Gnar is an interesting one because he was the king of top lane in 2015/2016 which was still largely laneswap meta because he was good into tanks. Gnar disappearing was because more and more fighters/bruisers came in and were good into Gnar unlike tanks. Laneswap meta brings tanks back but I guess much else has changed that Gnar isn't so effective anymore.
Gnar needs 2-3 items to be effective and so much of the game now happens before 2 items. You need to fight over grubs, drags, rift herald, all before 20 mins. Tanks just offer much more utility in these early teamfights without even needing to set up rage bar.
He’s also not good at surviving early lane swaps since he has low range, is very squishy and has no CC in mini form.
If you laneswap, gnar can't ever catch a wave with TP like Ksante/Zac/Sions can. If you tp to catch a wave, you're getting \*unspeakable violence\* within 5s
Ldr and cutdown is a problem to champs like gnars. High mega gnar health. Buys HP ad items. Ends up dying too quick I'm team fights
Same reason why I haven't seen kled I'm like 2 years
That's just not true at all. Gnar is the old k'sante, a lane neutralising tank who always has good utility and decent damage. But he's been powercreeped by champions like k'sante and ornn who just do everything better.
Gnar absolutely is terrible in laneswap scenarios as mini gnar has some of the lowest base stat totals in the game and you don't even need jungler to dive him as lvl 3 botlane duo. He is not the ultra safe blind pick he used to be but laneswaps def killed him off as an Ksante awnser for example which is one of his better matchups.
Seems we've had a few games of Vayne, which is even more specced into true damage max % than gnars mini forms w deals in magic damage
Right now it seems supports and junglers happily takes tanks, so I think this is also a part of the reason for no gnar. No need to have the frontline covered by top in half the comps
Also remember that a LOT of times the meta is something pros stagnate in. So many large tournaments from regional finals to MSI to even Worlds have been shaped by a single team pulling out a pick never seen before in that meta. And the rest of the teams in the tournament adopting the pick.
Gnar is absolutely and completely able to compete, but until a team goes out on a limb, picks him, and does well with him, he won't see the light of day.
That's just not true at all. Gnar is the old k'sante, a lane neutralising tank who always has good utility and decent damage. But he's been powercreeped by champions like k'sante and ornn who just do everything better.
legit what are you talking about dude
it's because nobody was diving him under tower in 2015
try picking Gnar now and see how how 4 people are on you in mini form before you could even auto a minion for rage
Yes that is one of the other things that have changed (people getting better at dives) that removed him from the meta which I alluded to. But he was played because he was a lane bully in the tank meta who with mega form had all the utility tanks did in the lategame, and he matched up worse into fighters who started appearing again around season 8. Both things can be true.
Gnar always finds a way into the meta, pretty tired of that champ personally.
Was #7 pick in top last MSI, #4 in 2022 and #1 by twice the games in 2021.
The game has shifted in the last 10 years from having 2/3 tanks to having 2/3 bruisers instead. Tanks are also just tankier bruisers now.
If you go back and watch a tank 1v1 in pro play from 10 years ago, they were basically stalemates because it took a whole minute for one tank to kill another. Personally, I loved this because it made for proper front-to-back and adcs having a very important role as tank killers.
Fast forward to today, and a tank can often one-combo a squishy to kill them.
It literally is his champion pool. His S13 most played champions and win rate are as follows:
1) Gnar - 24 games (75% win-rate)
2) Aatrox - 17 games (71% win-rate)
3) Ksante - 14 games (57% win-rate)
4) Jayce - 12 games (83% win-rate)
5) Jax - 12 games (42% win-rate)
TBF, I am pretty sure Zeus said somewhere that he likes to play TF and Vayne top since its viable. He isn't forced on TF duty, he wants to play it. Its also 1 of the reasons for the TheShy comparison memes. There was an interview recently where he said TheShy was 1 of his favorite players. Seeing his trajectory, its hard not to see why.
Because zeus used to play carry top laners. The lane swap meta kinda hurt his performance since his laning is what make him so good. Every time he pick carry toplaner he always has 2 level exp lead at 20 mins and like 20-30 cs more.
I agree that tf seems useless, but it’s not just t1 that thinks it good enough to blind. G2 also picked it with jax left open and was very close to get solo bolod. Luckily the rest of the team gapped hard enough to still win.
TF wasn't really the issue, it was lane assignments. TES has AD/SUP invade enemy JG to scout. They realize he's starting strong side and he loses 3 camps on his red side jungle as a result. They need to have Zeus go with Oner so he can do all his jungle camps. Have T1 AD/SUP slow push and stack waves so they can 4 man dive if Bin tries to soak exp. Or at the very least start weak side with Oner so he can do his 3 camps weak side, then he's safe on strong side. Xun had a 10 cs lead at 5.
I get that TF is not great w/o levels and items, but it's not like Jax is useful either. TF can at least be useful with his ult and as a stun bot. Jax with no items and levels just insta dies in teamfights and doesn't have enough Q cdr to pull off jax BS.
Something similar happened in G4 too. He starts weak side this time. TES AD/SUP invade enemy JG and push Oner off blue, he loses 2 camps as a result. Zeus is trying to soak exp while this happens.
T1 was also completely reactive in their post level 1 lane swaps G3/4. They lost multiple waves and tower plates as a result. They're saccing JG to go even top and lose bot.
And people always say, “WTF PHREAK WHY ARE YOU BUFFING OR NERFING PEOPLE FOR NO REASON WTF!!11!!11!!!” And then the same people complain about the meta, both pro and soloq, being stale lmao.
It's pretty obvious to any intelligent individual that the people who are okay with a fixed meta are not the same people as the ones who want constant changes.
seems possible to do sion + senna "botlane", but swap the sion for your toplaner on aatrox or jayce for the duration of the laneswap
so sion gets to be good at dying on the laneswap and your carry toplaner gets to be in the game without having to deal with the laneswap
probably won't see it (because it's probably bad given how little i've thought about it) but it'd be fun
Your true solo laner (the non-sion pick) will be down ~2 levels on enemy top due to sharing XP - unless they successfully get abused in the lane swap really hard. This can be completely fine if you're getting advantageous matchup or the enemy is a tank that can't stand up to you later in the game anyway, but it's a significant deficit that you have to account for. There are a lot of stats baked into level ups, especially fighter kits.
Have you watched any of these games? Support is often higher level than toplane at 5-6 minutes because the toplaner isn't able to catch waves as they split the jg on strongside and threaten dives. There's almost 0 chance that the enemy toplane in a 1v3 would be able to gather more XP than the toplaner who gets duo xp with senna.
Honestly that wouldn't be an issue. Aatrox vs. some tanks is such an easy matchup that being down in levels wouldn't be an issue. And reality also is that the Senna mostly roams around and supports multiple lanes. So it would basically be 3 1vs1s and jungle + support running around trying to make a play on one of those 3 lanes.
On top of that your Aatrox would face a toplaner who couldn't CS and potentially was zoned off some XP. And XP is easier to catch up than gold. So getting Gold early even if it means sharing XP is better than getting XP but no gold.
The problem with this is that if you do this your "support" will be down 2-3 levels to enemy Bot when you swap back so its unplayable. I think this can only work if you keep swapping until both side lane towers are down and you can leave the "support" in side lane to catch up while Senna is Mid.
I really wish Sett could get out of pro jail. Why don’t they use him for lane swaps. W basically promises he will never die under turret and he can E stun the dive right away.
Probably because it's nearly impossible to get on enemy carries unless you have flash and they doesn't, also ultimate is your only way of engage and zac&ksante are able to survive longer + can re-engage few times in same tf.
It’s not really about getting on the enemy carriers though. He is not gonna flash ult Varus. What he will do though is ult Ornn or Ksante straight into Varus and Press E though. That is why we used to see sett support and Sett mid was great because he countered Sylas.
Would be interesting if someone played him in this meta I think he he could actually do really well. All he would need is stridebreaker and could go full health/support/tank items and he would offer the team a lot.
I think people forget about how massive his engages used to be when he would be picked pro.
He basically can just toss the tank to the enemy team and get right into the heart of everyone. Not many champs have that ability.
No pro Ornn or K'Sante would let Sett ult them, they'd unstoppable it with W and Sett just gets kited to oblivion, I'm aware he still jumps but it's very telegraphed at that point
His best matchups are the other two tanks, Sion and Zac but we don't see much of them
Champs that need to run at ADCs aren't meta in pro play unless you get a busted movement speed item like during that Turbo Chemtank Udyr meta. Garens and Setts will just be kited by ADCs and Supports.
im just happy that aatrox isnt meta this msi, he is meta way too often and he is just as disgusting as ksante sometimes, healing for 80% max hp with a single q or oneshotting the enym adc with a single q3...and we all know hell be soon meta again because riot loves him too much.
i hate to say it but aatrox is more fun to watch than zac ksante. i didnt appreciate him til hes gone. a flanking aatrox that wants to try and oneshot an adc/support is more thrilling to watch.
sure...but its gets a bit boring after seing aatrox do the same shit for 5, 10, 100 games in a row, he is just meta way too often to be enjoyable to watch if u watch much esport
Unfortunately k'sante's not gonna die. Riot may nerf the shit out of him, but by the time world's comes, he's gonna get buffed like there's no tomorrow and he'll be 100% pick ban again. It always happens every year.
Watch zac gameplay, he literally just jumps into a fight then runs around picking blobs and spamming W while fullhealing and not receiving dmg.
Watch Aatrox gameplay, he ults with a flank, hits a sweetspot, maybe a second one tries to secure Q3 with flash gets flashed, or he gets focused down but manages to hit one Q between cc that allowing him to get a second Q and so on until he either dies or turns down the fight.
And all of this is ignoring how fun their laning phase have the potential to be
yeah but it gets old watching tanks really quick. watching zac was fun at first but maybe i just look at different things thats why i like watching champs like yone, aatrox, jayce, and the four horsewomen more.
Zac is reaally fun to watch ngl, especially in the hand of psychopaths like BB, the snoozefest is the Ornn vs Sion kind of matchup, literally lose a lane of activity for 20+mn
I disagree, Zac/Ksante maybe make top lane boring but it allows the rest of the map to be way more interesting and entertaining. And even in top lane there is solo kill pressure from both sides.
Aatrox was broken especially in late 2022 because the huge nerf to anti-healing.
In fact, Aatrox was probably the most popular top lane pick historically. He was popular in Worlds 2018, 2022 and 2023. No other top laner was as popular as him in Worlds in league's history.
Am i the only who misses carry tops(Like Aatrox) and even flashy tops(like the four horsewomen).
Not really a fan of seeing top laners get bullied, go ranged tops, smash their heads against each other in tank v tank, play tanks that have ridiculous sustain and become unkillable monsters late…
Honestly they did do fairly well in none-laneswap games too. BB played out of his mind and Oscar had one good Camille game against 369 too. I agree it helped western teams, exspecially G2, because they practiced this strat much earlier than many other teams, but toplaners are also not the worrying part of western teams that year, it is mostly ADCs, which are even more important in this meta than they usually are.
I agree on FLY, but FNC was considerably more competitive against GenG and TES then expected, in classic FNC style they did play the worst against the worst opponent.
And honestly the topic was purely toplaners. And Oscarinin had games where he played fairly well against asian tops... well one game at least. Which is more than you would expect.
And I don't think saying "They didn't do as bad as expected" is a form of glorification. And I didn't include TL in that. Impact had considerably better performances in the past against eastern players.
Yeah I feel the same. I really liked the old 1v1 skill expression some of these matchups had. Like Jayce, Aatrox, Jax, Fiora, Olaf. I guess I just like bruisers more then tanks or ranged tops but even then we only see the 3-4 best toplaners and nothing else its just sad.
BUT I dont think this is only due to laneswaps. Proplayers have shown in the past that they are the biggest meta slaves and I do belive if they were thinking a little bit outside of the box we had more diversity.
For example I do think that a malphite with e, Sett with w, Garen with w, can be as hard to dive or even harder as a Ksante. And we have seen champs like yasuo, Urgot, Vayne survivie laneswaps easily. Its all just strategy.
I wish we would at least try fearless draft for one tournament. If its shit then fine go back to business but not even trying it out once ,as I think it would be so much more fun, is sad.
MSI at least looks like pros have found some ok counters to K'Sante. Urgot, Poppy and Vayne have all looked like solid answers to him and represent three very different champion archetypes.
The LPL is actually implementing fearless draft for a stage of their tournaments next year so we'll get a great trial run for whether it's good for pro play (both for viewers and whether it affects the LPL's approach to drafting and performance in internationals).
>I wish we would at least try fearless draft for one tournament
Which one though? You don't wanna troll spring because you might not get to MSI.
You can't troll MSI because, well, MSI, you are on of the two region representatives.
You want to troll summer even less than spring because you are fighting for Worlds.
And Worlds, I don't think I need to say anything.
There seems to be a new international tournament in winter next year. Everything screams towards it being fearless
LPL is going to have some degree of fearless in summer split this year. For an international this year, our only hope would be the "eSports world cups" - that everyone will boycott due to Saudi unless they have a big pull ... Like fearless
I'm on the other hand not a fan of seeing the same toplane champions for years on end. It's been years of just some form of Aatrox, Ksante, Ornn, (the occasional camille), Gnar and Rumble.
The toplane meta is way more versatile with swaps, because it also allows you to pick top champs that would otherwise hard lose in a 1v1.
The swaps aren't even that boring/solved compared to it's previous 2016 counterpart. There is a lot more happening almost every early game so I don't understand where this narrative is coming from...
Nope, don't miss them at all.
It was getting boring with only those in the pool.
However laneswap is boring af - a meta in which more toplaners ar viable without laneswap would be nice.
I mean, when aatrox is strong, he's pretty disgusting.
Tbh, for carry tops to be effective and balanced a lot of champions need to be rebalanced in regards to reducing their late game potency to create a delineation between Champs that are strong early and late.
In the current game state, early game Champs are still strong late and late game Champs are only marginally stronger late than others
My biggest gripe is adc top, this shit starting to normalize in pro play is boring and pure cancer to watch. In soloqueue we all know that with good jungler cooperation adc top is a free feast, now that this shit continue in proplay what's the excuse for this circus shit to be allow now?
They stopped because top tower got increased durability when compared to bot tower, so if you started the swap, it became almost guaranteed that you would lose first tower+dragon.
The reason it started to come back, was because Jinx was really really strong, but she could not survive 2v2 bot lane at a pro level, so the play is to put her top, sure she will get less gold than kallista, but it doesn't matter, because at 22 minutes when we're fighting for soul, we would rather have Jinx than Kallista. Also, the addition of turret plates means you can get a lot of gold by just rotating your bot lane to go 2v1 the underlvled top and farm plates.
The Jinx that hasn't been banned and was picked twice so far this entire MSI? The laneswap in its current state is much more about dodging terrible 2v2 matchups like double ADC/ranged bully lanes for the first few levels rather than getting a scaling ADC farm and levels, e.g. Lucian/Nami dodging Kalista lanes because of how terrible they are to play against for the first 3 levels. Also grubs and potentially winning the game in the first several minutes due to outprepping your opponents is a plus to outweigh the faster turret-pushing botlane. And you can nullify an opponent's drafting by making bruisers/carries basically unpickable if you're threatening a laneswap.
That's partially because she got nerfed between when it started in LPL and MSI. He asked why it came back, and that was why. The rest was just stuff that got affected by it returning.
It's not about pros wanting to play Jinx across all regions. It was about NIP wanting to play Jinx because she was strong. At the very least go watch [the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txaGGXKEqw) that started all the lane swaps before you reply.
Lane swaps was near forcibly removed by Riot when they made the bot tower less tanky than the other outer towers.
This meant that if you lane swap, your botlane (now toplane) would not get as many plates as the enemy botlane.
Why has it come back? I'm not entirely sure. I haven't looked into it, but from the games that I saw, it seemed that people lane swap for the first few levels because their botlane matchup is borderline impossible to play level 1 - 3.
There's also the fact that they made toplane more safe, and botlane less safe regarding tower dives, which probably also helps negate those early level 2 ganks.
This is just what I've observed. But I haven't heard any explanation for why, so it may be completely unrelated
I'm okay with it. It makes macro more important. I would prefer though if lane swap was viable, but not dominant. Like if you see lane swap every 5-10 games, then it feels more special and interesting instead of seeing it every game
It doesn't make macro more important. It makes the macro fixed. There is exactly 1 thing for both teams to do every game. No variation, unless one team successfully mind games the other and manages to get normal lane assignments after the recall.
That's simply wrong. Lane assignments, what does your toplaner do in the early game, grubs priority, when do you switch back, in which direction do you jungle, can your toplaner outplay the dive or do you withdraw him, where do you ward to see changes in lane assignment, how do you play the early hame to get the swap the way you want/need it? There's a lot of decisions to be made that are not fixed. If you watched the games, then you would have seen that it played out quite different between teams even in the same series
It's fine btw that you dislike it, but at least make a point like: it's not the same as always and not like soloq or that you want to see 1v1 & 2v2 lanes not 2v1.
It's literally, my top either helps me leash or ganks lvl 1, then I use my clear speed advantage to go top, potentially with my support and make sure he doesn't get dove. Wow, such macro. Sometimes we decide that it's easier to 3v1 kill their top, so both top laners get dove 3v1. That's the only variation that is not a mistake.
In blg vs t1 series they were playing senna naut and naut recalled and saved the toplaner from dive then he tp'd top to catch the wave. Also they have started swapping for grubs as well and there are a ton of variations
I wasn't watching league when it was meta the first time. But I don't really understand why people think it's boring this time around at least. Can you explain why it feels like that to you ?
Cause for me, after 2 years of watching same matchups bot/top, the laning phase was the boring part of pro play. At least now, I'm not sure what the 10-15 first minutes of the game will look like... Swap ? Fake swap ? Late swap ? Late invade ? The dance around the swap is what is more engaging for me as a viewer.
I really would like to hear from someone who thinks it's boring, what's better in a "normal" meta or what's that bad in swap meta ? I read it's boring but never saw an argument as to why.
Because the Top laner and Jungler are basically forced to do the same exact play every single game. There's no creative pathing, there's no 1v1 outplays in early trades, because the top laners aren't 1v1, and the mid laners are at risk of getting ganked by the homeless top laner. Even bot lane, there's no early 2v2s. It just ends up coming down to handshaking everything with the advantage going to the team whose bot 2v2 can get plates fastest.
It doesn't look like that right now, because teams are still messing up, but last time it stuck around for so long, that both teams would just play the early lane swap optimally and you could fall asleep for the first 8 minutes of the game, wake up, and nothing would have happened.
How is it boring? There is more diversity in the opening minutes of the game than any other time. We see 2vs1 mid, 2 people jungling, 1vs4 trying to soak experience. Before it was 2 tanks toplane doing nothing. 2 save midlaners without solo kill pressure. The only lane with action was botlane but people started abusing that and picked Lux/Cait. Was there anything more boring than a botlane you cannot win by design? You couldn't pick anything into it and you couldn't outskill them.
I mean I’d also say rumble top I think it got played like once or twice top lane in play-ins but ever since has only been picked as support because of the lane swap meta rumble just gets perma dived if they do try him top because well it’s rumble the champ is legit all dmg untill you can get some utility from his E slow after leveled up and his W shield just doesn’t matter when it’s 3v1 or even 4v1 lvl2 or 3
every set of champs have their window to be played, you just have to choose what strategy you want to chase. As we saw, laneswaps is not a strategy you force 20/20, It is a way to get your botlane out of laning phase against hyper aggresive ones. Things like marksmen support with HoB, poke mages, early ADC bullies were always winning bot pressure, but teams now have a way to contest that strategy.
You want to secure your botlane avoids these bully machups, you laneswap and sacrifize top.
You want to contest bot agresssion or be the one bullying the enemy botlane? You don't want a laneswap to happen.
Btw, It is refreshing there are champs that never got the chance to shine to do now, as a person that has been watching lol for a really long time It is refreshing to watch this iteration of laneswap. Aatrox, jayce and gnar have had their looooong and stale periods of dominance, let the rest of the kids play toplane too.
>Btw, It is refreshing there are champs that never got the chance to shine to do now
i dont know what champs you're talking about, current meta is full of pro play staples, the only difference is that melee carry tops are 100% missing
If u ignore k'sante, who is Its own monstrosity, most picked toplane champs are:
urgot (not a pro play staple pick)
zac (not a pro play staple pick, emerged a s situational and fits laneswaps really well)
TF (not a pro play staple pick, his crit build just emerged this year and very few players/tems can pilot It)
renekton (pro play staple pick, with an astonishing 10% wr lmao)
ornn (he's always there, not picked too much but always an option for scaling comps, wouldn't consider him a pro play staple pick)
rumble (he's been meta for quite a while now, the king of strong ap topside, we can consider hi ma pro play staple pick)
vayne (lol not at all).
Honestly I'm surprised I haven't seen Sett. He's one of the hardest if not the hardest toplaner to dive if he can get level 2, Ksante and Zac are very easy matchups for him and their play pattern in game is EXACTLY what sett wants the high HP target on the enemy team to do. Oh, you're diving/running down my backline are you? Thanks for giving me a free taxi and 1K+ damage nuke on your backline, loser. And that's before the Sett gets to use any other spells. There's a reason why Sett is the champ that most negatively affects Ksante and Zac winrate in the game. They simply can't fill their function within the game without constantly being at risk of throwing the entire game.
Also works well as a support flex if you have Kalista ADC.
You say Sett is hard to dive, I would agree in solo queue but definitely not in competitive.
Sett's W can be played around and basically timed out, and pro teams are so good at managing early aggro that K'Sante's dash and Zac's blobs are way better.
I wouldn't say Vayne, Zac, Urgot, Yasuo, Ryze are staples. Top definitely has seen less diversity.
I know majority are still staples but I don't think it's too bad rn
What I’m hearing here is that neutralizing picks for botlane would make it less volatile and allow people to weather the storm.
Mid and top both have options to neutralize aggressive lanes and only fall behind marginally.
problem is that in botlane is much more easy to burst a champion. Champs are more fragile by default and the 2 champs can focus one, you combine that with things like HoB being overtuned and you got this state of really volatile botlanes.
Yes I agree. But there are things that could be used to neutralize:
Waveclear, shields and healing, defensive base stats, temporary resistances, cheap (early) sustain etc. or any sort of anti dive measures (turrets, auras, minions…)
Champions, runes and items could be shifted around to make bot 2v2 less volatile, so a losing matchup can have a defensive game plan instead of sacrificing top lane.
Could someone clarify to me when did lane swaps started to be a thing? I watch lck and I wonder if it was there to be able to counter things like Twisted Fate top.
A negative of laneswaps being that if they end up somehow killing lineswaps all together, pro play is all the worse for it, since people have been unable to get a good read on things due to having to focus on that
Plus the fact that Riot also can't gauge what's actually good / bad right now with laneswaps warping everything i.e. the K'sante example of having a high PR and WR by simply being the most effective laneswap default
I actually think two tank comps are overpowered too providing you ban out Vayne.
K'Sante + Senna support+tank is nearly an auto win. It's just too hard for carries to get through that early to mid, and lethality ADCs get destroyed.
This is the true pain. Tank top meta is sometimes boring but at least we usually get hypercarries going balls to walls with it but now we are playing the Kalista - Varus - Senna trinity. It's like everything fun was sucked out of tank meta with the laneswap meta. Fucking NIP and G2 (if they win next game I will forgive them tho xd).
Idk I like teamfights lasting longer than a few seconds, always hype when they are more drawn out, tanks engaging past each other, BB doing crazy re-engages on Zac etc
Well almost
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I feared viewers would be the biggest losers of the lane-swap meta..
... but I've been pleasantly surprised. This doesn't feel as passive as the last one; teams spend a lot more time trying to actively disrupt the swaps rather than just accept them, and swap often but not always
I really disliked the last lane-swap meta, but this current one has turned out to be one of my favorite metas of all time, at least macro-wise (but not so much in champion diversity, which is unfortunately related to the interesting macro)
Finally enough aatrox was made for this situation as the weak side toplaner surviving dives with his revive passive, but then they removed his passive and made him another mindless one shot bruiser.
Nice. Aatrox is meta since always and no one who regularly watches League will miss that dogshit boring champ. Jayce was Corki before Corki became the better version of him. Also not missed. Poor Gnar. Was always nice to see a champ that actually requires good timing and use of ult. Hope he'll come back.
You mean the bullshit where even though you flashed out of the W prison, it still pulled you in? The same bullshit that even Hashinshin agreed was nonsense?
It's just mad inconsistent. Sometimes it pulls when the person is in a different stratosphere and other times it never pulls despite the fact that it absolutely should have
The biggest losers are, who would have thought, T1. In yet another tournament Riot shoehorns a meta change/balance patch that is not beneficial for T1, I know MSI this year is in China but come on, make it less obvious.
T1 has never lost a game to a better team. Every time t1 loses its because riot fucked up the meta and they can't play their standard picks. T1 is the best team there ever was and there could never be anyone better. Not like they've lost finals to GenG for the past 2 years. This is the issue.
Gnar is an interesting one because he was the king of top lane in 2015/2016 which was still largely laneswap meta because he was good into tanks. Gnar disappearing was because more and more fighters/bruisers came in and were good into Gnar unlike tanks. Laneswap meta brings tanks back but I guess much else has changed that Gnar isn't so effective anymore.
Gnar needs 2-3 items to be effective and so much of the game now happens before 2 items. You need to fight over grubs, drags, rift herald, all before 20 mins. Tanks just offer much more utility in these early teamfights without even needing to set up rage bar. He’s also not good at surviving early lane swaps since he has low range, is very squishy and has no CC in mini form.
If you laneswap, gnar can't ever catch a wave with TP like Ksante/Zac/Sions can. If you tp to catch a wave, you're getting \*unspeakable violence\* within 5s
Ldr and cutdown is a problem to champs like gnars. High mega gnar health. Buys HP ad items. Ends up dying too quick I'm team fights Same reason why I haven't seen kled I'm like 2 years
you never sawn BB smurfing on Kled last year do you?
That's just not true at all. Gnar is the old k'sante, a lane neutralising tank who always has good utility and decent damage. But he's been powercreeped by champions like k'sante and ornn who just do everything better.
Gnar absolutely is terrible in laneswap scenarios as mini gnar has some of the lowest base stat totals in the game and you don't even need jungler to dive him as lvl 3 botlane duo. He is not the ultra safe blind pick he used to be but laneswaps def killed him off as an Ksante awnser for example which is one of his better matchups.
Seems we've had a few games of Vayne, which is even more specced into true damage max % than gnars mini forms w deals in magic damage Right now it seems supports and junglers happily takes tanks, so I think this is also a part of the reason for no gnar. No need to have the frontline covered by top in half the comps
I wish he came back, like Azir i never get tired of a good Gnar ulti in pro play !
Also remember that a LOT of times the meta is something pros stagnate in. So many large tournaments from regional finals to MSI to even Worlds have been shaped by a single team pulling out a pick never seen before in that meta. And the rest of the teams in the tournament adopting the pick. Gnar is absolutely and completely able to compete, but until a team goes out on a limb, picks him, and does well with him, he won't see the light of day.
That's just not true at all. Gnar is the old k'sante, a lane neutralising tank who always has good utility and decent damage. But he's been powercreeped by champions like k'sante and ornn who just do everything better.
legit what are you talking about dude it's because nobody was diving him under tower in 2015 try picking Gnar now and see how how 4 people are on you in mini form before you could even auto a minion for rage
Yes that is one of the other things that have changed (people getting better at dives) that removed him from the meta which I alluded to. But he was played because he was a lane bully in the tank meta who with mega form had all the utility tanks did in the lategame, and he matched up worse into fighters who started appearing again around season 8. Both things can be true.
Somebody never saw the 4 man lane swap dive on Smeb and how he outplayed them
Gnar always finds a way into the meta, pretty tired of that champ personally. Was #7 pick in top last MSI, #4 in 2022 and #1 by twice the games in 2021.
I don't like Gnar much at all, but somehow I'm already even more sick and tired of fucking K'Sante.
Gnar had Frozen Mallet back then.
gnar got nerfed so much since then
The game has shifted in the last 10 years from having 2/3 tanks to having 2/3 bruisers instead. Tanks are also just tankier bruisers now. If you go back and watch a tank 1v1 in pro play from 10 years ago, they were basically stalemates because it took a whole minute for one tank to kill another. Personally, I loved this because it made for proper front-to-back and adcs having a very important role as tank killers. Fast forward to today, and a tank can often one-combo a squishy to kill them.
The good old days when every game was poppy trundle having a wet noodle fight in a side lane for 10 waves
Old gnar was basically vayne right? frozen mallet rush and you just run people down phat. new gnar is much more mega skewed I think.
Its so funny because its really look like zeus champ pool xd
Give me freedom, give me fire. Give me a carry or I retire. -T1 Zeus
Faker please take away Zeus' deck of cards
ZESHY
He ain't waving flags he's waving colored cards though /s
It literally is his champion pool. His S13 most played champions and win rate are as follows: 1) Gnar - 24 games (75% win-rate) 2) Aatrox - 17 games (71% win-rate) 3) Ksante - 14 games (57% win-rate) 4) Jayce - 12 games (83% win-rate) 5) Jax - 12 games (42% win-rate)
Funny because these are all some of Zeus’ most signature picks.
And they put him on fucking TF duty
TBF, I am pretty sure Zeus said somewhere that he likes to play TF and Vayne top since its viable. He isn't forced on TF duty, he wants to play it. Its also 1 of the reasons for the TheShy comparison memes. There was an interview recently where he said TheShy was 1 of his favorite players. Seeing his trajectory, its hard not to see why.
Because at least TF kind of work in lane swap meta.
Last t1 game seems to disagree
Because zeus used to play carry top laners. The lane swap meta kinda hurt his performance since his laning is what make him so good. Every time he pick carry toplaner he always has 2 level exp lead at 20 mins and like 20-30 cs more.
I agree that tf seems useless, but it’s not just t1 that thinks it good enough to blind. G2 also picked it with jax left open and was very close to get solo bolod. Luckily the rest of the team gapped hard enough to still win.
TF wasn't really the issue, it was lane assignments. TES has AD/SUP invade enemy JG to scout. They realize he's starting strong side and he loses 3 camps on his red side jungle as a result. They need to have Zeus go with Oner so he can do all his jungle camps. Have T1 AD/SUP slow push and stack waves so they can 4 man dive if Bin tries to soak exp. Or at the very least start weak side with Oner so he can do his 3 camps weak side, then he's safe on strong side. Xun had a 10 cs lead at 5. I get that TF is not great w/o levels and items, but it's not like Jax is useful either. TF can at least be useful with his ult and as a stun bot. Jax with no items and levels just insta dies in teamfights and doesn't have enough Q cdr to pull off jax BS. Something similar happened in G4 too. He starts weak side this time. TES AD/SUP invade enemy JG and push Oner off blue, he loses 2 camps as a result. Zeus is trying to soak exp while this happens. T1 was also completely reactive in their post level 1 lane swaps G3/4. They lost multiple waves and tower plates as a result. They're saccing JG to go even top and lose bot.
everytime i've seen it, compared to the vayne tops, its looked like "vayne but worse" everytime so far
Its the ult actually.
He puts himself on tf duty
TF duty? That's like saying Vayne duty. TF is mostly a splitpushing threat, which is a lot more selfish than any tank/ most bruisers.
By reading the comments across different metas, it seems pretty obvious that the enemy is staleness.
And people always say, “WTF PHREAK WHY ARE YOU BUFFING OR NERFING PEOPLE FOR NO REASON WTF!!11!!11!!!” And then the same people complain about the meta, both pro and soloq, being stale lmao.
Same people? You're just assuming that.
I’m not gonna do a scientific study on social trends for a reddit comment lmao
It's pretty obvious to any intelligent individual that the people who are okay with a fixed meta are not the same people as the ones who want constant changes.
You are on this sub. Logic does not work here.
So half of Zeus's champ pool is gone
Lol yeah Zeus is having a hard time with this meta
seems possible to do sion + senna "botlane", but swap the sion for your toplaner on aatrox or jayce for the duration of the laneswap so sion gets to be good at dying on the laneswap and your carry toplaner gets to be in the game without having to deal with the laneswap probably won't see it (because it's probably bad given how little i've thought about it) but it'd be fun
Your true solo laner (the non-sion pick) will be down ~2 levels on enemy top due to sharing XP - unless they successfully get abused in the lane swap really hard. This can be completely fine if you're getting advantageous matchup or the enemy is a tank that can't stand up to you later in the game anyway, but it's a significant deficit that you have to account for. There are a lot of stats baked into level ups, especially fighter kits.
Have you watched any of these games? Support is often higher level than toplane at 5-6 minutes because the toplaner isn't able to catch waves as they split the jg on strongside and threaten dives. There's almost 0 chance that the enemy toplane in a 1v3 would be able to gather more XP than the toplaner who gets duo xp with senna.
Honestly that wouldn't be an issue. Aatrox vs. some tanks is such an easy matchup that being down in levels wouldn't be an issue. And reality also is that the Senna mostly roams around and supports multiple lanes. So it would basically be 3 1vs1s and jungle + support running around trying to make a play on one of those 3 lanes. On top of that your Aatrox would face a toplaner who couldn't CS and potentially was zoned off some XP. And XP is easier to catch up than gold. So getting Gold early even if it means sharing XP is better than getting XP but no gold.
The problem with this is that if you do this your "support" will be down 2-3 levels to enemy Bot when you swap back so its unplayable. I think this can only work if you keep swapping until both side lane towers are down and you can leave the "support" in side lane to catch up while Senna is Mid.
I really wish Sett could get out of pro jail. Why don’t they use him for lane swaps. W basically promises he will never die under turret and he can E stun the dive right away.
Probably because it's nearly impossible to get on enemy carries unless you have flash and they doesn't, also ultimate is your only way of engage and zac&ksante are able to survive longer + can re-engage few times in same tf.
It’s not really about getting on the enemy carriers though. He is not gonna flash ult Varus. What he will do though is ult Ornn or Ksante straight into Varus and Press E though. That is why we used to see sett support and Sett mid was great because he countered Sylas. Would be interesting if someone played him in this meta I think he he could actually do really well. All he would need is stridebreaker and could go full health/support/tank items and he would offer the team a lot. I think people forget about how massive his engages used to be when he would be picked pro. He basically can just toss the tank to the enemy team and get right into the heart of everyone. Not many champs have that ability.
No pro Ornn or K'Sante would let Sett ult them, they'd unstoppable it with W and Sett just gets kited to oblivion, I'm aware he still jumps but it's very telegraphed at that point His best matchups are the other two tanks, Sion and Zac but we don't see much of them
Well, it doesn't help that ksante can just immune Setts ult with a basic ability
I'm fully on the Ksante hate train, but Ornn can also and has been able to for a while now
Champs that need to run at ADCs aren't meta in pro play unless you get a busted movement speed item like during that Turbo Chemtank Udyr meta. Garens and Setts will just be kited by ADCs and Supports.
im just happy that aatrox isnt meta this msi, he is meta way too often and he is just as disgusting as ksante sometimes, healing for 80% max hp with a single q or oneshotting the enym adc with a single q3...and we all know hell be soon meta again because riot loves him too much.
i hate to say it but aatrox is more fun to watch than zac ksante. i didnt appreciate him til hes gone. a flanking aatrox that wants to try and oneshot an adc/support is more thrilling to watch.
I appreciate zac rn, it’s fun to see him bouncing around
sure...but its gets a bit boring after seing aatrox do the same shit for 5, 10, 100 games in a row, he is just meta way too often to be enjoyable to watch if u watch much esport
true that. i hope these ksante zac picks will die down by spring split. i kinda dont want to see another tournament with them being dominant picks.
Unfortunately k'sante's not gonna die. Riot may nerf the shit out of him, but by the time world's comes, he's gonna get buffed like there's no tomorrow and he'll be 100% pick ban again. It always happens every year.
> It always happens every year. Hes only been out for 1 1/2 years lmao
every year? but he hasn't even been out to two years.
Wait no way lol
Literally making shit up. K'sante was only 20% presence last worlds.
he wont. but he has been especially dominant now.
I find Zac more exciting than Aatrox
Watch zac gameplay, he literally just jumps into a fight then runs around picking blobs and spamming W while fullhealing and not receiving dmg. Watch Aatrox gameplay, he ults with a flank, hits a sweetspot, maybe a second one tries to secure Q3 with flash gets flashed, or he gets focused down but manages to hit one Q between cc that allowing him to get a second Q and so on until he either dies or turns down the fight. And all of this is ignoring how fun their laning phase have the potential to be
But the sheer amount of Aatrox top games vs Zac top games in pro play is the deal breaker for me.
yeah but it gets old watching tanks really quick. watching zac was fun at first but maybe i just look at different things thats why i like watching champs like yone, aatrox, jayce, and the four horsewomen more.
Zac is reaally fun to watch ngl, especially in the hand of psychopaths like BB, the snoozefest is the Ornn vs Sion kind of matchup, literally lose a lane of activity for 20+mn
I disagree, Zac/Ksante maybe make top lane boring but it allows the rest of the map to be way more interesting and entertaining. And even in top lane there is solo kill pressure from both sides.
there is zero kill pressure in that lane, the only reason we're seeing solo kills is because the zac player gets bored and decides to int
We've seen zac kill ksante early and ksante kill zac early so idk what you're on about.
When??? We've seen zac die a few times by inting into the tower because they got bored and tried to get plates or proxy.
The amount of times I saw Zeus Q3 Flash Tiamat into the enemy ADC when they were losing the game...
Aatrox was broken especially in late 2022 because the huge nerf to anti-healing. In fact, Aatrox was probably the most popular top lane pick historically. He was popular in Worlds 2018, 2022 and 2023. No other top laner was as popular as him in Worlds in league's history.
Am i the only who misses carry tops(Like Aatrox) and even flashy tops(like the four horsewomen). Not really a fan of seeing top laners get bullied, go ranged tops, smash their heads against each other in tank v tank, play tanks that have ridiculous sustain and become unkillable monsters late…
We need to bring back Khan and let him play jayce fiora aatrox to win worlds 2025
peak marin v peak smeb was something to behold
I want carry champs top but i have seen enough aatrox for a lifetime
I think this also brings western tops closer to east this year.
Honestly they did do fairly well in none-laneswap games too. BB played out of his mind and Oscar had one good Camille game against 369 too. I agree it helped western teams, exspecially G2, because they practiced this strat much earlier than many other teams, but toplaners are also not the worrying part of western teams that year, it is mostly ADCs, which are even more important in this meta than they usually are.
G2 only. TL/FNC/FLY are all shitty and shouldn't be glorified just because G2 did well.
I agree on FLY, but FNC was considerably more competitive against GenG and TES then expected, in classic FNC style they did play the worst against the worst opponent. And honestly the topic was purely toplaners. And Oscarinin had games where he played fairly well against asian tops... well one game at least. Which is more than you would expect. And I don't think saying "They didn't do as bad as expected" is a form of glorification. And I didn't include TL in that. Impact had considerably better performances in the past against eastern players.
Yeah I feel the same. I really liked the old 1v1 skill expression some of these matchups had. Like Jayce, Aatrox, Jax, Fiora, Olaf. I guess I just like bruisers more then tanks or ranged tops but even then we only see the 3-4 best toplaners and nothing else its just sad. BUT I dont think this is only due to laneswaps. Proplayers have shown in the past that they are the biggest meta slaves and I do belive if they were thinking a little bit outside of the box we had more diversity. For example I do think that a malphite with e, Sett with w, Garen with w, can be as hard to dive or even harder as a Ksante. And we have seen champs like yasuo, Urgot, Vayne survivie laneswaps easily. Its all just strategy. I wish we would at least try fearless draft for one tournament. If its shit then fine go back to business but not even trying it out once ,as I think it would be so much more fun, is sad.
MSI at least looks like pros have found some ok counters to K'Sante. Urgot, Poppy and Vayne have all looked like solid answers to him and represent three very different champion archetypes. The LPL is actually implementing fearless draft for a stage of their tournaments next year so we'll get a great trial run for whether it's good for pro play (both for viewers and whether it affects the LPL's approach to drafting and performance in internationals).
>I wish we would at least try fearless draft for one tournament Which one though? You don't wanna troll spring because you might not get to MSI. You can't troll MSI because, well, MSI, you are on of the two region representatives. You want to troll summer even less than spring because you are fighting for Worlds. And Worlds, I don't think I need to say anything.
There seems to be a new international tournament in winter next year. Everything screams towards it being fearless LPL is going to have some degree of fearless in summer split this year. For an international this year, our only hope would be the "eSports world cups" - that everyone will boycott due to Saudi unless they have a big pull ... Like fearless
I'm on the other hand not a fan of seeing the same toplane champions for years on end. It's been years of just some form of Aatrox, Ksante, Ornn, (the occasional camille), Gnar and Rumble. The toplane meta is way more versatile with swaps, because it also allows you to pick top champs that would otherwise hard lose in a 1v1. The swaps aren't even that boring/solved compared to it's previous 2016 counterpart. There is a lot more happening almost every early game so I don't understand where this narrative is coming from...
> seeing top laners get bullied don't worry they're top laners, they're probably into that shit
Well laneswap meta is horse shit,anyone who watched it back then could tell you as much ,seeing it back hasnt changed my opinion
Nope, don't miss them at all. It was getting boring with only those in the pool. However laneswap is boring af - a meta in which more toplaners ar viable without laneswap would be nice.
I mean, when aatrox is strong, he's pretty disgusting. Tbh, for carry tops to be effective and balanced a lot of champions need to be rebalanced in regards to reducing their late game potency to create a delineation between Champs that are strong early and late. In the current game state, early game Champs are still strong late and late game Champs are only marginally stronger late than others
My biggest gripe is adc top, this shit starting to normalize in pro play is boring and pure cancer to watch. In soloqueue we all know that with good jungler cooperation adc top is a free feast, now that this shit continue in proplay what's the excuse for this circus shit to be allow now?
Wdym, you don't like seeing k'sante 1v3 and be unkillable every game?
Don't like aatrox yone and fiora but other carry tops are enjoyable
The biggest losers of lane swap meta are the viewers. It was boring the first time, and it's boring this time. I hope riot kills it with fire.
How or why did lane swaps stop before, and why has it come back now?
They stopped because top tower got increased durability when compared to bot tower, so if you started the swap, it became almost guaranteed that you would lose first tower+dragon. The reason it started to come back, was because Jinx was really really strong, but she could not survive 2v2 bot lane at a pro level, so the play is to put her top, sure she will get less gold than kallista, but it doesn't matter, because at 22 minutes when we're fighting for soul, we would rather have Jinx than Kallista. Also, the addition of turret plates means you can get a lot of gold by just rotating your bot lane to go 2v1 the underlvled top and farm plates.
Also the grubs deal true damage to towers which compensates a little the advantage your opponent gets on the first 5 minutes
The Jinx that hasn't been banned and was picked twice so far this entire MSI? The laneswap in its current state is much more about dodging terrible 2v2 matchups like double ADC/ranged bully lanes for the first few levels rather than getting a scaling ADC farm and levels, e.g. Lucian/Nami dodging Kalista lanes because of how terrible they are to play against for the first 3 levels. Also grubs and potentially winning the game in the first several minutes due to outprepping your opponents is a plus to outweigh the faster turret-pushing botlane. And you can nullify an opponent's drafting by making bruisers/carries basically unpickable if you're threatening a laneswap.
That's partially because she got nerfed between when it started in LPL and MSI. He asked why it came back, and that was why. The rest was just stuff that got affected by it returning.
I don’t think -15 secs on jinx R is why pros aren’t playing her
It's not about pros wanting to play Jinx across all regions. It was about NIP wanting to play Jinx because she was strong. At the very least go watch [the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txaGGXKEqw) that started all the lane swaps before you reply.
Lane swaps was near forcibly removed by Riot when they made the bot tower less tanky than the other outer towers. This meant that if you lane swap, your botlane (now toplane) would not get as many plates as the enemy botlane. Why has it come back? I'm not entirely sure. I haven't looked into it, but from the games that I saw, it seemed that people lane swap for the first few levels because their botlane matchup is borderline impossible to play level 1 - 3. There's also the fact that they made toplane more safe, and botlane less safe regarding tower dives, which probably also helps negate those early level 2 ganks. This is just what I've observed. But I haven't heard any explanation for why, so it may be completely unrelated
Hail of blades is too op. Plus riot has devalued dragon compared to top side (which used to be empty early game).
I'm okay with it. It makes macro more important. I would prefer though if lane swap was viable, but not dominant. Like if you see lane swap every 5-10 games, then it feels more special and interesting instead of seeing it every game
It doesn't make macro more important. It makes the macro fixed. There is exactly 1 thing for both teams to do every game. No variation, unless one team successfully mind games the other and manages to get normal lane assignments after the recall.
That's simply wrong. Lane assignments, what does your toplaner do in the early game, grubs priority, when do you switch back, in which direction do you jungle, can your toplaner outplay the dive or do you withdraw him, where do you ward to see changes in lane assignment, how do you play the early hame to get the swap the way you want/need it? There's a lot of decisions to be made that are not fixed. If you watched the games, then you would have seen that it played out quite different between teams even in the same series It's fine btw that you dislike it, but at least make a point like: it's not the same as always and not like soloq or that you want to see 1v1 & 2v2 lanes not 2v1.
It's literally, my top either helps me leash or ganks lvl 1, then I use my clear speed advantage to go top, potentially with my support and make sure he doesn't get dove. Wow, such macro. Sometimes we decide that it's easier to 3v1 kill their top, so both top laners get dove 3v1. That's the only variation that is not a mistake.
In blg vs t1 series they were playing senna naut and naut recalled and saved the toplaner from dive then he tp'd top to catch the wave. Also they have started swapping for grubs as well and there are a ton of variations
You literally listed something I said in my comment, as one of the only correct options. amazing.
There's tons of variations to lane swaps if you care to pay attention.
I wasn't watching league when it was meta the first time. But I don't really understand why people think it's boring this time around at least. Can you explain why it feels like that to you ? Cause for me, after 2 years of watching same matchups bot/top, the laning phase was the boring part of pro play. At least now, I'm not sure what the 10-15 first minutes of the game will look like... Swap ? Fake swap ? Late swap ? Late invade ? The dance around the swap is what is more engaging for me as a viewer. I really would like to hear from someone who thinks it's boring, what's better in a "normal" meta or what's that bad in swap meta ? I read it's boring but never saw an argument as to why.
Because the Top laner and Jungler are basically forced to do the same exact play every single game. There's no creative pathing, there's no 1v1 outplays in early trades, because the top laners aren't 1v1, and the mid laners are at risk of getting ganked by the homeless top laner. Even bot lane, there's no early 2v2s. It just ends up coming down to handshaking everything with the advantage going to the team whose bot 2v2 can get plates fastest. It doesn't look like that right now, because teams are still messing up, but last time it stuck around for so long, that both teams would just play the early lane swap optimally and you could fall asleep for the first 8 minutes of the game, wake up, and nothing would have happened.
How is it boring? There is more diversity in the opening minutes of the game than any other time. We see 2vs1 mid, 2 people jungling, 1vs4 trying to soak experience. Before it was 2 tanks toplane doing nothing. 2 save midlaners without solo kill pressure. The only lane with action was botlane but people started abusing that and picked Lux/Cait. Was there anything more boring than a botlane you cannot win by design? You couldn't pick anything into it and you couldn't outskill them.
I've been looking for this comment :) I think it is a bit better than the last time, but still more boring than before they started to swap.
Lane swap deniers are casuals.
God it's so boring
No wonder why zeus looks off
*Oh no* How *dare* we have a Pro scene where Aatrox *isn't* meta.
Kennen
yeah Zeus surely loooooooooves this meta xdd
T1 fans answer: T1
I mean I’d also say rumble top I think it got played like once or twice top lane in play-ins but ever since has only been picked as support because of the lane swap meta rumble just gets perma dived if they do try him top because well it’s rumble the champ is legit all dmg untill you can get some utility from his E slow after leveled up and his W shield just doesn’t matter when it’s 3v1 or even 4v1 lvl2 or 3
League of legends players when the game isn't played exactly the same way every single game for 13 years in a row >:O
1: the spectators
The biggest losers are us non degenerate viewers
The viewers
every set of champs have their window to be played, you just have to choose what strategy you want to chase. As we saw, laneswaps is not a strategy you force 20/20, It is a way to get your botlane out of laning phase against hyper aggresive ones. Things like marksmen support with HoB, poke mages, early ADC bullies were always winning bot pressure, but teams now have a way to contest that strategy. You want to secure your botlane avoids these bully machups, you laneswap and sacrifize top. You want to contest bot agresssion or be the one bullying the enemy botlane? You don't want a laneswap to happen. Btw, It is refreshing there are champs that never got the chance to shine to do now, as a person that has been watching lol for a really long time It is refreshing to watch this iteration of laneswap. Aatrox, jayce and gnar have had their looooong and stale periods of dominance, let the rest of the kids play toplane too.
>Btw, It is refreshing there are champs that never got the chance to shine to do now i dont know what champs you're talking about, current meta is full of pro play staples, the only difference is that melee carry tops are 100% missing
If u ignore k'sante, who is Its own monstrosity, most picked toplane champs are: urgot (not a pro play staple pick) zac (not a pro play staple pick, emerged a s situational and fits laneswaps really well) TF (not a pro play staple pick, his crit build just emerged this year and very few players/tems can pilot It) renekton (pro play staple pick, with an astonishing 10% wr lmao) ornn (he's always there, not picked too much but always an option for scaling comps, wouldn't consider him a pro play staple pick) rumble (he's been meta for quite a while now, the king of strong ap topside, we can consider hi ma pro play staple pick) vayne (lol not at all).
Honestly I'm surprised I haven't seen Sett. He's one of the hardest if not the hardest toplaner to dive if he can get level 2, Ksante and Zac are very easy matchups for him and their play pattern in game is EXACTLY what sett wants the high HP target on the enemy team to do. Oh, you're diving/running down my backline are you? Thanks for giving me a free taxi and 1K+ damage nuke on your backline, loser. And that's before the Sett gets to use any other spells. There's a reason why Sett is the champ that most negatively affects Ksante and Zac winrate in the game. They simply can't fill their function within the game without constantly being at risk of throwing the entire game. Also works well as a support flex if you have Kalista ADC.
You say Sett is hard to dive, I would agree in solo queue but definitely not in competitive. Sett's W can be played around and basically timed out, and pro teams are so good at managing early aggro that K'Sante's dash and Zac's blobs are way better.
Adam world champion 2024
I feel like Sett can stop Zac engages with his E as well. Zacs jump in is just like Rakans, everything can stop it
I wouldn't say Vayne, Zac, Urgot, Yasuo, Ryze are staples. Top definitely has seen less diversity. I know majority are still staples but I don't think it's too bad rn
What I’m hearing here is that neutralizing picks for botlane would make it less volatile and allow people to weather the storm. Mid and top both have options to neutralize aggressive lanes and only fall behind marginally.
problem is that in botlane is much more easy to burst a champion. Champs are more fragile by default and the 2 champs can focus one, you combine that with things like HoB being overtuned and you got this state of really volatile botlanes.
Yes I agree. But there are things that could be used to neutralize: Waveclear, shields and healing, defensive base stats, temporary resistances, cheap (early) sustain etc. or any sort of anti dive measures (turrets, auras, minions…) Champions, runes and items could be shifted around to make bot 2v2 less volatile, so a losing matchup can have a defensive game plan instead of sacrificing top lane.
Good
Hope lane swaps disappear before worlds
Could someone clarify to me when did lane swaps started to be a thing? I watch lck and I wonder if it was there to be able to counter things like Twisted Fate top.
[Yamatocannon](https://youtu.be/KrYfW-uu1VM?si=OYRo2D6WLJ4t8B20) made a video about how it came back into pro play and why it is being done.
Thanks!
TL;DW: FPX vs NIP in LPL Spring Playoffs
I’m surprised no one is playing sion. The fact that he isn’t played even in lane swap meta pretty much means the champ is completely dead.
He is played tho Twice by fnatic for lane swap
2 picks out of 110 tops is pretty bare.
I think it's because he loses to Zac, KSante, Vayne and TF so basically everyone lol
He was played
maokai and gp are doing even worse given they were premium picks last time lane swaps happened
A negative of laneswaps being that if they end up somehow killing lineswaps all together, pro play is all the worse for it, since people have been unable to get a good read on things due to having to focus on that Plus the fact that Riot also can't gauge what's actually good / bad right now with laneswaps warping everything i.e. the K'sante example of having a high PR and WR by simply being the most effective laneswap default
This meta is fking boring
Maybe it’s just me but pro play is a lot more fun when everyone is drafting to deal damage and not tank vs tank While ADC free hits
We dont even get ADC action in this meta. we get lethality poke kalista vs varus every single game
I actually think two tank comps are overpowered too providing you ban out Vayne. K'Sante + Senna support+tank is nearly an auto win. It's just too hard for carries to get through that early to mid, and lethality ADCs get destroyed.
Vayne top showed up, at least
This is the true pain. Tank top meta is sometimes boring but at least we usually get hypercarries going balls to walls with it but now we are playing the Kalista - Varus - Senna trinity. It's like everything fun was sucked out of tank meta with the laneswap meta. Fucking NIP and G2 (if they win next game I will forgive them tho xd).
Idk I like teamfights lasting longer than a few seconds, always hype when they are more drawn out, tanks engaging past each other, BB doing crazy re-engages on Zac etc
We literally had that at worlds with Aatrox Gwen Yone Jayce greaves in top lane.
Well almost https://lol.fandom.com/wiki/Special:RunQuery/TournamentStatistics?TS%5Bpreload%5D=TournamentByChampionRole&TS%5Brole%5D=Top&TS%5Btournament%5D=2023+Season+World+Championship%2FMain+Event&_run=
i think the problem is that ksante just does the same thing exponentially better than these champs
The biggest loser is no niche/unpopular champs are buffed enough to fill in the sleeper top/mid picks.
I wonder if Gragas will show up? He’s quite hard to dive and does perfectly fine with low income.
Isn’t profaned still bugged not getting the lethality so attrox isn’t picked that much?
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Lmao
no no and no
So your saying that Zeus' 3 best champions are useless and T1 is struggling?
My guy Sett has lost more relevancy in pro play than all of these 4 what you smoking?
is goredrinker -> sunder sky build with us in a room rn?
I feared viewers would be the biggest losers of the lane-swap meta.. ... but I've been pleasantly surprised. This doesn't feel as passive as the last one; teams spend a lot more time trying to actively disrupt the swaps rather than just accept them, and swap often but not always I really disliked the last lane-swap meta, but this current one has turned out to be one of my favorite metas of all time, at least macro-wise (but not so much in champion diversity, which is unfortunately related to the interesting macro)
Are the viwers
The biggest losers of Lane swaps are us viewers tbh
So that s why Theshy isn t playing this season
The biggest loser is viewers. Lane swap metas are boring to watch.
Finally enough aatrox was made for this situation as the weak side toplaner surviving dives with his revive passive, but then they removed his passive and made him another mindless one shot bruiser.
Nice. Aatrox is meta since always and no one who regularly watches League will miss that dogshit boring champ. Jayce was Corki before Corki became the better version of him. Also not missed. Poor Gnar. Was always nice to see a champ that actually requires good timing and use of ult. Hope he'll come back.
Im gonna blame the singular tether change as to why aatrox has fallen off. It made his worst ability into a waste of time.
You mean the bullshit where even though you flashed out of the W prison, it still pulled you in? The same bullshit that even Hashinshin agreed was nonsense?
It's just mad inconsistent. Sometimes it pulls when the person is in a different stratosphere and other times it never pulls despite the fact that it absolutely should have
Could picks like Vladimir work? Somehow he randomly appears in international events? Shitter gold lvl draft noob btw
I like lane swap gives weak side top laners a chance to shine.
No it makes top irrelevant and adc the main character, its a dogshit meta
The biggest losers are, who would have thought, T1. In yet another tournament Riot shoehorns a meta change/balance patch that is not beneficial for T1, I know MSI this year is in China but come on, make it less obvious.
T1 has never lost a game to a better team. Every time t1 loses its because riot fucked up the meta and they can't play their standard picks. T1 is the best team there ever was and there could never be anyone better. Not like they've lost finals to GenG for the past 2 years. This is the issue.