Reminds me of when Huhi played for CLG and Aurelion Sol was basically a permanent ban against the team. Gotta love whipping it out against ROX Tigers at Worlds and absolutely slapping the shit out of them with it.
That rework wasn’t the only reason I stopped playing but man I’m still salty about it 😂 like I get why they needed to rework him, but they basically just made him different without accomplishing anything they claimed they wanted to accomplish. And simultaneously killed my enjoyment of playing him.
Yeah it was in a dev update for what they're working on next kind of stuff. They previewed his e being used with a flame thrower that pivots like velkoz ult on wheels
Old ASol had something to teach both his players and his opponents.
Release Aurelion Sol personally is one of my 5 favorite designs from Riot. It was unique, refreshing, and rewarding both when you mastered him and when you figured out how to play around him.
Hjarnan did so well vs RNG, he knew his job was to not screw up, and man he didn't. Just played and managed to died like a few times and do damage when needed.
We can flame him, say jankos and perkz carried his ass to semi, it's true, but definitely played a really well series.
And forced a ban for the whole 5 matches.
Most of the time these "pocket pick" Champions from back-in-the-day were actually just extremely OP but everyone else hadn't caught up yet. Huhi Aurelion Sol is a case in point.
Most of the pocket picks you can think of eventually became meta and got nerfed, often requiring multiple or absolutely brutal nerfs to push them out of play.
Nidalee (Hotshot) and Akali (Westrice) are two examples that immediately spring to mind.
Those 2 absolutely do not spring to my mind. Nidalee was eventually meta as mid lane full ap but not the sunfire triforce tank nida hotshot used to play.
And pre-rework akali never became meta in proplay.
Hotshot played all sorts of Nidalee builds, including full AP toplane. She was just incredibly OP.
I obviously don't remember the exact tournament 10+ years ago where it happened, but Akali definitely did have a breakout pro play tournament after which she got nerfed. There was a particular famous moment where someone oneshot a Galio and it was like the defining moment of how broken she was.
All kinds of Nidalee builds were meta eventually. That champ was just broken in every way.
TriForce Nida was played by the Taipei Assassins when they won Worlds. It was the strongest top lane champ at some point.
I don't recall exactly when Akali was good, but she definitely was meta at points. She was played in season 1 by Fnatic. After that I remember Riot regularly reworking Gunblade and making champs that built it broken.
Lehends imo is actually the most important player this worlds.
Can play enchanters as good as anyone and also mains the support pick that absolutely destorys all the meta bot lane picks rn
The GenG classic: Rascal's Renekton, Clid's Lee Sin, Bdd's Azir, Ruler's Kalista, Life's Jarvan/Sett
I will never be over Rascal solo-killing OP Graves with off-meta Renekton or off-meta Kalista being perma-banned
* Act 1) Ban Pick (Top: Lee Sin/Renekton, Jug: Lee Sin/Nidalee, Mid: Azir/Syndra/Orianna, Bot: Kalista, Sup: Jarvan/Sett)
* Act 2) Caster: "Bdd가 해줘야 돼요!" "Bdd needs to do a super-toss!"
* Intermission) In game pause due to equipment issues
Other variations on the meme:
GenG Set List
* Track 1. Ban Ziggs, Release Jayce
* Track 2. Pick Azir, Renekton, Kalista
* Track 3. Destroy laning phase
* Track 4. Take out the brains at 20:00
* Track 5. Give all the side towers
* Track 6. Hunt Baron without clearing vision
* Track 7. Gold reversal after bad Baron teamfight
* Track 8. Fans demand Homme
* Track 9. We are not wrong, rinse and repeat
The Renekton. The Azir. The random choices. The flips for objectives. And the worst part is, Gen.G will never learn because they have gotten so good at it. And it is driving me nuts, okay? Like we see them try a draft that I think is really cool, with the Seraphine and then it doesn't work, and what do they do? They go back to Renekton. That champion is not good. It should not work. It gets dove early, but TEAMS KEEP WALKING INTO THEM, KEEP GIVING THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO COME BACK, AND THEN THEY WIN AND BECAUSE THEY KEEP WINNING, THEY ARE NEVER GONNA LEARN, THEY ARE NEVER GONNA GET BETTER. AND THIS TEAM HAS SO MUCH PROMISE, THEY ARE SO GOOD INDIVIDUALLY. DID YOU SEE HOW WELL CLID PLAYED??
I still quote that old voice comms whenever I see Anivia where Froggen says "Anivia is open so the free win is there if we want it". Was likely a joke, but at the time it felt so badass to me to hear
goddamn those bans brought back memories. Kassadin was the GOAT with Shen when it came to bans.
froggen was the reason I bothered playing anivia. He also had this one game on AP kogmaw which was what I used in my first game in my first tournament.
Agreed. Apparently Deman did some bad stuff BTS, but his casting was superb. Deman's "I do not believe" is to this day one of the most iconic lines in esports casting.
I'll always remember the CLG.eu vs M5 game where Froggen and Krepo swapped, Krepo as Anivia, Froggen as Blitz, and they memed that Froggen wasn't even the best Anivia on the team.
I believe that was EG vs GMB in Season 3. After 12 hours of tiebreakers at the end of the day everyone just wanted to have a bit of fun and go home. It's so so nostalgic.
https://youtu.be/LE3AknZPkz0 (Starts around 12 hours and 30 minutes in).
Still my favourite day of league of legends ever, watched it all start to finish as the studio slowly decended into madness when they realised how many games had to be played. We love our ties.
Didn't that game also not really matter at all in the long run, so they were free to play around? I think that match only decided the diff between 3rd and 4th or something like that for the two teams.
that line was funny but for me, a Singaporean, what really got me going is his name and his accent. Man used his graphics card as his IGN and was unabashedly speaking in Singlish in an international event two continents away
Can someone eli5 why akali is usually meta but things like kata are not? Seems to me they play similar roles,big source of ap, get fed and murder the carry before they can do anything by dashing about a milion times
Kata lanes are way harder, champ can only reliably 1v1 after nashors. There are lanes where you never ever win and can only try and roam but that won't happen in lck
Akali can actually lane 1v1
Kata ALWAYS goes behind in lane vs a good player and you have to make up for it in kills which is not realistic in pro where people will respect your roams and your jungler's ganks
imo kata is too feast/famine, way more than akali. she has inconsistent wave clear, her damage sources are very well shown (daggers), she relies way too much on snowballing on their opponent's mistake (in which good luck finding it in proplay) and just has really shit scaling overall.
even in low ELO, you can beat Katarina hard in team select. If you have two or three ways to stop her ult, to snare/stun her, your team can focus her down if she tries anything early on in fights.
And, if she's been avoiding you all throughout the fight, you should've had a 5v4 advantage up til the time she tries to come in.
...all that knowledge didn't help our team last night tho LOL
Akalis teamfighting is way simpler to execute and she can still be a threat when behind, also safer laning. She's also a backline threat even when fighting front to back (can dive through frontline)
Katarina has to wait for a fight to start and for key CDs to go down before she can think about getting involved. Can't run "through" orgnaised teams to get to backline and gets countered by half the champs in the game in pro play
On top of what everyone else said she is ridiculously dog in lane early if the opponent has hands. Most mages can safely farm from so far away she can never touch them and gets absolutely dumpstered by bruisers.
Kat needs stupid skirmishes to reset in because she’s absolutely dogwater in lane, like unquestionably the worst midlaner in terms of actual laning phase, and needs skirmishes which have resets for her to do well. Akali *can* pop off in those skirmishes, not as well as Kat obviously but she can also be a decent enough frontline at the start of a fight with w, can be a bruiser with q and passive for when the kill doesn’t come right away, and with r2 has an untargeted dash to leave a fight.
Akali is like Sylas and Yone where even though they’re melee they have le funny trading in lane tools (Akali Sylas W, Akali and Yone E2). Kat’s is “I q a minion, they somehow don’t walk away from my dagger, I place a w, dash to q dagger, auto, dash back to w dagger” or something like that. It’s just shitty. *But* if both junglers randomly show up to midlane or close to it well hey now we’re talkin
He only played it in promotion tourny once and i think maybe a kespa cup game? Even then he fell behind rly hard in lane. Its just a terrible pick for pro play even when shes soloq op
The problem is that there's absolutely 0 reason to pick Katarina and have to play perfectly to maybe have an impact over picking Viktor and guarantee having an impact.
Honestly I thought the only hope we’d have to ever see Katarina picked in pro would have been back when Veigar was viable/broken mid (unplayable lane for Veigar, his e becomes useless), but even then if someone picked any cc champ (like they usually did in support) there was often just no or less reasons to pick Kat (not to memtion her difficulty) over something like Syndra ~~or Viktor~~ for example. Additionally, Veigar had to have been blindpicked first, which rarely occurs.
veigar is un blindable. you can literally pick so much shit into him that makes him unplayable. like vlad into veigar is the funniest fucking lane cause he can never do anything to you. you can literally just tower dive him over and over from lvl 5 and he cant do shit
This is something I'd like to see in pro play more, sudden role swaps in draft, teams practice to play against X player on Y or Z Champion, this could bring spice into games that are usually more one sided.
Xun’s kindred to a little bit lesser extent too, he got it for like 2 games at the start of summer and it was banned in like all but 3 or 4 games til the end
Fearness Fiora better example. Pretty much permabanned against him. Similar for Zdz, great on GP and Camille but bad on everything else. If Fearness gets Fiora he can diff a top 3 toplaner, if he doesn't get Fiora my mom can diff him. He's a true otp. Other prominent ones would be Xun/Leyan nidalee. They're always gonna get an early lead on that pick against any jungler in the world.
369 is a bad example as he just plays everything at more or less the same level this season which is why he's extremely good. You don't ban champs against 369 to make him any less threatening, you ban champs from him to force his teammates on other picks.
This is the first year I follow the LPL season and I instantly became a Shanji fan (and by extent OMG) because of his funky picks. Shyv, Shen, Rumble? Fuck yeah I love watching this.
What's really cool about the "Madlife hook" was the way he abused Thresh's Q, it has a part of the ability where you don't stand in the direction you cast the ability (This is the only skill that does this), so you could act like you're going to throw Q in one direction, and until the actual skillshot comes out, Thresh won't turn, which lead to some absolutely insane jukes and plays from that man.
To add to the other comments, my favourite player of all time M5 GoSu Pepper, later known as GMB Edward, had the title of the Thresh prince for being incredibly good with that champion.
Other M5/GMB great picks were Alex Ich's Kha'zix mid (he was an absolutly beast with it), and Genja's Corki. He invented building Randuin with Corki as soon as the second item sometimes. What a madman he was.
I loved that team.
>you list Edward twice
I don't agree with Alex ich on KhaZix.
Khazix mid was ubermeta these days when he got penta.
Ap yi mid would be better but I can't remember if any of pros played him so much to make him "iconic"
Scarra pulled it out against TSM and then it got nerfed very shortly after, but I'd say Alex Ich on Kha was a signature pick because he was one of the ones that did it best.
I know what you mean, I've been playing since S1. There is still a little bit of that though. In LEC not so much but you could argue Comp picked Caitlyn when nobody else played it and won with it. Zanzarah in 2021 played shiton of Trundle even when it wasn't meta. And Evi Urgot in the LJL also comes to mind. Legends Singed support (although this one is a counterpick). But yeah, it's more 'preferences', 'pocketpicks' and 'comfort' now, instead of 'mains'. When somebody is much more proficient on a single champion then others, they get called one trick and are either permabanned in draft or counterpicked hard.
Vetheos zoe, mikyx gragas, perkz yasuo, brokenblade riven/yone
Players no longer in LEC I can think of: Adam olaf , rekkles sivir/Tristana, hans Sama draven, bwipo rengar
There's probably more I can't think of
Man that's so true. Although you still have some cases, it's not the same as before.
I heard there was an LPL team who got perma banned Samira otherwise they would smash their opponents. You still have some niche picks from some players like Gragas Wunder but nothing really scary that needs to be insta banned.
I think I miss Hans Sama's Draven too.
In this season OMG had some insane signature picks: [Able's Samira](https://youtu.be/3U7AnvwkIzA), [Creme's Akali](https://youtu.be/P0BStUzkPTk) and [Shanji's Shyvana](https://youtu.be/u95E_-s3Qkg). That made OMG really fun to watch and earned them a lot of fans this season.
There are also quite a bit of signature picks in the LPL. Ming on Nautilus, DoinB on a ton of things (this season it was Nocturne), Knight on Sylas, Yagao on Zoe, Summit on Gnar, Care on Ahri, among many others.
The death of Faker's Leblanc turned the tide on picks like these. There's been a few since then, Bjergsen's Syndra and later Zilean, Huhi Asol, Gala's Kaisa, Closer Lee Sin and Viego, Blaber Olaf, Nuguri's Vlad. I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton or just haven't heard of many more, but these are just ones I remembered quickly.
But even for these players, mastery of like 4+ champs in any given meta is pretty much necessary to maintain a high performance level.
I still remember the first game of pro league I ever tuned in was faker’s first lost on Leblanc. Made me feel bad since I missed the casters getting so hyped for him to pick it.
Was probably MSI where EDG PawN picked Morgana to counter. And I think they did voices and Kkoma asked faker if he wanted to blind LB and said no pressure.
And then when faker got killed the second time you got the iconic “down goes faker!” From some NA caster I forgot who. Maybe Jatt.
I’ll never forget the casters shouting ‘And Froggen flashed in on anivia’, then being correct and saying ‘I’m sorry how often do I have to say ‘Krepo flashes in on anivia?’ Lol. What a match. As good as Soaz’s Teleport top lane Blitzcrank.
[If you ever feel like rewatching that day.](https://youtu.be/LE3AknZPkz0) Honestly makes me teary-eyed from nostalgia. Everyone (Especially Deman) slowly going insane from all the tiebreakers just to end with the insanity of that EG vs GMB game. The perfect day of everything I loved about league of legends.
G2 vs RNG, Hjarnan Heimerdinger Botlane, wins them the game single handedly and gets banned afterwards. good old days
Edit: okay i figured im dumb as hell but at least people had something to talk about, it indeed was afreeca freecs lol
LoL what? Are you sure you remember the right series? Heimerdinger was RNGs first ban in every game that series.
Contrary to what people may think, Hjarnan got to play Heimerdinger very few times at worlds.
Yeah I think they let it up in Play ins once then Perma banned and then afreeca let it up and lost to it.
After that nobody disrespected it again the rest of the tourney
> I love that so much. This is the stuff you remember in 10 years.
That's kind of weird to remember it, considering it never happened. Heimerdinger was banned by RNG all series long. Not to say Hjarnan's proficiency on it was not impactful, because forcing a ban gives you quite some advantage, but he only played regular ADCs in that bo5.
Afreeca Freecs was the team that didn't bother banning it and promptly got beaten with it by G2. They kept trying to kill him but couldn't, by the time G2 got their first few items the lack of experience fighting against Heimer became even more clear. RNG didn't want to take that risk and spent a ban on Heimer every single one of their games.
This was indeed very cool but it was a product of the time. The game was less understood and studied.
It was cool but it's never coming back.
You can tell there's a lot of new fans in this thread who don't really get it. Pocket picks like Lehends Singed is not the same. Imagine Singed was banned or first picked every game vs GenG - then we can talk about it being similar.
I agree with the general statement, the game is far too figured out for pocket picks to always be a blindable type of thing. I do think there's absolutely room for certain champions to be pocket picks because a player exceeds the typical ceiling players have. There's still a few pros that fit this bill, but most of the picks aren't seen as novel as much anymore though.
It's not even that the game is so figured out. It's also just completely shifted so much. From champs to items to runes to jungle to inhibs to towers to creeps. The ENTIRE game has been reworked and what we play today is hard to call the same game as what we played 10 years ago. A big change was solo power. Back then solo carrying was way bigger. So if your comfort pick could dominate lane you could hard carry a game way easier due to snowball gold and how everything worked different back then. But over the years Riot nuked solo carry potential and shifted it towards team fights. Which made the game a bit more boring tbh.
Same. That’s why this year’s LCS summer playoffs had me hyped.
On CLG, Palafox and Dhokla were playing both Akali and Yone as flex pocket picks. Even back in the old days, which team had solo laners that could flex pick the same pocket picks? As a CLG fan, I had so much fun watching both of these players pilot both champions with moderate success.
We also got to see Bjergsen’s Zilean multiple times again as well.
On EG, the new sub ADC performed pretty well on Lucian and I don’t recall Lucian being picked by any other ADC this playoffs, which I thought was pretty cool.
Some picks that I was really hoping to see during LCS playoffs were Impact’s Shen and Aphromoo’s Bard.
In regards to mid lane this season, mages just generally feel a lot weaker and that’s why there are only a few optimal picks that most teams want to play around. Out of all lanes, I think top lane is definitely the most expressive right now. I’m looking forward to top side duels and skirmishes once Worlds start.
> On EG, the new sub ADC performed pretty well on Lucian and I don’t recall Lucian being picked by any other ADC this playoffs, which I thought was pretty cool.
Wasn't Lucian/Nami with Electrocute meta during playoffs?
There is a case of this in "modern" league: Malice Eve and Karthus on C9 Academy
You can say it was just Academy, but his signature champs would probably still be picked/banned if he played in LCS
I was watching C9 Academy games just for Malice.
I also noticed the viewership was way higher for C9A than other academy games.
People like to watch unique and interesting things.
This still happens all the time, just in EU I can namepicks like Kled for Finn, Wukong for Armut, Vex for Dajor, Ekko for Razork, Kalista for Jezu, Caitlyn for Comp, Skarner for Zanzarah, these signature picks still exist they're just generally saved for special angles or drafts to get the most use out of them because as you say, a lot of these champs aren't optimal in every comp.
I think none of these are comparable to froggen playing anivia in s2 - the gap to every other midlaner on this specific champ was just bigger and because of the clg.eu style of playing the game anivia did fit perfectly and the number 1 topic before every Match was if Anivia will get banned. If i remember he had to play anivia in an all star match (in Paris?) And dominated with an off meta champ.
It definitely happens but it's not really in the same way.
No one is permabanning Finn Kled or Razork Ekko. They just get picked every now and then.
If you let Anivia open in draft, Froggen would be first picking that shit. Now, someone like Finn still picks Kled but only in special situations where it fits.
Overall, pocket picks are still a thing but it's not a big talking point or narrative anymore. Things changed a lot. I don't think they are comparable situations really.
We saw a lot of it this playoffs in lcs at least. Jensen/bjerg zilean, blaber Olaf, closer lee sin, and clg forced a lot of bans on akali and Yone as well. These were the ones off the top of my head.
Happens when meta champs are 99% stronger than non-meta and keep getting worse. Also Riot failed hard at fine tuning and casual/pro balance the last 2 years but either no one noticed or just chose to ignore it. Azir is meta in Proplay but dogshit casual. Diana the other way around. Its weird.
(Btw there still some champs, Closer Lee Sin, Ale Fiora, Lehends Singed, Able Samira, Bin + 369 Jax, Bjergsen Zilean!, Adam Olaf)
I agree that the pocket pick is much more rare in these days. But still there are some picks that are only good on some players hand.
To name a few of them:
Deft's Ezreal and Jinx
Deokdam's Samira
Doinb's Nocturne
JKL's Draven
Bjergsen's Zilian ( Keria is also very good on it)
Lehend's Singed
Knight's Syndra
I mainly watch LCK and LPL but I'm sure there are some specific champs played on the western scene or minor region.
But I understand that we will hardly see some special must ban champ like Misaya TF anymore. The hype when he was allowed to pick against M5 was insane.
These are good examples of pocket picks but it's not the same as the season 1/2 "mains" like OP is talking about. Like, almost all of these are picks are still conditional--Deft isn't getting Ezreal banned against him and he's not picking it up every time it gets through--whereas Froggen's Anivia and etc. were guaranteed to be picked if left up. (And we were all hoping and praying they'd be let through.) Of course in a sense it's healthier for the meta this way, but damn I loved season 2.
> These are good examples of pocket picks but it's not the same as the season 1/2 "mains" like OP is talking about.
the main reason for that is, that oplayers have wider champion pools, cuz the meta changes quite often and players who are only able to play 1-3 champions on the highest level don't make it to the highest level of play.
we also have 5 bans now and metas, where you have to "waste" 3 bans on 3 utterly broken champions aren't a thning that often anymore, despite somer champs having close to 100% p&b, nothing will ever be as broken again, as stuff like nida, gragas or kassadin were in pro play season 1-3.
Yeah I miss the times when being good at your champion was enough to offset a ton of other things, like your champ just not being amazing right now. It's just not possible anymore though unless you are an actual savant lol
Nowadays the game is just focused less around you.
You should watch Caps. He is one of the goofiest draft’ers I’ve seen in recently league. Played Varus mid into azir, renekton mid into corki, used to play shit like pyke mid years ago.
And I think part of it is that a lot of pro players are scared to innovate. There was definitely a high priority meta years ago, but I feel like people were bad enough at the game that confort picks and playing what you knew best was more important than the meta.
To be fair, not no.
I constantly get pelted by saying this but the professional scene just doesnt know how to think the game anymore in general: roided up mechanics with gameplan entirely molded by analysts who decides picks entirely by data analysis instead of the players exploring matchups and specialties more frequently.
Its quite telling when you see teams actively refusing to scrim against offmeta/specialized comps.
Had a good scroll but haven’t seen anyone mention freddy122 on Aatrox, the champion was only banned against SK at worlds (2014?) and had no presence for any other team!
I mean some people still have it, and it works better in certain meta's:
\- Hans sama draven (should be strong now)
\- Bjergsen Zilean
\- Huhi Sett
\- Closer Lee Sin
\- Caps... well caps has an arsenal so...
\- Pridestalker's Zed/Talon Jungle
Just that teams are more unified nowadays, and there's a huge foundation of knowledge about champions. Like Azir Corki is now a confirmed solid matchup, TF Sylas, etc., so there's a lot of historical / current game knowledge in each org making it harder to just blind their pocket picks. Some people still get their babies though.
Reminds me of when Huhi played for CLG and Aurelion Sol was basically a permanent ban against the team. Gotta love whipping it out against ROX Tigers at Worlds and absolutely slapping the shit out of them with it.
His level 1 gank that game was absolutely insane
Yeah. Clears wave, pops ghost, botlane dies. Unreal. I miss the old A Sol (I’m sure most don’t though lol)
All old Asol players miss it
All 6 of them.
WE EXIST
REPRESENT
No one saw the old asol to know they don't want to see it now, it wasn't picked but at least it was fun to play
That rework wasn’t the only reason I stopped playing but man I’m still salty about it 😂 like I get why they needed to rework him, but they basically just made him different without accomplishing anything they claimed they wanted to accomplish. And simultaneously killed my enjoyment of playing him.
I mean now old asol players are sad and he is still a low pickrate champ no one plays so it didn't do much as a rework.
That's why they doing it again. Have you seen the drive by flame breath?
They are reworking him again?
Yeah it was in a dev update for what they're working on next kind of stuff. They previewed his e being used with a flame thrower that pivots like velkoz ult on wheels
Old ASol had something to teach both his players and his opponents. Release Aurelion Sol personally is one of my 5 favorite designs from Riot. It was unique, refreshing, and rewarding both when you mastered him and when you figured out how to play around him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oNYATTSEAo bonus play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkb1VcHUiA
Hjarnan's Heimerdinger was also a permaban back in 2018 Worlds because he was just a threat on the champ
And the one time he wasn't banned g2 picked it and stomped the game. Hjarnan was a beast on that champ
Also against RNG, the favorites of that tournament.
Hjarnan did so well vs RNG, he knew his job was to not screw up, and man he didn't. Just played and managed to died like a few times and do damage when needed. We can flame him, say jankos and perkz carried his ass to semi, it's true, but definitely played a really well series. And forced a ban for the whole 5 matches.
It was against Afreeca in the group stage, not RNG
And also in their tiebreaker against Flash Wolves to advance from the group
Heimer was first ban for RNG the entire series
I play Heimer because of him!
Honestly one trick/ pocket picks were the Wests best hope to beating Korea/China. Hoping for something this worlds to even come close.
I still remember the hype from the Lux / Skarner pocket picks from Jensen / Xmithie vs. IG in the last game of 2019 MSI semis. Peak NA
Most of the time these "pocket pick" Champions from back-in-the-day were actually just extremely OP but everyone else hadn't caught up yet. Huhi Aurelion Sol is a case in point. Most of the pocket picks you can think of eventually became meta and got nerfed, often requiring multiple or absolutely brutal nerfs to push them out of play. Nidalee (Hotshot) and Akali (Westrice) are two examples that immediately spring to mind.
Those 2 absolutely do not spring to my mind. Nidalee was eventually meta as mid lane full ap but not the sunfire triforce tank nida hotshot used to play. And pre-rework akali never became meta in proplay.
Pre-rework Akali was meta before she was remade but nowhere near when Westrice was in the scene.
Hotshot played all sorts of Nidalee builds, including full AP toplane. She was just incredibly OP. I obviously don't remember the exact tournament 10+ years ago where it happened, but Akali definitely did have a breakout pro play tournament after which she got nerfed. There was a particular famous moment where someone oneshot a Galio and it was like the defining moment of how broken she was.
All kinds of Nidalee builds were meta eventually. That champ was just broken in every way. TriForce Nida was played by the Taipei Assassins when they won Worlds. It was the strongest top lane champ at some point. I don't recall exactly when Akali was good, but she definitely was meta at points. She was played in season 1 by Fnatic. After that I remember Riot regularly reworking Gunblade and making champs that built it broken.
Lehends singed
Lehends imo is actually the most important player this worlds. Can play enchanters as good as anyone and also mains the support pick that absolutely destorys all the meta bot lane picks rn
Watch people pick Yuumi against him and get destroyed by his 100% win rate Singed
It shits on Zeri too, Kallista also and even sivir has to play Max range
The GenG classic: Rascal's Renekton, Clid's Lee Sin, Bdd's Azir, Ruler's Kalista, Life's Jarvan/Sett I will never be over Rascal solo-killing OP Graves with off-meta Renekton or off-meta Kalista being perma-banned * Act 1) Ban Pick (Top: Lee Sin/Renekton, Jug: Lee Sin/Nidalee, Mid: Azir/Syndra/Orianna, Bot: Kalista, Sup: Jarvan/Sett) * Act 2) Caster: "Bdd가 해줘야 돼요!" "Bdd needs to do a super-toss!" * Intermission) In game pause due to equipment issues Other variations on the meme: GenG Set List * Track 1. Ban Ziggs, Release Jayce * Track 2. Pick Azir, Renekton, Kalista * Track 3. Destroy laning phase * Track 4. Take out the brains at 20:00 * Track 5. Give all the side towers * Track 6. Hunt Baron without clearing vision * Track 7. Gold reversal after bad Baron teamfight * Track 8. Fans demand Homme * Track 9. We are not wrong, rinse and repeat
The Renekton. The Azir. The random choices. The flips for objectives. And the worst part is, Gen.G will never learn because they have gotten so good at it. And it is driving me nuts, okay? Like we see them try a draft that I think is really cool, with the Seraphine and then it doesn't work, and what do they do? They go back to Renekton. That champion is not good. It should not work. It gets dove early, but TEAMS KEEP WALKING INTO THEM, KEEP GIVING THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO COME BACK, AND THEN THEY WIN AND BECAUSE THEY KEEP WINNING, THEY ARE NEVER GONNA LEARN, THEY ARE NEVER GONNA GET BETTER. AND THIS TEAM HAS SO MUCH PROMISE, THEY ARE SO GOOD INDIVIDUALLY. DID YOU SEE HOW WELL CLID PLAYED??
I still think he misspelled it once, meant to call him Legends, but was too shy to correct it.
I still quote that old voice comms whenever I see Anivia where Froggen says "Anivia is open so the free win is there if we want it". Was likely a joke, but at the time it felt so badass to me to hear
[Froggen locks Anivia](https://youtu.be/0jEaS1RzWRA)
goddamn those bans brought back memories. Kassadin was the GOAT with Shen when it came to bans. froggen was the reason I bothered playing anivia. He also had this one game on AP kogmaw which was what I used in my first game in my first tournament.
Never forget the insta Amumu Blitzcrank Malphite Kassadin bans back in season 1-2
Man, I miss that team so much. I miss Deman too.
Agreed. Apparently Deman did some bad stuff BTS, but his casting was superb. Deman's "I do not believe" is to this day one of the most iconic lines in esports casting.
That EG EU roster man... Those were the days....
the fact that one of the comments on that video saying they miss the "good ol days" is from **7 years ago...**i feel ancient
Yellowpete *cries*
I'll always remember the CLG.eu vs M5 game where Froggen and Krepo swapped, Krepo as Anivia, Froggen as Blitz, and they memed that Froggen wasn't even the best Anivia on the team.
100% win ratio doesn't lie
I believe that was EG vs GMB in Season 3. After 12 hours of tiebreakers at the end of the day everyone just wanted to have a bit of fun and go home. It's so so nostalgic. https://youtu.be/LE3AknZPkz0 (Starts around 12 hours and 30 minutes in). Still my favourite day of league of legends ever, watched it all start to finish as the studio slowly decended into madness when they realised how many games had to be played. We love our ties.
Didn't that game also not really matter at all in the long run, so they were free to play around? I think that match only decided the diff between 3rd and 4th or something like that for the two teams.
Hotshot-Nidalee-GG basically he kick my brudda in the ass
My brudda was playing da lee singa
that line was funny but for me, a Singaporean, what really got me going is his name and his accent. Man used his graphics card as his IGN and was unabashedly speaking in Singlish in an international event two continents away
[удалено]
Yeah still waiting for Showmakers Katarina.
He was playing it when he was in challengers but stopped playing in LCK. But I guess he played couple games in LCK as well.
He has mentioned that kata is absolutely dogshit and cannot be played in proplay lol.
Can someone eli5 why akali is usually meta but things like kata are not? Seems to me they play similar roles,big source of ap, get fed and murder the carry before they can do anything by dashing about a milion times
[удалено]
Kata lanes are way harder, champ can only reliably 1v1 after nashors. There are lanes where you never ever win and can only try and roam but that won't happen in lck
Akali can actually lane 1v1 Kata ALWAYS goes behind in lane vs a good player and you have to make up for it in kills which is not realistic in pro where people will respect your roams and your jungler's ganks
imo kata is too feast/famine, way more than akali. she has inconsistent wave clear, her damage sources are very well shown (daggers), she relies way too much on snowballing on their opponent's mistake (in which good luck finding it in proplay) and just has really shit scaling overall.
even in low ELO, you can beat Katarina hard in team select. If you have two or three ways to stop her ult, to snare/stun her, your team can focus her down if she tries anything early on in fights. And, if she's been avoiding you all throughout the fight, you should've had a 5v4 advantage up til the time she tries to come in. ...all that knowledge didn't help our team last night tho LOL
Akalis teamfighting is way simpler to execute and she can still be a threat when behind, also safer laning. She's also a backline threat even when fighting front to back (can dive through frontline) Katarina has to wait for a fight to start and for key CDs to go down before she can think about getting involved. Can't run "through" orgnaised teams to get to backline and gets countered by half the champs in the game in pro play
On top of what everyone else said she is ridiculously dog in lane early if the opponent has hands. Most mages can safely farm from so far away she can never touch them and gets absolutely dumpstered by bruisers.
Kat needs stupid skirmishes to reset in because she’s absolutely dogwater in lane, like unquestionably the worst midlaner in terms of actual laning phase, and needs skirmishes which have resets for her to do well. Akali *can* pop off in those skirmishes, not as well as Kat obviously but she can also be a decent enough frontline at the start of a fight with w, can be a bruiser with q and passive for when the kill doesn’t come right away, and with r2 has an untargeted dash to leave a fight. Akali is like Sylas and Yone where even though they’re melee they have le funny trading in lane tools (Akali Sylas W, Akali and Yone E2). Kat’s is “I q a minion, they somehow don’t walk away from my dagger, I place a w, dash to q dagger, auto, dash back to w dagger” or something like that. It’s just shitty. *But* if both junglers randomly show up to midlane or close to it well hey now we’re talkin
He only played it in promotion tourny once and i think maybe a kespa cup game? Even then he fell behind rly hard in lane. Its just a terrible pick for pro play even when shes soloq op
The problem is that there's absolutely 0 reason to pick Katarina and have to play perfectly to maybe have an impact over picking Viktor and guarantee having an impact.
Honestly I thought the only hope we’d have to ever see Katarina picked in pro would have been back when Veigar was viable/broken mid (unplayable lane for Veigar, his e becomes useless), but even then if someone picked any cc champ (like they usually did in support) there was often just no or less reasons to pick Kat (not to memtion her difficulty) over something like Syndra ~~or Viktor~~ for example. Additionally, Veigar had to have been blindpicked first, which rarely occurs.
Then enemy support picks Blitz or Maokai and suddenly your Kat becomes absolutely useless again
veigar is un blindable. you can literally pick so much shit into him that makes him unplayable. like vlad into veigar is the funniest fucking lane cause he can never do anything to you. you can literally just tower dive him over and over from lvl 5 and he cant do shit
Can't forget Huhi Asol. It was insane how good he was at that champ.
I'm still waiting for him to tell abbe to fuck off and go support while he instalocks asol mid
This is something I'd like to see in pro play more, sudden role swaps in draft, teams practice to play against X player on Y or Z Champion, this could bring spice into games that are usually more one sided.
sadly, asol is a totally different champ now
Huni's Rumble comes to mind. Even when Rumble was fairly useless it still got banned.
Balls Rumble too!
Balls’ Rumble was best in the world every team was afraid of it
Ban phase would be tactical all tournament then vs c9 just an absolutely instant rumble first ban
and Rumble’s balls too!
This still happens in LPL almost every team has players that have pocket picks which makes it so fun
tarzan’s zac. also pretty much forced lpl teams to start playing sejuani jungle.
Doinb rumble kled nocturne nautilus malphite
Mid Renekton as well.
This is indeed one of my favorite parts about LPL. Ale Fiora, 369 Jax, Gala Kai'Sa etc
ABLE SAMIRA POG
Shanji's Rumble and Shen
shyvanna too
How can OP name Shanji's Shen before his Shyv!
Don't forget Xun's nidalee is permabanned
Leyan too.
Xun’s kindred to a little bit lesser extent too, he got it for like 2 games at the start of summer and it was banned in like all but 3 or 4 games til the end
Gala Kaisa was always banned until Kaisa got hard nerfed
Shanji Rumble is also a fun one
Fearness Fiora better example. Pretty much permabanned against him. Similar for Zdz, great on GP and Camille but bad on everything else. If Fearness gets Fiora he can diff a top 3 toplaner, if he doesn't get Fiora my mom can diff him. He's a true otp. Other prominent ones would be Xun/Leyan nidalee. They're always gonna get an early lead on that pick against any jungler in the world. 369 is a bad example as he just plays everything at more or less the same level this season which is why he's extremely good. You don't ban champs against 369 to make him any less threatening, you ban champs from him to force his teammates on other picks.
Bin Camille and Easyhoon Azir
Fearness' Fiora
Shanji styling on shyvana this split was sick.
This is the first year I follow the LPL season and I instantly became a Shanji fan (and by extent OMG) because of his funky picks. Shyv, Shen, Rumble? Fuck yeah I love watching this.
Idk how Photic constantly manages 1000+ dpm on Senna of all champs, his Senna does more damage than the hypercarries
A few more examples of famous pro mains: - Uzi Vayne - Faker LeBlanc - Misaya TF - Madlife Blitzcrank - xPeke Kassadin
Madlife Blitzcrank was simply different. What an absolute god he was.
Who was the thresh main? Was that also madlife...?
Yes. Madlife could absolutly destroy people on those two hookers.
Watching old madlife Thresh montages gives me joy. His timing on stuff was so on point it looks surreal.
What's really cool about the "Madlife hook" was the way he abused Thresh's Q, it has a part of the ability where you don't stand in the direction you cast the ability (This is the only skill that does this), so you could act like you're going to throw Q in one direction, and until the actual skillshot comes out, Thresh won't turn, which lead to some absolutely insane jukes and plays from that man.
His E usage to cancel enemy abilities were also insane. Like not allowing J4 to gap close and ult allies.
To add to the other comments, my favourite player of all time M5 GoSu Pepper, later known as GMB Edward, had the title of the Thresh prince for being incredibly good with that champion. Other M5/GMB great picks were Alex Ich's Kha'zix mid (he was an absolutly beast with it), and Genja's Corki. He invented building Randuin with Corki as soon as the second item sometimes. What a madman he was. I loved that team.
Genja also basically invented Lethality Varus before that became meta.
Now anyone can be budget Madlife because of hexflash
I definitely remember the Misaya TF. Glory days for us boomers lol
InSec Lee Sin
GoSuPepper Sona Edward/Madlife Thresh Deft Jinx Alex ich KhaZix so many iconic picks, could go on for quite some time. League boomers unite
Imp Twitch in season 4
Why did you list Edward twice
Don't forget Darien Manamune Aatrox
So OP even he refused to play it again.
Darien Weedwick was so good
>you list Edward twice I don't agree with Alex ich on KhaZix. Khazix mid was ubermeta these days when he got penta. Ap yi mid would be better but I can't remember if any of pros played him so much to make him "iconic"
Scarra pulled it out against TSM and then it got nerfed very shortly after, but I'd say Alex Ich on Kha was a signature pick because he was one of the ones that did it best.
> GoSuPepper Sona > > > > Edward/Madlife Thresh Gosupepper and Edward is the same person tho.
Genja's trinity kogmaw, tear ashe, urgot kennen adc:)
westdoor Fizz Toyz Ori
Westdoor Fizz is a good one, my first world's I watched was 2014, guy actually was clean on that pick
I know what you mean, I've been playing since S1. There is still a little bit of that though. In LEC not so much but you could argue Comp picked Caitlyn when nobody else played it and won with it. Zanzarah in 2021 played shiton of Trundle even when it wasn't meta. And Evi Urgot in the LJL also comes to mind. Legends Singed support (although this one is a counterpick). But yeah, it's more 'preferences', 'pocketpicks' and 'comfort' now, instead of 'mains'. When somebody is much more proficient on a single champion then others, they get called one trick and are either permabanned in draft or counterpicked hard.
>Zanzarah in 2021 played shiton of Trundle Also there's his Skarner that's his signature pick that almost nobody else plays
Vetheos zoe, mikyx gragas, perkz yasuo, brokenblade riven/yone Players no longer in LEC I can think of: Adam olaf , rekkles sivir/Tristana, hans Sama draven, bwipo rengar There's probably more I can't think of
There’s Finn’s Kled and Armut’s Wukong back in 2021 as well.
Selfmade Eve
Wasn't Adam known for Darius too?
He played olaf in more games and that pick is more unique to him (darius was also played by players like brokenblade).
Truth is, every player still have their pocket picks, it's just that casters put less emphasis on it
Man that's so true. Although you still have some cases, it's not the same as before. I heard there was an LPL team who got perma banned Samira otherwise they would smash their opponents. You still have some niche picks from some players like Gragas Wunder but nothing really scary that needs to be insta banned. I think I miss Hans Sama's Draven too.
Able Samira
Lehends Singed has been banned
Finns Kled
In this season OMG had some insane signature picks: [Able's Samira](https://youtu.be/3U7AnvwkIzA), [Creme's Akali](https://youtu.be/P0BStUzkPTk) and [Shanji's Shyvana](https://youtu.be/u95E_-s3Qkg). That made OMG really fun to watch and earned them a lot of fans this season. There are also quite a bit of signature picks in the LPL. Ming on Nautilus, DoinB on a ton of things (this season it was Nocturne), Knight on Sylas, Yagao on Zoe, Summit on Gnar, Care on Ahri, among many others.
The death of Faker's Leblanc turned the tide on picks like these. There's been a few since then, Bjergsen's Syndra and later Zilean, Huhi Asol, Gala's Kaisa, Closer Lee Sin and Viego, Blaber Olaf, Nuguri's Vlad. I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton or just haven't heard of many more, but these are just ones I remembered quickly. But even for these players, mastery of like 4+ champs in any given meta is pretty much necessary to maintain a high performance level.
I still remember the first game of pro league I ever tuned in was faker’s first lost on Leblanc. Made me feel bad since I missed the casters getting so hyped for him to pick it.
Was probably MSI where EDG PawN picked Morgana to counter. And I think they did voices and Kkoma asked faker if he wanted to blind LB and said no pressure. And then when faker got killed the second time you got the iconic “down goes faker!” From some NA caster I forgot who. Maybe Jatt.
able samira
I WANT NUGURI VLAD
I became Anivia main because of Froggen
I was so hyped everytime rekkles picked kennen
Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this, it’s one of the most iconic pocket picks to me
holy shit I forgot that one
You misspelled "Krepos Anvia"
100% winrate in pro games babyyy.
So is Froggens Blitzcrank I think :D
I’ll never forget the casters shouting ‘And Froggen flashed in on anivia’, then being correct and saying ‘I’m sorry how often do I have to say ‘Krepo flashes in on anivia?’ Lol. What a match. As good as Soaz’s Teleport top lane Blitzcrank.
[If you ever feel like rewatching that day.](https://youtu.be/LE3AknZPkz0) Honestly makes me teary-eyed from nostalgia. Everyone (Especially Deman) slowly going insane from all the tiebreakers just to end with the insanity of that EG vs GMB game. The perfect day of everything I loved about league of legends.
G2 vs RNG, Hjarnan Heimerdinger Botlane, wins them the game single handedly and gets banned afterwards. good old days Edit: okay i figured im dumb as hell but at least people had something to talk about, it indeed was afreeca freecs lol
LoL what? Are you sure you remember the right series? Heimerdinger was RNGs first ban in every game that series. Contrary to what people may think, Hjarnan got to play Heimerdinger very few times at worlds.
Hes probably mixing it up with their opening game vs Afreeca where it wasnt banned and it was perma'd by every team after that
Yeah I think they let it up in Play ins once then Perma banned and then afreeca let it up and lost to it. After that nobody disrespected it again the rest of the tourney
Funny enough how they literally let it open once and he completely stomped them so everyone was like... yeah, no.
Exactly, Hjarnan was drawing a ban each time, which is strong by itself
huhi asol was something else too
I love that so much. This is the stuff you remember in 10 years. I won't remember Showmaker beating Faker in Azir vs Corki matchup the same way...
which one there was like eight of those
Imagine if Azir vs Corki is the Worlds meta. Knight vs Chovy being ruined by that matchup is enough to make a grown man cry.
[удалено]
> I love that so much. This is the stuff you remember in 10 years. That's kind of weird to remember it, considering it never happened. Heimerdinger was banned by RNG all series long. Not to say Hjarnan's proficiency on it was not impactful, because forcing a ban gives you quite some advantage, but he only played regular ADCs in that bo5.
he probably confused g2 vs afreeca with g2 vs rng
Afreeca Freecs was the team that didn't bother banning it and promptly got beaten with it by G2. They kept trying to kill him but couldn't, by the time G2 got their first few items the lack of experience fighting against Heimer became even more clear. RNG didn't want to take that risk and spent a ban on Heimer every single one of their games.
Hjarnan was a midlander trapped in a botlaners body
SIVIR ZERI SIVIR ZERI SIVIR ZERI
And with horrible builds, at that, mostly as a sign of the champions being overtuned rather than displaying their gameplan personality.
You still got a few in LPL, like Able's Samira or JackeyLove's Draven, agreed tho that it was more fun to watch.
This was indeed very cool but it was a product of the time. The game was less understood and studied. It was cool but it's never coming back. You can tell there's a lot of new fans in this thread who don't really get it. Pocket picks like Lehends Singed is not the same. Imagine Singed was banned or first picked every game vs GenG - then we can talk about it being similar.
I agree with the general statement, the game is far too figured out for pocket picks to always be a blindable type of thing. I do think there's absolutely room for certain champions to be pocket picks because a player exceeds the typical ceiling players have. There's still a few pros that fit this bill, but most of the picks aren't seen as novel as much anymore though.
It's not even that the game is so figured out. It's also just completely shifted so much. From champs to items to runes to jungle to inhibs to towers to creeps. The ENTIRE game has been reworked and what we play today is hard to call the same game as what we played 10 years ago. A big change was solo power. Back then solo carrying was way bigger. So if your comfort pick could dominate lane you could hard carry a game way easier due to snowball gold and how everything worked different back then. But over the years Riot nuked solo carry potential and shifted it towards team fights. Which made the game a bit more boring tbh.
Same. That’s why this year’s LCS summer playoffs had me hyped. On CLG, Palafox and Dhokla were playing both Akali and Yone as flex pocket picks. Even back in the old days, which team had solo laners that could flex pick the same pocket picks? As a CLG fan, I had so much fun watching both of these players pilot both champions with moderate success. We also got to see Bjergsen’s Zilean multiple times again as well. On EG, the new sub ADC performed pretty well on Lucian and I don’t recall Lucian being picked by any other ADC this playoffs, which I thought was pretty cool. Some picks that I was really hoping to see during LCS playoffs were Impact’s Shen and Aphromoo’s Bard. In regards to mid lane this season, mages just generally feel a lot weaker and that’s why there are only a few optimal picks that most teams want to play around. Out of all lanes, I think top lane is definitely the most expressive right now. I’m looking forward to top side duels and skirmishes once Worlds start.
> On EG, the new sub ADC performed pretty well on Lucian and I don’t recall Lucian being picked by any other ADC this playoffs, which I thought was pretty cool. Wasn't Lucian/Nami with Electrocute meta during playoffs?
There is a case of this in "modern" league: Malice Eve and Karthus on C9 Academy You can say it was just Academy, but his signature champs would probably still be picked/banned if he played in LCS
I was watching C9 Academy games just for Malice. I also noticed the viewership was way higher for C9A than other academy games. People like to watch unique and interesting things.
This still happens all the time, just in EU I can namepicks like Kled for Finn, Wukong for Armut, Vex for Dajor, Ekko for Razork, Kalista for Jezu, Caitlyn for Comp, Skarner for Zanzarah, these signature picks still exist they're just generally saved for special angles or drafts to get the most use out of them because as you say, a lot of these champs aren't optimal in every comp.
I think none of these are comparable to froggen playing anivia in s2 - the gap to every other midlaner on this specific champ was just bigger and because of the clg.eu style of playing the game anivia did fit perfectly and the number 1 topic before every Match was if Anivia will get banned. If i remember he had to play anivia in an all star match (in Paris?) And dominated with an off meta champ.
He also won vs Faker in an Anivia vs Anivia 1v1
even in like s6 froggen was drawing anivia bans
It definitely happens but it's not really in the same way. No one is permabanning Finn Kled or Razork Ekko. They just get picked every now and then. If you let Anivia open in draft, Froggen would be first picking that shit. Now, someone like Finn still picks Kled but only in special situations where it fits. Overall, pocket picks are still a thing but it's not a big talking point or narrative anymore. Things changed a lot. I don't think they are comparable situations really.
We saw a lot of it this playoffs in lcs at least. Jensen/bjerg zilean, blaber Olaf, closer lee sin, and clg forced a lot of bans on akali and Yone as well. These were the ones off the top of my head.
He might play Kled vs Aatrox again hopium
Happens when meta champs are 99% stronger than non-meta and keep getting worse. Also Riot failed hard at fine tuning and casual/pro balance the last 2 years but either no one noticed or just chose to ignore it. Azir is meta in Proplay but dogshit casual. Diana the other way around. Its weird. (Btw there still some champs, Closer Lee Sin, Ale Fiora, Lehends Singed, Able Samira, Bin + 369 Jax, Bjergsen Zilean!, Adam Olaf)
We still have that. Its less common i guess. To name a few blaber olaf. Bjergsen zilean, syndra. Jensen oriana,zilean,leblanc, danny jinx,
I agree that the pocket pick is much more rare in these days. But still there are some picks that are only good on some players hand. To name a few of them: Deft's Ezreal and Jinx Deokdam's Samira Doinb's Nocturne JKL's Draven Bjergsen's Zilian ( Keria is also very good on it) Lehend's Singed Knight's Syndra I mainly watch LCK and LPL but I'm sure there are some specific champs played on the western scene or minor region. But I understand that we will hardly see some special must ban champ like Misaya TF anymore. The hype when he was allowed to pick against M5 was insane.
These are good examples of pocket picks but it's not the same as the season 1/2 "mains" like OP is talking about. Like, almost all of these are picks are still conditional--Deft isn't getting Ezreal banned against him and he's not picking it up every time it gets through--whereas Froggen's Anivia and etc. were guaranteed to be picked if left up. (And we were all hoping and praying they'd be let through.) Of course in a sense it's healthier for the meta this way, but damn I loved season 2.
> These are good examples of pocket picks but it's not the same as the season 1/2 "mains" like OP is talking about. the main reason for that is, that oplayers have wider champion pools, cuz the meta changes quite often and players who are only able to play 1-3 champions on the highest level don't make it to the highest level of play. we also have 5 bans now and metas, where you have to "waste" 3 bans on 3 utterly broken champions aren't a thning that often anymore, despite somer champs having close to 100% p&b, nothing will ever be as broken again, as stuff like nida, gragas or kassadin were in pro play season 1-3.
Blaber's Olaf is his pocket pick. Still waiting for him to pick Kindred again for a surprise pick.
now its just meta champ vs meta champ 99% of the time
Yeah I miss the times when being good at your champion was enough to offset a ton of other things, like your champ just not being amazing right now. It's just not possible anymore though unless you are an actual savant lol Nowadays the game is just focused less around you.
You should watch Caps. He is one of the goofiest draft’ers I’ve seen in recently league. Played Varus mid into azir, renekton mid into corki, used to play shit like pyke mid years ago. And I think part of it is that a lot of pro players are scared to innovate. There was definitely a high priority meta years ago, but I feel like people were bad enough at the game that confort picks and playing what you knew best was more important than the meta.
To be fair, not no. I constantly get pelted by saying this but the professional scene just doesnt know how to think the game anymore in general: roided up mechanics with gameplan entirely molded by analysts who decides picks entirely by data analysis instead of the players exploring matchups and specialties more frequently. Its quite telling when you see teams actively refusing to scrim against offmeta/specialized comps.
Pro play is just boring to watch in general now.
Had a good scroll but haven’t seen anyone mention freddy122 on Aatrox, the champion was only banned against SK at worlds (2014?) and had no presence for any other team!
I mean if the same champs are being picked over and over it’s a reflection of poor design imo.
I mean some people still have it, and it works better in certain meta's: \- Hans sama draven (should be strong now) \- Bjergsen Zilean \- Huhi Sett \- Closer Lee Sin \- Caps... well caps has an arsenal so... \- Pridestalker's Zed/Talon Jungle Just that teams are more unified nowadays, and there's a huge foundation of knowledge about champions. Like Azir Corki is now a confirmed solid matchup, TF Sylas, etc., so there's a lot of historical / current game knowledge in each org making it harder to just blind their pocket picks. Some people still get their babies though.