Confessions of a Bronzie (On tilt or feeling lost when it comes to ranked? Read.)

Blame The Carry·Jun 30, 2015·6 votes·1,313 views

Intro (You can skip this part and go to the funnies) I started playing League right on Thanksgiving in 2014 and fell in love easily, as I had already been an active player of other MOBA-type games. Not unfamiliar with the ranking system used in other MOBAs, I nonchalantly played my placement matches without much knowledge of what I was doing and easily landed myself in Bronze 3. After hundreds of norms and several other ranked games, I've managed to climb the ladder but still haven't hit my goal of Gold by the end of the summer just yet. However, one of the things I've taken away from this process is that looking back on what happened in previous matches (and laughing about it, in many cases) really helped me improve my gameplay and also my attitude.

I've never been the type of person to rage at my team mates or what have you. I'm not the person on the other side of a computer either. It's too easy to type things you would never say to a person if you were standing in front of them, but I've read it all in chat and experienced all levels of rage from the most childish to the borderline psychotic. This isn't about that. If you're raging, you need to chill out. You're scary.** I wanted to write these things because they made me laugh, even though the game was a hopeless cluster of a loss. ** And at the same time, they made me realize some things I could do to improve my own gameplay (and maybe enhance my communication with my team) so perhaps they may enhance your's, if not your day.** Feel free to post any of your own "bronze" moments, regardless of your ranking. I'm sure this stuff doesn't just happen in Bronze,.** But don't write your QQing about how your team sucked and everyone was afk and feeding because that's just typical.

Epic Baron Steal

This game started out with a bunch of bickering between my team mates, most of which came after our secured first blood after the enemy team's failed invade lead to them losing several summoners and one of their own team members. Despite the great start, I was supporting (as ) for an (pre-rework) who just could not get over Warwick taking her kill because she _flashed _ for it and whatever. When Ashe died in lane, she would blame Warwick or myself which didn't help matters, especially since that first blood would be the only kill my team would secure for 10 minutes.

After some pep talk, I managed to convince them not to surrender even after the enemy team had destroyed our outer turrets, inner turrets, and our mid inhibitor. I noticed on a ward I had placed in Baron pit that they had started Baron and I had ult, so of course, I planned to steal it and typed this in chat.We were in a position where I could easily ult over the wall unseen and take the buff if I timed it right. Our and were in the tri-bush across from where I was standing. So I waited for the enemy to attempt to smite, when I realized he hadn't and Baron was low enough that the damage of my ult would kill him, I ulted over the wall and_** secured Baron. **_

~~**Totally blissful joyous moment, right? I did it ! I got Baron buff! **~~ Wait?

So and apparently didn't believe and both flashed over the wall to seize the glory for themselves and immediately were killed in the process. had already died during a skirmish and still had 25 seconds on her death timer with the only living champ on our team being who died soon after when the enemy team sieged and won the game.

Kills Team Mate

So I had been duoing with a friend of mine who mains jungle ( ) and top and had been climbing the ranked ladder on his smurf account, so he was in the same ranking as I was (don't suspect, he was only in Silver on his main) and I would frequently play ADC (as it is my "main" role besides Support, though I can really play any role at this point with some decency) and is one ADC that, ever since her release, I wanted to master and have (somewhat) managed to do so. For my support, I had a which is kind of ironic because at the time, I had been complaining of "suicidal Morgana" supports in normal games, just joking around. It had seemed that I would be matched with a Morgana that just had bigger balls than I could handle and could honestly be considered borderline feeding for some of the misplays we experienced. This particular Morgana wasn't too bad, however, and we managed to hold our own in lane and get a kill or two.

Come late game, I had used my ult a few times but ran out of opportunities as Morgana would often roam while I was pushing to help out other lanes, which was really no problem. After a little bit of split pushing, my friend and I decided to siege mid. When we were grabbing the inner turret, the enemy had ulted and Morgana had already used her during an ult/dive of her own and was very low health. I was standing outside of the range of GP's ult so naturally, I ulted her to

Make her invulnerable so she wouldn't take anymore damage
Give her a chance to re-position / get away as I was moving out of the range of his ult anyways

**The minute I ulted her, though, my ult spits her right back out into the ult and she dies. **

So I'm now confused and I look down and see in all chat that our wrote "lmao" and Morgana says:

"WTF Kalista --"_

to which I said, _"Why did you click back into his ult? I was trying to save you. " _

She didn't say much after that and Orianna kept joking around about it. This particular situation though must have put her on tilt (if not embarassed her) because she then made several questionable plays that resulted in her death and were just not as good of calls as she was making before. Though it was funny, I learned that I can't assume that all players (at this level at least) _understand what all the champion's abilities do, as chances are they don't own them or have never played them themselves. _ Now when I see things like "WTF does have no CD on her dash?!" I'll tell them that if they're hit by her Moonlight through Crescent Slash or otherwise, that her ultimate doesn't go on cooldown if she uses it to dash to them and usually they actually learn something, which allows them to counterplay which they didn't know before.

18 Comments

annador3Jun 30, 20152 votes

Hopefully this is still appropriate, as I'm still unranked, and this was not on Summoner's Rift. (I dont feel confident enough that I can fill all roles to start ranked, nor is my ping stable enough as of late to play normals..) The other day, I was in an ARAM with a few friends; I often "duo" with my brother and his friends. This game, there were two diamond 5s, and one plat 5. We all joke about how I'm bronze, and stuff like that, despite me not having the rank to back it up. It definitely showed once this game. I was Ashe, and their team had an Amumu. I was fairly low health, as was the Amumu. The Amumu decided to put on his blinders, and go all kill-hungry. He had his tears on the whole time, and I was barely outside the range, and just kept running. I managed to juke his bandage a few times, and was pretty proud of that. My team was scattered, as it was right after a teamfight. My brother, as graves, was trying to make his way back up. We had knocked down their outer turret, but the Amumu kept chasing. I managed to run into the bush to make the Amumu lose vision of me, and started running back towards where their turret would have been, since the Amumu would assume I would go for the other bush (which is what he did. He tried to blind q it.) This entire time, Graves kept telling me in voice comms to just auto attack. At this point, he and Lissandra had both caught up, and easily killed the Amumu. It was pretty funny, the juke-match. Amumu was so low, but I was too. If I had stopped even a split second, his pool would have caught up and killed me. Graves asked why I didn't just auto-attack. My response? I was afraid to stop moving. In hindsight, I realize just how bronze that statement was. I thought Amumu would catch up, and I panicked. I'm still iffy on kiting at times, and my ping doesnt help at all. . . But I was Ashe. Post rework Ashe. Whose auto attacks slow the target. The Amumu who had his bandage on cooldown. ._.

Blame The CarryJul 1, 20152 votes

Don't even feel embarrassed, what you WANTED to do is the mechanic that makes playing Marksmen / ADCs so difficult and is basically animation cancelling, or attack - moving (stutter stepping, kiting, orb walking etc.) which is the action of moving in a direction a few steps, auto attacking, but canceling the attack animation RIGHT AFTER the projectile leaves your champion and clicking to move again, rinse and repeat. Ashe is actually the BEST champion to learn this on because of her slow, and like you said, due to panicking, it's easy to not realize how you actually have to ability to take other champs with strong gap closers by using this technique.

I learned this technique playing other MOBAs before League, but I found a great video by ScrapComputer (does super detailed guides for champs and general gameplay) that explains all about how to kite and shows it all playing Ashe ! So if you ever feel like giving her or any ADC another shot or just want to be ready for the next ARAM you get stuck with one, I really recommend this vid and practice in a few custom games by yourself or with friends. Keep calm and kite on!

annador3Jul 1, 20151 votes

And that is the other part I failed to mention, as to why this was so terrible. When I play summoner's rift, I "main" bot lane.. Lately I've been playing mostly support, but my go to favorite when the ping is decent is going Jinx adc.. So I understand the concept of kiting, it can just be sketchy at times. (It's so easy to muck up animation cancelling with Jinx, especially when you've got the three-auto speed buff on mini-gun.. D: ) That video was still a good help, so thank you very much for the link. c:

SchwartzBudJun 30, 20151 votes

Funny moments, if only your toxcity problems were only a bronze thing, its a pretty big thing here to, just got told to eat a dick for picking a champ, thats why i always tell people its not much better in higher elos lol.

TaredomJun 30, 20151 votes

Pretty funny read, upvoted.

RandomoniumJun 30, 20151 votes

I think my favorite moment was one ranked game where two people on our team constantly were complaining while me and the other two worked well together. The two complainers kept getting caught out over and over, resulting in the enemy team being able to push our base. However, every time they pushed our base they would overstay and me and the other two positive players would rack up kills on them. So essentially we wound up with two useless teammates and three fed teammates.

They game goes past the 45 minute mark and they knock down our mid inhib and go for the nexus towers. They get the first tower down and just as the second tower falls, exposing our nexus, our three good players respawn and through an amazing team fight manage to ace the low health enemy team with our nexus at less than half health.

We immediately push mid and knock down their mid inhib with 30 seconds left on their death timers. We continue to push realizing that we aren't going to get a second chance and knock down one of their nexus towers. Two of their team spawn and immediately engage on us. We protect our fed carry and get the double kill, allowing us to knock down the second tower.

The other 3 members of their team spawn and engage on us in a 3v3. Knowing that we can't win the fight me and our APC engage on their team while our ADC dances around their nexus. Our APC dies and the nexus is at half health. I die and the nexus is at a quarter health. Victory is in sight and with less than 200 health left our ADC takes the nexus with the two complainers still running around the base whining that we are going to lose. Before the nexus explodes and victory shows up on the screen I type "never give up, never surrender."

Has to be one of the most awesome games I had in league.

Blame The CarryJun 30, 20151 votes

**Oh yea, the all the lanes Yasuo ** I forgot to post this one originally and it was a recent ranked match I had with a Yasuo who literally called all the lanes. He had TP and smite. Even though my team mates repeatedly asked (nicely) what lane he was going in, he replied in jumbled letters on different lines of text until we gave up and figured he was jungling. I'm sure everyone but me muted him once the game started and our Top was cursing him out right off the bat. I was playing Caitlyn with a Braum and we held our own in lane (ended 6/1/8) despite the enemy RekSai camping us. Our Yasuo, even though he was in super troll mode, still teleported down to help.

All this being said, troll and all, the enemy team surrendered to us because our Top lane was fed, I was fed, and we could just steam roll them. Goes to show you that even if your team mates are derping / trolling whatever, don't surrender. All in all, it made the match more light-hearted instead of serious because the Yasuo was literally acting like a 5 year old the whole time. Who would have thought? Haha.

quichwe10Jul 3, 20151 votes

Reminds me a tiny bit of one game I played. In Champion Select, we ended up with a big argument on who was doing what, and we had just selected our champs but we hadn't locked them in yet, when the tier ran out and our selections were automatically locked in. And the end result was having Jinx, Nami, Lux, Soraka, and Ahri, with Nami, Lux, and Soraka all focusing towards support. While doing pretty badly in the start of the game, ( the score was 3/12 ), so bad that some of us considered surrendering, we managed to decimate the enemy team with combined burst damage mid late game, when practically everyone bought Rabadon's Deathcap. The game was pretty lighthearted, especially with our champion select screw up and multiple mistakes in early game. ( like when I missed my q and hit baron 8 minutes into a game when chasing. I promptly got hit into the baron pit, and goodbye world for me.)

TurquoiseYoshiJun 30, 20151 votes

This was my last game played, and was a good for me, but it was really funny. Soraka was my champion, I was red side with Draven. So we had killed the enemy support Brand (?) and were going to the dragon area chasing down the enemy ADC Teemo. Teemo goes into the dragon pit where their jungler Sejuani has nearly taken down dragon. At that point, all I can think of doing is using my Q to try to hit Sej/steal dragon. I do both, kill Sej, steal the dragon, and get a red buff. Immediately afterwards the enemy surrenders. So I ended with 5/2/5 as a support, with the most kills on the team. And after every kill I say: Sorry ks.

Blame The CarryJun 30, 20151 votes

Haha, I love it.

TurquoiseYoshiJun 30, 20151 votes

I feel like I built too much AP, but whatever. Honestly the best part of that was lighting minions on fire with the red buff in lane. Made me feel empowered.

quichwe10Jul 3, 20152 votes

I feel like I do to, since I play almost only support. Still, being a 9 kill streak support as name in about 15 minutes does make me feel good. In fact, I actually had the longest kill streak in the match.

TurquoiseYoshiJul 3, 20151 votes

Now that is an extreme success.

Faith BreakerJun 30, 20151 votes

I got tired of team fights starting out over my taking/stealing/securing/getting a kill as Sona support, despite the rediculous burst and dmg she provides. So I started taking Sona mid playing her as a full AP Mage. Using her ult reactively instead to engage I've had wonderful success. It's amazing to roam bot and 1v1 enemy adc Jinx at same level and 100-0 them in the senario they were in the bush and I face checked

Losing isn't so bad because I just go "...." Cuz sona

TurquoiseYoshiJun 30, 20151 votes

My team was nice about me taking kills. Well, I assume they were because they said nothing about it. People should honestly just be okay with assist gold and be done with it.

oreosauceJun 30, 20151 votes

This was a while ago but during a ranked game, where i was supporting as Janna who obviously, most people know, does almost no damage. We were actually losing the game and were kinda yolo-ing around, trying to get what farm or turret damage that we could get and someone pinged the enemy team was doing dragon. I went over and warded over the wall and sure enough they were. However, my ward was immediately destroyed. From the small glimpse I had of the enemy team, I saw how low they were and decided to just toss out my Q to delay them a bit. As it turns out, the enemy team's jungler smited a little too early and I ended up stealing the dragon for my team. We were overjoyed and it felt kinda troll but nonetheless it was motivating and I got the hell away from the angry enemy team, ready to f-ck me in the ass for taking that dragon.

Blame The CarryJul 1, 20151 votes

Haha! Totally been there and you better believe the ass f*cking was on the way because I'm sure that makes people rage a little, as it would annoy me if I was on the other end of the stick when I stole that Baron. XD

Blame The CarryAug 14, 20151 votes

See, this is another thing I see commonly in my Bronzie games is that if your team gets behind in the first 10-15 mins of the game, they automatically call it a loss and many stop trying at that point when "win conditions" for both teams haven't necessarily been fulfilled. For example, I don't know how many times I've either been against (or on a team) where the entire team seems so focused on securing kills and chasing them down to the bitter in that they ignore easily secured objectives, especially dragon or baron but also turrets and inhibs. I've been in a few games jungling where my team was pushing up mid 5 or 6 kills behind but after having taken out a couple inhibs, allowing me to use them as a distraction to just go right literally behind the enemy team waiting to fight my own team and take out the nexus to end the game. Never EVER surrender when you think you're "behind" in early game. Throws ALWAYS happen and mistakes are ALWAYS made. When you're in that position, you NEED to start WATCHING for these mistakes so you can turn the game around, not be a mopey loser who stops trying and calls a surrender vote whenever they can.

The only time I've ever really felt like all hope was lost is when you're behind and a member of your team then DCs or AFKs never to return. Not only does this seriously bring down your own team's morale but once the enemy team notices someone is missing, they'll definitely take advantage of it.