I don’t think I ever got Urgot swapped in this game, which makes that Cleanse weapon seem slightly useless.
We were fairly dominant in the laning phase, but constantly had to avoid Darius ganks. If Darius got a hook on me I knew I was dead. I remember leaving the laning phase and being 4-3 and thinking to myself “How do I not have more kills than that?” I felt like we were in control most of the time. I did get zoned early, around level three when Urgot landed an Acid Hunter on me and Leona was back shopping and all I could do was sit there and take it.
Later in the game I had started picking up quite a few kills, I think I had made it to 10 kills, and the enemy was pushing mid. I got engaged on and thought I was going to die. However, I stealthed and walked back into my base and the enemy lost sight of me. I had turned to my north tower, but once I had dropped aggro I went back towards mid. I saw this large Nami ult just rolling down mid and thought nothing of it. It killed me. From one-third health it killed me. Nami was crazy fed from picking on our worthless Kat. She was the enemy powerhouse, as Darius only surpassed her in kills late in the game.
We were defending our Nexus for almost 25 minutes of this sad game. The enemy had dominated in top and mid lanes. Cho’Gath had taken top turret at eight minutes. Kat had been under her tower for most of the laning phase, just avoiding Nami. It was not a good plan. Luckily enough for me, when I told my team to keep me alive they would do that. We stood strong against wave after wave of the enemy’s onslaughts. Time and time again they would try to get to me, but my front line was too strong and I could destroy the enemy team from the safety of the back of the team fight. Occassionally, Darius would slip through the cracks and just walk at me, but I could finish him off in four or five auto attacks and then I’d turn on my ult and go to work on the rest of the team.
There was one fight where Nami was wandering over to our top-lane inhibitor to try to flank us. I stealthed up until I was in position to flank her while keeping distance from her team and I opened up on her. Leading with my slow for the stacks of poison, I dropped her health bar very quickly. She shot her stun bubble, but I used Flash to avoid it and secure the solo kill on the enemy carry. With the enemy AP down we quickly cleaned up the rest of the team with almost no problems.
After we won the next team fight, Jayce, Leona and myself ran to Baron to pick up that buff for our team. Baron dropped very quickly to my damage, as I had sold my boots for a second Phantom Dancer. It was the next fight that I regret the most.
Similar to the Nami situation, I found Cho’Gath wandering from his team near mid. I had noticed that he was AP Cho, not focusing on any defensive stats, just building Deathcap and Lich Bane. Easy enough, stay far enough away from him and I’ll be fine. I ping him, and step in. His health is getting chunked, but not as rapidly as I had hoped. He starts to run and throws up a defensive Rupture. I have my Flash and my Scimitar (Cleanse) so I don’t bother avoiding it. Then I see that it wasn’t a defensive rupture and it’s too late. Before I can react to the knock-up, Cho’Gath eats me.
“Shut down…” says the announcer, sadly. She knows what just happened. I made a mistake when judging the size of a foe and paid for it with my life, a life that won’t be restored until the game is over. I stepped out of position and bit off more than I could chew. The enemy crashed in and easy won a team fight with Darius getting a triple kill with his ridiculously overpowered ultimate.
“It’s my fault we lost,” I tell Dan and Steve on Skype. They point out the fact that the game wouldn’t be weighing so heavily on my shoulders in the first place if Katarina hadn’t lost mid to a support champ and if Cho hadn’t lost top tower at eight minutes into the game. That definitely made me feel a bit better. Losing still hurts, but having twice as many kills as second place, and 4.8k more gold than Sona (who finished second in the game) definitely felt good.
