Pros to Watch at Worlds Part 2: Bot Lanes

Solo laners usually get most of the hype and admiration in competitive League of Legends. Some would even argue that in the current meta the duo laners simply do not make as much of an impact as the solo laners. Below are listed some pros whose performances would say otherwise.

Piglet & PoohManDu: SK Telecom T1

The skill and raw power of the duo lane of SK T1 gets overshadowed on two levels. One, because of Imp and Mata, who are individually slightly better and hence get all the hype for their duo lane play. And two, because of Faker, who carries the team and hence overshadows his teammates. Because of this a lot of people fail to grasp just how good the SK T1 bot lane is.

Piglet is probably the best marksman at teamfights in Korea. His style is similar to Imp’s, he favors autoattack dependent marksmen, and he has easily one of the best Vaynes in the world. Piglet has been the most consistently performing marksman in Korea and probably deserves the title of the best marksman of OGN Summer.

PoohManDu is one of the best in Korea as well, and notably is the most innovative support in the world. He popularized Fiddlesticks support and was one of the early adopters of Nami, who he has a 10-1 record with in OGN. He has also played truly crazy support picks such as Leblanc with teleport and Mordekaiser. The power of Piglet allows ManDu to innovate, roam, surprise the enemy team and just generally give SK T1 an edge over other teams.

Uzi & MikakoTabe: Royal Club

Uzi and MikakoTabe may well be called the best duo laners in the world after this tournament. They have put the word carry back into bot lane as Uzi seems to continue to deserve the title of ad carry even after Riot has put the name to rest.

Uzi is possibly the most mechanically skilled ad carry going into this tournament. If you already disagree, watch this clip.

First of all, two of his historically biggest competitors WeiXiao and Doublelift will not be at the tournament. Secondly, his play managed to shatter OMG in the regional finals, a team that is considered one of the best in the world. OMG almost definitely possess individually stronger talent in every role except for the duo lane, and this led to a slight overconfidence which was put to rest by Royal, aided most by near-perfect plays from Uzi and MikakoTabe.

Imp & Mata: SG Ozone

No list about the best marksman or support is viable without mentioning Imp or Mata. They hold the most honored position a duo lane can hope for, being called the best marksman and the best support in the world.

Mata’s warding is legendary especially as he gets a lot of help from jungler DanDy. He has great mechanics too and sets up play after play for Ozone. His warding enables Ozone’s map pressure, arguably the highest average map pressure in the world, a map pressure that DanDy and Dade’s (their mid) roaming snowballs into victories.

Imp plays one of the best Vaynes in the world (alongside Piglet, Doublelift and Uzi) and is overall a very strong marksman, understanding dueling and teamfight positioning better than most of his counterparts. His mechanics, especially on Vayne, are legendary. Watch this video fittingly titled ‘Korea’s best ADC.

It is going to be truly amazing to see these prodigies from different scenes who have never played each other duke it out on the rift, and may the best bot lane win.