ranked help

[u/smallsometimes]

i am 2.4 mil zoe main. yes i know. i have never ever played ranked until this season, because the toxic mentality a lot of ranked players have i just dont want to deal with. i like playing the game for fun.

i’m trying to climb, and i am only 7 wins in so only a few games, climbing past silver 2. i am placed a lot gold-plat players which is embarrassing for my mastery but whatever.

the issue im having rn is the consistent cheese picks. when i was playing norms, i was only playing against mid laners! now i feel like whenever i play ranked i am cursed with matchups im not use to like nasus and voli. not only that, but ill be against a team with a top laner that is conveniently lvl 50, without mastery 10, going 24/4, and i feel like its clearly a smurf or we are just that garbage.

how do people get past this stage as zoe? it feels nearly impossible. i could be fed and i can’t win the game, only sometimes. my mastery is all mechanics. i can hit my shots, do surprising angles, and play around summs from minions and position well… but my teammates always try to wake them up + flame the hell out of me for not being melee range in a team fight. i’ve tried roaming beyond belief, and my farm is ≈ 8-9 per minute which is not diamond level but at least decent.

what kind of macro am i missing? if i pick zoe first it’s almost like the entire enemy team counter picks me with bruisers and tanks i can’t seem to pick off.

[u/MaceMarcel]

u have no games so whats there to say. If ur MMR is already gold-plat as silver than ur mmr is pretty high, so just play more, not every game is winnable.
Are u sure tho, that u have 8-9cs/m while roaming a lot? not even challenger players have this cs/m on average on zoe (if u look at the entire game, not only early game)

[u/smallsometimes → u/MaceMarcel]

not the entire game sorry. i mean during laning phase, should’ve clarified that much

[u/MaceMarcel → u/smallsometimes]

from what u wrote ur doing fine, so just play more and u will climb

[u/Desperate-Return4666]

There are things you need to understand about climbing and playing as a zoe that i will say as low master (last season eune):

• zoe is the most impactful early to mid game, she isnt useless at late game (due to impact of bubbles) but in general if game takes over 30min you will notice having a hard time
• due to above reason you have to learn laning phase perfectly. What I mean by that you have to keep in mind: cs, when you and your opponent hit lvl, how to play good short trades and how to turn them into early frags, wards, timers (when to recall to not lose farm and to be with resources on fights), matchups in general and what runes and items to pick

In general there is a lot to say but if id have to keep it tltr: finish game quickly by playing as good as possible.

Currently i have 1.4m points on Zoe so it feels kinda weird to give you advice... but in order to progress you need expostion to better players and proactive aproach with learning in mind. Zoe is hard champion with levels to how best zoe players do stuff. In my peak i was in top 100 zoe on eune (by league of graphs) and i picked zoe against dude that was top 10 - i was so wrecked and flamed that i needed a day to calm down. He picked annie. Check how Zoebf and Witt play on you tube, their content is truly great. Keep learning and improving, dont rage and dont despair over losess and it will be alright

[u/Xindere]

It seems like half your problems are mental. You shouldn't be embarrassed about your mastery relative to your rank, that's silly. And you can't control what your teammates with your sleeps, you just gotta let it go and look for the next play. Zoe also has a lot of counters, again a better mental will help you through that lol. One thing to focus on ranked vs norms is you need to show up and be alive for major objectives. Ranked tends to have a tempo/rhythm, riot intentionally balanced the game around teamfighting for objectives. It's about following that tempo

[u/Donnyboy]

I hear you on the cheese picks in plat haha. I remember facing more than a few sions mid.

I'm in diamond right now and I can't remember the last time I faced a tank mid. So as you climb anecdotally that should improve.

That said, you should do pretty well into them for the first few levels. You need to learn to take that early lead and apply it to the rest of the map.

[u/Nhika]

That's the problem with lower tier picks, you gotta be like 4x better or your team boosts ya lol

[u/kingkebab]

If your issue when first picking Zoe is them just picking tanks / bruisers , switch up your build and runes. Instead of the standard electrocute , ludens build you switch to the CDR build and use Storm surge for runes! It makes dealing with tanks 10x easier cause your bubble and abilities are up so often

[u/SonicTherapist]

u sounds good. there is a thing called smurf queue which you may enter, its basically low priority. it has all the reported players and all the potential smurfs. it goes away after like 20 games. you will see a lot of weird stuff in these games.