The Weird and Amazing Champion Pool of Week 1
With all the amazing plays, impossible upsets and unbelievable comebacks in Week 1 of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, most of the spotlight has been on the players and their skills. Yes, the players are a very big part of the action but let’s focus on the champions these summoners have picked to represent them in The Rift.
Most Influential = Most Picked and Banned
The “most influential” statistic is the combined pick and ban percentage of a champion. Nidalee, in this sense, could be considered as the most influential champion so far. She’s been picked or banned in 24 out of 24 games in Week 1. Syndra isn’t too far behind, being contested in all but one of the games while Elise and Karma are tied at 79% influence in the championship.
Most Banned Champions in Week 1
No, that isn’t a mistake. The three most influential champions are also the champions most banned thus far. With the addition of Rek’Sai (and omission of Karma), this statistic shows how much influence the jungler has over the game. Therefore it makes sense to ban champions capable of carrying a game to victory.
Another interesting fact about banned champions: Flex picks Karma and Jayce are included in the top 10 most banned champions.
Going back to the topic of junglers, a little more information about Nidalee: she’s been banned 18 times, picked in 6 games and won 5. That translates to an 83% winning rate! I just want to highlight her numbers because they are just… amazing.
Most Picked Champions in for the Jungle in Week 1
Those are the top picked junglers and their win rates. Just look how much of an anomaly Nidalee’s numbers are. She’s the only one with a winning rate over of 50%. And speaking of anomalies, with the jungle pool constantly targetted in the pick and ban phase of the game, some junglers have returned and performed really well. Skarner (3 games), Hecarim (2 games), Nocturne and Zac (1 game) are all hovering at 100% win rate.
Most Picked Champions in Week 1
The top 5 most picked champions all have a win rate below 50%. In fact, only 2 out of the top 10 most picked champions have a win rate above 50%: Alistar and Kenner with 9 picks at a win rate of 89% and 67%, respectively. Are the teams still experimenting? Are old favorites no longer that strong? Will their win rates go higher in the next week?
Here are the pick and win rate for the rest of the roles.
Most Picked Champions for the Top Lane in Week 1
Most Picked Champions for the Mid Lane in Week 1
Most Picked Champions as Marksmen in Week 1
Most Picked Champions as Supports in Week 1
Before I close this out, here’re the number of champions played in each role.
- Top Lane: 10
- Jungle: 10
- Mid Lane: 13
- Marksmen: 7
- Supports: 8
- Total Unique Champions: 46
In the 2015 Worlds, a record of 74 unique champions were picked. Will this year’s champion pool be bigger? I certainly wish that the players experiment more. So far, we’ve seen unusual picks like Kled and Shen up top, Nocturne and Zac in the jungle, Anivia and Zilean in mid, and Brand as a support.
Who’s excited to see the likes of Teemo unleashed in the Worlds?
Keep it here as we cover the events of Worlds 2016 here in eSports INQ.
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