Analyzing the itemization choices of my previous ranked match.

I'd like to preface this wall of text by saying that I don't expect this post to hit the front page or anything. I make this simply to discuss my jungle itemization in my last ranked game with a few versed individuals whilst I wait on something. If this isn't your cup of tea, please, by all means, move on. I'm sure they are many other trends you'd be much happier contributing to.

In the game in question I was playing Vi in the jungle. The enemy team was running Vayne, Garen, Jarvan, Support Nautilus and mid lane Karma. Due to the glorious tank meta I already knew I'd be building Cinderhulk. But this presented a conundrum. Namely Vayne. This is solo Q, and while I was playing Vi, thanks to the tank meta I knew I would not have enough damage to take her down by myself.

This meant I would have to trust on my teammates to follow up on my lockdown. Always a risky gambit in solo q, where it's hard to rely on a team to be coordinated in the midst of a hectic teamfight. Luckily the Irelia in my game had her eye on the ball.

Due simply to Vayne being in the game it meant that while mass health stacking would increase my overall survivability, it may have allowed Vayne to run away with the game with me presenting virtually zero threat to her. With the choice between Randuins and Frozen Hearth as my initial armor item I had decided before the game started that I would go Frozen hearth. I figured the mass armor coupled with the cooldown reduction would allow me to make picks in the mid game while simultaneously allowing covering most of my bases.

Well that plan didn't work out so well. My early ganks at top proved frivolous and Jarven had already made 2 successful ganks on my bot lane. Needless to say, they were not pleased about this, and despite being over extended towards the enemy tower every time they were ganked, they followed the golden rule of soloq- blame the jungler. I payed no heed to their whining, but the fact remained that they required my assistance in order to not feed Vayne beyond a manageable level. That plan didn't go so well either. Due to bot lane pushing out 24/7 it made it impossible to gank without a tower dive. With my lackluster initial ganks I barely had enough to afford a Bami's Cinder, and was not overly confident that my bot lane would follow up, much less execute such a risky play correctly. What's more was that our virtually non-existent ward coverage it made counter ganking Jarven a gamble at best. 20 minutes in, I was 2/2/4 with bearly enough gold to afford my Frozen Hearth and Merc threads after the enemy team took an extended fight, resulting in our Draven being the sole survaior on cleanup crew.

The next 8 minutes comprised almost solely of Vayne ripping my team apart, myself included, with her mid game power spikes. Here's where I feel the choice of itemization really came into play. I had two main considerations, Vayne and Karma. It would be untrue to say the were equally powerful, Vayne had quite a bit more goal than her mid lane carry counterpart, however in every previous fight Karma had proved to be a pain in my side. Due to me having no MR outside of flat MR runes and the MR Vi gains per level she was blowing both me and Irelia (Who was also building primarily armor) up whenever we tried to focus down a target. A single Q was enough to drop us both to about 50~55%. Building MR would allow me to stick to targets better without worrying about eating a mantraed spell. On the other hand, while her accuracy was fine, her positioning was poor, often being much closer than her spells required her to be. Vayne on the other hand had many built in features that allowed her to correct her positioning, while also dealing damage. I figured if anyone would be carrying this game it would be her, and went with a Thornmail.

Now this was the second chance I had to build a Randuins. The extra health would have made it nigh impossible for Jarvan and Garen to kill me, on the flip side it would also prove less effective on Vayne. Or so I thought at the time. At the time I didn't consider the passive effect of Randuins. Seeing as Vayne was focusing me down first pretty much every fight I'm sure I would have gotten value out of it. None the less, I made my choice and decided to get Thornmail. Who's to say how that match would have went did I opt to go Randuins instead. Perhaps it would have been cleaner? Perhaps due to the cost and the fact that I would have acquired it later, the game would have already been over.

In the fights around dragon to come, I focused down Vayne at every given chance. With assistance from Irelia, she was usually the first to fall. And thanks to Karma's poor positioning she was usually within an auto's reach thereafter. It was an uphill battle no doubt, but thanks the the enemy team noteable tilting and my shot calling- if you consider aggressively pinging my team to keep them on track shout calling, we were able to win all major teamfights that followed. I topped my build off with a Warmog's, figuring the health, at this point, would be the most effective way to increase my survivability from all sources. I planed to build a BotRK as my final item should it come to that, ending the match 6/7/22 with a roughly 63.5 kill participation.

My question to you fellow soloQers is how would you have built differently this game? I know I may have rambled on about the match more than necessary, but I want the emphasis of this trend to me itemization. From my 5 year experience with mobas I've found that knowing when to build one item over another is one of the most pivotal points in mastering the game.