So just to kind of put my observations from tonight in written form this is kind of how both games went down:
Game 1: Kog, Nami v Trist, Leona - Botlane is Silver/Gold. Mid/Top/Jungle are Plat/Diamond/Diamond
We leash, they do a really shitty level 1 push that puts the wave in a bad spot so we escape the level 2. We end up doing pretty well and we nearly get a kill level 3, but Maokai shows up to back us off, but no wasted summoners. Around level 5, we end up going 2-for-1, though Nami gets both kills.
Maokai keeps coming bot. The 2nd gank was foiled by a great bubble from pacov, which prevented an easy death. Gank 3 was avoided with a deep ward + summoners. Gank 4 was the straw that broke the camel's back, resulting in 2 kills. WW then kind of wanders down, but is seen backs off, Maokai does an aggressive tower dive with Leona. Nami ends up picking off a kill on Trist in the aftermath, so it ends up going 1-for-1 in the long run. While we're doing reasonably well (in terms of KDA) against the super-heavy gank pressure, i am down about 10 CS, and i'm down about a level due to kill distribution or staggered basing (the kill on Trist under tower that Nami got, Nami kind of slow pushed and even though it denied them a little bit of CS to the tower, Nami took so long to get back to lane i just kinda had to sit around for 30 seconds getting nothing).
Midgame, it seems like Lux kept getting chunked. i'm not exactly sure how, since i never saw it happen, but Cow mentioned he was frequently oom. Maybe the enemy jungler was doing some really good counterjungling. i also know that Jayce has pressured mid a lot with a few ganks. One blue-steal in particular, i come around "flanking" them but end up walking into a 1v4. Oops. We probably could have gotten 2 kills if i walked the long way thru tribush. We do one "kinda" greedy push really deep mid and we almost get a tower but then it goes badly (don't remember exactly how).
We really tunnel hard on dragon that whole game, but it never really works out. Maybe the Jayce + Mao poke is too good compared to Nami heal + Lux shield/poke. One time Maokai manages to do 900 damage to me with Thornmail. i didn't expect it, i guess the lifesteal nerfs buffed that item considerably. Few times Ahri gets some good flash + charms. i think Nami was a little slow on some Nami ults, and i mention this to pacov in post-game analysis.
Post-game charts shows the enemy team had a huge gold lead thru most of the game.
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1459900685/40443430
Game 2: Kog, Thresh v Lucian, Nami - Enemy team is mostly Diamod/Plat.
We do a really slow Red invade. i'm worried about being level 1'd in Tribush, so i stick around for a long leash and ask Karl to walk us back. He does an early gank and gets chunked to 40% but blows flash. We still get 2v1'd though (i'm not sure how to avoid getting 2v1'd. No matter what we do we lose. If we walk to lane fast, they can hide in the bush. If we walk to lane slow, we get level 2'd). Nami E + Lucian E is just too much for poor Kog. We end up missing 2 kills on Lucian by literally 20 damage.
i ended up going LS quints that match up (because Thresh versus Nami). Sort of regret it in that particular case (LS wasn't enough to save me from Lucian and the lack of AS quints resulted in two missed kills). i also walked into an ass-ton of bubbles.
At one point we end up having Bryff + Thresh botlane while i get a few waves top. It seems to work out okay because when i return botlane we stop feeding since i was able to get a level or two of solo EXP. Enemy Renekton luckily didn't able to get much farm because we catch him in our jungle. It's a 3v3 and we end up going 2-for-2.
We end up getting a good "free" bot tower and Renekton wastes TP on a cancel. Bryff is toplane and still has tele (i think). We end up posturing around dragon since Hecarim is low + no ult. We end up posturing too long, however, as people were able to heal. i know that Bryff kind of chased Nami pretty far south of dragon, but Nami was also chunked to like 30% so i understand the greed.
Cow calls for a surrender, and we end up voting for it.
i think that we should try to early-pick Nami because if we need to we can swap ADC/Support and i can play Nami and Pacov can play Caitlyn if it turns out that the enemy comp is going to wreck Kog.
For example: AFAIK Caitlyn is really the only good ADC against Lucian since Lucian is very similar to Vayne now (a short-ranged, generally weak level 1-2). And Kog can't really abuse Lucian's lower range. Maybe the whole enemy team is assassins and Kog's low-mobility just isn't going to work, etc.
PS. Note: Also i'm not a huge fan of Gragas mid unless it's against an Assassin.
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1459926765/40443430