LCS Week 2: Comfort Champions More Successful Than OP Meta Picks?

The League Championship Series just entered Patch 10.2, which saw some champions drop and rise in priority. Over the next few weeks, the meta will start to solidify, as teams start realizing which champions and compositions are more successful on stage. Week 2 brought a preview of what is to come, as more players fell back on perennial comfort champions. Here is a scatter plot of champions’ presence (at least 30 percent) and win rates after two weeks. 

Comfort champions have higher win rates and lower presence than the OP meta picks in LCS Week 2.

Gragas is the perfect champion to use as a benchmark for the rest, as he sits at 50 percent presence and a 50 percent win rate. Ornn is another standard champion right now, with 55 percent presence and a 60 percent win rate. They are the types of champions that rely on team composition and execution to win, but they are also well-rounded enough to slot into a lot of different compositions. 

Champions to the right of Gragas and Ornn have higher priority. Rumble, Senna, Elise, Leblanc, Lucian, Aphelios and Tahm Kench are the highest, between 85 and 100 percent. Champions to the left have lower priority, so Braum, Camille, Nautilus and Rek’Sai all sit at 30 percent. Champions that are above Gragas have a higher win rate, with Qiyana being the highest at 100 percent. A point below Gragas represents a win rate under 50 percent, such as Thresh at 17 percent. 

Interestingly, most of the champions with higher win rates have been meta champions in pro play for at least two years. Rumble, Elise, Gangplank, Zoe, Orianna, Syndra, Xayah, Rakan, Braum and Camille all have win rates over 65 percent. Meanwhile, the “OP” champions of 2020 preseason have not lived up to expectations. Senna bottom lane has a 40 percent win rate. Solo lane Lucian did not win either of his two games. Leona support won two, lost four for 33 percent. 

Qiyana, Sett, Thresh and Leblanc are the outliers here. Qiyana only got through one draft as a pick and won, so she is a relatively new champion with a 100 percent win rate. The newest champion (and therefore overpowered) Sett is sporting a 75 percent win rate and 45 percent presence. Keep in mind, he was only available for Week Two, where his true presence was 90 percent. Thresh and Leblanc have been aggressive picks in their respective positions for quite some time. However, LCS teams currently carry 17 and 14 percent win rates on these two. 

Simple metrics like presence and win rate should not make or break teams’ drafts, of course. So much more goes into champion picks, bans, wins and losses. For example, the Lucian pick averaged 13 CS ahead at 15 minutes, while Qiyana only had a 1.3 KDA. Some champions are stronger early, and a level three gank will make or break the game. Others need time to scale, and teams unable to leverage an early lead will consistently lose to them. 

Some high win rate champions did not actually perform well in LCS Week 2.

However, the comfort champions are generally outperforming the new hotness. Expect teams to start dropping their priority on Senna in favor of Xayah and Lucian in favor of Orianna. They may also leave behind certain snowball champions, like Leblanc and Thresh, and return to safer comfort champions, like Zoe and Rakan. Even Aatrox and Tahm Kench may drop in priority, while Gangplank and Nautilus take their place. 

Patch 10.3 is on the way to pro play in a couple of weeks. With Akali, Aphelios, Leona, Rumble, Senna and Sett receiving nerfs, the draft landscape might open up a bit. In the same patch, Riot is buffing Azir, Corki, Galio, Sejuani, Yuumi and Ezreal, all champions who have seen considerable presence in the past. Expect priority and win rates to change in a few weeks. 

CREDITS

Stats from Games of Legends

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