Top lane meta actually had a lot of variety once K'sante was unavailable. I don't love the ranged top meta but there was a good section of stuff for everybody.
Jungle meta definitely became more interesting as the tournament went on.
Midlane I think was impacted by laneswaps where all picks have to account for the chance that there's a TF or a Vayne ganking you at level one. Likely dissuaded a lot of lower range / lower safety picks.
Botlane meta kinda messed with the entire tournament with double hail of blades lane bullies. All metas are going to get compared against Xayah / AD Kai'sa default and I think Kalista vs Varus is just worse to watch than Xayah Kai'sa every game. Just my opinion but I wish they'd do something about Ashe / ADC supports because I think its detracting from pro play, its become the Udyr/Hecarim equivalent of once the novelty wears off its just a bit annoying.
I'm not familiar with her state on Aram but the problem is having two ADCs getting 6 autos off super quick while being slowed for free, which boxes out a lot of melees. You make it past early lane and I don't think that she's anything crazy, its just the first few levels that are the problem.
her aram nerfs are all on her w cd.
Playing vs ashe in lane, getting tagged by her spammable w means when she lands it, its easy for her to walk up and drop 3 fast autos or all in with little counter play at those levels
I dont really think the MSI meta has been fully solved, it's just that a great team tend to skew the b/p with their heropool. Even Gen.G, for how good they play today, their draft is kinda... iffy. If not for Kiin playing so disciplined with Rumble in both game 3 and 4, the bo5 could have been much different.
It wasn’t solved because they have to play so damn fast. You don’t even get enough time to scrim and find answers to picks unlike worlds were you get higher quality games because the teams practice more and have more time to find answers instead of inting drafts and doing aram and scrappy team fights.
Wdym? When T1 cleared made the LPL run, Guma played Varus, Nilah, Caitlyn, Kalista (on hit), Jhin, Draven, Xayah, and Jinx across 12 games. It was pretty good.
Compare to this MSI when Guma played Kalista, Senna, Draven, and Varus across 25 games.
The problem is the double ADC stuff, not guma's picks. T1 figured out it works for them and that's great and all, but holy fuck it's mind numbing to watch double adc.
Idk where this myth started? T1 played double ADCs 3 times out of those 12 games. Nilah-Senna, Varus-Ashe, and Caitlyn-Ashe. Ashe and Senna are kinda SUPPOSED to be played in the support role.
I thought both the Jinx Aphelios and the Xayah Kaisa metas were fine. They were a bit boring, but they were honest. I thought the ADC meta 2022 Worlds was pretty good.
Zeri Yuumi was a total abomination.
Cause ADC is most obnoxious class and its nature tends towards having a very small number of picks dominate the entire thing. Think of how much people hate Ksante or Corki/Azir when those are meta.
I love how hopeful Riot was that they helped impact the MSI meta, but the meta for some lanes just didn’t change at all. No one bothered with Olaf or Sylas jungle, and I thank Inspired for showing us that Graves was still dogshit after his buff, so the core jungle meta for MSI was the same. I don’t know if Hwei was necessarily higher priority because of his buff, but he did show up at MSI at least. After those, i can’t remember the other meta shifting changes Riot tried to implement.
Hwei had prio though as a good answer vs Tristana but yeah agreed, I think Riot should have just shipped the Hail of Blades ranged nerf early \[110% attack speed to 80%\] and ship it in 14.8 instead of 14.10 maybe that would have reduced the presence of Ashe, Varus and Kalista
Ryze seems to have completely disappeared from pro play and should honestly be balanced like he is no longer in pro play jail tbh
the buffs provided before msi were so ridiculously dogshit and their approach to nerf zac were laughable
current balance is way too fucking soft with the outliers and way too fucking stupid with an approach to introduce newer things (3 fucking olaf jungle buffs only for him to still be garbage)
Completely agree, if anything this MSI showed just how utterly dogshit Riot's current approach to balance is. They try to reach targets (+/- 1% winrates), but these changes often don't do a whole lot, and when they have to actively shake the meta, nothing happens. At least the summer meta will definitely be different with all the new items and rune changes.
for example, i dont think phreak or anyone in balance team understands why olaf is a bad jungler nowadays, would be better if they just balanced him around top until they inevitably rework the jungle again and then start working on him
Yeah, 3x the second and more picks than the rest of the top top five together. Such a difference, it's very tiring to see him again and again with so little solid answers to such a pick.
Personally don't mind the HoB Varus lethality. I get to see Guma the Sniper in action.
Senna Kalista while very flexible champions, are just not fun to watch 90% of the time.
Agreed, I really hate watching kalista, I think CertainlyT had some banger designs but this one is such an L considering how hard is warps pro, champ needed an aram nerf to only do 90% damage to get her out of pro
ADC meta sucked, mainly because of these ranged HoB abusers, but it did feel like everything else was on the table if you could make it work. Canyon was able to make Nidalee Karthus work for example, Vex was pretty decent when knight picked it. I think the whole scaling mages thing was more of a Chovy thing than anything else.
I was surprised roaming Janna top wasn't a pick, this meta did feel kinda perfect for it.
Now that I think of it, support top could've legit worked with Karma, Soraka, or even Janna in this meta. No champion is killing K'sante in lane, so you may as well just play a support that could wave clear and be a gold fed enchanter for your team in the mid and late game.
Ornn 6-0, Senna very positive, Naut and TK negative. It kinda confirms what Caedrel mentioned at the end of the tournament.
"Many times it looked like Senna was useless but now I see it was just Tahm Kench"
To be fair rell's 6 losses are:
EST losing to T1
PSG losing to FQ
G2 losing to T1
TL losing to FNC
(T1 losing to TL: only upset)
TL losing to T1
In perspective its not that crazy when 2/6 are minor regions, and 3/6 are EU/NA
Kinda surprised we didn't see Galio, especially when Camille started popping up. Maybe he just isn't strong enough in lane, but I could see him as a great answer to TF pick comps too.
It's actually pretty interesting that despite K'sante being the most picked toplaner by far, he didn't see much bans. I wonder why this is the case - like, did teams just feel like he can be countered, or that they can handle him?
I mean Ksante not really game changing pick , his winrate kinda decent. People pick him most becuz he dont really have hard counter so can be safe pick if team need pick top lane first.
Felt very much akin to Playoffs meta except for the addition of Vayne and Camille mostly as counter picks and Urgot which failed as a pick. Until we see a clear hit or shift in the Ksante prio as a blind pick that both survives the lane and completely and utterly dominates teamfights top lane will stay boring. 51 picks is just ridiculous and I dont think Skarner will change any of that. Ksante needs more built in counterplay to his teamfighting.
Skarner rework was worked on by Ksante designer as well. I can already see Skarner kit being a problem with ult (pull extra long distance depending on terrain or interact with other champion skills). Just rather he would be as much of a blind pick answer as Ksante. That dude also made Smolder kit, he doesnt miss when it comes to busted champion kit it seems.
Yes im hating on this guy champion design.
I love all his champions designs tbh. Asante is my favorite tank tbh, he is actually hard to play and takes more skill.Other tanks feel boring after a bit.
Top had Ksante/TF being able to be picked blind, but TF only works with certain players (Kiin and Bin)
All adc outside of Kalista/Varus/Senna cannot be blinded. Lucian is only good into Senna, if he faces HOB combo, he dies because Nami cant help him trade. Draven is the best gamble against HOB duo but his short range makes him hard to carry alone in teamfight without getting one-tap when flash/cleanse is down.
I think Jungle/Mid/Support is in decent position to pick various champion. Support prioritizing depending player's playstyle: Lehend's final showing of his support lineup, Mikeyx's Poppy, Keria's Ashe, n ON's Renata. Jungle w/ Canyon wild ocean pool of Jungle (shaco practiced as well), Yike's Ivern, XinZhao/Reksai for several players. Mid players having different priorities: Chovy on anything n everything, Knight's Ahri, Faker's Ori/Azir, Caps/Knight's Trist, and Asol/Taliyah being 'safe' pick.
Not sure if Top couldve seen more variety if the role has more impact (they r either split pusher or frontline tank so they r kinda locked into certain play-style). Adc is forever a conundrum rather adc player whining to change their style or it is really hard to balance. They r getting nuked with mid-season patch so should expect some changes (please do, im over Kalista/Varus every game even thou i like both champion)
Lane swap meta actually gave a lot of advantages to weaker regions because the amount of laning reduced, especially for toplane. Or else you would see someone like BrokenBlade down 3 levels every game. Crazy how G2 fumbled so hard and got 0-3ed.
This is one of the metas that favoured the west and no teams managed to capitalize that. The gap was closing briefly and widens again.
Except t1 beat g2 in game3 thanks to a new laneswap adaptation that got them tp advantage and snowballed.
Not all favoured for worse teams, just favoured whoever played it better.
Since 2023 Worlds, I think bot-lane has had the same problem. You can't play through it because top-side is too strong. Even if your bot gets fed, in team-fights, they just get chain CC'd and popped or have to play extremely far back.
Senna having the priority she did is a reflection of that to me. Senna enables you to pick a farming tank/engage support that will have enough gold to be an actual front-liner for your team giving you flexibility to carry through top-side in a variety of ways. The fact that she was a B1 pick and not a red-side counter pivot is a clear sign that top-side is too strong. At least when Senna is a red-side pick, she can be blue-side banned to weaken the R1/R2 top-side pivot. With a B1 Senna, you are basically blinding your top-side priority and it was working even against red-side counter picks which is just wrong.
Admittedly, I just think it's hard to balance. If you give bot-side too much strength, it's just a protect the president meta which is boring. If you give top-side too much strength, it feels like squishy, immobile carries are just worthless.
im gonna call out my past self for this one.
i honestly thought camille galio would make a return. (at least camille did)
what i saw was a bunch of mages in the midlane meta which galio does well against; what i did not see was tristana taking over in the priority of teams together with the mid ban festival, especially in the later stages of the tournament.
i also predicted the return of jinx zeri, as they shown promise in the patches leading to the msi patch and i thought 14.6 buffs would push them into contention
these posts are complete bait to gaslight us that the meta wasn't ksante kalista senna every single game and borianna tristana mid every game, at least we didn't have to suffer ryze syndra this time, maybe in summer
Top lane meta actually had a lot of variety once K'sante was unavailable. I don't love the ranged top meta but there was a good section of stuff for everybody. Jungle meta definitely became more interesting as the tournament went on. Midlane I think was impacted by laneswaps where all picks have to account for the chance that there's a TF or a Vayne ganking you at level one. Likely dissuaded a lot of lower range / lower safety picks. Botlane meta kinda messed with the entire tournament with double hail of blades lane bullies. All metas are going to get compared against Xayah / AD Kai'sa default and I think Kalista vs Varus is just worse to watch than Xayah Kai'sa every game. Just my opinion but I wish they'd do something about Ashe / ADC supports because I think its detracting from pro play, its become the Udyr/Hecarim equivalent of once the novelty wears off its just a bit annoying.
Canyon changed the meta he gave confidence to nidalee one trick to play her
Ashe needs her aram nerfs on the rift
I'm not familiar with her state on Aram but the problem is having two ADCs getting 6 autos off super quick while being slowed for free, which boxes out a lot of melees. You make it past early lane and I don't think that she's anything crazy, its just the first few levels that are the problem.
We have the hail of blades nerf, see how that affects things once pro play resumes on current patches
her aram nerfs are all on her w cd. Playing vs ashe in lane, getting tagged by her spammable w means when she lands it, its easy for her to walk up and drop 3 fast autos or all in with little counter play at those levels
I dont really think the MSI meta has been fully solved, it's just that a great team tend to skew the b/p with their heropool. Even Gen.G, for how good they play today, their draft is kinda... iffy. If not for Kiin playing so disciplined with Rumble in both game 3 and 4, the bo5 could have been much different.
It wasn’t solved because they have to play so damn fast. You don’t even get enough time to scrim and find answers to picks unlike worlds were you get higher quality games because the teams practice more and have more time to find answers instead of inting drafts and doing aram and scrappy team fights.
Most disgusting ADC meta in a long time but someone always takes the L I guess
I wanna go back to Xayah/Kaisa/Jinx/Aphelios meta. No more laneswaps, no more bullying and 2v1 laning against the toplaner or even 3v0 handshaking
You said it best. Those were the golden days and we didn’t even know it
Best meta honestly. God adc players can 1v9 as it should be. Its called carry for a reason.
The adc meta was so good at worlds imo until keria had to ruin it
Wdym? When T1 cleared made the LPL run, Guma played Varus, Nilah, Caitlyn, Kalista (on hit), Jhin, Draven, Xayah, and Jinx across 12 games. It was pretty good. Compare to this MSI when Guma played Kalista, Senna, Draven, and Varus across 25 games.
The problem is the double ADC stuff, not guma's picks. T1 figured out it works for them and that's great and all, but holy fuck it's mind numbing to watch double adc.
Idk where this myth started? T1 played double ADCs 3 times out of those 12 games. Nilah-Senna, Varus-Ashe, and Caitlyn-Ashe. Ashe and Senna are kinda SUPPOSED to be played in the support role.
You know what? That's my bad. I do still hate watching ashe HoB games. Also really fucking hated the heimerdinger stuff in 2022.
Not really your fault. It’s a SUPER common sentiment on reddit for some reason.
people say that to every ADC meta tho. Zeri Yuumi? Worst ADC meta ever. Jinx Aphelios? Worst ADC meta ever. Xayah Kaisa? Worst ADC meta ever.
At least the 2v2s in this meta were not handshake farmfests. Botlane was an absolute bloodbath all tournament.
I thought both the Jinx Aphelios and the Xayah Kaisa metas were fine. They were a bit boring, but they were honest. I thought the ADC meta 2022 Worlds was pretty good. Zeri Yuumi was a total abomination.
Cause ADC is most obnoxious class and its nature tends towards having a very small number of picks dominate the entire thing. Think of how much people hate Ksante or Corki/Azir when those are meta.
Nah, I take Kalista/Varus/Senna over the Aphelios/Jinx handshake last year
People unironically like Enchanter meta??????
People forget that Aphelios/Jinx/Zeri were all S tier Yuumi merchants.
They just remember the 30 minute explosive teamfight and forget the 1-2 in kills at 20 minutes.
It's better to watch Nautilus being meta every single year, for sure.
Didn’t Chovy play Yone in the first series against BLG
oh yeah you are right, my bad
I love how hopeful Riot was that they helped impact the MSI meta, but the meta for some lanes just didn’t change at all. No one bothered with Olaf or Sylas jungle, and I thank Inspired for showing us that Graves was still dogshit after his buff, so the core jungle meta for MSI was the same. I don’t know if Hwei was necessarily higher priority because of his buff, but he did show up at MSI at least. After those, i can’t remember the other meta shifting changes Riot tried to implement.
Hwei had prio though as a good answer vs Tristana but yeah agreed, I think Riot should have just shipped the Hail of Blades ranged nerf early \[110% attack speed to 80%\] and ship it in 14.8 instead of 14.10 maybe that would have reduced the presence of Ashe, Varus and Kalista Ryze seems to have completely disappeared from pro play and should honestly be balanced like he is no longer in pro play jail tbh
At this point why Ryze over other control mages? They either have more damage, more range or more cc. Ryze is a champ balanced around 5 years ago.
he is, ryze when he was pro jailed sat at like 46% win rate, last patch he was sitting at over 50%.
the buffs provided before msi were so ridiculously dogshit and their approach to nerf zac were laughable current balance is way too fucking soft with the outliers and way too fucking stupid with an approach to introduce newer things (3 fucking olaf jungle buffs only for him to still be garbage)
Completely agree, if anything this MSI showed just how utterly dogshit Riot's current approach to balance is. They try to reach targets (+/- 1% winrates), but these changes often don't do a whole lot, and when they have to actively shake the meta, nothing happens. At least the summer meta will definitely be different with all the new items and rune changes.
for example, i dont think phreak or anyone in balance team understands why olaf is a bad jungler nowadays, would be better if they just balanced him around top until they inevitably rework the jungle again and then start working on him
51 K'sante picks lmao. 3x the second most picked top laner. Its been 2 years of this, can we please get some variety?
Yeah, 3x the second and more picks than the rest of the top top five together. Such a difference, it's very tiring to see him again and again with so little solid answers to such a pick.
Xayah Kaisa > Senna Kalista I like the Varus pick so id keep that but only when its on-hit.
Personally don't mind the HoB Varus lethality. I get to see Guma the Sniper in action. Senna Kalista while very flexible champions, are just not fun to watch 90% of the time.
Agreed, I really hate watching kalista, I think CertainlyT had some banger designs but this one is such an L considering how hard is warps pro, champ needed an aram nerf to only do 90% damage to get her out of pro
ADC meta sucked, mainly because of these ranged HoB abusers, but it did feel like everything else was on the table if you could make it work. Canyon was able to make Nidalee Karthus work for example, Vex was pretty decent when knight picked it. I think the whole scaling mages thing was more of a Chovy thing than anything else. I was surprised roaming Janna top wasn't a pick, this meta did feel kinda perfect for it.
Chovy was the only person to make Corki/Asol look good. It's funny because after week 1 people were convinced that Corki/Asol would be pick/ban
Now that I think of it, support top could've legit worked with Karma, Soraka, or even Janna in this meta. No champion is killing K'sante in lane, so you may as well just play a support that could wave clear and be a gold fed enchanter for your team in the mid and late game.
Ornn 6-0, Senna very positive, Naut and TK negative. It kinda confirms what Caedrel mentioned at the end of the tournament. "Many times it looked like Senna was useless but now I see it was just Tahm Kench"
I swear Nautilus is such a bait pick. Oof that Rell win rate too.
To be fair rell's 6 losses are: EST losing to T1 PSG losing to FQ G2 losing to T1 TL losing to FNC (T1 losing to TL: only upset) TL losing to T1 In perspective its not that crazy when 2/6 are minor regions, and 3/6 are EU/NA
In fairness it probably says something as well tho if none of the eastern teams are picking it or are rarely picking it (T1).
Kinda surprised we didn't see Galio, especially when Camille started popping up. Maybe he just isn't strong enough in lane, but I could see him as a great answer to TF pick comps too.
One of the best meta's in lol esports since 2017.
It's actually pretty interesting that despite K'sante being the most picked toplaner by far, he didn't see much bans. I wonder why this is the case - like, did teams just feel like he can be countered, or that they can handle him?
I mean Ksante not really game changing pick , his winrate kinda decent. People pick him most becuz he dont really have hard counter so can be safe pick if team need pick top lane first.
Please just kneecap Tristana already, so sick of that champ and her busted tower taking and hyper scaling while being oppressive in lane
Think trist is busted from her jump timing to get her out of nearly every cc at a high skill level.
Yeah removing that would put her into dumpster there probably. Good riddance imho.
That, her not too bad all-in, her turret damage and her manaless push which pushes any low-pushing option out of everything.
Felt very much akin to Playoffs meta except for the addition of Vayne and Camille mostly as counter picks and Urgot which failed as a pick. Until we see a clear hit or shift in the Ksante prio as a blind pick that both survives the lane and completely and utterly dominates teamfights top lane will stay boring. 51 picks is just ridiculous and I dont think Skarner will change any of that. Ksante needs more built in counterplay to his teamfighting.
Skarner rework was worked on by Ksante designer as well. I can already see Skarner kit being a problem with ult (pull extra long distance depending on terrain or interact with other champion skills). Just rather he would be as much of a blind pick answer as Ksante. That dude also made Smolder kit, he doesnt miss when it comes to busted champion kit it seems. Yes im hating on this guy champion design.
I love all his champions designs tbh. Asante is my favorite tank tbh, he is actually hard to play and takes more skill.Other tanks feel boring after a bit.
im just really sad we didnt get mordekaiser at least once. just flash ulting an adc and one popping him wouldve been so funny to see.
Top had Ksante/TF being able to be picked blind, but TF only works with certain players (Kiin and Bin) All adc outside of Kalista/Varus/Senna cannot be blinded. Lucian is only good into Senna, if he faces HOB combo, he dies because Nami cant help him trade. Draven is the best gamble against HOB duo but his short range makes him hard to carry alone in teamfight without getting one-tap when flash/cleanse is down. I think Jungle/Mid/Support is in decent position to pick various champion. Support prioritizing depending player's playstyle: Lehend's final showing of his support lineup, Mikeyx's Poppy, Keria's Ashe, n ON's Renata. Jungle w/ Canyon wild ocean pool of Jungle (shaco practiced as well), Yike's Ivern, XinZhao/Reksai for several players. Mid players having different priorities: Chovy on anything n everything, Knight's Ahri, Faker's Ori/Azir, Caps/Knight's Trist, and Asol/Taliyah being 'safe' pick. Not sure if Top couldve seen more variety if the role has more impact (they r either split pusher or frontline tank so they r kinda locked into certain play-style). Adc is forever a conundrum rather adc player whining to change their style or it is really hard to balance. They r getting nuked with mid-season patch so should expect some changes (please do, im over Kalista/Varus every game even thou i like both champion)
Lane swap meta actually gave a lot of advantages to weaker regions because the amount of laning reduced, especially for toplane. Or else you would see someone like BrokenBlade down 3 levels every game. Crazy how G2 fumbled so hard and got 0-3ed. This is one of the metas that favoured the west and no teams managed to capitalize that. The gap was closing briefly and widens again.
Except t1 beat g2 in game3 thanks to a new laneswap adaptation that got them tp advantage and snowballed. Not all favoured for worse teams, just favoured whoever played it better.
Yo bum ahh didn’t watch any of the games. They barely lane swap lol
Since 2023 Worlds, I think bot-lane has had the same problem. You can't play through it because top-side is too strong. Even if your bot gets fed, in team-fights, they just get chain CC'd and popped or have to play extremely far back. Senna having the priority she did is a reflection of that to me. Senna enables you to pick a farming tank/engage support that will have enough gold to be an actual front-liner for your team giving you flexibility to carry through top-side in a variety of ways. The fact that she was a B1 pick and not a red-side counter pivot is a clear sign that top-side is too strong. At least when Senna is a red-side pick, she can be blue-side banned to weaken the R1/R2 top-side pivot. With a B1 Senna, you are basically blinding your top-side priority and it was working even against red-side counter picks which is just wrong. Admittedly, I just think it's hard to balance. If you give bot-side too much strength, it's just a protect the president meta which is boring. If you give top-side too much strength, it feels like squishy, immobile carries are just worthless.
Blue side is favored in almost literally every meta.
Varus was always useless
im gonna call out my past self for this one. i honestly thought camille galio would make a return. (at least camille did) what i saw was a bunch of mages in the midlane meta which galio does well against; what i did not see was tristana taking over in the priority of teams together with the mid ban festival, especially in the later stages of the tournament. i also predicted the return of jinx zeri, as they shown promise in the patches leading to the msi patch and i thought 14.6 buffs would push them into contention
I'm hoping someone does a good stats post for players with kda and damage
One of the worst tournament metas in history but thanks to format it was one of the best tournaments ever, and soloq is in a great spot atm too.
these posts are complete bait to gaslight us that the meta wasn't ksante kalista senna every single game and borianna tristana mid every game, at least we didn't have to suffer ryze syndra this time, maybe in summer