Sad puppy today

I finished my placement matches last night for ranked. I went 2-0 to start and finished 2-8. One of the games we won, had an AFK person on the other team. One of the games I lost had an AFK person on our team. One other game I lost had a troll and someone who gave up after getting really frustrated with the troll which is unfortunate because the other team had a semi AFK who kept dropping and reconnecting... In the end, I got placed in Bronze IV which is the second lowest division possible in the game...

So throwing those games out, 1-6 is still pretty bad. I was ADC in four of those despite telling people, "Prefer mid, ADC is my weakest" in the lobby each time. The inevitable conclusion I'm drawing is that I need to find and ADC that I'm comfortable carrying with and I actually have to CARRY. I feel like, at least at this level, the game is a little bit rigged to weed out people like me. I've been playing the game trying to play "smarter" and help my team from the jungler or support roles as kind of a "force multiplier". Unfortunately, that doesn't work at those low levels. You can't reliably have anyone "decent" on your team. Your games are filled (on both sides) by trolls and you need to be able to take the game by the scruff of the neck and identify and farm the enemy trolls while not placing a burden on your team's weaker members.

So my new project is to learn champions in both mid lane and ADC that can carry and carry hard. I've gotten decent with Graves and Urgot. Neither of them is a real hyper carry. I will probably start exploring Ezreal and Vayne now as they are both more hyper carries. Mid lane, I'm going to try to play Diana, Talon, Ahri and maybe Cassiopeia and/or Kassadin almost exclusively... By focusing on a few champions, I hope to get good enough with them that I can reliably carry a game and remove some of the randomness. I'm thinking I'll also try to use Jayce more as Jayce can reasonably go top/mid/bottom...

So the next step in executing the plan is having a clear idea of WHEN to use those champs. My thoughts are this

ADC
Urgot: With a Taric or Sona support and when the team's ADC is a more "passive" ADC (Caitlyn)
Graves: When he's available
Vayne: With a Nunu or Alistar support and opponents that are semi-passive
Ezreal: With a Sona or Lulu support and opponents that are aggressive and/or kill lane bots (volibear + draven... *shudder*)
Jayce: Situational

That doesn't cover every situation (although it will once I own Graves)

APC:
Talon: Against immobile "caster" mids with stuns. Annie, Brand, etc.
Kassadin: Against more mobile "caster" mids without stuns or with awkward stuns. Cassiopeia, Elise
Diana: Against melee assassins (Katarina, Akali) and/or highly immobile casters (Anivia, Karthus)
Ahri: Against sustain casters (Mordekaiser, Morgana) and random mids I don't see much (Xerath, Cassio, etc)
Cassiopeia: Against slower, tanky mids (Ryze, Vladimir, Swain)
Galio: Against hyper APCs (Cassio, LeBlanc) and/or when we need a tank
Jayce: Situational

There's a lot more flexibility at mid and having Talon in the mix gives me an AD option when we have an AP top / Jungle and Galio gives me an option when someone picks a squishier top and jungle... I'm not at all good with Galio yet and my Jayce and Vayne need work but, for the most part, the above champs I can all play competently.

Also, having a plan forces me to pick well thought out champion selections so that I don't find myself going, "Hrmm... who sounds 'fun' "