North American LCS Week 9 Champion Wrap-Up

Hi! I’m currently a Silver 1 support and jungle main, and founder of LoLRVA, a summoner community based in Richmond, VA. I’ll be breaking down the most popular champions fielded and their performance in week 9 of the NA LCS.

*This week was played on patch 4.3* Please be aware that Patch 4.4 (which is the live patch at this writing) included a substantial Kassadin rework! Balance changes have been applied since to: Elise, Thresh, Sivir, and Annie.

This week Lulu, Leblanc, Elise, and Kha’zix all achieved 100% pickban rate.

The champions who had the most impact (prevalence scaled to performance) on the rift were Renekton, Thresh, Lucian, Shyvana, and Evelynn.

• Lulu: 6 bans and 2 wins keep Lulu on the LCS priority throne. CRS Voyboy and TSM Bjergsen pulled a legendary 32 KDA for her this week.

• LeBlanc: 7 bans and 1 win give Leblanc the Most Banned award, with only CLG Link allowed to play her and going 7-3-8.

• Elise: was hated 4 times and earned 3 victories and a loss (by EG). Elise has lost some voltage with her damage nerfs in Patch 4.4, but remains a top-tier jungler. The damage nerfs are somewhat compensated by higher stun duration on cocoon’s higher ranks, and a slight buff to rappel, which buffs her lategame teamfight utility an ounce or two.

• Kha’Zix: Despite being banned 4 times, Kha only got 1 win and 3 defeats. Only C9 Meteos could get a victory with the bug this week, indicating quite an increase in teams’ ability to counter-play his massive assassination potential.

• Evelynn: Banned 4 times and earning a flawless 4 – 0 record and 10.6 average KDA, Eve could be argued MVP of this week. Season 4 vision changes indirectly made Evelynn one of the sneakiest junglers and her burst is nothing to scoff at. There’s a good chance she’ll be in the competitive limelight for a while.

• Kassadin: Banned 5 times and getting a single win, Kassadin’s still flexing his silence muscles until LCS hits Patch 4.4. Ahem, moving on.

• Thresh: Banned 1 time and scoring 4 – 1 record, Thresh was just below Eve for the consistency award. An average 4.9 KDA attests to Thresh’s legitness. Patch 4.4 hit his soul pick-up time frame quite a bit, so it’s a bit easier to keep him squishy later on if you win against him in lane, but his teamfight utility will never die.

• Sivir: Banned 2 times, goes 2 – 2, Sivir kept her head down and was inconspicuous this week. Patch 4.4 tied landing mana shields to her pushing power somewhat, but On the Hunt still wins games.

• Renekton: welcomed on the rift by all, Renekton wasn’t banned and earned a 4 – 2 record. A solid average KDA of 3.9 strongly attests to the dino’s dominance.

• Lucian: Not banned and scoring 3 – 2, Lucian performed just above average and remains a solid pick.

• Shyvana: Had almost an exact same weekend as Lucian, but scored a 2.9 KDA to Lucian’s 4.5.

• Annie: Only went 1 – 4, indicating the nerf to her stun’s duration at early levels is probably catching up to her. Personally, I’ve always felt she was something of an imposter-support so I don’t see the downside. Patch 4.4 swapped some of her base numbers for ap scaling buffs, moves I expect intended to push her more towards mid lane.

• Nidalee: Hated on 4 times and getting a single defeat (by EG), this week the spear fear was real. The takeaway on Nidalee currently is that she’s a strong mid in the right composition, and good spears can certainly secure wins.

• Gragas: Hated 4 times and also getting a single defeat, Gragas was not allowed on the Rift this week.

• Caitlyn: going 1 – 3 this week suggests some new counter-playing to her fairly consistent performances in recent weeks. Only CRS Cop’s Caitlyn skills got her a win.

• Pantheon: Banned twice once against CLG Dexter and once against CRS IWillDominate, Pantheon only scored 0 – 2. I attribute this to teams wisening up to countering spartan-falls. His potential for making plays makes him top-tier still outside of the LCS, but I anticipate him losing prevalence due to teams adapting.