With Worlds 2020 behind us, it is hard to believe that 76 games spread over 36 days of remarkable competition whizzed by in such a spectacular fashion. With the new kings of Summoner's Rift crowned, the end of competitive play for the year, and the last days of the ranked season behind us, there is no better time to reflect upon the tournament favourites.

If you are considering picking up these champions, a rough guide will be provided. For item builds and rune choices, those can be found on OP.GG.

How the Season 10 Meta Took Shape

Season 10's meta has been shaped by nerfs to shared experience which resulted in less power given to scaling ADC picks as well as a buff to the gold and experience earned from jungle camps. This opened up a shift in the meta which allowed for more farm heavy, carry centric junglers to shine. As a result, teams went through transitions throughout the year, opting for more lane orientated junglers in the spring season and turning to farm orientated junglers in the later parts of the season.

The Spring Split saw every region opting for more scaling picks with the likes of Azir, Syndra, and Zoe in the mid lane, Ornn and Gangplank in the top lane, and Miss Fortune and Aphelios in the bot lane. During this time, gank orientated jungles like Jarvan, Lee Sin, and Gragas were all the rage in the 4 major regions. Bans at this time were mainly targeted at Aphelios, Syndra, Sett, and Ornn.

In the Summer Split, little changed except for a slight shift towards 1 or 2 farm orientated junglers like Graves and a sudden drop in the popularity of Aatrox as a top lane staple. In the bottom lane, a more utility centric style was adopted across regions with a shift towards Ashe, Senna, and Jhin and away from Aphelios and Miss Fortune. That being said, in 3 of the 4 major regions, Ezreal was the most picked ADC in the regular season. In the LPL, he was the 3rd most picked behind Ashe and Aphelios. This highlighted teams emphasis away from bottom lane, opting for independent high utility ADCs that can hold their own while their supports go off to make plays with their junglers. Popular bans during this split were Kalista, Twisted Fate, Azir, and an obnoxiously overtuned lethality Varus.

The Worlds Stage is Set

With the stage set, Worlds 2020 featured 80 out of the 149 champions available (with Yone and Samira disabled and Seraphine yet to be released at the time).

Top 6 Bans of the Tournament:

Champion / No. of bans

Lucian / 60
Nidalee / 48
Twisted Fate / 46
Camille / 42
Syndra / 40
Ornn / 40

Lucian

Sporting a whopping 78.9% banrate, Lucian's main strength lay in his ability to be flexed into every single lane. While arguably a lot less effective as a side laner, Lucian mid was highly sought after due to his exceptionally strong early game which allowed players to dominate the lane. In a meta noted for encouraging farming, carry orientated junglers, having a dominant mid lane allows for safer invades into the enemy jungle to steal camps. Lucian also increases the appeal of AP junglers like Lillia, Nidalee, and Evelynn by allowing them to become even more potent by forcing the enemy team to itemize against another AD threat.

Nidalee

Aside from the jungler centric meta of the tournament, Worlds 2020 was especially rife with incredible Nidalee players which boosted her popularity as a highly contested pick. With players like TES's Karsa and DWG's Canyon tearing up the competition, Nidalee's ban time would naturally exceed her playtime in Worlds. The champion is also able to clear camps at breakneck speeds while maintaining a high health total. Her mobility from her cougar form W and passive movement speed also allow her to get places quickly and enter the enemies jungle to steal camps and gank from odd angles. Her lack of CC is the only weakness of this pick, which can be easily compensated for by her laners, and she is a fantastic skirmisher with her insane damage.

Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate is a great pick because he can clear waves quickly, he naturally gets ahead just by keeping up in farm with his laner, he can impact the map with his global ultimate, and he has a reliable form of CC with his gold card. Quite simply, the pressure he exerts across the map is immense and he can snowball his team quite far ahead and run away with the game.

Camille

A busted champion. No seriously, this champion has it all. Mobility, engage, damage, durability. While her weakest point is her early game, it is really hard to do anything against a Camille when her E provides her so much mobility. Her damage becomes disgusting towards the later part of the game where the second part of her Q one-shots squishies while the rest of her kit makes it impossible to keep her out of your backline. Finally, she was also a great pick in tandem with Galio who could disrupt the enemy team while Camille assassinates their carries.

Syndra

Much like Nidalee, Worlds 2020 featured multiple notable Sydnra players like TES's Knight, SN's Angel, and DWG's Showmaker. This champion also scales exceptionally into the game, provides tonnes of damage and CC with her E, and has the infamous "outplay" button to boot.

Ornn

The token top laner on this list, Ornn provides his team with engage, tonnes of CC, a brick wall for enemies to get through, and immense value with his item upgrades. Furthermore, he has an exceptionally safe early game, being able to set up ganks and clear waves with his basic abilities. Much like Twisted Fate, Ornn gets ahead by doing nothing and keeping up with CS.

Most Picked Champions in Each Lane

Top

Picks/Bans/Total: 29/40/69

Playing Ornn is incredibly simple, you are at your weakest in the early game so play your lane safely. Keep up in farm and scale with your natural passive resistance buffs and so you can upgrade items for yourself and the entire team. Look to make teleport plays across the map whenever it is up and always be sure to sucrry off to a side lane to soak up experience and gold from lanes on your half of the map whenever possible. Never. Splitpush. After shoving out the wave, group with your team and look to start fights with your ultimate.

Picks/Bans/Total: 22/30/52

Renekton emerged as a popular pick in the tournament because of his ability to bully most popular top lane picks and secure priority for his jungler. Not to mention, Renekton has an easy to hit stun that sets up for many of the popular farming junglers who tend to lack CC. Into scaling picks like Ornn, Renekton could shove the wave and team up with his jungler to invade the enemy jungle, effectively winning the game by setting his jungler ahead with pressure.

When playing Renekton, look to establish your dominance in lane. Your abilities are simple but be sure to make good use of your passive which greatly enhances your damage output. Watch out for ganks if you continuously push the wave into tower but you can look to take some 1v2s at level 6. In teamfights, getting on top of carries might be an issue without your Flash but if you are able to get there, with the help of allies or flanks, you can win an entire teamfight by one-shotting the squishies.

Picks/Bans/Total: 17/14/31

Volibear is also an exceptionally strong lane bully who doubles as a huge meat shield later on in the game. Trading into Volibear for most melee match ups is a nightmare with his E shield, Q stun, and W sustain. Volibear also naturally gets priority with his passive and can either invade with his jungler or set up dives extraordinarily well with his ultimate.

In lane, look to trade with your opponent as your arsenal of stuns, shields, slows, and sustain will naturally set you ahead if used properly. Go in when you can hit your stun and/or shield, weave in a W and keep fighting till you can W again before walking away. Wait till about level 4 or 5 before using this pattern and be sure to watch your mana consumption. In teamfights, look for flanks to get onto the enemy backline or peel for your carries with your Q stun and E slow. Try to always use your W on the same character rather than biting everyone once as you will lose out on Voli's infamous sustain.

Jungle

As mentioned above, farming, counterjungling, and skirmishing was the name of the game. Most of these picks are crazy strong in the early-to-mid game but fall of as the game gets later.

Picks/Bans/Total: 52/18/70

When playing Graves, you will be able to powerfarm super fast while maintaining a high HP pool. Without much CC in your kit, you might have difficulty making ganks work unless your laners have CC or the enemy is overextended. Focus on clearing your camps and stealing away enemy camps. Against AD match ups your passive armor gives you quite a bit of an advantage as long as you remember to stack it. Always look to sneak objectives like Dragon and Rift whenever possible. Diving towers is also an option with your high damage burst from your Q and autoattacks.

Picks/Bans/Total: 25/13/38

One of the newer champions on this list, Lillia's fast clear is complemented by the ease at which she kites enemies and camps with her movement speed boost from Q. While she lacks the terrain crossing mobility of Nidalee and Graves, Lillia has the best AOE clear by far and can easily kite melee champions. Her E is exceptionally annoying and can be used to set up for long ranged ganks but she does best with a strong initiator on her team so that she can prance into the fight after it has started, hit as many ppl as possible with abilities, and put them to sleep. Hitting a 5 man sleep is potentially teamfight and game winning but will be nearly impossible without someone else's initial engage. Without engage, your best chance of hitting big ultimates in teamfights are every 300 seconds when Flash is up. Good luck!

Picks/Bans/Total: 20/48/68

Similar playstyle to Graves, Nidalee also provides your team with utility with her heals and long range poke with her nuclear warhead tipped spears. The great thing about Nidalee is that she does not give anything away about your team composition and she has a tonne of flexibility. After clearing your camps and pillaging the enemy's, Nidalee can opt for a more damage orientated build with Rod of Ages, or a more utility, support build with Athene's. Like Graves, Nidalee is pretty team composition reliant due to her need for lanes with priority to allow counter jungling and CC to open up ganks.

Mid

Picks/Bans/Total: 28/40/68

With long range, safe wave clear, few bad match ups, and tonnes of damage as well as utility, Syndra just needs to scale. In lane, be careful of your mana consumption as she can be run OOM relatively easily if you just spam your spells on the wave. The standard combo for her is to Q something, pick it up with W, throw it at the enemy and then use E, followed up by another Q and her ultimate. In teamfights, play back and hit whatever is in front of you. As tempting as it is to make the enemy carries rage by pressing R on them, you will be exploded first before being able to reach them. More often than not, your best play would be to use your ultimate on the most squishy front liner and E the balls to stun the entire enemy team. Follow up with a Q and W on the stunned backliners if you can reach them.

Picks/Bans/Total: 28/12/40

Despite a seemingly low pick and ban rate, Orianna gained popularity due to nerfs to her main counter of Azir. She is a solid mid laner who provides tonnes of utility to her team as well as a game changing teamfight ultimate, and immense zone control with her ball.

As Orianna, your early-to-mid game will be focused mainly on getting gold and experience from your lane. Your high mana consumption and low initial damage can make securing kills quite difficult by yourself unless the enemy messes up big time. Your main power stems from the utility you provide your team when grouped for mid-to-late game teamfights around objectives. So just farm up, and wait for your time to shine. Just a quick note, holding your ultimate is fine as the pressure you have with your ball and ultimate can sometimes win you more fights than you putting yourself in a bad spot just to land an ultimate. It is perfectly fine to use your ultimate on priority targets that are alone like their carries or jungler during an objective contest.

Picks/Bans/Total: 16/46/62

You might be surprised when playing him for the first time how little damage you actually deal without items. TF's playstyle is simple, absorb farm, push out waves, hit 6, impact side lanes. Main focus should be on maintaining farm and looking for ganks when the wave is pushed into the enemy tower. Do not be afraid to use those feet and simply run to side lanes when your ultimate is down. If you fall behind, you will feel useless and deal negative damage, be warned. In the mid-to-late game, you can look to split push with your fast pushing ability and high tower damage. In those situations your ultimate can be used to gain vision on the enemy or pick enemies off while they rotate. In teamfights, stun the squishiest thing you can reach without putting yourself in a bad spot and only use your ultimate to chase only when the enemy is retreating.

ADC

High utility champions who can be left alone, scale, and have decent to long range.

Picks/Bans/Total: 32/20/52

Ashe provides immense utility to her team with her constant slows and her ultimate which allows her to engage fights from incredible distances. Her Hawkshot is also very underrated as she can use it to light up an entire half of the enemy's jungle and assume the enemy jungle's position based on that. Ashe's innate CC allows her to combine well with playmaking supports by providing engage and follow up while being able to stay safe when her support roams across the map.

When playing her, your Volley poke is incredibly strong early game and your constants slows make you every engage support's dream. You also scale incredibly well and might be one of the strongest duelers due to the CC from your ultimate and damage from your stacked Q. In the mid and late game, look to make picks with your ultimate or save it as a form of self peel. Just sit back and shoot whatever is in front of you.

Picks/Bans/Total: 31/11/42

The 3rd most played champion at Worlds overall, Jhin naturally emerged as a counter pick of sorts to Ashe. He could provide utility to his team with his long ranged W roots and ultimate aerial support while clearing waves with relative ease. His popularity is also largely due to an extremely limited ADC pool which mainly featured Ashe, Senna, Ezreal, and himself.

When playing as Jhin, simply look to clear waves and build up your items. As the game progresses, look to provide support to your team through picks with your W and ultimate. You have great wave clear and range that allow you to hold your own should your support decide to take a trip across the map. Later in the game you can combine your 4th shot with your jungler to greatly improve the odds of your team securing neutral objectives or to deal immense burst damage to squishy targets. Just be careful against high mobility assassins.

Picks/Bans/Total: 30/12/42

Yet another high utility, long range ADC. Senna has the added perk of having infinite scaling and providing great defensive utility to her team with her line heal, shroud, and global ultimate shield.

When playing Senna, farm and collect souls. Whenever you can, try to get souls from melee supports with your auto and Q combo. You can always look to start something with your W or even just harass with it. Once you start getting souls, the game becomes more fun as your range, damage, and attackspeed increase allow you to run people down or kite them with ease. Just sit back, provide heals, shields, and damage. With your build you also hit squishy targets like a truck and provide even more chase down utility with Glacial Augment.

Supports

Mainly playmaking, high CC, great roam threat picks.

Picks/Bans/Total: 24/18/42

Most played support by far, provides fantastic long range engage and a host of CC to boot. When playing as her, look to engage depending on your ADC. If your 2v2 is not as strong early, play back and use your CC to peel. On the other hand, if your 2v2 is stronger early, go ham. In slow lanes, you can look to roam off your first back and make plays across the map or secure deep vision. Be sure not to leave your ADC alone for too long or they may get zoned and die repeatedly. No one expects their supports to roam in solo queue, so make sure you warn your ADC before doing it. Later in the game, look to make picks on high priority targets, on enemies out of position, or when you have a numbers advantage. When in doubt, throw your ult. The cooldown is relatively low and its always better to try and fail than do nothing.

Picks/Bans/Total: 17/21/38

Despite having more bans than picks, Pantheon proved to be a real menace due to the insane kill pressure from his point-and-click CC and damage output. The current world champions, Damwon Gaming's support also plays a mean Pantheon for reference.

When playing Pantheon, try to ensure you pick him with a snowballing or enabling ADC. Champions like Ashe, Lucian, Jhin, or even Draven are swell because Pantheon can snowball the lane with the help of just a little bit of CC and/or damage. Try to hit level 2 first, and all in the closest enemy over and over again. With just Umbral Glaive and Kindlegem, it is unsettling how many 1v2's I have seen Pantheon win. Always look to roam with your ultimate if your lane opponents play super scared and don't be scared of tower diving with your E. Just be sure to use it to tank the later shots as towers do progressively more damage. In the mid game, play like another Twisted Fate and show up to fights with your ultimate all over the map. In teamfights, use your stun to peel for your carries. Try to avoid going in first as you are very squishy without your E.

Picks/Bans/Total: 15/14/29

With the top 3 ADCs being low mobility champions, Tahm Kench was naturally seen as an effective means of keeping these carries alive. Additionally, he can also impact the map with his long ranged ultimate while being a tank for the team. Do not be fooled however, anyone who has run into a Tahm top can tell you from experience that this champion packs a punch. Some Tahms even opted to go Hail of Blades and have managed to solo kill split pushing ADCs.

Tahm's playstyle is quite difficult considering your engage is limited to your Q slow. While it is easy to hit and provides quite a decent slow, it is tame in comparison to the CC offered by our last 2 picks. It becomes even more challenging when you need to decide which ally to eat and when to eat them to keep them safe. Unfortunately, this decision boils down to experience and has to be learned the hard way. I personally would never pick Tahm support, especially in solo queue, and would instead play him top. If you have yet to try it, it's insane.

Wrap Up

With that we bid a farewell to a glorious season and buckle up for the roller coaster that is the preseason changes. The learning pains of which are unlike anything I have ever experienced from all my years playing the game but worry not! We are all experiencing the joys of getting one-shot by new things together! Good luck!