League of Legends - Why These Champions Always Keep Getting Nerfed
Despite being almost two entirely separate games from a conceptual standpoint, solo play and professional play are inextricably linked to each other, whether they should be or not. While other esport titles have a similar dynamic between casual and competitive, they usually conduct their own affairs mutually exclusive of each other or directly correlated with each other.
That is, they mind their own business and matters from one side don't really affect the other or there's not that much of a difference between their environments. League of Legends couldn't be any more different. Champion balance is heavily influenced by the landscape of solo queue and pro play alike.
Whenever someone is overperforming relative to pick and ban rate, they're most certainly on the balance team's radar for nerfs. Volibear has been dominating in all elos by a serious margin, plus win rate with a double digit pick and ban rate. That's how bounce usually works in solo queue. At least if a champion breaks past the accepted 48 to 52 win rate boundary from iron and bronze all the way to grand master and challenger, the balance team will use whatever means necessary to push them back down.
What about the opposite end of the spectrum? 47.46, and 45, Win Rate champions, Why are they getting the reverse treatment? That's what we're going to explore in this episode. For today, I want to go over the champions that are always weak, why they keep getting nerfed even though they're already worse than average, and how pro play ties into all of this.
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Thanks again to Factory for sponsoring the article, but for now let's get back into it. I feel like I should clarify the thought process that goes into balancing champions in light of how ambiguous they really are. The article title says "always weak," implying these champions are bad and should never be worth using.
It should go without saying that winrate isn't the be all and end all in determining one's viability. Granted, it matters. If someone has a 47 win rate, that means on average they will only win 47 games out of 100, assuming a normal mmr of six losses equates to just around 100 lp in a full division.
Conversely, a 54 win rate champion wins on average 54 games out of a hundred eight net wins, which is a lot of LP. That being said, there are an endless number of factors that contribute to a champion's performance metrics. A major one is their pick and ban rate. Historically, there's always been a small group of cast members who would routinely hover around the 53 to 55 win rate, which ordinarily would be too high.
However, the group consists of champions with sparse representation. Seoul Quinn Sarner Why does no one play characters? It should go without saying that the only ones who play them are the ones who really want to play them. That means they're well read on the champion, and the lack of matchup experience from their opponents would give them a sizable advantage.
That would lead to an above-average performance. Lee Sin Yasuo and Viego average poor win rates due to how popular they are. Players are more likely to first-time Irelia when autofill has been cinched, resulting in many losses that weigh against their stats. Obviously, first-timers have no idea what the hell they're doing, so they'll make the champion look bad, but that doesn't mean the champions themselves are bad.
As they say, it's not the cards, the driver, not the weapon, that is the wielder. The higher someone's pick rate is, the more likely a bunch of noobs are to fund them, thus tanking said win rate. The second would be their situation. The champion in question might be very strong on paper, but not a wise choice at the present moment in light of external circumstances.
Either the matchups that counter them are also very strong or they're stifled by their items' being underpowered. This happens all the time. Mordekaiser, and top lane has been heart stuck 47. In Time and Plus for years at this point and has received a million buffs to the point where he's extremely overtuned now, but his numbers weren't changing because all of his counters were overpowered for so long.
Since then, Jacks, Fiora, Gwen, Yannick, Tryndamere, Gangplank, since then they've all gotten nerfed, and what do you know? Mordecai's win rate jumped from 50 to 50 pretty much overnight. individual circumstances, playing their own roles, or a champion, but win rates are ultimately just numbers with no ground behind them.
Context matters, as those numbers are still an indication of their relative position in the meta, but there is one other factor with a lot of controlling equity in this matter: their presence in pro play, which I suppose is an extension of pick and ban rate, given that LCSLEC. LK. LPL, and such are an organized team of five with communications, versus another organized team of five without communications.
A different solo queue mentality generally incentivizes players to field champions with a greater focus on self-sufficiency. Pixel can take advantage of the inherent absence of coordination from both their own team and the enemies. That's why you almost never see the likes of Yorick in pro play. While it's true that split pushing becomes more effective if you're able to communicate with your team, it's also less effective if the enemy team is able to communicate as well, since it capitalizes on disorganization and poor macro.
Pro play values different things than a champion. Above all else, they want consistency and stability. Let's take a look at a few traditionally popular picks. A good place to start would be Renekton. In solo queue, renekton has always been a staple for many top winners. He's easy to learn, very effective in the early game, has more or less a decent matchup spread, and is very consistent.
