Life on the Fields of Justice

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My Breaking Point

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Czarni and I had really gotten into the habit of playing duo queue in Ranked this season.  We had some really early success where we had side lanes that would just not die and we would snowball the game out of control.  This game was my breaking point.

The Kha’Zix on this team should never have tried Ranked.  He literally didn’t know how to lane.  He would just die repeatedly to Darius regardless of any external factors.  He didn’t even need to get ganked.  I can understand dying to Darius, but not as a champion with immense ranged harass and a jump.  It is too demoralizing to shut down mid lane, pressure bot with my ultimate, only to watch top lose because he has no idea what he’s doing.

I would have finished this game at 8/2, but I had to ult into the Baron pit to try to steal Baron away from the other team.  People on my team had no idea it was even happening!  It sometimes shocks me to the core to see how clueless people are in this game, and that is what pushed me to my breaking point.

I’ve lost too many games in duo queues because the system is matching us with players who can’t function in a PvP setting.  I think Czarni will agree that we have had some of the worst team mates that this game could possibly supply.  Did I mention our 1/15 bot lane the other game?  The Vayne who just stacked BF Swords?  Trolling must be fun for these people.

After this game I told Czarni that I needed to solo queue for at least a couple games to get myself out of this rut.  Maybe in solo queue I’ll find thinner kids who aren’t as hard to lift.

solo ranked 12-9 Twisted Fate

Tie Goes to the Prophet

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This game sucked.

I hate games that go well for me yet are miserable for everyone else on my team.  This was one of those games.

It makes it very difficult to snowball a game when I am stuck playing mid but bottom and top both keep dying.  When I would try to gank for bot Kennen would just zip away and when I went top Jayce died for free in a three-man dive on Garen.  Jayce, just step out, no need to tank turret!  That’s what your two team mates are for!

Kennen knew I was trouble, and I knew that Kennen was going to be a problem.  Kennen acknowledged this in the game and said “gj Malz” one time after I caught him and killed him.  “You can carry this game” is all that he said after that.  I wasn’t quite sure.  Jayce was way behind to the point that he was just about useless.  Bot lane had fed Kennen to the point that he could just press R and be immune to me because I would be forced to run away.  Luckily, AD Kennen has to pick his targets, he can’t melt a full team like AP Kennen does with his ultimate and his burst damage.

As this game went longer I started getting closer to a finished build.  I was very fed.  Malefic Visions has this way of picking up kills because of how it ticks.  I didn’t mind.  I loved having the gold.  Better me than Jayce in this game.  I knew that if I could just get ahold of that silly rat Kennen I could win this game.

We had won a small team fight that gave us the advantage we needed to push up and take a tower.  We were still clawing our way back from being behind this enemy team.  They were down a man or two which meant that we would probably get the inhibitor for free.  I let my team know that I was going to grab Kennen the first chance that I got.  My opportunity came so I Flashed in and grabbed Kennen with Nether Grasp.  His health bar was melting at an intense rate.  Hecarim ulted to close the gap and get on Kennen and disrupted Vi and Garen’s attempts to stop my channel.  Kennen was dead, the inhibitor was down, and the game was too late to salvage.  The enemy team had no way to battle my Rylai’s slow and the sheer damage output of being down their most fed carry.

Even though the game was a tie, in this case the tie goes to the prophet!

1060 Malzahar

AHGL: Microsoft

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This was a big game that we were all looking forward to.  We were both doing well in our Division, which made us look like top dogs.  We knew that Microsoft would be some of the fiercest competition we would see because we had played Zenimax in the pre-season and done well against them.  Here are the standings going into our Microsoft game:

Screen Shot 2013-02-20 at 7.33.55 AM

 

As you can see we were sitting at the top of the Division, but Microsoft and Zenimax are nipping at our heels.  If we’re not careful Zenimax or Microsoft could knock us down from our current first-place birth.

Our first game got twisted on us because we wanted to run a different comp with me in the bottom lane, but when Microsoft banned out three champions that Choppes plays we knew that I should take LeBlanc mid.  I was convinced I would be matched up with their mid player, who played Nidalee.  Nidalee even picked Cleanse which was characteristic of a person who was scared they would die to LeBlanc.  However, Microsoft sent Cho’Gath mid instead, which the announcers said was a “good counter” to LeBlanc.

In Champion Select we ran into a slight hiccup because with Pantheon out our bot lane composition was up in the air.  However, Jake offered to play Kha’Zix which could make bot lane work.  We figured why not!  We could give something new a try!

After I started 3-0 I decided to get a Soul Stealer and start feeding.  It was extremely aggravating to burst Miss Fortune down to 20 HP, cast Ignite, only to look down and see that Ignite didn’t cast.  Welp, that sucks!

Czarni’s jungle was fantastic this game.  It seemed like he was always there when we needed someone to peel or to tank, but he never died.  That’s the idea jungle, one who out-farms the enemy team’s AD carry, never dies, but still has a massive impact on the game.  The announcers were really pleased with the activity they saw from Vi.

SirSpam was put in a precarious situation when the lands swapped because he was holding top just fine, but when the lanes swapped he was forced to play the lane as two versus one.  I tried to sneak up to help, but for whatever reason Miss Fortune was just barely surviving my burst.  Sad day!

AHGL vs Microsoft Game One

 

We went into a second game, but things got real interesting.  They banned out Jarvan IV, LeBlanc, and Riven I think, which left up all of the global ultimates that we wanted to use.  We decided to try our global ultimates team against Microsoft.  Microsoft had a fresh line up, so it was like playing against a whole new team!

I almost died first blood to a Shaco gank, but using a potion saved my life.  The tick on the Ignite probably would have killed me if I had used my Flask, but I used the spare potion I had purchased instead and just barely squeezed out of that one alive.  Shen ganked shortly after that and helped me pick up First Blood against Katarina in mid.  She did not forget that.

Before the 10 minute mark I was actually diving inside of the enemy team’s base.  Here’s a quick picture just to make you laugh!

Screen Shot 2013-02-19 at 11.06.28 AM

Yup, 9:57, going for it.  After I died I let the other team know that it was worth it.  It really shows our attitude in this game.  We had complete map control once everyone hit level six.  It was pretty great.  We could turn team fights around so easily.  I can remember being chased only to have Shen ult to me and Pantheon’s circle show up behind the enemy.  Oh yeah!  Stuff is about to get real!

We ended up taking the game in commanding fashion.  Microsoft never backed down and never surrendered, which was a good thing because with a Singed and a Katarina you never know if the game is over until it is over.

AHGL vs Microsoft Game Two

Attack of the Yordles!

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This has been something I’d wanted to do for the longest time; an all yordle team!  Now, technically Rammus isn’t a yordle, but we left Amumu up and the enemy team picked him, so we had to live with the consequences.

We did fairly well in our lanes.  Iggie hadn’t played Tristana in quite some time, so there were a few times when he would jump in with Rocket Jump instead of harassing with Explosive Shot.  That made for interesting times.

There were three highlights for me this game.  The first highlight was that the enemy team had a Cho’Gath who got super huge.  His 11-5 record doesn’t show how intimidating he was during the mid-game.  Having a large Cho’Gath just made a yordle team that much more worth it!  He still turns into a very small squirrel, just slightly larger than Rammus.

My second highlight was a team fight near Dragon.  The enemy team had wiped everyone but myself and Ziggs.  Ziggs was kiting them through some immense spell damage.  I was trying to get close enough to Ziggs to shield him from Ezreal’s damage, but I just could close the gap.  Instead I used Help, Pix on Ezreal and combined that with Glitterlance to hit three members of the enemy team.  After a few auto attacks I picked up the official triple kill as a support champion.

My third highlight was a team fight that we lost.  I watched as Amumu chased a team mate from blue side’s Ancient Golem out into the river at Baron.  My team mate tried to run south down the river, but I got Amumu’s attention and brought him up towards top lane.  He chased.  I pretended to be running from his bandage toss, but I was really kiting to a mushroom.  After Amumu stepped on that he didn’t retreat, he wanted purple blood.  He continued to chase me up, further and further.  I walked him from one mushroom to the next until he realized what had happened.  He had been tricked.  I popped my shield on myself, growing my health bar significantly and slowed Amumu.  This bought me enough time to do two more auto attacks and finish him off.  It made me feel pretty good!

At the end of this game I purchased Mikael’s Crucible in an attempt to keep Jeff alive.  We were playing at the Rymer’s, so I looked across the table and said, “We’re going to lose this game.  We’re going to lose this game unless you kill Cho.  Just shoot him to death.”  When the next fight broke out Cho caught Tristana with his Rupture.  I used Mikael’s when she landed to top her off and then watched as Tristana drained Cho’s health bar.  The fight went quickly after Cho was dead.  The last remaining person was the Ezreal who managed to sneak out the back.  I used Flash and Help, Pix to finish him off, putting me on a rampage!

I’ll still remember the sight of Rammus rolling into the enemy team, bumping into four of them, and then getting ulted by Lulu to bounce them all in the air and get super scary.

1059 Lulu

A Demacian Does Not Retreat

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We had a LAN at the Rymer’s this weekend, which was a new experience for me.  This game we decided to play roles that we weren’t very familiar with.  In this case we had Goldboat on support which never happens, Iggie playing top lane which is also very rare, Choppes running the AD carry role, and myself in the jungle.

If I had to count all the times I had played jungle since I started this blog, or even in the last year, it would probably be once.  I just don’t get into the trees very much.  I had not jungled since the Season Three changes, so this was going to be an interesting experience.

All I remember about this game was coming from being down in kills and gold to try to win.  I remember Sivir and Diana doing immense damage and forcing me to get as much health as possible.

Xin felt ridiculous.  I felt like my damage was way too high based on my items.  I felt like my cooldowns were extremely low and that my kill potential was high because of the high base damages of my abilities.  After I had Frozen Mallet combined with the slow of my Audacious Charge I could stick on anyone.

In team fights I would zone Sivir and Diana until my team could clean up everyone else.  In many of those situations, Sivir and Diana would spend more time running away than fighting me, resulting in me just getting free damage onto them.  Because of this I finished with most kills, fewest deaths, and most assists. It felt great.

The only negative side-effect of this game was that I now ban Xin Zhao in every Ranked game I play because I’m scared to see him emerge from the jungle!  It was probably when I got caught by five people on the enemy team and still managed to escape with Ghost that made me so intimidated.  That’s the one time that I broke the Demacian Rule:  A Demacian Does Not Retreat!

1057 Xin Zhao