reaching masters playing mostly sona (some statistics/Highlights inside)

[deleted]

I was stuck in D2 for abnormally long too, at least compared to other divisions. I mean hell I got to Masters on the 4th try but it took until the 7th to get D1.

A lot of my more recent philosophy on Sona comes from The Tank Main's videos. Some things have changed since then, but a lot is pretty similar.

Other than that I just played a lot I guess. I would suggest not playing very late at night or very early in the morning since then you vastly increase your chances of getting mixed in with Challenger players, at least on EUNE, I don't know if it's the same else where.

Now at D1 I'd get Master/Challengers no matter what I did but they didn't seem so scary anymore. Yes, Challenger players feed their asses off too.

What else.. I dunnos. I can probably answer some more specific questions too if you have any.

I'm pretty bad at anything else. When I got Secondary I just went Top, picked Shen, sucked at CS, usually lost my tower first.. but I'm pretty good at watching the map so I'd just press R and hope my teammates don't suck.

My goal for preseason/S8 assuming I don't get bored would probably be to get better at some secondary role.

1. I'll usually ban Lulu since she combos really well with hypercarries like Kog and Twitch and I just don't want to deal with that.

That said typical hard engage supports like Alistar/Leona/Thresh/Blitz can be scary too. Usually I'm really careful with these and it's rare for me to get caught, but if my ADC does (and oh they do) there isn't that much I can usually do.

Out of those 4 Thresh is the one I'd be most OK with since his engage is the hardest to do. Meanwhile Leona can engage for free whenever, Blitz zones you out of bushes and possibly off of farm and playing against Alistar means you will never 2v2 all lane.

2. Draven, Caitlyn.. and.. Kalista probably? The theme is hyper aggressive ADCs that you can't trade well with or it's too dangerous to get close to them.

Draven just runs at you and if his E hits you then he can axe you to death, Caitlyn can Headshot/E/Q you for like 3/4 of your health if you step up in the open and Kalista just kites you.

A well protected Kog can suck too though. His early game isn't that weak. Pair him with Leona and she just locks your ADC down and he presses W and right clicks on him. RIP. Nothing you can do if he gets caught.

3. I like tanky junglers. I'm always happy when I have something like Sejuani, Rammus or Maokai. Assassin junglers can be OK but their contribution is just not as consistent. When Kha is behind he isn't doing much at all, when Rammus is behind he's still tanky and his CC still works, so I always prefer these junglers that remain relevant regardless of how the first 10-15~ minutes of game went.

4/5) As I said I will pretty much always ban Lulu. If someone else is banning Lulu I'm probably going to ban one of the tanky junglers if my Jungler isn't playing them. Occasionally I'll do a target ban if someone dodged a lobby, but usually I just reset my queue when that happens.

6. As I said in my post I've really been liking playing with Kalista. It's pretty ridiculous what kill pressure you have, and her ult is like having an extra flash for your own ult. She also does a ton of damage and is probably the biggest Censer abuser out of all the ADCs.

Sona is also really consistent at applying Kalista's W so your kill pressure is pretty high at any point in the game.

Seriously, that Kalista from one of the highlights I posted, she was DCed at the start, missed a whole wave, hadn't bound me with her arrow yet and when Xayah/Janna all-inned us with level 2 advantage we burnt Xayah's Flash/Barrier and Janna's Heal in exchange for just her Heal and my Ignite. It's just silly. If I was bound then she would've died. So much for level 2 advantage.

Other than that, I would say Caitlyn for early game bullying and taking 1st tower.. and one of the hyper carries.. perhaps Tristana since she's safer, for later game.

I don't really like Draven that much or Miss Fortune since they become less relevant as the game goes on, so if you haven't stomped your lane and just ran away with the game early you'll probably have a really hard time.

Caitlyn on the other hand bullies early, sucks mid, and then is really strong again in late, so she's probably the best compromise between lane bullies and hyper carries.

7. I've never bought Frost Queen and I don't think you ever should really.

Lets think for a moment about what's happening here: You are spending 1350G for 40 AP and a lackluster Active.

What else can we spend the gold on? Well, assuming you've rushed Censer as you always should, you have your Sightstone and Tear (or boots if you prefer).. you can spend 1350 for Frost Queen.. or you can spend 900G for Fiendish Codex, get 10 less AP but 10% CDR, and it builds into Athenes which is always great. You're left with 450 and you can buy a Dark Seal if you want, although I usually don't get one any other time except first back.

Furthermore instead of combining items you're taking up 2 slots with this stuff and it just becomes awkward when you're building components of other things and you want room for Control Wards too.

8. So if you looked at my OP.GG link, I never build shoes. As far as I'm concerned it's between Mobis and Ionian since Sorcs just doesn't provide enough value at least in the games I'm playing, although your milage may vary in lower elo.

The problem with Ionian is that they overcap your CDR if you're going with a typical build, although this won't be a problem in 7.20 if you have Transcendence since it gets converted to AP. Flash CD reduction is always tempting since having Flash up is critical for Sona.

I feel like Mobis are more of a thing for roaming supports which Sona isn't really. That said they do help you be where you have to be quicker. For me at least situations where if I could've been there seconds earlier I would've turned a fight or something are exceedingly rare. However in lower elo people fight for no reason all the time, so Mobis could have a higher value since they help you get back to your lemmings in time.

9. I've played like 10 games on PBE and I haven't even touched Coin really. But PBE games are complete fiestas where I get to use all my stacks with little to no danger to myself, laning phases end really quickly and I find myself pushing waves sometimes since no one bothers to do it.

In live this will probably be different. Coin will still generate more gold and let you reach power spikes like Censer earlier. Between Coin, Kleptomancy and Futures Market you can ( with a bit of RNG luck) get Censer quicker than ever before.

That said if you go Kleptomancy Main + Sorcery and you take STE you do start with 40 AP, which is pretty sweet. In the current system it's as if you're running all flat AP runes but you also have Gathering Storm so you have scaling AP runes too, I like it.

Ultimately though, yes, I do think in lower elo you'd probably see higher win rates with STE because of the extra poke. I do think you'd have more gold with Coin even in low elo though unless you're running around aimlessly and avoiding minion waves.