What up, Hoff (@belcam) here with a look at week 5. We got a landing page for the Rift Life blog that can be found by clicking HERE. I’ll be talking about the champion pool being played this split, lamenting how only a few are played most of the time, and kind of going on about the why and the what not on this.

More of the Same

Doesn’t it feel like every game has basically the same champs for most roles? I’ll be watching pick/ban and you see a Gangplank ban and you can almost guarantee someone is picking Gnar, or you notice Zoe made it out of ban phase and it’s like.. Yep.. she getting grabbed by someone. During the last 5 weeks, 50 games total, we have seen a total of 65 different champions in pick/ban, less than half the total champion pool (139). That may sound like a decent amount but when you look at the champion distribution, you notice that there are about 2-4 champs that dominate the use count for each roll with others being 1-3 picks at best.

Every NA LCS Team

Top lane you have Gnar and Gangplank commanding the most uses with 35 and 23 uses respectively, gangplank would be above gnar however he has been banned in 25 matches. Vlad and Ornn are a close third with 9 each. Camille is moving up more in use and we saw Sion make an appearance this weekend.

Jungle sees basically Sejuani being picked or banned in about 85% of games, mostly due to her massive amount of CC, with Jarven and Zac following up. J4 has good clear and solid CC with his combo being really good engage. Zac can fly in from out of nowhere and lasso a couple victims and if the time is right he can just air mail a few people to their deaths. Skarner has made a big comeback recently and is slowly working his way into that top 3 status, this because of how well his ult works with Predator keystone to straight up kidnap someone from the other team.

Mid, which shows the least drastic spread of the 5 roles, has been interesting. We were seeing a lot of Ryze in the early weeks due to his stopwatch/ult escape combo, once that was patched and changed he dropped off a bit with the uprise in Azir’s use. We can’t talk about this without talking about Zoe. Zoe is getting some small nerfs, one in 8.3 and another in 8.4, but she has seen either a Ban or a Pick in every game except 1 in the last 5 weeks and I don’t expect that to change. She is downright disgusting when played at the level a pro can utilize her with how well she can pick a person with her combo. “Oh, you didn’t dodge my sleep, that’s a shame”.

We are seeing a bit more diversity in mid but it probably has to do with the high amount of ban pressure being put there or with players being comfortable enough with a different pick against a more meta champ pick.

ADC has been primarily the Ezreal or Tristana show but Kog, Kalista, and Varus each have a respectable amount of uses as well. I don’t think we will see a drop in use for Tristana or Ezreal due to their escape ability and the fact that Tristana can outright carry a game after 3 items. Ezreal is really safe in lane and allows for his support to roam and put lane pressure in mid or top. I’d like to see more use for Xayah with that Rakan/Xayah combo being pretty good. There aren’t a ton of options when it comes to ADC and even still I think ADCs have more chance to play an off pick.

Support has been primarily a protective support meta right now. Braum, Taric, Alistar, and Kench are the top played right now. Kench is being banned a lot more than the rest. The less tanky supports are having a rough time in this meta. We have 4 games with the Rakan/Xayah duo and it was fantastic to see. The above mentioned top played are really good for protection of the ADC. Braum is strong against Ezreal and other poke options with his shield as well as the CC he provides with passive, Q, and Ult. Taric is.. Well.. Taric. His ult can turn a team fight and he is just one of the strongest tank supports right now. Tahm Kench can save an ADC from themselves and that's pretty necessary most of the time.

Y THO

Why are we seeing basically the same comps and champs with some mixups here and there. The main reason for this is due to the meta and champion strengths which can change patch to patch depending on what nerfs/buffs come out. Sometimes champions are just too strong during a patch to ignore (ie Tristana, Gangplank and Zoe) or have some mechanic that for one reason or another gives you an upper hand, looking at you Taric ult. There are always champs that remain pretty solid and can be pocket picks for players, think Bjerg on Taliyah, but a lot of times champs come along with buffs from a patch and just outshine in the team comp or counter pick. There are different things that dictate what gets picked and generally that comes down to there being a smaller pool of viable champions in competitive play. Also these guys have limited time to scrim during the week so they can’t just cycle through a ton of different champs. They end up focusing on the stronger picks and maybe a couple off picks for safety. I imagine all these players have off meta picks that they are intimately familiar with and can perform solid on them without any scrim time, but you rarely see it due to strength of champs in the current patch. I understand it.. But i don’t have to like it. I love seeing off meta picks and just different champs being played and it’s even better when they perform really well, Licorice pretty much destroyed on Kled one game in either week 1 or week 2. Another big contributor to this is the swap to Best of 1 style. With this one game deal, teams tend to try and abuse whatever comp they can rather than working with something different because they don’t have the 1 game buffer.

CONCLUSION

It would be nice to see more diverse team comps in the pro scene but to be honest that will be pretty difficult to achieve with how champions swing in strength from patch to patch. A small change to an item can completely change one champs overall viability in either a negative or positive ways as well. It’s hard to balance every champion but league seems to have this process where they will completely overpower a few champions and then struggle to rebalance it and end up pushing it too far down. I hope we can see a better balance in champions so that you don’t have to avoid using a specific champion pool because they never can compete with the top tier champion pools. Also you have team play styles and comps that aren’t really going to change unless they absolutely have to for one reason or another. These guys are going to work to play to their strengths and a lot of times that ends up forcing the rest of the teams to either play to counter them or force a counter from them.

Anyway, that’s my ramblings on about the champions being banned and selected this split and how it seems to be just a few champs being seen the most and not enough diversity in the champ select. Let me know what you think in the comments and yall have a good one

Hoff OUT!!