The 2020 League of Legends World Championship begins in two weeks. The best teams from around the globe are already in China, gearing up for the toughest competition of the year. Each region’s unique playstyle and meta will collide to crown a champion. Leading into the matches, here is a breakdown of each major regions’ playoffs champion presence in draft by role.
For the full data and specific champions, visit https://plotly.com/~ThomasBakerTGH/11/
Champion Draft Presence by Role during Major Regions’ Playoffs (1-LCS, 2-LEC, 3-LCK, 4-LPL; blue-top, green-jungle, purple-mid, lavender-bot, cyan-support).
Keep in mind, each region’s playoff structure is different. The LCS had 48 matches, LEC had 30, LCK had 14, and LPL had 30 throughout playoffs. Therefore, the distributions will look a little different, because fewer series and fewer matches generally mean less champion diversity. So LCK will inherently have fewer points on the chart than the other regions.
Each point is a champion picked and/or banned during playoffs, separated by role and by region. Points towards the top of the chart show higher presence, while lower points have lower presence. These distributions show trends from each region, as related to champion and role priorities when drafting.
For example, the LPL very high priority on a handful of champions in every draft, then an even distribution for champions below 70 percent. The empty space between 86 percent and 66 percent indicates a strong preference for those eight champions across all roles in every draft.
Both the LPL and LCK have a more even distribution of support champions, compared to LEC and LCS. Other than their one preferred support (Sett, whose presence is skewed because of role flexibility), they spread the support picks into clusters roughly 8 to 12 percent apart. Meanwhile, the LCS and LEC show larger pools of low-priority supports, with LEC putting high priority (80+ percent) on Thresh, Shen and Nautilus and LCS without any support over 63 percent.
On the other hand, the LEC has no mid laners above 70 percent presence. This stands out against the LCS, LCK and LPL’s high priority on Sett (again, inflated because of role flexibility), as well as the very high presence of Akali in LCK, Zoe in LPL, and Twisted Fate in LCK and LPL.
The LCS, LEC and LPL have three to four high-presence junglers, while the LCK cycles through six priority top laners. On the other hand, all regions had Caitlyn and Ashe as their premium bot lane options. However, Senna dominated drafts in the LEC, and Kalista in the LCK.
Overall, the LCK put way more stock into top laners, particularly flex picks like Lucian and Volibear. The LCS most-emphasized a core jungle pool, including Graves, Olaf and Shen. The LEC put a higher priority on bottom lane duos, including Senna, Ashe, Nautilus and Thresh. And the LPL stuck with 10 core champions across all roles as S-tier picks, with an even distribution of options from 67 percent presence down. Although, they only picked or banned their second-tier junglers (Lillia, Lee Sin, Olaf, Kindred) in 40 percent of playoff matches, much lower than other regions.
CREDITS
All statistics from OraclesElixir.com (although some data is shifted <1% to better display the points in the chart)
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