As some of you may know I recently achieved Diamond in solo queue after many many months (see my immediate response here) and the man (lich?) that got me there and the specific method for doing so was not one which I expected to work but in hindsight makes quite a bit of sense. The following is my analysis of the final push to diamond that I did over the weekend.
The Catalyst
The
day of July 8th started the beginning of an extended losing streak that would
bring me from 67 league points in Platinum 1 all the way down to 55 points in
Platinum 2. During this 27 game period I went an abysmal 10 - 17 including a
pair of 5 game losing streaks. Those of you that know me understand that I'm
all about "not tilting" and remaining psychologically stable in the
presence of unstable conditions such as losing streaks but this streak was one
that really got to me. I was growing frustrated, playing champions I didn't
play very often out of frustration, not experimentation. During this 27 game
run I played 16 different champions which around the amount I play in a given
month of games (between 60-80 typically). I wasn't raging but I was taking a
lot of risks, playing champs out of desperation, and generally not performing
well.
Something had to change...
The Problem
This is
about as classic a tilt situation as you can find. What happens when you go on
tilt? You start thinking emotionally and not logically. I wasn't being
rational. How did I get to where I was before this losing streak? I played
champions I was comfortable with, despite nerfs/buffs, and remained consistent
by playing to my strengths as a player (focusing on lane and not roaming,
farming well, and denying/controlling vision instead of creating map pressure
with ganks). In my frustration I began trying to do too much and was trying to
force ganks and jungle invades that were just not solid strategic options. I
was playing over aggressive in lane and not calculated like I usually do. I
wasn't spending the money on wards like I usually do (you could say I spend too
much). In so many words I was trying to
compensate for team deficiencies as well as poor play in previous games. I was
"overplaying." This is the opposite of my normal approach to solo
queue.
The Strategic Solution
I've always been able to reel it back in
during tough losing streaks by going back to basics. The acronym K.I.S.S.
("Keep it simple, stupid") is what I usually default to in competitive
times of need. During my losing streak I was "overplaying" and trying
to do too much so I started thinking specifically about a hard stance in the
opposite direction.
So what
is the opposite position? What can I do that will force me to remain consistent
each game? Well first I needed to identify what is consistent from game to
game. To me there are very few things that remain the same from game to game in
League. One of those things is you and how you play the game. The other is
parts of the game itself, namely minions, income, and objectives. Minions and
objectives are always the same each game but it's up to you whether you get
them or not. Perhaps the most cliche advice in League is "just farm
well" but most people don't actually do it, including people around my
rating. Another cliche bit of advice is that "minion gold is more
consistent than champion kill gold" which is correct in most situations. So
according to this concept I just needed to improve my farming from game to game
to recapture that consistency. Seems relatively sound and simple to me, but often
what seems simple is quickly forgotten and you return to those bad habits, so
how was I going to actually put this concept to work.
The
previous month in my Advanced Solo Queue Statistics VLog I actually discussed
that my overall farming numbers were down in the previous 2 months and that was
a goal to improve on for this month. Normally I just try to focus more on it
during the game but this clearly wasn't working and I had to do something to
force myself to get better at it and this is where I started to really start
putting together the concept that would completely reconstruct my in game
approach to consistency.
The Karthus Effect (Vanguard of the Consistency Solution)
Once I
recognized that income was the main obstacle preventing me from being
consistent during the losing streak the first step was to improve it, but the
second step was to maximize it if I was going to focus solely on that facet of
the game. I needed somebody that could farm well and provide inevitability by
doing so. Ziggs, Karthus, Lulu, Ryze and Orianna were the first to mind. Ziggs
had provided a lot of success for me but with some slight nerfs in previous
patches and more incoming I decided against him (at least temporarily). Orianna,
while safe, can really make huge mistakes in team fights if you miss your ult.
Lulu was never something really comfortable for me and her late game is solid
but not what I would call something that provides inevitability. Ryze provides
the inevitability but can be kited but the popular hyper carries (kog and
trist) and doesn't provide any wave clear except when ulting.
So it was down to Ziggs and Karthus. I started
to break it down further using some analysis techniques I learned from Magic
the Gathering. Both are great when they're ahead (as most champs are). Both
champs are good at parity (an even game). When behind Ziggs has the edge
because of his insane wave clear but Karthus isn't as bad as you'd think and
even has some tools that can make him better in certain situations. Both champs
possess certain intangibles but I feel Karthus has the edge here. Let me explain
because this is a key part to the champion and it actually sort of reflects on
my "winning means more than KDA" mentality.
One of
the main strengths Karthus has is that he has "guaranteed damage" because
of his passive. Assume you get instantly killed in a team fight. You have that
second, and 7 more seconds to dish out AOE damage (and shred from wall), as
well as your ultimate and however many Q's. There are fights in which you die
and can still deal out thousands of points of damage allowing your team to do
the rest which is incredibly useful when compared to those times where you get
jumped on as Cassiopeia and you're dead before you even get to ult. So you get
guaranteed damage when you're ahead. You get guaranteed damage when you're
behind (even if it takes suiciding into the middle of a team fight). And you
get guaranteed damage when it's even. This allows you to initiate fights, split
push with teleport, soak damage and cooldowns for your teammates, and the most
important thing, DEAL TONS OF DAMAGE.
Oh yea,
that was another problem I was having during the losing streak. I wasn't
actually affecting the game at all. I wasn't farming well and therefore, wasn't
doing a lot of damage. The damage made me realize that another way to remain
consistent from game to game was to just pick champs that "always"
get their damage down. I feel you're starting to see why the Karthus pick makes
sense.
I could
easily, and safely farm (not the safest but close enough). I could ALWAYS get
my damage down in fights whether behind or ahead. And because of the passive, I
could start the fight in a pinch if my team didn't have the decisiveness to do
so. It all adds up. Karthus was my own personal remedy to my consistency
problem.
Applying the Solution
I've
always been a late game player. I thrive in that situation for whatever reasons
but the challenge of being that kind of player is to get to that point. I'm not
a mechanical beast or hyper talented or anything like that but I do have a
strong mind for the strategic and macro points to the game and I team fight
really well for a player of my rating. My best games are ones where I can farm
up before I outplay. I'm very much a season 2 style player or if you need a
modern player to compare to it'd be Easyhoon from SK Telecom T1 S.
There
are certain challenges that make this difficult in solo queue (although it's
even harder in arranged 5s). People tend to play aggressive more than passive,
people tend to lose harder (or win harder), and building team comps isn't
exactly something that happens in every solo queue game so they become very
snowbally in one direction or the other (especially in high platinum but this
is a different topic). These extremes can cause a lot of distractions. Maybe
you feel pressured to gank because your top lane is getting stomped. Maybe you
feel that trying an all in on your opponent is worth a shot. Maybe you start building
completely differently or, in my case, playing different champions to
"make up" for other people's deficiencies. All of these are bad
adaptations and distractions. Your goal
should be to make the other team play the game on your terms or in a way which
benefits you.
I was
picking Karthus into matchups that I knew were bad even going as far as to
blindly first pick him (which I wouldn't advise). I ran teleport/flash most of
the time and would simply never gank or leave lane unless it was almost a
guaranteed kill (read: worth more than continuing to farm). People would try to
counterpick (most often with Orianna) or play overly aggressive because
"hey Karthus is an easy kill." I wouldn't care. You could kill me a
million times (ok that's a bit extreme) as long as I get my farm. A lot of times people would kill themselves
trying to "outplay" me. I'd often use teleport just to get back after
purchasing to not miss any farm. My build varied but it often contained Rod of
Ages and Zhonya's as my first two items. A couple of games I was able to get a
Rod of Ages on the first back. There were games where I'd die more than 10
times but have 40% of my teams damage and we'd win. In other games we were
behind and because I could continuously get my 8-10 seconds of
"guaranteed" damage we could fight other teams off of objectives. I'd
frequently approach 10 creeps per minute as well as jungle camps.
The Psychological Shift
In one of my previous blogposts titled "Results Oriented Thinking" I mention that when playing
a game with high variance (like League solo queue) one of the only things you
can control is your consistency from game to game and the quantity of games you
play. A person does this by eliminating risk and improving the "bottom
line." An old coach of mine used to
say that "you don't need to very win, just win." Karthus was literally
enforcing this mindset.
On
Karthus you don't care about dying. You only care about farming and providing
that inevitability (read: winning). You suddenly don't tilt as hard when you
get camped because you simply don't care because your damage is going to happen
regardless and if they win before that point then good for them but I am
certainly going to MAKE THEM BEAT ME. In other words I was presenting a threat
that HAS TO BE DEALT WITH, but there isn't really a good way to deal with it
without a lot of coordination. I went from thinking Karthus was terrible in
solo queue because you couldn't "outplay" people to realizing that,
when you're matched against even or more skilled players than you, that
outplaying is much rarer and more difficult. Karthus was actually doing the
opposite of what a lot of people think he does. He was reducing risks.
Consider this example:
The
enemy mid laner and yourself are exactly even in terms of mechanical skill,
decision making, etc. Your rating (in my case Platinum 1) says that this is
mathematically the case. Now of course this isn't always true but for the sake
of this example let's assume it's at least close to the truth. You decide to
all-in your opponent. Odds would say that, excluding champion mismatches, each
player has a 50-50 chance of winning or losing the exchange. Assume the same
for ganks, jungle invades, 2v2 skirmishes, etc. 50% isn't bad or good, it's
exactly even so over the course of 100 of these decisions, you'll succeed in 50
of them. A professional poker player would quickly be out of a job if his win
rate was like this.
Earlier
on I mentioned that "minion gold" is more consistent than
"champion kill gold" and the reason that this is the case is because
there is A LOT less risk involved with
minion kills. If you had the option to take a road that has a 60% chance to
lead you to a point (in this case a certain gold total) vs a 50% chance to lead
you to the same point, wouldn't you take the higher percentage? I know I would,
and that's exactly why I started doing this.
Conclusion
Farming
is lower risk than pretty much everything else in the game. Decide you want to
gank bot lane? You take on certain risks. Going to help your jungler steal
their red? That's perfectly fine but understand the risks. For me the simplest
way to eliminate these risks was to "AFK farm" and play a champion in
Karthus that guarantees that at least some of his damage resolves and provides
a means through which farming can be done safely and provide a degree of
inevitability. Karthus also makes other players play the game the way I want
to. I reduce risk, start a snowball, and eventually present a threat that says
"Can you deal with this?" and from there I capitalize on raw power
and enemy mistakes.
This
isn't for everybody. To most people this is boring and you could actually make
an argument that it doesn't really improve you as a player (which I both agree
and disagree with). Personally I like winning and this isn't that boring a way
to do it in my opinion (what other clothy wants to just run into the enemy team
and that's often the correct decision?). There are times where your teammates
will rage for not following on a gank, or maybe you dive to start a fight and
your team doesn't follow up. I'm not trying to say that this is the
"technically correct" way to play but what is? All I know is that if
you eliminate as much risk as you possibly can you raise your floor ("bottom
line", worst case scenario, etc.) and in a game where it takes a lot of
grinding once you become evenly matched this is the difference between 51% and
52% win rate.
Now it's time to bring the (wall of) pain to the ranks of
Diamond and lay waste to my opposition.
Until next time...
-Gelati
Any questions about
specific in-game techniques, builds, numbers crunching, strategy, etc. I'm more
than welcome to answer and discuss. I just wanted to share the mindset
(CONSISTENCY) and technique, albeit sort of extreme, that actually got me out of a division that I'd
been stuck in (Plat I) to a goal that I have had for a long, long time.
