Post-Vacation

So it's been a while since I posted last to this blog, and it's not because I've been taking a break from LoL (well, not really).

After my last post, I immediately dropped right back out of Bronze IV and hard, hard, down to 0 LP in Bronze V again.  That was a very, very humbling experience.  Actually more humbling than being placed into Bronze V initially was.

At any rate, that caused me to do some thinking about my strategy and about my capabilities as a player, and I decided to take some time to really focus on a couple of things:

1. Diversifying Roles.  I needed to become more comfortable outside of the Support Zone.  A couple of the games I lost during my quick slide into oblivion were the result of being pushed into roles I wasn't 100% comfortable with, and performing adequately to my own standards but not having the bandwidth left over to really affect the outcome of the game overall beyond that individual performance.  It was harder for me to practice good map awareness and leadership when I was devoting all of my attention to mechanically keeping pace with my opponents in lane or in the current fight.

2. Diversifying Champion Selection.  A few of my losses were also the result of just not being all that comfortable with tanky supports--and here I'm talking primarily about Thresh and Leona.  When my team goes tankless with jungle and top and I'm 5th pick support, I have no choice but to pick one of these two (or potentially Volibear or Malphite, which I would LOVE to develop as part of my pool but that's a mission for the future).  Because of not really playing those champs, my performance as a support really suffered.  Whether a champ is "easy" or not, playing competitively requires reflexes and instincts around the capabilities of your champion's kit that I just did not possess for either of them.  That was a major liability.

This time-out (or vacation) was part of a realization that I've come to adopt as a guiding philosophy for Ranked--when I stop advancing because my current capabilities are not up to the challenge at my new MMR, that is the time to step away, identify things I can focus on actively improving in Normal, and do it so that I can go back to improving my standing in Ranked.

The reasoning behind this is that, as long as I'm continuing to advance, working on attributes that I can only safely improve in Normals (like learning new champions for a given role, or learning new roles) are actually inefficient overall.  Staying in competitive Ranked form while accruing LP and MMR helps me to continue to become more comfortable and to hone instincts and reflexes--and once I begin to level out I can take some time to examine why I'm not moving upward any longer and really refocus myself on those areas at that time, returning to Ranked to employ newly-developed skills and to test whether my training has been effective.

This will keep me from burning out on training for training's sake--Normals played to master a new role or champ or technique but without any correlation to a Ranked payoff--and also keep me moving up as quickly as possible to test myself against more difficult opponents.

I spent some time in this break learning more about top lane and about Renekton specifically, practicing with Leona and also honing some more Mid skills with Ahri.  This has served me well and I've risen steadily since then, approaching a promotional to Bronze 3!

More to come, soon:

Current Status:

Bronze IV, 97 LP
85 games after placement, 45 wins
Support win % this week: 90

Promotion!

Well, it's fitting--Thresh, which was the champ that led me to my first Ranked defeat back in my second post two whole weeks ago now, was also the champ that brought me victory in my second promotion series match, securing my move up to Bronze IV!

Two weeks feels like a while to manage the move up one division like this, but given that it's the absolute cellar division and a place reputed to be filled with trolls and ragers, and that most of this time was spent really trying to figure out the mechanics and strategy of this game enough to compete, I feel OK with that kind of timeline.

So from here, my first major milestone, I need to begin to hone my mechanics and expand on my champion pool and role ability a bit (so far about 95% of my games have been with Nami, Thresh or Ahri).  I'll play a few more normals (been on a very strong winning streak with Ranked so wanted to continue it at least this far) to get more practice with Renekton, Nasus and Riven and see if one or more of those in top or jungle can help me perform more consistently.

And I just noticed that I also broke my second major initial milestone, the 50%+ winrate for ranked games after being seeded! And-and-and, according to Lolking, my winrate with Nami has finally reach 50% as well.  Yowza, talk about a confluence...

So at the six-game mark in my winning streak I put down my competitive gloves for a day or two and start to stretch my game-wings.  It feels pretty good!

Overall Status:

Bronze IV, 0 LP
24 Wins, 47 Games Played

870 LKS

Promotion Series!

So after finding myself at 99 LP and worried about a loss, I managed to eke out a win with a great team going 4v5 after our Tryndamere AFKed when he died the first time.  That meant PROMOTION TIME!  Or nearly.  Now I just have to win 2 of the next three.

It took me 45 total games after seeding to make it to my promo series, in which time I managed to win 22.  That's not quite a 50% win ratio, but it's nearly there and still climbing.  LolKing tells me my support winrate for the last week is 65%--I'll take that.  I'm excited that I'm finally there, with all the drama that results from it as well.  Being at a high LP sum feels a bit like floating on a cloud.  Not in the good way (well, a little in the good way), but in the sense that there's just this tiny, intangible thing holding you up where you are, and it could evaporate in a second leaving you with a hard fall.  When you're in Bronze V with very few LP, the cold cellar floor is pressed right against your face--there's no vertigo, just claustrophobia.

I guess it's the sensation of seeing myself having something to lose for the first time in LoL.  I can understand why people get so worked up about it...but honestly I'm not sure why it's the Bronze Vs that seem to.  Anyway, maybe it gets worse as you get into the higher divisions--my experience there is VERY limited.  I looked back at my season 3 records and it appears that I only played a total of 14 ranked games last year.  Even fewer than I thought, but with as much as I lost I imagine they felt like plenty.

As of the time of this writing I have won the first of my promotional matches.  I'll play the second after I get back from the gym tonight and hopefully have excellent news.

99 LP

You have GOT to be kidding me!  I was at 84 LP and assumed one more victory would be enough to get me to a promo series--I'd been earning 17-18 per game, and this marked an abrupt drop to 15!  And here I thought they had eliminated clamping (yeah, I know it's only a drop of 2, but what a pivotal moment to drop).

I'm only upset because this puts me in a situation where I can really only hurt myself with the next match--if I win, I'm in the same position I would have been in had I just gotten my usual LP reward, but if I lose I'll need two matches (guaranteed) to get back up to promo series position.  I'm confident that I'll get there soon even if I blow my next game, I'm just frustrated at being potentially 3 matches from promos rather than in them now.

This frustration stems from my realization in an earlier post that I've been gaining about 30 LKS on average per week so far, and in Season 4 I only have so many weeks.  I'm beginning to think that given the slow and incremental improvement I'm making, I won't get very far up the ladder before the season is over!  So every misstep or setback, especially at this very early stage, can be costly in the long term.

But wait, this isn't about getting high rank, is it?  I guess not, but to the extent that an improved rank is indicative of improvements in my level of play I will continue to seek it out.

Overall Status:

Bronze V, 99 LP
21 Wins, 44 Games

869 LKS

Slow and Steady

I'm not winning a race, exactly, but I am winning at my objectives, by any reasonable measurement, and improving my gameplay along with the rankings that go along with it!

Looking back at the past two weeks since I got seeded, I've improved my Lolking Score by about 30 per week with a consistent upward tilt to the line, and I am now sitting just one victory away from a promotion series to B4 (or B3, depending on what the actual situation turns out to be--not sure how that works now).

Most recent accomplishment is playing Renekton in a ranked game for the first time and coming out with not many kills (1), but dominating my lane solidly against Olaf and helping bring the game to a very quick conclusion (nexus down at about 24 minutes with most of my team around level 14).

I know Renekton is considered a freelo champ, especially in lower divisions, but since Top is not a lane I usually play and I'm pretty terribad overall anyway, I consider it a victory in more than just the "getting LP" sense.

Overall Status:

Bronze V, 84 LP
20 Wins, 43 Games Played

LKS: 859 (was 800 when I started)

5-Man Support Main in Solo Queue

I just had an incredible and surprising experience.

Queued up for Ranked solo, I'm third pick but call support preference, next person calls mid/supp pref, I indicate that I can do passably at mid if needed and have a setup for Jungle in a pinch but really prefer to play support since I'm best there by far.

The second player indicates that he, too, has the same situation.

The first player in pick order indicates that he, too, mains support.

Then the remaining two chime in--"yeah me too lol".

So we have five support mains figuring out how to arrange ourselves to be competitive.  I do end up with the support role, playing Nami as usual, along with Singed top, Yi jungle, Leblanc mid and Quinn bot.  We absolutely cleaned up, by a margin of twenty or twenty five kills or so.  It wasn't the biggest blowout I've been a part of thus far, but what was amazing about it was the level of coordination and map awareness involved--it was far better than with any team I've encountered.  We were taking objectives quickly and cleanly, consistently outmaneuvering our opponents in order to isolate champs and eliminate them before moving for bigger or tougher targets.

I THINK--but I may be wrong--that this is how the game is supposed to be played once you're out of Bronze.  It was heartwarming to find a bunch of bronze players performing like this, and it reaffirmed my commitment to improving my communication, map awareness and strategic sense as keys to victory.

Just some thoughts.

Overall Status:

Bronze V, 60 LP
15 Wins, 35 Games Played
842 LKS

Carrying as a Support

Can be really, really hard.

Apparently this is a "real" Australian sport known as wife-carrying.

I feel like my individual play level is probably about B4 at this point, but really strong carrying definitely takes more than skill at the division above, and as a support it feels like you need an even larger gap in skill to actually carry games.

Don't worry--I will HAVE that skill, and I will use it to get myself out of Bronze V.

Last game jungle trynd on the enemy team walked into every. single. bubble I dropped at him.  His movement was totally predictable, but it signals that at the very least my prediction and anticipation for skillshots is improving from where it was!  Practice is paying off a little.

Overall Status:

Bronze V, 43 LP
14 Wins, 34 Games Played

830 LKS, 11-8 with Nami this week, lifetime winrate up to 41% with her including my initial 5 losses.  This is the number I'm looking forward to getting to 50% as one of my first two tangible goals (the other being promotion to Bronze IV).