A Look at the Meta and Its Shifts Throughout Worlds So Far

The Worlds Championship group stage has passed the halfway stage, meaning that we are now halfway through Worlds and that usually means that we are now almost completely in a stable state of meta-analysis in the global League of Legends community and in some sense, we are in that sort of state with this Worlds. However, some things are not as set as stone as in previous worlds (such as the dominance of Ardent Censer in its self-named "Censer meta" of 2017 which featured a lot of auto attack based marksmen carries being power amped and peeled by shield supports such as Lulu and Janna) and that means that there are several aspects we can analyse about the meta and then apply it to our solo queue experiences, and in this piece, I hope to analyse and showcase some of these points.

The Power of Scaling

This Worlds has seen one trend become very common, especially in the bottom lane, and that is scaling marksmen. This Worlds has seen a prevalence of scaling ranged carries such as Tristana, Varus and Sivir, not forgetting the current queen of the Worlds picks hill in the form of Kai’Sa who has seen an 86.8% presence (pick and ban) at this year’s Worlds so far.

So, why is this the case? Well, it can be summed up in one defining statement: Teams becoming better at stalling games out and the game being in a slightly slower state when it comes to closing out games. And the proof of that is very clear to see in teams such as Cloud9 (who we saw stall a game out against Team Vitality to a point where they could win a fights around the big neutral objectives and then win the game off that) and G2 (who we saw stall out the game to a point that they could use their late game scaling comp to win team fights in the mid lane).

So, the point, scaling champions (especially in bot) are more powerful because they are more likely to hit their late game power spikes which can have a huge effect on your solo queue games.

 

Engage Supports

When I was looking into the patch changes pre-Worlds and saw that scaling ADCs were making a comeback, I was expecting the support meta to shift back to the peeling, healing, and shielding supports similar to the Ardent Censer meta of Worlds 2017. However, I was presently surprised when watching the play in to find that the Worlds meta was centered around the tankier engage supports (such as Leona and Rakan) with Alistar seeming to be the top pick in the role.

So, why is this the case? Well it is case of supplier drought. To explain what we have is a case of a needed product but limited suppliers. Currently top lane is in a meta spot of bruisers and split pushers (with Sion and Ornn as off-beat shove in picks making appearances too) and the role of jungle is currently full of early game pressure champions such as Taliyah and Olaf (with Nocturne being the scaling counter). Therefore, there is no engage coming from these two roles. That leaves mid and ADC but they are in full carry mode, so there is no engage there either, leaving support to fill the role with champions such as Alistar.

So, the point, engagers in team comps has been delegated to support in this meta due to other roles not having meta champions who can engage, which is why champions such as Alistar are so strong in the competitive and recent solo queue trends.

 

The Rise of Magic Damage Assassins

The mid lane has probably had the most central core of champions with the big four seeming to be LeBlanc, Irelia, Akali and, the current most picked mid at Worlds, Syndra. What do all of these champions have in common? They are all single target magic damage dealers. Some of them being of the AP mage (LeBlanc and Syndra) variant while Irelia being of the mixed damage build variant.

So, why is this the case? Well this is a case of balancing the team compositions damage output. The top lane is currently dominated by the physical damage bruisers of Aatrox and Urgot and the bot lane is a combination of low damage tank supports and mostly physical damage-oriented marksmen like Tristana. This combined with the jungle champion pool being a completely unpredictable mixed bag when it comes to damage type means that compositions risk being overly physical damage heavy and having no way of killing a single target (like a scaled Kai’Sa in the late game).

Well for composition to be more balanced, it needs a magic damage dealer who specializes in single target damage hence why the four mentioned champions are pushing themselves towards the top of the Worlds' (and more importantly your solo queue) mid lane meta.

 

Conclusion

So, there you have it, three cases where the adapting Worlds meta can be seen having an influence in the way solo queue shapes itself, but don’t stop there! I would highly recommend watching Worlds and studying the picks we see as innovation is always just around the corner so look out, try to understand, consider the meta, and then draw conclusions from there. And with that I once again I leave you with the thoughts of GL, HF, and GG.

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