Off meta picks

Hey guys, I just got out of a couple team builder games and I wanted the community's opinion on something.

Where is it appropriate to experiment with new pick? If you have no idea whether or not something will work, like you heard that top lane was really strong and you wanted to test it, what queue would you go into? Also, what is your opinion when something doesn't work, how should you adjust in-game to failed experiments?

The games I played were as a jungle and jungle, neither worked, because I couldn't get the gold to build the items I needed to farm/be relevant for team fights. My theory was that they would be good for ganks with their hook/snare and had AoE spells for camp clearing. For thresh, I rushed in an attempt to help his clear, with cinderhulk, I was able to clear, but the laning phase had already ended and my ganks were sub-par up to that point, so I didn't do anything that game. In my morgana game, I had a lot more luck. I didn't start with a machete, and soon realized morgana has no sustain, but I was able to survive and start ganking. I was unable to ever get the power I needed to get gold in the jungle and after our top lane DC'ed, top pushed into our base and we lost.

In these examples, is there something I should have done differently? Playing jungle against bots is difficult because it puts top at a disadvantage and picking a jungler that isn't necessarily a jungler can just make that even worse, but going into pvp with this seems like a bad idea too. What do you guys think?

On a side note, I am extremely familiar with both these champs mechanics in the support role.