Okay, so my team has started a 3's team and we feel like we'll be pretty well set to push for gold. Early it seemed we could just pick a good initiator (Amumu), an OP Snowball Champion (Rengar/Darius) and a bursty AP Champ (Cassiopeia). We powered to a quick 4-0 start but then lost 5 straight to team comps we just couldn't beat. We started doing some research and this is where we've gotten, and I'm just looking for some more holes to be filled...

1) Need to balance the team: Obviously we need to mix between AP and AD, but we need to be able to mix the individual champions as well. Instead of having super bursty AP and AD champs, having good escapes or being tanky is important. Rumble has a shield and slow, and so he's the type of AP you need. Ezreal has a great escape, and Nunu is naturally tanky, so those are all great champs.

2) You really do need a jungler: A jungler vs. not a jungler = victory. We found this playing against Nunu for the first time. This led us to trying Nunu, and then taking Amumu and playing him bot lane + a little jungle after level 2. It worked a little in non-ranked games. Once we went to ranked though, it didn't really matter.

3) Wards are king. That's always been the case though.

4) Dragon is the most important objective on the game. Multiple dragons can snowball easily, but at what point is it no longer an objective worth contesting?

This is where we're at as far as team comps go:

Garen, Rumble, Shyv (jungle)
Darius, Rumble/Malphite, Shyv
Ezreal, Nunu, Shyv

Any other advice? Anything would be helpful in our push to gold.

I am barely into ranked atm so I can't help with most of this, however, there is one thing I have noticed in some normal games. If you are against a jungling champion, and you don't have one, then both top and bottom need to deny farm like crazy. I was playing against a solo-bot rumble yesterday, and I was Ziggs. What ended up happening is I poked him so much he had to return to his tower. My team mate and I basically decided to not fight at all, and hope the minions never recede back.

End game Rumble was down about 3 levels and the enemy jungler couldn't gank top due to wards being placed everywhere. All in all it was GG.

Dragon is always worth getting, no matter how farmed up you are, chances are they can defend against you if you don't have a dragon. End game though, if you are losing bad and you know they are going to go get dragon don't worry about it, and just defend with your life. If you can keep them at bay until it wears off. Not only will you get a bunch of farm, but it is rather degrading to the enemy team, and shows that even with it they can't beat you.

Yes wards are awesome, in TT you generally don't need more than 4 on the map at a time. (Unless of course there are some really specific objectives you have in mind)

Balancing a team... Ya, not much I can say here. One thing to think about is gap closers. When I play as certain super squishy mages, I stay in back and kill almost everyone really fast. If they can catch up to me though, I have a bad time... Malphite is probably my favorite tank for TT. He deals massive amounts of murder damage and he can take a beating... Example, a malphite with boots of speed bought a FoN and proceeded to destroy my team with his damage. Even though I was the only AP champ on the team. (I hate malphites passive so much...)

Hope this helps, I know it's a bit spammy, but may be worth the read. For anyone else that wants to post this again, I'd recommend just shortening it up a ton.

Just hit plat in 3's today, so i can give you some advice.

I've found that, by maining shyvana jungle, its moreso to control the jungle rather then help control the lanes.

If you are against a lee jungle, chuck a ward in one of the Buff bushes, early on and on his second route he should try for one.

Setting people behind in the jungle is probably the easiest way to win the early game.

and dont be afraid to rush for early dragons, if you get a double kill at top bring your bottom laner up and do an early dragon. Its worth a LOT more then you think.

Do not take inhibitors unless you are trying to end the game, letting the other team farm super minions gives you 0 farm to deal with and gives them a whole of a lot.

Pink wards are your best friend for map control.

keep the middle warded and most laners wont even push past halfway.