This game was ours to lose. To be fair we did have some lanes that went negative and fell behind a bit in farm, but we had this insane ability to win skirmishes. However, whenever there was a team fight we lost because if Amumu grabbed me then I couldn’t avoid Gragas’ damage and would die a horrible cool-looking death. I like Malzahar’s death animation. This may be an unhealthy infatuation, especially when I’m the one playing Malz, but it sure takes some of the salt off of dying! It’s the little things.
I queued with Cryptic Guru, Paxoria, and ArmyofNine, and for whatever reason none of us wanted to jungle. I guess it gets lonely in there. Because of this if I wanted blue buff I had to get it myself. I didn’t want to fight the Ancient Golem, but I had a few methods of getting blue buff. One was abusing E. It’s a 320 base damage ability when maxed and a 0.8 ratio on an ability that is targeted. Sure, it’s a great farming tool, but if you’re sitting on trip Doran’s Rings with the smallest bit of AP in your runes and some spell pen boots you hurt kids. Gragas showed up to lane with blue buff and ate my E immediately. Without E I wasn’t pushing the lane. In 7 short seconds it was back and he ate another one. This time he stopped to drink his magic potion to heal from his passive so I full comboed including ignite. Thanks for blue buff!
I complimented Amumu for winning a team fight for his team. He was a strong ganker, and a wonderful initiator. After he landed a beautiful ultimate I gave him a shout-out in all-chat, to which he politely responded with “fanks”. However, I spotted him walking to blue buff with a ward in the enemy jungle. I waited a second then threw my Q and W over the wall and press E on golem when I was granted (malefic) vision. Boom! Blue buff! I asked Amumu if we were still friends and he replied that we were now “Fiercest enemies” or something like that. Psh, 70 gold and one CS and all of a sudden we’re not friends? Rude!
My favorite play of this game wasn’t one of mine, it was actually Maokai’s! I was in the enemy purple side jungle near red buff. I almost killed Amumu, but he was getting away, nothing I could do about it. However, I failed to mention that I was being chased by a drunk and a bear walking on its hind legs. My health bar was slipping. Ignite would finish me off. I couldn’t escape. I can see the mummy, a bear, and a fat man. The fat man must die. I unload as many spells as I can on him. Throw my ignite down just for good measure. He backs off, probably just running to die. However, Volibear smartens up and figures out that he can run faster on all fours. Now he’s running at my angrily and I’m doomed. I’m an AP mid on cooldown, no flash, no ignite, no team. But wait! We’re in the jungle! Where there’s jungles there are trees! Enter stage left Maokai! Twisted Advance stops Voli in his tracks. Arcane Smash provides a tiny bit of separation, saving me from getting scarfed by a lightning-enchanted bear! All I need is a second, my skills are back, I’m not totally worthless! With Voli being held in place by the Twisted Treant I take the opportunity to unload my spells on him. He gets cut down and the announcer screams out “Legendary!” Gragas is dead. Voli is dead. Amumu is too low to even look at me. The tree had saved the day! I was 8-0.
Then we lost. Phew, saved you a bunch of me whining about player positioning and lack of wards and no smite for Baron and no way to pressure a team inside their own base when Amumu, Volibear, Blitzcrank and Gragas could initiate on us. It was the nastiest CC-line. I’d call it tank line but they didn’t seem all that tanky, they just had ways of holding us all in place while they did their AoE thing.
I don’t know if QSS was a smart 6th item. I had lots of money. I probably could have gone GA, but I figured I would still melt in the AoE burst. I was hoping to get QSS, use it to counter mummy ult and then flash to safety. See how nicely that played out in my mind? Ok, so here’s reality. Amumu initiates. No problem, he didn’t hook me, he hooked a creep or champion near me, then he flashed. That means his ult is coming! Boom! There’s his ult! Had my finger on the button, cleanse! I’m free! Gragas barrel caught me before I could Flash which pinned me against the wall. Without that extra MR I would have… and I’m dead. I literally didn’t get to flash. Maybe I’m bad, but I just thought it was hilarious how poorly it played out in real life even though I knew the initiate was coming when he threw his little bandages out. Oh well, trial and error. I’ll go GA or BV next game and see how I like it. The extra health from BV would have been appreciated.
