LoL Worlds 2019 Meta report: Quarterfinals edition

With the Worlds 2019 Group Stage behind us, it’s time to look at how the tournament Meta has developed over these past two weeks. There is no shortage of games to analyze, with 50 being played in Groups.

Worlds 2019 is now the most champion diverse Worlds ever, at a whopping 96 unique picks. That’s about 66 percent of all champions in the game! This Worlds also features only a single champion at over 90 percent draft presence, the least since Season 2. That said, Pantheon is well on his way to being the second champion ever have a 100 percent ban rate for the entirety of the Main Stage, sharing that title with 2017 Kalista.

Solo Lane switch-up

Currently, the top five highest presence picks are all flex solo laners. Pantheon at 100 percent, Qiyana at 88 percent, Akali and Renekton at 82 percent, and Kayle at 78 percent. While Qiyana is a bit of an exception due to half of her games being in the jungle, the rest of the flex squad have risen to the top due to the options they afford a team in the draft phase. Renekton even boasts a disgusting 83.3 percent win rate when he does make it through. All of these champions have been banned far more often than they’ve been picked, so other picks have them beat in actual games played.

The most played champ in Top and Mid are Gangplank at 20 games and Ryze at 13 games respectively. Both champs are close to a 50 percent win rate.

In Mid Lane, Syndra and LeBlanc still have high ban counts but aren’t picked as frequently when left up. Syndra was banned in half of all games, but only picked 44 percent of the time when available. LeBlanc’s has eaten 20 bans but only has 6 picks in the other 30 games. That said, she has won 5 of those 6 games, so maybe more teams will look towards her.
Orianna and Cassiopeia round out the control mage-centric Mid Lane with 7 and 5 picks each. Both champs also have won more than they’ve lost, leaving many options available for players to go to despite the plethora of bans in their lane.

Top lane, on the other hand, is a constant battle of lane pressure vs scaling. With Gangplank and Kayle leading the way for scalers, Renekton, Akali, and Jayce have been favorite picks to try and deal with him. Jayce is an interesting case, as of his 7 played games, 5 are by Griffin’s Sword and Invictus Gaming’s TheShy. Both of these mechanically skilled players utilize the champion to counter pick passive top lanes.

Speaking of passive top lanes, Vladimir has seen no shortage of action. He has been picked 8 times and boasts a 62.5 percent win rate. If a team thinks ahead to ban Jayce, Aatrox can be a viable punish pick.

Jungle déjà vu

The jungle pool is essentially a throwback to Season 5 Worlds, with Lee Sin, Elise, Gragas, and Rek’sai making up the vast majority of picks. During Season 5, those four champs made up 84.2 percent of all jungle picks. Fast forward to Season 9, where they currently make up 71 percent. All four picks are hovering near an even win rate, with Gragas being highest at 61.9 percent and Lee Sin being lowest at 41.4 percent.

The pool is helped out by Jarvan IV and Qiyana, the former being good for hard engage compositions and the latter just being banned in 68 percent of all games. Deservedly so, as she has won 4 of 5 of her jungle games.

Bot Lane mostly the same

Unsurprisingly, Kai’sa and Xayah still make up the majority of all ADC picks at 55 percent. Ezreal sits at 9 picks, being the only other marksman being close to double digits. There just aren’t any other picks with as much safety as those three. Many Korean and European teams have incorporated the Garen Yuumi and Yasuo Gragas bot lane combos, but they are semi-viable at best, despite actually having some good win rates.

Supports are still all about guaranteed, hard engage. Due to the increase in opponents’ skill level since play-ins, we’ve seen Thresh and Nautilus swap places, with the anchor-wielding titan being the premiere pick at 23 games. His point-and-click crowd control is just too reliable. Leona also fits this bill, coming in with 9 picks and a 77.8 percent win rate. She is a solid counter to Rakan in lane, who has 16 games under his belt.

The Quarterfinals are only two days away. The matchups we have are some of the most interesting and unpredictable in years. Anything can happen in this final stretch, including picks and comps no one has ever seen before.

Matches kick off on October 26 at 6 a.m. EST. Tune in to catch all of the unforgettable moments to come.

Written by Zakaria Almughrabi