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?
Friday, September 28, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
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
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
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
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
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
Sunday, September 23, 2012
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
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
Friday, September 14, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
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
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
Monday, September 3, 2012
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
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
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