4th try - Ban dat Kassa!

Aah, the daily ranked match!
I'm 4th at champions pick. I don't really pay attention to the bans, until I see that Kassadin has not been banned.
Kassadin not banned.
Kassadin not banned.


A truck of unpleasant memories hits me. I shyly point out this fact in chat, and a mate answers "np, just counter kassadin". Well I am too noob to know how to counter a champion I cannot even play well. Almost every Kass I faced mid was a pain in the... lane. Besides, when I'm playing with my friends and we want to win fast and easy, one of them just picks Kass and goes mid. The match usually ends @ 20 mins. This is my idea of Kassadin, like... the Boogeyman of the Fields of Justice. No offense to Fiddle.


So, we're Yorick, Warwick, Lux, Cait, Lulu (ye I'm stuck to the support role whenever I can) vs. Kassadin (ç_ç), Graves, Nocturne, Irelia and Taric.


Some discussion about the summoners, I pick flash + ignite as usual, someone asks me or Cait to take cv (why Cait? for ulti?) so our poor AD carry switches to exhaust / ignite / heal / cv / heal and eventually keeps heal + flash. Their bot lane seems to be pretty tough, they got double heal, taric also has cv but no flash. Their Nocturne also doesn't have smite. I thought it was an obvious must-have for all junglers, but I'm just an apprentice and won't question any weird choice.


Game loading screen freezes, I exit with alt+F4 and quickly rejoin the game. All is ok, but I can't see the health potions in the shop :V err... I don't think of closing the game completely and try reloading again (that would have been too smart). I just pick one more ward and some extra mana pots at start.


Cait is very self confident and plays quite aggressively, so forgetting the 2x heal we get involved in an early-level duel which ends with Cait dying, me killing Taric and Graves getting a double kill on us. Yay, pro support is pro -.- ...and meanwhile, our WW is disconnected. 


After that, the game changes quickly. Luckily, Yorick got FB from Irelia top and now freely feeds on her. Taric disconnects, Kassadin can't kill Lux mid and the game ends fast without much problems (and not a single team fight). I don't really feel it's a GG, enemy team had lots of dc and an AFKer, and... as I realized later, it's Kassadin free week. And this Kass wasn't really shining. Free ELO for us, but wasn't really a challenging or fun game. We felt sorry for our opponents (well, at least I did) which only had bad luck. Some of them were actually good (like that Graves we had bot).


+18 rating, 998 ELO, Suppordle still has more luck than skill.

3rd try - Kittens, kittens everywhere

I went home today after the dissertation of my Ph.D. thesis and totally felt k.o., so I took a nap and woke up one hour ago or so.
How better celebrate the day if not by pressing the solo queue button of random despair and infinite serendipity? :D


..."serendipity"?

Forgive me, I think I made too many toasts. Cheers.


Here we go, I'm 3rd in pick order. Weird bans, Cassio and Urgot... I don't know how it is at higher ELO, but I've never seen them banned before, so I'm like "?" but ok, whatever.
I ask for support as usual, chat stays silent. I pick Lulu anyway, no-one complains. Sweet, I guess.


So we're Caitlyn, Ryze, Lulu, Wukong, Olaf vs. Ezreal, Fizz, GP, Shen, Graves.
Support Shen and solo top Fizz on enemy team? I'm not so enthusiastic about it. I played a couple of times as an AD carry and a friend supported me with Shen. All in normals. And we were dominating the lane every time. Besides, our Cait doesn't have heal, and their Graves does. Infinite harass, bait, heal, taunt, smoke, burst, enemy double kill? We'll see.


Game starts, I'm bot with Cait and the other 3 are guarding our blue. Someone asks why I didn't take cv, but other 2 answer in my place that exhaust is way better and they already like me for that. Whoa. Stunned by such an undeserved appreciation, I thank the dudes and head to my bush for guarding my side of the jungle (we're on the blue side).


Suddently a wild enemy team appears to steal our buff! I'm too far away to join the party, so I watch helplessly as our team gets pushed away. I take the chance to cross the river and ward their golem. GP comes right after to take the blue buff helped by Ezreal, so I turn around the wall to steal it from behind with a well placed glitterlance. I obviously fail, but our Ryze comes near to find GP with low life and jumps to [flash + Q + ignite] the hell out of him. And it's a FB! (And an assist for me, and a blue buff for our midder.) Ezreal tries to avenge his friend, but that's not a smart choice since we're 2, so I got the second kill with a super-cute glitterlance as he's trying to escape to his turret. Yay! Great start :D


This Shen is not so pro as a support, and bot lane luckily isn't that hard. (Got really lots of luck recently...). Wukong faces Fizz without problems, Ryze owns Ezreal mid, Olaf doesn't get himself killed by minions. Excellent.


This game was quite fast, I don't remember any proper team fight happening. Some harass, lots of ganks from enemy team, lots of CC, but we're always pushing, and eventually we make our way to their Nexus. GG!


One thing I remember from this match is... err.... kittens. Lots of kittens. To keep it polite, as always. I remember that on many occasions my teammates called a couple of us pussies 'cause some of us were playing pretty defensive. Like when 3 of us, with low life, were destroying their nexus turrets and the entire enemy team respawned. Maybe I'm a little coward, but I remember too many games lost due to a predictable ace when we were in clear advantage. So i prefer being a pussy rather than a loser, I guess XD


+ 16 rating, 980 ELO, Suppordle is too cute to lose.

(LOL, I just realized that my stats are the same as last time XD)

2nd try - Don't feed the minions

New day, new hopes.


Solo queue starts. Pick order: I'm third, not bad. (I don't think I got it very well, but I guess that when I'm first in order, it somewhat means that I'm supposed to be the best-ranked of my team. This generally scares me.)
I nicely ask for support or mid, no answer. I ask again, silence. Chills.
"Ok if I support?"
Still no answer.
A pale "yes" appears in chat later, relief.
I pick lulu and am ready to be cute and cuddly.


"blehh dont want to ad carry vs kog with lulu"
Says my Graves, suddently making me feel wrong.
"lulu is over"
Another one says.
I feel somewhat guilty for no reason.
"sorry, you could just ask for a different one
I said I wanted to supp ^^"

So the game is loading.
We're Shen, Brand, Lulu, Udyr and Graves vs. Lux, Kog'maw (new jurassic skin, I wanted to see that one in game!), Skarner, Cho'gath and Soraka.


Game starts, and soon our jungle Udyr gets executed from the red lizard and Shen gives FB to Cho. Sigh. Brand gets executed from enemy turret right after. Such a glorious start!


The game goes on, Shen feeds a bit the poor starving Cho at top and Brand gets owned mid by Lux. Double sigh.
Meanwhile, in bot lane, we are facing Kog and Soraka without problems. As Udyr comes to gank, I extend a bit to place a ward and find myself facing a shining Skarnurrr resting in a bush. Moments of panic that end with a 3-0 for our team :3

We won our lane somewhat, got another 2 kills from Kog, everything fine. Our turret falls first but their one follows after a very short time, so I guess it's ok.


Luckily, my team sucked in lane phase but ruled in team fights. Despite the tendency of my comrades to wander alone into enemy jungle, of course. After a bad fight they go for baron, and Udyr goes in suicide mode trying to steal it. He succeeds (unbelievable XD), so Baron was stolen and our team... err... our Graves alone could get the buff. Yay! (...yay?)


Moar fights, we get fed enough to pulverize their nexus. Aaand... it's a GG!!


+16 rating, 964 ELO, Suppordle still wins!! :D

1st try - Why not cv?

So it has come to this.
With a little anxiety I press the "play" button. Solo queue, here I come!


I'm second in my team. I decided I want to support, 'cause this is what I'm best at. (Or at least, supporting makes me feel confident.)


So I pick support Lulu. My team has Veigar mid, Trynd jungle, Caitlyn AD and Wukong top. Not bad.
We're versus Swain, GP, Tristana, Kennen, Amumu.
They got no standard support, but I got raped so many times by no-support lanes that I take this as a bad sign.
They got tons of aoe, I imagine my entire team bound by 3-4 aoe ultis, while Swain is crow-dancing on our corpses. Beautiful perspective.


I take a look at the chat. Champion pick time. Cait starts complaining 'cause I took flash + exhaust (she obviously had flash + heal). She wants me to take cv and heal. I refuse (I really don't feel confident supporting with those summoners) and ask her to trust me. Game starts before we have time to argue further.
*Sigh - I think - good start, complaining even before game launch.*


But the game starts, and after Veig asks me to pull out a cv (...errr...) everything goes just fine.
Me and Cait are facing a fearsome Kennen-Tristana bot lane. I say fearsome, cause they really were terrifying. Luckily for us, they were so bad that we got FB in the first 5 mins, and won easily our lane.


The game goes on, and we face the team fight phase without much problems. Honestly I have to confess that though bot lane was terribad, the rest of enemy team was pretty good, and we had hard times and nice team fights.


Eventually we made our way up to their nexus, and it was a GG.
No QQ at the end, no post-game chat insults... too good to be true!


+18 rating, 948 ELO, Suppordle wins!

Descent into madness

So, it has come to this.

I stumbled into League of Legends months ago. I never liked DoTA-like games, so I was pretty surprised when I felt myself totally LoL-addicted after only a few moments of play.
I remember that in those days I felt anxious playing PVP games, and I stucked in AI games most of the time. Day by day I got more confident, and begun playing with a couple of IRL friends. Well, the path to damnation was undertaken, and there was no way out.

Little by little I managed to know the game better and play slightly better (consistently with my skills), and after I reached level 30 I knew that I could enjoy the sweet delights of ranked gaming. After more practice I finally plucked up some courage and selected the "ranked" option.

Oh, sweet merciful gods!

The pain! The horrible feeling of total defeat and lack of order, judgement, rationality!
I never encountered so many trouble (leaver, ragequits, AFKers, instalockers, feeders, trolls, jerks etc. etc.) as in my first ranked games. Don't get me wrong, I know these things exist in LoL (and many other games) and I have to live with it. I just didn't know there was SO MUCH MORE harassing and all at once in ranked games, at least at low ELO.

Long story short, I crashed into the "Hell Zone", one game after another.
It is my fault for sure, as I don't always have brilliant games (to keep it polite). But I couldn't stop believing that much of the fail I faced (let's say 50%?) was also due to "bad" teammates. This thought kept me from playing ranked games for a while, so I ended up solo queuing only once or twice in a month. I guess many players are or were in my situation.

I recently decided to try again and climb out of the Hell Zone.
To make it more fun and challenging, I decided to keep a diary of the whole process. 
Which could lead to capturing moments of eternal winz, or just (more likely) hopeless fail. 

If someone happens to read this, please feel free to insult me in a constructive way. I always appreciate suggestions, and always ignore jerks.
So... let the challenge begin!

Day 0 - 930 ELO - Hell Zone