Tag Archives: Riot Games
First Pick Blitz
Actually, we had first pick, the title is a lie. I first-picked Corki. Why? Because I wanted to play Corki. Also, I had been really selfish in the past about not wanting to be first pick just to get countered. I picked Corki, locked in, and the other team IMMEDIATELY locked in Blitzcrank. Well, they mean business! We had already planned on playing Soraka, but what we did not expect was ADC Teemo.
Now it may look like I had almost double Teemo’s farm, but that started right from level one. We were blue side and the enemy invaded our Ancient Golem. We took their blue buff and I shoved bot as hard as I could. We cleared a full wave and pushed it right into turret. The turret cleared it. Still no Teemo or Blitz. When I hit 100 CS Teemo had 50. I had double Doran’s Blades and Phage and he had a dagger and an amp tome. I told Soraka “The next time you see Teemo just run at him.” Soraka and I were in lane, Teemo came out of hiding and Soraka just ran at him. He blew blinding dart on Soraka. I valkryed in and just destroyed him. I know, impressive, right? 134 AD beating 72 AD. Really it’s his fault! He was being really clever with mushrooms in the bushes. They pink warded bottom bush three times in laning phase. I had unlimited mana from a Soraka and therefore endless Qs to throw into the bush. Even without a ward in there I could both see them and harass them. I guess the 0-11 Blitz speaks volumes about how bot lane went.
Our biggest problem was the raid boss on the other team. Volibear got so big so fast that I was scared we would never be able to kill him. In order for Volibear to die he had to basically sacrifice himself to us fighting 1v5. I remember when I had five items and I fought Voli 2v1 with Soraka he still almost killed me. I had to refer to him as “Raid Boss” in all-chat because there were times that he would accidentally wander into all five of us and just drop to all fours and run away.
The winning factor in this game was Morgana and Hecarim. There was actually a late-game fight where Blitz grabbed Morgana in our jungle and they bursted her to almost death. She still had enough time to press R and activate Zhonya’s Hourglass. Meanwhile, Morgana’s team is closing in. One second passes. Another second passes. Health bars start to melt. Hecarim ulting in onto a team just after they get out of Morgana stun is NASTY. Hecarim’s W was making him unkillable in team fights. With him standing right next to Morgana she wasn’t going to die any time soon. He tanked all the damage and we cleaned up that fight. Soraka blew literally everything to save that Morgana. I didn’t realize this and spent my health pool foolishly.
This game started rough but ended well. It was one of those rare games when my whole team is positive KD and the enemy team is negative.
A Tree to the Rescue
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.
What Do I Say?
My brother asked me why I hadn’t written about this game yet. I told him the reason I hadn’t written about it was because I didn’t know what to say! I’ve given it a fair amount of thought and I think it would be best to go through the chronological order of what happened, what I bought, and how the other team died.
Morgana lost lane at level one. I haven’t checked the replay to see what she was doing. Maybe it was an extra strong leash for her jungler, maybe she was still in base and was AFK, I’m not sure. What I do know is that if you show up as a level one Morgana against a level two LeBlanc you had better be willing to eat some free harass. Morgana ate two spells and an auto attack when she showed up to lane. Silenced, no counter attacks. Another Q put her down to ~125 HP. She was under her turret while I last hit minions. I rolled up to level three and Morgana was still level one. I had 45 CS to Morgana’s 25. She would cast her puddle from under her turret and then just hide there again. This was great because it pushed the lane! I could keep it balanced and just abuse the space to zone Morgana!
I had about 2500 gold when I went back to shop. This was a big decision for me. Normally, AP mids go back rather frequently to replenish mana, buy wards, get potions, etc. I didn’t have any kills, but I was well ahead. I justified a risky purchase. I bought myself a Mejai’s Soul Stealer. Without any kills I knew I had to start farming champions in order to snow ball this game in a way that I wouldn’t fall off late game.
Morgana kept her distance from me. I was wary of her jungle Malphite because his ult combined with her ult could kill me. Then Morgana made a mistake. Her jungler was top and she rushed me. She hadn’t hit me with a snare in the game up to this point, but she figured she would just go for me and hope for the best. The combo hurt. I saw myself drop to about 150 HP. I was starting to panic. Morgana was critically low, but her ult was about to get its second tick and finish me off. With no alternative I hit Morgana with everything I have. My last desperation Sigil of Silence finishes Morgana off and I survive to see another day. Two stacks.
The only other time I came that close to death was when I over-extended and ate some mean damage. I was walking away with ~1/4 HP. I start to recall and see as Caitlyn starts to ult me! I have no idea how much damage this ultimate is going to do to me. I look at my pathetic health pool and try to calculate my chance of survival. With no way to make my passive proc and no team mates nearby the bullet crashes into me taking me to ~30 HP. Sweet! I start walking back towards creeps from mid tower and my whole team starts freaking out on me. Ok, they’re right, I should go back and heal!
There were a couple highlights from this game. One was the fact that I dodged three Malphite ultimates. He was a good sport about it, claiming after the game “I pride myself in those ults” and acknowledging that he had messed up a couple times. The last one I dodged actually caught one of my team mates. It was as we were diving the fountain to get 45 more gold out of Maokai. I blinked past Malphite to full combo Maokai and as I returned to my initial position Malphite ulted my team mates. They were sacrifices to the lazer gods.
The other highlight that I thoroughly enjoyed was when we were sieging the enemy base. We were standing in mid lane and the enemy team knew we would eventually get their base if they didn’t make a stand. Yorick, being the brave soul he is, led the charge for his team. We all stepped back from this strange act of aggression by the other team. Well, not all of us. I hit Yorick with a full combo. He walked into my range, he showed signs of aggression, so he deserved it. I was already at 20 stacks by this point, but my DFG was a huge initiation, and the ridiculous burst from Sigil of Silence followed by an ultimate version of Sigil dropped him to just a few hundred HP, which quickly disintegrated when I blinked forward on top of him. The enemy team immediately started to retreat. That was a great battle!
After they let us take their middle tower I just abused the walls of their base to pick people off. I was so fed I could blink over the wall, lead with DFG and gib someone in less than a second. This accounted for most of Caitlyn’s deaths.
This was the best score that I can remember getting in a Ranked game. I was very nervous picking LeBlanc early and getting counter-picked with a tanky team comp and Morgana. It’s very intimidating to see the enemy team picking champions like Yorick, Malphite, and Maokai because I know they are going to be inherently tanky and difficult for me to kill. Last item would have been Void Staff and I think I even had the cash for it, just didn’t get a chance to go back and buy.
Also, for the record, Lux/Panth beats Cait/Mao.
Good Game Lost
Put it in the record books: Shen support beats Blitz support. Blitz was looking at making the “big play” all game. That’s why he started mana crystal instead of boots. So level 1 Shen and Sivir just ran at me, Blitz whiffed his hook and then tried to play catch-up.
I don’t even need to go into detail about this game. I was +8 kills over deaths. No one else on my team was positive. Next best was top who was only -2 as Jayce. So pathetic. In team fights Renekton and Diana would just throw themselves at me. It just made me laugh that even if I used Arcane Shift and Flash I would still have a bruiser on top of me and my team would be looking at making “big plays”. I was stuck attacking Renekton through his Guardian Angel and Diana through her ridiculousness.
I asked my team to peel for me. Blitz said he would. I said I needed Darius to be peeling for me in fights as well. We never had another team fight. People just got caught out and died and the game was over. I tried to pass a surrender vote, but instead two people voted no so we waited an extra 20 seconds to watch them physically destroy our base. I don’t know if people just wanted to give the other team the satisfaction of destroying more buildings or if they were too stupid to realize that the team they had fed for the last 36 minutes wouldn’t be able to drop our base that fast. No one spawned before the base was destroyed except for our AFK Elise.
This was a normal game, but I’m pretty sure this is what elo hell feels like; people not knowing what they should be doing and just wanting to make “big plays” but they just fall behind in gold. Sivir did pass me in gold, but that was after I had wrecked her in laning phase. She managed to pick up four kills right near the end of the game as my team got caught out. She had a better team, I had a better K/D.
/ff
