Greetings GD!
I havee been playing since midway through the Orianna patch, and have always been to scared to start ranked. However, I figured since it is in the preseason right now, it would be the best time to start, and so I bit the bullet. I'm keeping this thread as a journal of sorts, documenting my experience with Ranked games in general, and in order to get any (constructive) criticism people would like to throw my way.


Edit - Well, I am trying to upload the lolreplay file, but it says I am missing a security token. tips anyone?

11/17/2012 - First game

Blue vs. Purple
Olaf - Darius (top)
Cass - Vladimir (mid)
Ashe - Vayne (adc)
Soraka - Nunu (support)
J4 - Nautilus (jungle)

This game started out pretty awful. Vladimir is, well, my "main" I guess, and so I just picked him to go mid, little knowing that Cass, apparently, is a pretty hard counter to me. I held out well, even though she was out creepscoring me, but ended up giving her a few kills due to lack of communication with my jungler - I have a tendency to go in first, and that was exactly the wrong thing to do here. And so I was rolled pretty hard. Our top also started out pretty rough, with darius unable to keep up in cs either, until after a few good ganks from the jungle. OUr vayne bot, however, started out as a monster, and her early feed ended up getting us this game. Ultimately, we stayed tied in towers through out the game, and won with dragon. Despite losing baron to the other team twice, out team fight positioning (at least comparing adc's) was much better, and we ended up getting an ace after a baron at 45 and pushing for the win.

Result - Win


Replay-
http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2472093/

Le bump for advice

1/22/2013 - Second game

Blue vs. Purple
Jax - Yorick (top)
Karthus - Zyra (mid)
Caitlyn - Ezreal (adc)
Nunu - Taric (support)
Volibear - Kha'zix (jungle)

Awful, awful, awful. For my second game, I duo qued and went bot with a friend of mine who mains support. We talked mostly in skype, and communicated through pings and mias to everyone else. It was his first ranked game, and my first in forever. ADC is, I believe, my worst role to play. Between Caitlyn and Nunu's ability to harass, I was completely pushed back out of minions, and since Taric could only stun one person at a time, i was prevented from being able to CS very well (something I need to work on anyway). Besides that, I made the stupid choice to go frostborn first buy, after boots 2 and double doran's - I was like, "hey I am dieing, I need armor", and my lack of damage crippled our team fight ability later. The only thing I believe the rest of my team could have done to help me more is Kha'Zix could have given more than one gank. I take the teams loss squarely on my shoulders.

Result - Loss


Replay-
To be uploaded when lolreplay comes online

1/22/2013 - Third game

Blue vs. Purple
Volibear - Darius (top)
Brand - Morgana (mid)
Ashe - Ezreal (adc)
Sona - Soraka (support)
Talon - Shyvana (jungle)

This game was excellent the whole way through. It was the first time I had jungled Shyvana in quite some time, and I was not used to how low she would get on health. Fortunately, all three lanes were won, more or less, without my needing to gank, and I was able to free farm in the jungle until it was time to take towers. I feel like if I had been up against a group of players who were equal in skill level to my team, it would have turned out a lot worse than it did. Over all, the main thing I could have improved on was ganks - I forgot to bring exhaust, and I often missed with my ultimate. I could have done better with itemization as well - I waited far to long to turn my phage into a mallet, and was therefore quite to squishy in the early part of the match.

Result - Win


Replay-
To be uploaded when Lol Replay is back online