S14.3 Review Block #3: Flirting With Nihilism

The doubts set in hard during game 1. Starting to wonder if the experiences of S14.2 and S14.3 have made me too negative when going into games. I don't think it changes the way I play, but it is worth monitoring. Don't like being a negative nancy.

[@Mo11usq]

Twitch/Rakan vs Jihn/Caitlyn: Super weird game. Twitch was gold last split and clearly disrespecting his opponents. Jihn has never gotten out of bronze and shat on him 1v1 all game, just goes go show. Yorick mid is absolutely bonkers OP in low elo so I was rather worried about this, but given how bad this Caitlyn support was I felt we should have won this game easily. Obviously, stuff happened. Jihn/Cait hugely out-damage and out range us in the first few levels. This was why I was hesitant to try to lvl1 cheese them from river. However, their lack of sustain, low health pool, limited peel, and slow item scaling mean that, if we don't die or get poked out in the first few levels, we will eventually be able to ambush and murder them on loop. I feel like we tried to do too much too soon, despite (and in part because of), all the ganks we absorbed, we started to comfortably kill them when we played together. 4:22 my attempt to poke trade went horribly wrong, need to wait for them to commit abilities on the wave before doing this. I'm generally happy with how I played the lane after this. 7:46 Twitch disrespect recall was really bad, I needed to spam danger ping him as soon it looked like he was going to back there, and move to try to distract Jihn toward river before he reached the mid bush. 10:18 I needed to call off Twitch's greedy overplay. 11:16 me deploying to the grub fight was the 'right' move, but it compelled Twitch to suicide, and worst of all de-synced us for the rest of the game. Twitch was my most reliable win con, and very obviously a psychopath, I needed to adapt and try to give his forced plays the highest chance of success. I did not recognise Gwen as a potential carry during the game, but she was actually not doing too badly around the 20 min mark and could have been an alternative to invest in. Ultimately, I think the game rested on Twitch though. Ekko's ult usage made my eyes bleed. Jihn/Rakan vs Caitlyn/Nautilus: Surprisingly high quality lobby. Jihn, Diana, and Caitlyn were all previously gold... although Teemo was an actual iron4. Cait/Naut are lane bullies, they want to use Cait's waveclear and Naut's bush control to own the wave, help set up angles for naut to engage, or use the threat to zone us and siege. Jihn's range poke is good, I give us the sustain advantage, and I outscale naut, but neither of us can match our counterpart at their game in lane. This should be a losing lane for us, and we need to lose gracefully. Jihn's range allows him to CS without getting into Cait's range, so I need to check naut by going into pure peel mode - distracting/body blocking hooks, and keeping the lane bushes warded or taking them if he lets me (I can't contest him if he wants them, and BE CAREFUL OF CAIT TRAPS). If naut does get onto Jihn, I need to CC Cait so she can't follow up. As it happened, lvls 1-3 played out the opposite of how they should have (due to skill gap). I throw some terrible Q's in this lane omg, but I am very happy with my attention to lvl ups, and communication of what I want to do with the wave. 30:41 too risky to take this ward now, naut had returned and I didn't know where the jungler was - should have taken it after we killed naut. 31:53 pro deep ward, also hitting the vision plant on the Diana roam shows her their vision of the river and potentially misleads them as to her location - pure gold. On the gank, I needed to have the presence of mind to wait for Diana to E them and then E her instead of wasting my flash. 33:33 I needed to anticipate the hook and E Jihn, very lucky the minion did my job for me. 37:36 warding is ok as bel'veth was dead and likely to be re-deploying top, but not when wave is neutral and naut is under no pressure so can match me or engage on Jihn, and then fighting over the ward was incredibly stupid and costly. 38:57 my mechanical misplay cost us an easy kill. 39:52 the power of panning camera to fights, enables me to create a play with J4 to kill Bel'Veth, felt so good! 56:26 MONTAGE PLAY OF THE YEAR! Good game, funny how much easier it is to play well when you have the better team. Jinx/Rakan vs Xayah/Milio: Bit more balanced lobby, only Talon was gold last split, rest bronze/silver. Xayah should be stronger than Jinx in lane, but has a much higher execution demand, Milio sustains much better than me and pokes better, but I can't see that they have especially good synergy or really much pressure we need to fear. We scale better, and it should be reletively easy to just peel for Jinx, but we also have the power to take over the lane if they mistep too much. They don't have much to be able to stop me taking the bushes so I can create space and pressure without actually having to do much, it also makes hitting Q a bit easier and keep up with Milio's sustain somewhat. 1:08:47 the burning question all engage supports ask - and a potential solution?! 1:10:59 how should I have known to roam mid here? I thought our wave was neutral so I needed to be with Jinx and Talon wasn't in lane, but as it turned out Jinx would have been safe and I could have helped get a high value kill on Talon (or protect Fizz), especially if I thought Milio might gank (which he is not likely to do). 1:12:43 once I am sure Lee is on dragon I wonder if the correct move here is to roam up with Bel'Veth and help secure grubs, with both top and mid dead she is super vulnerable (enemy were trolling not to check it). The wave is pushing to Jinx and they don't have the waveclear or all in potential to dive her. If I roamed, you know it would actually alert Talon to check herald and trigger Jinx's lemming instinct, but on paper I think it is more valuable than me running in circles spectating it all from botlane. 1:13:53 unforced trade goes really bad, get Xayah's ult but cripples our health bars, don't do this unless they have the important abilities (e.g. Xayah's E) on cooldown. 1:14:48 Lee Sin has a stroke. I made a bad call regarding the wave after, Jinx did need to crash it (enemy ADC retreating, Talon on vision and Lee Sin dead, Bel'Veth on drag), me recalling is ok, I didn't have any mana and couldn't of helped anybody much and it gave me tempo to potentially back up Fizz and spot out Lee before he could effectively gank us. 1:20:17 another really dumb call by me, of course we want Bel'Veth to take herald, and she has all the prio to do it. Don't know why I was so negative at this point, guess I have been traumatised and am waiting for another free win to be snatched from me.