After that big string of losses I had to do something to make a comeback. Luckily, a buddy of mine logged in just as I was about to pick up some late night games. We queued up for Summoner’s Rift hoping for the best. It went surprisingly well. Our first game was a nice long back and forth with a pretty solid opponent. We had the AOE advantage, though, and my survivability as Nidalee kept me on top of the kill charts and at the bottom of the death count all game long. It was a long fight, but a good one. Our second game our opponents had a Nidalee DC, so we had an easy victory.

Another friend logged in and we started 3-man queueing, though still on Summoner’s Rift. I thought I recognized one of our teammates as the DC from the previous game. As it turned out, the two just had similar names. We went in rolling Tryndamere, Janna, Blitzcrank, Tristana, Karthus. It was an admittedly strange team, but I’d been wanting to play Trynd ever since I bought his Highland skin earlier in the day.

Things started out rough – our two randoms were feeding pretty hard and one of my buddies couldn’t get traction because his lanemate was dying just about every 3 minutes. We were getting outpushed as well, though I was farming well bottom and getting a few kills. Around the 20-minute mark I was up 7-0, but my team had died something like 12 times with no kills. We were also down four towers.

By 35 minutes things looked grim. Our Karthus was now 1-9, Janna was something similar if not worse, and we were down two inhibitors. I still hadn’t died, though, and was flying high on a good farm with 12 or so kills. We kept trying to defend, and though my team was dying often, we were steadily holding them back. They did get one break and bring down all the inhibitors. From there we decided to just stand and fight at the nexus. They would rush in and beat on a tower until Janna could blow them back and we’d get a few kills. Eventually, though, they brought down both towers.

What I’m about to tell you is a little surreal, and I don’t mean to suggest you can win every game if you just stick it out. Sometimes it’s just lost. For whatever reason, though, we decided to stay and fight. After they killed our second nexus turret, we managed an ace. Obviously we couldn’t push, so it was back to defense and trying to let inhibs respawn. Time after time the other team would roll in and time after time Janna would blow them off nexus and we would somehow manage to ace them (I think my massive farm had something to do with it). Slowly our inhibitors respawned and we kept acing them further and further toward the base. In the final fight, our opponents had to split to protect two lanes that were being pushed by creeps. We killed two of their teammates and pushed straight to nexus for the win. It was one of the most satisfying victories I’ve had (ending 25/0 as Trynd certainly helped).

As much as it hurts to lose those epic fights, it feels just as good to be on the winning side after a long losing streak, which is a big part of my continued enjoyment of this game.

It’s a lot of fun to go on big winning streaks in League of Legends. I’m sure it’s happened to most of you at some point. You know that feeling, where you just can’t seem to lose. You’re playing Katarina for the hell of it and going legendary, running AP Yi and somehow still pulling wins. It’s a great feeling, and I love writing about the stats in those crazy streaks.

Then we have the losing streaks. They are the complete and total opposite of fun. They are unfun. They are joyless. They can be so painful they’ll make you take a break from the game for a week at a time. I’m in such a losing streak, and though I’m not giving up the game, I thought it would be cool to post some stats about my latest big losing streak.

Let me start by saying that my teammates have not been holding up their end of the bargain. I know, everyone says that, but in most every game I’ve lost recently I’ve had a solid farm and in some cases a pretty decent score. Despite the facts, though, I’ve been losing a lot – I’m down from 75 games over .500 to just 64, all in the last four days. Like I said, it’s been rough. At one point I had lost eight in a row.

Here’s the stat list on my most recent 10:
Defeat: 0-3-0 Karthus
Defeat: 4-5-5 Tristana
Victory: 3-1-5 Tryndamere
Defeat: 5-5-6 Twisted Fate
Victory: 10-0-3 Kennen
Defeat: 4-1-1 Ashe
Defeat: 1-8-5 Soraka
Defeat: 5-0-4 Nidalee
Defeat: 0-1-0 Soraka
Defeat: 3-3-2 Singed

For the most part it’s not a bad spread of stats. Granted, that Soraka game was pathetic, but my deaths were situational, usually I was trying to save a teammate that had run off solo or attempting to get my team to commit (for some reason our Shen refused to taunt anyone unless he was directly on top of them). We were never grouped up so one person would get burnt and I would blow everything I had trying to keep that individual alive and have nothing left for the teamfights. It was a bad game.

The thing that really bothers me about this particular streak of losses is that my team tended to lose the game in the laning phase, before anything could actually happen. I was either stuck mid watching both of my side lanes feed or standing in a lane next to someone to whom I was typing furiously, begging them to play more conservatively.

Whatever the reasons, though, you have to take the good with the bad, especially if you’re going to solo queue. Here’s hoping things turn around soon.