My attempt at Gold

ploki122·10/8/2013, 2:22:24 PM·1 votes·338 views

##Ploki122's mystical adventure into the Silver Lands

Hello community, I'm ploki122, a ~2 years-old NA player (Xerath was the new champion when I started). And I've been trying to achieve Gold for a long time. I believe my story is probably slightly different than most based on a few key facts, so I decided to share it with the community. If you simply want a TL;DR (it still is a wall of text, but it's 2 years of how I won and lost), there will be a list of tips summarizing my post at the end.

###The fall of the man
So, here I am, pre-season 3, I missed gold by scrapes last season (3-4 wins at my peak iirc). I got soft-reseted into ~Silver 3. It's a shame, but I know I'm worth at least gold (much like everyone else you'll say :P). However, I knew the implications of such statements, low-silver is the peak of the curve from what I knew, meaning that the higher I got, the more it meant I was a player better than the average. And while I do believe I'm an above average player, by no mean I consider myself "good".

So I played, I won a bit, lost a bit... Stopped playing a bit between seasons to go on the PBE more. When I came back I was obviously worse than before (since the PBE's level of "play" is awkward). I fell back to Silver 3-4. I was then really convinced that I was better than my level, and started playing the OP champions (Ninjas, Kassadin) and Flavor of the Month (AP tryn).

That got me to Silver 3, but unfortunately, I wasn't a mid player, and neither was I a jungler, and most of the OP/FotM were either. So, I went back to my supporting (mainly Janna and Lulu). And playing a bit of normal with RiotDudeBro. First shoutout. Basically, I learned to play without pressure when playing with him. He wasn't even the best of player when I started playing with him, and after seeing his J4 support I had 2 flashes. First, J4 support is a thing. Second, no matter if it's a thing or not, who cares if you play it, as long as it works for now.

The rise of J4 support

So, I practices my J4 support a bit (5-10 PBE games) and I had a good feeling about it. So I proceeded to play it in ranked. Hilarity ensued. Basically, no one expected that to work, at all, and it still did quite correct (little over 50% win, with stupid runes). As soon as I hit level 2, I could outtrade their ADC without any second thought. The only things I had to care for were heavy CC lanes and Taric (Armor shred). Basically, he is midway between Leona and Annie, in my opinion.

Also, since I was calling support>fill, it gave me both the occasion to slowly learn new roles/champions (especially champions, I still suck at cs'ing), and the chance to fully utilize bans when I was first pick. If I was the support, I didn't really fear Blitzcrank, since I considered myself better than a Silver 2/3 support, and that in my opinion, Jarvan 4 has a great advantage over most other kill lanes, meaning that I always left Thresh and Blitz open and could use those bans to get targeted bans out.

The hard cap

Sadly, reality hit me quickly. I raised to Silver 1, then got decayed to 2, then got back up, then got AFKs, the got back up to 1, then went on a losing streak. AKA I was stuck in Elo Hell. No matter how I tried to carry, I was still stuck in there. The fact that I was ok with letting go of my support role to play a role where I'm weaker often bit me, since our duo queue wasn't any good at being 2v2, and that I wasn't much better mid on my favorite Karma mid.

I got stuck in Silver 1 really long, and I didn't really know what to do with those scrubs and stupid duos who couldn't understand that diving tower is not mandatory, that even Draven and Leona can actually farm under tower and they will end up winning more than by dieing that just got spotted by that river ward I dropped. I was doomed, #ForeverSilver.

The turnaround

I think I got decayed once more, not even certain, one thing for sure, in total I hit Silver 2 at least 5 times, and probably even at least 7. I stopped really caring, played very few rankeds, played on my PS3 more, went back to Dungeons of Dredmor (which honestly I think may be at cause for some details), which I recommend to everyone and if you feel it's too expensive, just wait a bit he goes on a deal like 4 times a year, I expect it to be ~15-20 for the whole kit for Christmas. I watched LCS matches, watched streamers... anything basically to "try to get bettter".

Then, I discovered Opened(www.twitch.com/Opened87). Second Shoutout. This guy basically played Poppy nearly 24/7 to the point of getting it banned. Even when his teammates were bad, he seldom said anything (in game), and always simply stated cold hard facts for tactics to try and point them the right way (like :"Just let me farm a bit until I have Triforce, missing 500g", or : "We just need to wait and get picks, they are a teamfight team"). Basicall,y he was the opposite of me. I sometimes raged even more in-game than out-game, and I always were a tryhard on picks, picking what I felt was strong for the team, instead of playing what was strong with me. Let's be honest, support Poppy isn't excellent for the team, unless you're better on Poppy than on regular supports, and the you can just create a kill lane that is even more abusive than Leona, before zoning the carry 24/7 in every single teamfight and giving 4v4/4v3 to your team every single times.

Back to the top

At this point I had fallen as low as Silver 3, partly from trolling, partly from legit losing, and partly from duoing with burdens (I knew them irl, shame on me). So, I brought out my Karma. I played Karma quite a bit in S2, I felt that if you managed to survive long enough, she simply outscaled the enemy support so badly it wasn't even funny, and that if the mid player capped (full build), you could even outscale him. After the rework, she was clearly different... Much worse AoE, no dueling potential, crappy ratios. In short, she wasn't the original Karma. Still, I felt like there was something there. I got back to Silver 2 by playing mainly mid AP Karma, and some top Poppy to get my hands used to him.

I ended up discovering a much bigger synergy with Tanky Karma (capped CDR, maybe 1-2 AP items), than Damage Karma. I also ended up finding support Poppy to fit my style of play and my understanding of support (although I still lack the mechanics, and some runes). So, this is how it unveiled. I chose to play mainly Poppy, sometimes even first picking him, getting flamed and everything. I usually called support>top>mid, and insisted that it was a Poppy support. Let's be honest now, from Silver 3 to Silver 1, I probably got stolen my support role (after pick) more often than I got not flamed. As for Karma, I also got flamed by at least 1 person in most matches.

How it turned out

In the end, I stuck to Poppy, some matches I lost pretty hard, I don't think I'm quite at the good level on him yet, but I do think he's amazing and fit my playstyle, but the biggest difference between before and now, is that now, instead of being a comp/meta tryhard and stuff, I'm a poppy/Karma tryhard, simply trying to shove my point down peoples' throat and having them apologize for flaming me before going 6/2/18 on support poppy (ok, that one doesn't happen frequently, but it did happen at least twice).

Tip section

Never crumble under pressure. I got flamed at for like 40-50 games in a row because of "stupid picks". Heck, I even got harassed irl for a ~40 minutes jungle Gragas game where my duo was disagreeing with my choice.
Find 1 role and 2-3 champions that fit your style. Right now, I am a Karma/Poppy support. What this means is that I have extended knowledge of supporting and Karma/Poppy. So I ever have to Top, I can do either. If I have to go mid, I can still Karma. And if Karma and Poppy are both banned (lol?) I can still play support pretty well using an OP champ like Fiddlestick
To reinforce last point, specializing doesn't mean playing only 1 role. It means learning the odds and ends of one role and applying it to others.
Always make the plays. Right now, I'm getting better and better of both Karma and Poppy, because I make balls-to-the-wall moves. If they have a fed Jax, and that we need map pressure, I will commit myself, and every single resources I have to go split push against Jax as Support Karma just so my team can have a winnable 4v4. Heck, if needed I will even chase Jax and die, just so my team end up getting that mid outer tower.
Always believe, I'm in fact Gold 5 and went on a 17/4 Poppy streak and a 4/1 Karma streak, eat it fellas!

P.s. I filed a support ticket to try and get a longer history than 10 games. right now I'm 12/1 in my last 13 games iirc, and since I didn't expect that fast of a rise after being stuck for sol ong, I lost some data. If I can get it, I will probably post a more mathy post about my rise to gold, and the correlation between picks and reports (I got warned for verbal abuse so often that I'm probably in tribunal, not all were legit reports, but I believe that I had a pass where I did warrant a ban). Also, if anyone has questions about Karma/Poppy or has a replay against me in the last week, I'd be more than happy to answer/retrieve them.