Viktor in 2k18 OmegaLUL

I decided to play some ranked games after a long hiatus, and picked my favorite champion, Viktor. I'd like to address his issues, alongside ranked game issues.

Game #1: The enemy team has a Twitch who admitted to be a challenger smurf and boosting his duo partner, Lulu. My mid lane vs Zed was going fine, I had a cs advantage, until the enemy Pantheon decided to ult mid and yeah, I couldn't really get away from targeted CC and Zed's full kit. In the meanwhile, the enemy Twitch was already level 5 with 8 kills or something. Safe to say, that game was done.

Game #2: I'm laning vs Katarina, I'm utilizing a freezing strategy which works exceptionally well, while I also have an HP and cs advantage. My Lee, who is a troll for reasons I will discuss later on, doesn't understand my freezing mechanism, decides to gank mid lane when there is zero kill pressure, fails to gank, then leaves and goes bot lane to gank there. I ping 3-4 times with the red mark on the river, obviously meaning that Katarina is coming along, since her mid lane is in a bad spot. Regardless of my pings, my Lee engages in a bot lane gank, and the enemy Katarina eventually ends up with 2 kills. 2 minutes later, decided to walk up to a level 7 full HP Kat, while he was level 5, with no help from anyone else and just died. Not only that, he only had Guardian as his main rune choice, which he admitted to being a mistake. I also had a 0/5 Zed vs Kled in the top lane. Yikes. Needless to say, enemy team eventually got Herald and Baron, which they basically used at the same time and ended the game at 22 minutes.

So, I'd like to discuss certain points.

1. Ranked games are just the same shitfest it was at the start of the season. Smurfs are still running rampant, trolls are still running rampant, and matchmaking is creating huge gaps in player skill. How am I supposed to enjoy a game, when I know that one lane is going to fully win or fully lose? What's the point? At this point, I might as well just play Shen top, just hold the lane and ult my bot lane and hope they are better than the enemies. I strongly think that there isn't much skill expression in this game, because of the matchmaking. Games are just not equal.

2. Viktor. Yikes, this champion sucks. And no, don't give me the 51% winrate argument. That doesn't mean shit to me, and you know why? Because a lot of that percentage mirrors the higher elo players, where they at least have the decency to understand how Viktor works / scales, how a freeze is gonna help me win lane and set Kata behind etc. Instead, people do not realize certain things, and they essentially force Viktor into fights, when he clearly is unable to do anything. His levels 1-3 are strong, and I consider myself doing well when playing them, especially against melees, like Zed, Kat etc, since I can see myself getting HP leads, cs advantages and advantageous laning / minion positions depending on how I want to play the lane, the junglers etc.

The sad thing is that this isn't how the lane will always be. After level 4, the lane isn't as easy to play out, because of mana costs and jungler pressure, and it's at that point where Viktor just struggles so very much. It feels like no matter what happens, I'm just unable to do anything to impact the map, apart from maybe getting to level 7 and waveclear and keep the enemy mid laner at bay. I can't teamfight, I can't duel, I can't hard push, I can't escape. All I can do up until around level 13 is just sit mid lane, waveclear, and MAYBE if a perfect opportunity arises, I can invade the enemy jungle with my jungler or gank a lane.

It's just sad to see that Viktor, and a lot of picks like Viktor, just do not really have any impact on the game, and I mean in low elo (below Diamond). In higher up, a good freeze in lane can work wonders. A good slow early-mid game can safely transition Viktor into a good 3 item powerspike. In lower elo, that will just not happen, and I have to ask why. Why are certain things just not viable in certain elo. And not to say that every champion should be strong in every elo bracket, but certain champs are simply unplayable. Other are unplayable in lower elo, others in high, others in general.

Champions that rely on specific openings, conditions and things happening in the game to be efficient are not gonna see the positive winrate in lower elo and that's just disheartening. I was able to get a 68% winrate with Viktor back in season 6, when I was still in Silver, but now, I barely get 50% in Plat 5. It feels like the only choice you have in order to climb is to either play whatever's meta or have good luck in matchmaking. Trying to play things like Viktor will just end badly.