League of Legends news » Pedal to the meta!

 

Patch 8.15 should help marksmen feel more relevant in Forge of Champions.

Hyperion Esports’ vice captain and support player Rich "Snuggli" Farmery has also been looking to other regions for clues on where the meta might be going next.

“Most games are being decided in the 20-30 minute mark, so champions with strong mid-games might start coming out the woodwork,” he says. “I know Koreans have started playing Ashe and Tahm Kench a bit more and Quinn ADC is getting played a bit in NA. Unless we see some major nerfs or buffs I don't think the meta will be massively different for the finals though.”

Jon “Just Jon” Ellis, player development coach at ExceL, expects a resurgence in marksmen in bot lane, which is good news for traditional ADCs approaching Forge of Champions.

“I think this latest set of marksman changes might well push them back to the top, especially in bot lane,” says Just Jon. “From that we’ll see slower games and a return to more a disciplined and less bloody style. As people get more comfortable knowing the limits and counters of new champions that we’ve been seeing crop up, you make fewer mistakes against them. The games will be shorter because there are fewer kills.”

Prepare for the bot-lane shuffle

One interesting wrinkle in the meta that we’ve been experiencing recently is the explosion of mages and bruisers in bot. With changes to marksmen and their items, this could be coming to an end. Some players find a more varied bot-lane a lot more fun, however.

“Personally I love the bot-lane meta and I'm lucky to play with a bot-laner [Yusa] who plays a lot of mid in SoloQ,” says Hyperion’s Snuggli. “He's got experience on some of the champions that are being flexed into bot. The meta is definitely starting to settle and, outside of Heimer/Swain and maybe Vlad and Yasuo, I don't think many non-ADCs will be played as the weeks go on.”

But marksman champions are definitely on the rise. Enclave Gaming’s head coach, Bjørn-Vegar "iHansen" Hansen, doesn’t see this ending anytime soon.

“Misfits’ LCS team have only used marksmen in the bot lane and they’ve achieved a 90% win rate over 10 games,” iHansen says. “So it’s more about how the team plays than what they pick. The bigger issue for marksman-focused players is that the number of viable marksmen have been very limited, but the pool has expanded recently. I expect Riot will continue to help out marksmen in the coming patches.”

Don’t count mages and bruisers out

But that doesn’t mean the end of the bot-lane bruiser, necessarily. More balanced marksman champions will make them more viable picks, but for those who have been thriving in the recent bot-lane meta, there’s room for you too.

Highlights from the first Forge of Champions qualifying tournament.

“Mages will continue to be an option, just not as overpowered as they are now,” says Just Jon. “This means if you want to play mages/bruisers then you can, but if you want to stick to purely marksmen you should be able to have more success with that in the next few weeks too.”

Just Jon’s colleague Furndog sees a rise in marksman champions having an effect in the midlane, too.

“The changes to marksmen itemisation look to bring them back towards the highest-priority bot laners,” Furndog says. “So from that it’s likely that, due to waiting for conventional ADC spikes and timings, games will slow down. As a result I expect to see a rise of standard mid-game control mages such as Orianna and Azir to utilise strong mid-to-late game teamfighting.”

A ton of good advice and insight here from some of the big players in Forge of Champions. The best way to take advantage of it is to get involved and get out there onto the Rift! You never know how far you’ll go.