Plat 3 Hype?

Match 1 :

Champion : Pantheon

Role : Jungle

Build Order :

Runes & Masteries :

Notes :

     This game basically revolved around winning the early game because we had multiple snowball-y champions (Annie/Draven/Jarvan). I picked Pantheon into our comp for the early pressure.

     In the early game (level 3), I rotated to top side after Lee Sin attempted to gank our Jarvan. I waited in a bush for Lee Sin to facecheck into me, channeled my E, stunned him, and killed him. That kill alone snowballed the game incredibly in our favor because it shut down their early game jungler and made it so he had a difficult time ganking any lanes. After that, I went to farm for a few minutes, walked back, and ganked Maokai for another kill in top lane. Those two quick successive ganks in top lane made it so Jarvan could just destroy Maokai 1v1 for the rest of the game. Afterwards, I rotated down to mid lane and walked into the lane through the river bush after sweeping it. Annie stunned her and I walked into the lane for another stun, channeled my E, and threw a spear at her. She burnt both of her summoner spells as Syndra which is incredibly critical. I kept the timers on both of the spells and immediately came back to gank her from a different angle to get Annie a kill. Shortly after, Annie solo killed Syndra when she came back to lane with Tibbers. The key things to note in what I did this game was quick and successive ganks. In a game where you have multiple snowballing carry champions, you need to pressure consistently. There's no time to be patient and farming. You need to force those champions to get gold so they can win the game for you. Once level 6, I immediately looked for a gank bottom since Pantheon is a level 6 bottom lane ganker. The enemy bottom lane over extended and I immediately ulted behind that (not on top of them). They ran into me and we managed to snag a double kill and dragon shortly after. 

     At this point, the game was completely in our favor. We continued to secure dragons by maintaining vision control in their jungle (which we completely owned due to our pick comp). We also had multiple pinks on their side of the jungle. The only reason the game took as long as it did was because we had trouble getting all 5 of us to group to push an objective.

     The key issues this game were that we occasionally "threw" by suiciding. Both Annie and I were culprits in randomly getting caught out and dying. It was more because we played very cocky which is never good, especially if you're trying your best to climb. However, we came back from our random throws and made sure we never let the enemy get too much of an advantage from our random deaths. This was mainly due to our insane vision control which prevented them from getting any real plays off.

     Overall, the game was a relatively one-sided game.

Match 2 :

Champion : Pantheon

Role : Mid

Build Order : 

Runes & Masteries : 

Notes : 

     So I didn't plan on playing Pantheon mid. I was planning on jungling but someone else locked in jungle last pick so I just swapped instead of dodging. The lane was against a Nidalee. Pantheon is REALLY strong early game though so it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

     Basically, I purchased a flask early game and focused on harassing Nidalee with spear shots until I could all in her with a flash -> ignite -> q -> auto combo. It never really happened though because Nidalee was pretty smart. She focused on making sure she was never in range of me so I only got a few spear shots off on her. Eventually, I did manage to get her low enough that she was diveable with my jungler so I called the jungler over and we managed to secure a kill with myself tanking first using my passive. The vast majority of the game was spent with me roaming around using my ultimate to gank bottom lane. Afterwards, we'd focus on pushing an objective over and over. I managed to get REALLY fed but there were a few critical problems with my laning and my ward coverage that resulted in plenty of unnecessary deaths.

     The key problem was that my CS was atrocious. I wasn't farming effectively at all, focusing far too much on harassing and not enough on gold. In fact, it was so bad that, at one point, Nidalee had more items than I did despite me having 4 kills. I also didn't ward very effectively which resulted in multiple three man dives in mid lane. The lack of ward coverage also was a problem when I would ult to try to get in on a seemingly favorable teamfight. However, more people would be there and I'd end up suiciding. My itemization was very poor early on because of this and I had to actually build tanky to even make any semblance of an impact later in the game.

     All in all, it was a really awkward game but the key thing to take from it is that I need to improve on my ability to farm while harassing an enemy laner.

     

Match 3 :

Champion : Morgana

Role : Support

Build Order :

Runes & Masteries :

Notes :

     This is an example of one of those games where every single lane loses... except yours. So you have to kinda carry. Except... you're the support so you have to carry as the support and peel for your ADC while hoping that he's competent. In this case, the ADC was my duo queue partner so it worked out pretty well.

     To begin with, when forced into support, I normally call for an invade especially on a champion like Morgana. It's not exactly to contest their buff but more so to force summoner spells so laning is easier. In this case, we invaded and managed to snag 3 kills, force all of the enemy team's summoner spells, and only lose one teammate. It worked out favorably. In fact, it was the only reason we didn't lose the game as I'll discuss later. Laning phase is where I have the most trouble as a support because I play very greedy and forget to take care of my ADC. Ezreal ended up getting caught by a stun because I forgot to black shield him. It resulted in his death but shortly after, I called Xin Zhao down for a gank and we secured a double kill due to the fact that the enemy team had no summoner spells. After backing, Xin Zhao immediately came back and ganked again. This snowballed Ezreal incredibly hard and helped us in the long run. Both Ezreal and I began to make plays around my bindings while ignoring the fact that our teammates were spontaneously dying all over the map. Eventually, we stalled the game out enough that, despite massive deaths by our teammates, we all hit 6 items. At this point, it was just a matter of who made a mistake first. The enemy team ended up attempting diving us under two nexus turrets, I exhausted the LB as she dove the Ezreal, used Mikhael's, and we won the teamfight. Then we pushed to win the game.

     The key thing we did this game was make sure we didn't yell at our teammates for playing poorly because that would have made the situation worse. If someone is playing poorly, chances are they know they're playing poorly and are most likely tilting a little bit. If you berate them for playing poorly, they'll only tilt harder. Instead, we focused on our own play and managed to carry the game incredibly hard, including managing securing a pentakill for my ADC.

     The vast majority of the mistakes were misplays around my shield as well as missing a critical snare here and there. Since I'm not too experienced with Morgana, I panic shielded myself a few times which resulted in deaths for my ADC or another laner in the game. I also screwed up a few critical snares while Wukong was trying to engage on our team right before a teamfight. Other then that, I didn't make too many mistakes this game and was actually pretty proud of my performance.

     Alright guys, that's all for tonight. I'm pretty excited about hitting Platinum III. I'm one step closer to my goal! If you guys have any questions or comments, post a comment here or tweet me at @Lilnovalas. Thanks for reading!