If you’re like me, you enjoy watching professional League of Legends. However, I feel that the team comps that we see in competitive play are getting stale. What’s causing this? The Meta is a blog series where we will discuss how the current Meta in League of Legends affects gameplay and champions around Summoner’s Rift. The Meta will be looking at each position and style in the game and analyzing how it works, why it works, and how it might be changed. We will also talk about off-Meta champions, why they are off-Meta, and how they may get back into the spotlight.

To begin this series, we will look towards the bot lane, where the AD Carries and Supports normally dwell. Looking at the ADC Meta seen in competitive play during Season 6 so far, a reliance on champions such as Lucian, Sivir, Caitlyn, and Kalista is predominant. While you may see champions like Corki, Ezreal, and Tristana played every once in a while, they do not see nearly as much play as the other four. There is a reason for this, and it can be boiled down to one basic thing, mobility.

Mobility and You

Mobility can be defined by several different factors in League, from move speed, dashes or blinks, to the ability to remove it through hard or soft crowd control. Having mobility or the ability to remove it grants potential for teamfight engages, positioning advantage, and fight disengages. Because the role of the ADC is to put out as much damage in a fight as possible, having mobility and being able to position correctly is paramount to their success. If we take a look at the most popular ADC’s right now, we can see that they all have some form of movement or mobility skill that helps them or their team gain a mobility advantage.

Lucian's E, Relentless Pursuit, allowing him to dodge skillshots or CC while activating his passive, Lightslinger, to put out extra damage.

Sivir’s ultimate, On The Hunt, allows for excellent engage and disengage, providing a team-wide mobility boost.

Caitlyn’s E, 90 Caliber Net allows for repositioning, escaping, or putting out extra damage.

Kalista’s passive, Martial Poise, allows for constant repositioning and her ultimate gives a teammate the ability to reposition. These champions perform well because they can escape situations that others cannot without the use of Flash.

These champions perform well because they can escape situations that others cannot without the use of Flash. This advantage over other ADC's is why they dominate the current Meta.

Competitive Play

Examples of this are everywhere in competitive play. The Mid-Season Invitational hosted by Riot in Shanghai, China saw the play of only ten different ADC’s, of which only three saw more than ten games in a tournament that had 71 games overall. Lucian saw the most play in the ADC role, having a total of 30 games played, in which he went 11-19. The best performance with more than ten games in the tournament was Ezreal, who had an impressive 12-5 record. Both of these champions are extremely mobile and are able to not only reposition themselves during a fight but are able to keep themselves relatively safe by having the ability to dodge assassination and CC attempts.

We can see a prime example of Ezreal’s strengths in Game 2 of the Finals between SK Telecom T1 and Counter Logic Gaming. SKT’s Bae “Bang” Jun-sik used Ezreal’s mobility to its maximum potential, able to Arcane Shift into the fight in order to melt Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes’ Lucian below half health. Then, after escaping, Bang is able to kite Choi “Huhi” Jae-hyun’s Ekko with the aid of Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan’s Nami.

Joshua "Jatt" Leesman talks about this fight in the most recent Teamfight Breakdown video.

Champions like Jhin, who went 1-1, and Varus, who went 0-1, have very little mobility and are therefore not priority picks, even though they may be strong in their own ways.

The ADC Meta isn’t only defined by mobility. Wave clear, power-spike timing, and late game damage potential are all crucial factors when it comes to selecting an ADC. Looking at these factors, we can again see the strengths of champions like Lucian, Sivir, Kalista, and Caitlyn. Not only do they have mobility, they all have excellent wave clear and late game damage. It’s easy to see why the Meta leans heavily towards power picks like these.

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