves with Kennen when every Karthus Q takes off 3-4 bars of health. Ugh, this one was just really frustrating. I got outplayed and that really sucks.

I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that I'm bad at Kennen. Too bad I already have three skins for him.

Damn it! Now that I think about it, there's so many other champions I could have played and done extremely well against Karthus. What the fuck was I thinking? I would have destroyed him on Xerath or Orianna. Hell, even Ryze, probably. 

Game #48 (WIN): Hahaha, this one makes me feel a little bit better. 13/3/11 on Corki thanks to Blitzcrank's ridiculous burst damage. He got me monstrously fed. My CS was awful, partially because I don't play Corki much and partially because I had to keep going back after getting double kills. 

Current ELO: 1337

Some Notes on Builds

Okay, so under normal circumstances, I am not an advocate of building Deathfire Grasp on Xerath. For my playstyle, I attempt to maintain the absolute maximum distance from the other team at all times while hurling out spells. I feel like this is the most effective way to make use of the champion's unique strengths. Xerath has the ability to burst a carry down (almost from full) from half a map away, sometimes from the jungle or from outside the Baron pit, that kind of thing. If DFG had range comparable to the rest of Xerath's skillset then it might be a good idea, but I'm typically not comfortable putting myself that close to my opponents.

There is one exception, though. Though I generally try to avoid picking Xerath against comps that include instant gap closers, sometimes it is inevitable. I can't always be last pick and I don't usually get to play mid when I am, so if I end up picking Xerath against instant gap closers, I should probably get DFG. It provides me with an instant nuke that I can throw out to defend myself. In conjunction with Mage Chains + Arcane Barrage, it may be enough to net me a kill against melee champions that dive on me. At the very least, it makes them seriously reconsider their actions.

Also, I've experimented with two major build paths on Orianna: First is the double gp10 into Rabadons route. This is probably a pretty good build if I don't expect to be interacting with the opposing laner much. If I expect to play aggressively, it's probably better to go double dorans into Abyssal Scepter. This is most likely also the better build if I'm having a rough time in lane. Early Chalice into Negatron is also something to consider if I'm eating too much harass.

Elone Ranger

Game #42 (WIN): Pretty perfect Xerath game. No deaths, excellent CS, ganked sidelanes, etc.

Game #43 (WIN): On some random whim, I decided to break out DAT MIDDLESTICKS. Surprisingly, I kept up in CS with Ahri (and even passed her in some cases). Early and midgame, I was able to shove lane just fine to go gank. Granted, I had to max Dark Wind to do this, but it worked out pretty well for me. Come late game, it became very difficult to push lanes but it was less important at that stage since we had a farmed AD carry. I had a really good score, but surprisingly my ultimate wasn't really winning us the fights. It was the combined CC from Fiddlesticks/Nautilus/Soraka/Wukong/Varus.

Game #44 (WIN): We were actually behind this entire game. Even when we won, we were 12 kills behind. We won because the other team didn't grab Baron after they won a team fight. They decided instead to push towers and then back. We jumped on the opportunity to rush Baron while they were out of position, picked up a kill on Malphite at our blue buff, and killed Lee Sin when he tried to come steal Baron. We then just calmly pushed to win. Pretty satisfying, actually. As for myself, I played fairly well. I outfarmed Lux massively (had 70 CS over her) but Malphite (jungle) was doing his job very well. I could have warded more aggressively, and I missed my ult at one crucial point. Just need more awareness of the Ball.

Game #45 (WIN): Despite a disastrous early game against Vayne (fed her a couple of kills due to missing a crucial Thundering Blow), we pulled through and I ended up with a respectable 7/3/10 and towered over her in CS.

Game #46 (WIN): Picked Xerath against Pantheon/Riven, which was probably a mistake, but we still made it through to the end with big plays and excellent focus in team fights. Once again, a crucial Baron acquisition won us the game.

Current ELO: 1337 (Fuck yeah)

Elo Is Forever

Game #37 (LOSS): Every lane fed, Amumu got successful ganks on every lane. GG.

Game #38 (LOSS): Enemy Zyra got tremendously fed, and so did Ashe. Bottom lane got camped hard and no one could do anything about it. Our team comp was just too shitty. No CC from the jungler or mid (Kat and Shyvana). Not really sure what I could have done differently bottom lane. Pick someone that doesn't get shit on in lane (Vayne) I guess.

Game #39 (WIN): I killed Taric in the fountain by using the power of Zhonya's. Every game is incredibly onesided, win or lose.

Game #40 (LOSS): Played support Nautilus and had a better KDA than my useless AD carry. Irelia fed Fiora, who built full tank on a whim. Fiora and Anivia free pushed their lanes all game because both were strong enough to muscle their opposing laners out with ease. Even though I was really tanky and disruptive, it didn't matter. My team was too bad, once again.

Game #41 (LOSS): afk jungler.

LOSIN' ELO ALL DAY SON

Current ELO: 1277

Elololol

Game #36 (LOSS): Duo queue with Kyle Urgot/Janna. We destroy our lane but it didn't matter because top fed and our jungler sucked. SOLO QUEUE YEEEAAAAAA

Current ELO: 1314

The Revenge of Elo Hell

Game #34 (WIN): We had an inferior team comp (Ryze/Leona/Yorick/Miss Fortune/Malphite against Kennen/Graves/Taric/Alistar/Darius) but we outplayed them hard. Kennen was hyper aggressive in lane so I just played safe early on and stacked MR. His jungle Alistar was pretty much worthless so I was very safe against him 1v1. I did more damage to him with my combo than he did with his ult so he had to run every time he engaged on me. Yorick shit all over Darius top and Miss Fortune got first blood on Alistar so bot lane was set from the get-go. My CS was low, but I roamed a lot and kept up with Kennen, so that's all I can really ask for.

Game #35 (WIN): Somehow, I got matched up against a Ziggs with only one ranked win. I'm sorry I couldn't give him another. Not only did I beat him in lane, he DC'd for a few minutes as well. I'm sure it was a frustrating experience for him. Despite my team trying to ruin our advantage as much as they possibly could, we did eventually pull through, with me ending at a tidy 13/2/9 on Ryze. Somehow, their Varus actually got really fed too, but it didn't matter because he has no escapes and his team (Mundo? lol) was incapable of protecting him.

Current ELO: 1325

The Son of Elo Hell

Game #32 (WIN): Brutalized enemy Swain in lane on Anivia, out CS'd and outganked. Camped bottom lane. Their Alistar ragequit. Gee gee.

Game #TWILIGHTZONE (???): Well, we were eradicating the opposition in this game, but suddenly everyone complained of lag and all disconnected. I exited the client and the game completely vanished. Nothing in my match history.

Game #33 (WIN): Riven versus Jax. I knew I couldn't fight him head on so I just tried to kite him as much as I could and get him to blow through all of his mana. I played relatively passively (for Riven) and didn't engage unless my jungler was nearby. I think overall I went even with him. I did catch Xin out of position at the very end of the game and we were able to ace and push for the win. With my Bloodthirster I was able to survive the entire fight, even though I got down to about 100 health. Pretty exhilarating. 12-3 with Riven btw.

Curent ELO: 1303

ELO HELLORAMA

Game #28 (WIN): I really really need to work on my CS with Vayne! But we won this game due to their Ezreal being terrible and our Lee Sin getting me fed.

Game #29 (WIN): Bot lane Jayce yaaay. Kyle went Alistar and we underestimated Twitch/Taric but we definitely did win the lane overall. My positioning in team fights was a lot better than my work in lane, so that Hyper Charge steroid allowed me to melt their team. I'm really slacking on CS lately, I think because I want to be too aggressive in laen. The kills aren't really THAT worth it. Should just wait on the jungler.

Game #30 (LOSS): Had an AFK. Would have won. Fuck this game.

Game #31 (LOSS): alkfjas;klfjaklfjaklfwejakil;vakgjfl;jf they had two fucking ad carries and just pushed lanes all day and any time ashe landed an arrow on anyone they could take two towers fufkajklfjaklfasf

Current ELO: 1282

More Adventures from Elo Hell

Game #25 (LOSS): Jax camped my lane but I still did fine. Kept up in CS and made pretty good plays. Unfortunately, our Kog'Maw and Warwick were both terrible. Warwick had no idea who to ult in teamfights, and kept baiting us into really bad situations. Kog'Maw's positioning was awful and he built Bloodrazor first item. Ezreal on the other team built a Last Whisper and got a pentakill. I hope he learned his lesson.

Game #26 (WIN): Landed the most uncannybrutal grabs in the netosphere.

Game #27 (LOSS): Don't even really want to talk about this one, I played like shit. Had lag starting out because my mother was doing something on the internet and it fucked me out of a ton of CS, so I was behind all game. Just want to forget about this one.

Current Elo: 1282

Elo Hell blarg

Game #23 (LOSS): I tried as hard as I possibly could to carry this game. I killed my lane opponent multiple times, ganked bot multiple times and came out with a respectable score of 8/5/15. But you know what? Because my top lane fed Vladimir, we lost. Corki got a pentakill. I don't even want to think about this game because I did everything right and still lost. What a disgrace.

Game #24 (WIN): Jungled Riven this game and did not perform up to par! Why do I win games where I play poorly and lose those in which I play well?! Anyway, I tried to dive Sivir at level 4 and got stunned/exhausted by Taric. I figured since Taric got first blooded he would have burned his exhaust, but apparently not! After that, I fell a little behind so I just started farming up a storm. Caught up to Mundo in level (somehow) and we were able to pull off a shaky victory after catching Jax alone at top and subsequently securing Baron/pushing for the win. 

Current ELO: 1297

Elo Hell #7

Game #21 (LOSS): Well, went Caitlyn/Taric against Jayce/Blitzcrank and apparently that was just a really fucking terrible idea. The burst damage of those two combined was beyond ridiculous. I could be instantly killed from full health if either one of them landed a single CC on me. It was just depressing. We were doing pretty well early but as soon as Jayce got a single kill it was over. Compounding matters was the fact that their Skarner became completely invincible. He could pretty much 1v5 our team, and that's not really even an exaggeration. Who counters Jayce again?

Game #22 (WIN): Ok, so after getting brutalized by Jayce last game, I decided to jump on the carry Jayce bandwagon and I can tell you this much: He has a fucking broken laning phase. He's about as good as Urgot, and scales into late game much better. Ended up going 14/5/12. Had about 75 CS at the 10 minute mark which is perfectly acceptable. I delayed building a PD until very late due to his 2.5 AS ability. My build order was IE > BT > LW > QSS > PD. It worked very well for me. What could I have improved upon? Not get caught by Morgana binds. Both times could have been potential game throws had my team not retreated. 

Current ELO: 1297

Elo Hell #6

Game #19 (WIN): Decided to pick Vayne again after previous victory. 2/0/3 laning phase, 20 minute surrender. Kind of a boring game to be honest. My CS was pretty mediocre because my team just wanted to go for kills, once again.

Game #20 (WIN): Bottom lane once again, this time matched against Vayne and Sona. After racking my brains a little bit, we decided to go Tristana/Blitzcrank. Got an easy first blood due to the ridiculously high burst damage of the combo, and snowballed from there. Had an AP Yi that went 5/0 very shortly in and got a triple kill in the enemy jungle. They surrendered at 20, shortly after I got my Infinity Edge. My CS was low once again, partially because I'm bad at tidying up the wave for Explosive Shot, partially due to inexperience with Tristana.

Current ELO: 1298

Elo Hell #5

Game 17 (WIN): I picked Vayne for some bizarre reason and this game just snowballed out of control really quickly. My CS was absolutely terrible because my support was only interested in pushing the lane and killing our lane opponents. He was being a dick so I muted him. I don't feel like this game made me a better Vayne player at all, but at least I gained some elo, I guess. Kyle also made the random choice to play jungle Wukong and dominated. Guess you have to experiment sometimes!

Game 18 (LOSS): We had a leaver and I made a lot of mistakes due to being baited into chasing their team through the jungle at level 5. Our Miss Fortune didn't buy a single attack speed item. Her build was Merc Treads, Bloodthirster, Last Whisper, and BF Sword. Bot lane got double killed within the first three minutes. Awful game. Taking a break after this one.

Current ELO: 1271

Something to keep in mind: I definitely need to work on CSing better against stressful matchups: i.e. Yorick, Zyra, Leblanc, Malzahar, etc.

Elo Hell #4

Game 14 (WIN): Well, I picked Cassiopeia to counter Mordekaiser, so they countered that pick by sending Yorick mid and Morde top. Morde feeds first blood to Teemo and they proceed to trade kills all game. This Teemo is one of the rare players that builds some attack damage, so he ends up scaling into late game better than your average Teemo. Me and Kyle (on Eve) destroy teamfights with our combination of ults. There were a few tense moments, since they had kind of a devastating Yorick/Vayne/Mordekaiser combo to suddenly pop out with 3 AD carries. We stole a Baron with an Eve ultimate and also lost a Baron fight out of nowhere due to how powerful Yorick's ultimate can be. I definitely didn't CS as well as I could have this game, but I was up against Yorick so I think I did as well as could be expected.

Game 15 (WIN): Ryze against Brand with Kyle on Jarvan jungle. Burned his Flash very early, so we decided to torment him from that point on. Got a lot of successful ganks off and I snowballed as a result. Was very low in CS this game due to an early kill trade and the laning phase breaking down very early.

Game 16 (LOSS): Kyle on Jarvan switched with Riven, because he got counterpicked by Malphite top. So, Riven went to the jungle instead. Jarvan lost lane to Malphite and he built glass cannon AP and wrecked team fights with Zyra and 13/0/2 Vayne, the terror from bottom lane. I played Xerath and did tremendous damage and could instakill any one of them, but it didn't matter, because as soon as I was gone (Malphite ult), the game was over. Not much I could have done to help us win this one. My CS was really shitty this game, probably because I can't stand laning against fucking Zyra.

Current ELO: 1273

Elo Hell #3

Game 10 (WIN): Enemy team's Irelia never connected, so this was a win for us from the start, although me and my friend Rob did well as Cait/Taric bot. What could I have improved on? Not much, I did pretty okay. Maybe buy some pink wards. Rob, on the other hand, should stop getting grabbed by Blitz.

Game 11 (WIN): Still duo queuing with Rob. We go Graves/Blitz this game and don't dominate bot lane as much as I would like. Our Kennen and Hecarim get massively fed and wreck teamfights. I could have definitely landed more grabs this game and maybe drop some early pink wards. Rob could have rushed a big damage item earlier. No reason to triple dorans against Ashe when you're Graves.

Game 12 (LOSS): We went Cait/Janna bottom lane this time because Blitzcrank and Alistar were banned. We didn't do badly and Rob farmed pretty well. However, the opposing support was Sona and we just couldn't get any damage to stick. As a result, Caitlyn wasn't able to snowball and we couldn't carry 1/7 Mundo. We had an AD Malzahar that did surprisingly well, lol.

Game 13 (LOSS): Ryze against LeBlanc. I should have just dodged because regardless of how well you do in lane versus LeBlanc, you very rarely actually "win" the lane. Furthermore, she feeds on bad players and snowballs an early advantage for her team. Worse yet, they had Darius who pooped on Singed in lane. We even made it to late game but our tanks were completely clueless and didn't peel for Rob on Graves, so he got fucked every fight. Just a miserable, depressing game, and quite literally nothing I could do. I was putting out a lot of damage but by the time late game rolls around, Shaco and LeBlanc could just jump on Graves and take him out. Shyvana and Singed just weren't interested in preventing that from happening. My CS wasn't very good but it's very hard to lane against someone who can instantly kill you from full health any time you make the wrong move. Just an annoying, abusive champion that I hope I never have to lane against ever again.

Current ELO: 1260

Elo Hell Continued

Game 5 (WIN): Me and Kyle ended up bottom lane as Caitlyn/Taric versus Draven/Janna. We dominated pretty much from level 1. After we found out that Draven had no boots, we decided to freeze the lane and zone him off creeps. Any time he tried to come in for CS, we'd kill him. Needless to say, we carried this game pretty hard. I ended at 236 CS at 32 minutes with a score of 8/0/6 and 12.5k gold, all the highest on both teams. Draven, comparatively, had 86 CS and went 1/6/1. Even so, I did not play a perfect game. I missed a few too many CS early game while trying to freeze. I think I had around 65-73 at 10 minutes, which is far from perfect. Just something to work on.

Game 6 (WIN): Ended up supporting a random this game, and he bitched me out for missing Blitz grabs and said "holy shit this Blitz is bad." Proceeded to carry the shit out of his ass with the most epic grabs you have ever seen. He was probably shit talking me all game but I muted him (and his duo queue partner) very early on. Seemed to work out pretty well, because with our massive amount of peel (Blitz and Kyle on Nautilus), we were able to protect Kog, Cass, and Riven while they destroyed the entire enemy team. I'm not a strong support, though, and it's not a role I'm particularly interested in. Not sure what to say about improving there.

Game 7 (LOSS): Lee Sin level 2 ganks our Yorick and snowballs Trundle's lane tremendously. Trundle becomes absolutely impossible to kill and leads the game in CS. Lee Sin ganks three times before he hits level 4 and is successful on all ganks. Every lane snowballs out of control and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Vlad goes bottom and gets a double kill because we have no vision. What could I have done differently here? The only thing I can really think of is to farm better and get my items faster than everyone else. I wasn't able to get a lot of successful ganks off because everyone was so weak and Kyle was behind in the jungle from the very beginning.

Game 8 (WIN): Ryze hardcounters Veigar and I had the excellent opportunity of laning versus one. Had around 186 CS at 25 minutes; I can do better than that, but still not too bad. Didn't call Veigar mia and he got a kill up top once, so that's maybe something I could improve on. I need to bind the retreat ping to something, because I use R for smartcasting ults and V for regular casting. Veigar stunned me at one point and hit me with Q, so I just killed him from full health. It was good times.

Game 9 (WIN): Took Rumble against Xin Zhao top. I definitely need more practice with Rumble, although I did (narrowly) beat this guy. I had 38 CS by 10 minutes, which is really really shitty. I stacked two doran's shields to put up with XZ's crazy high damage and was able to get a few kills on him with the help of Nautilus. In team fights, the combination of Rumble, Nautilus, and Gragas was just too devastating for them to deal with. I ended up outfarming XZ but I still DEFINITELY could have done better. I'm not the strongest Rumble player, but I did end up going 10/4/9 with a very mediocre 198 CS (in a 40 minute game).

Current ELO: 1256

Elo Hell Documentation?!

Alright, so it's clear at this point that I'm definitely struggling to break out of the 1200 elo area in League of Legends. I thought maybe it would help me if I documented my ranked games, both wins and losses, and reflect on the mistakes I made and what I could improve on to win more games.

I am primarily an AP mid player, though I can play a few solo top champions and can at least passably play AD carry, but I prefer to stay out of bottom lane if at all possible, because I feel it is the most stressful lane in the game. I can jungle, but only on a couple of niche champions, like Riven and Xin Zhao.

Let's look at the ranked games I've played so far today.

Game 1 (WIN): This game, I got stuck playing AD carry. I grabbed Draven because I just wanted to play something aggressive and hopefully get first blood. I get out CS'd and outplayed in lane by the enemy Tristana, a player who clearly has more experience as an AD carry. I keep farming and taking opportunities to join into fights throughout the game and end up with a respectable CS score and we end up winning, though I pretty much got carried. I think we caught Tristana in her midgame slump, where she's not quite as strong. Even though AD carry is not my preferred role, I probably should spend some time practicing CS. I think I miss a lot because of the stress of bottom lane.

Game 2 (WIN): I duo-queued with my friend Kyle for this one and we were up for top and mid. Although I mostly play mid, I offered Kyle mid for this game because he's a very strong Gragas player. I go top as Riven and we both dominate our lanes. I get first blood on Singed and he ends up 0/7 by the end of the game. I lead in CS and had about 160 by 20 minutes. I did very well this game and I'm now 10-3 with Riven. She will definitely be my go-to choice for top from now on.

Game 3 (LOSS): Got stuck with AD carry again because I didn't want to make Kyle do it as it his weakest role. He went jungle Jarvan and did pretty well; it definitely wasn't his fault that we lost. We did, however, have a troll on our team. Our third pick said from the get-go that he was going to be playing support Swain, and was generally really negative. During the laning phase, he repeatedly went all-in on Kog Maw, getting a couple of kills, but almost always trading a death for it. Frequently, I died with him. By end game, Kog Maw was completely unstoppable and could pretty much solo our team. I'm not really sure what I could have done in this one. Sometimes trolls ruin your games.

Game 4 (LOSS): Even though we did lose this game, I feel pretty good about it. I led both teams in CS and didn't make any terrible plays. Unfortunately, after some very poor decisions (and trash talking in all chat) our Sona started throwing herself recklessly into towers and the enemy team. To make matters worse, one of the players in champion select locked in an AP mid champion after I had already picked Ryze. Stubbornly, he said "alright, 2 mid then." I tried to remain positive and Viktor ended up going top, feeding 6 kills to Jax. Again, there wasn't much I could do about this game.

CURRENT ELO: 1220