An age old adage of western professional League of Legends play is: when you are looking for innovative strategies and champion picks, look east. Throughout North American (NA) professional play it has often been those teams that could emulate and incorporate Korean plays the most effectively that have gone on to succeed in the region. With worlds around the corner this focus will only intensify as teams not only look to improve their own game but also look at what the opposition are doing. However what about us solo-queuers? Is there truly any difference between us and the players clawing their way up the ladders in Korea?
Using champion select data (courtesy of op.gg) I have looked at the champion pick differences between the regions in their respective diamond to challenger brackets over the month leading up to the juggernaut patch (5.16) (for shortened table see end of the article). Whilst an essay could be written with the data pulled, for this piece I am just going to talk over a couple of champions that see vastly different levels of play between the regions.
So if you are looking to pick up a new champion, want to know what you are likely to face in your games or just looking for interests sake then read on!

"Shurima's legacy will endure”

Azir – the emperor of the sands was for a time a popular sight on the rift with his unparalleled late-game team-fighting and novel mechanics. Although initially dismissed by many as bug ridden and mechanically very difficult to master he eventually rose to lofty highs. However it appears the west has been more fickle with regards to the emperor, as he received a series of nerfs in 5.14 removing the CDR-attackspeed synergy from his passive and cutting the knock-up from his kit that was previously attached to his E. Since these changes he appears to have fallen out of favour in NA. Azir barely breached the top 50 in my analysis of popular NA picks whilst still remaining a respectable 12th position in Korean queues. However given his recent impressive showing in LCS playoffs and subsequent ban drawing he will likely “Rise Again!” in the western non-professional scene.

[Insert Sub-head] (sub-head get it?..sorry, writer joke)

Hecarim is another champion that seems to have fallen from grace in the west despite his successes earlier in the season. Although the Shadow of War saw only a single significant nerf in recent times, aimed specifically at reducing the power of his home-guard teleport initiates, players both pro and amateur have put Hecarim out to pasture in the America. Ranking similarly to Azir, everyone’s favourite horseman only just nudged into the top 50 for NA but got his 19th place ribbon in the Korean queue. Whilst Hecarim has never been strong out of the gates into the early game, he has shown previously to provide incredibly disruptive team-fight engages and solid area of effect damage whilst remaining hard to put down come the midgame once he has hit his stride and a couple of item breakpoints.

Go West Young Man

But Drodoc, what about the flipside? Surely the American players must have champions that are cherished in their region whilst being neglected in Korea. This is true, and to a large extent I personally found these to be more surprising than their counterparts.

“If there's one person I'd trust to take on a difficult mission, it's Tristana!”-Teemo

The champion with the biggest disparity in popularity between the Korean and North American queues was the trusty Bandle Gunner Tristana. Rocketing her way into fifth position in the NA ranking Tristana did not bust the top 40 in the Korean analysis. With a focus on objective pressure and heavy wave pushing Tristana’s skirmishing may just not be up to par for the early and often fighting style of Korean play despite becoming an incredible damage source late-game. This may also explain why Graves has a slightly better showing in the Korean ranking than on the western list.

Zephyr US

The second champion who saw noticeably more play in the west than east was Janna. Although her margin of preference was not quite as substantial as Tristana’s it was noticeable given that she was another top 10 champion (this time third) in the western queue that was absent until rank 28 in Korea. Given that the top 20 champions were relatively stable otherwise these two were conspicuous by their absence. In lieu of Janna the Korean ladder-climbers seem to place more emphasis on Alistar and, oddly enough, Blitzcrank who made seventh place in the analysis. Perhaps indicating a preference for strong engages in Korean play, over the disengages and laning phase safety offered by Janna. This is one of a few strong divergences from Korean professional play where Janna is heavily contested pick, however given the “Win lane – win game” attitude that is prevalent in solo queues players may have good reason for going for supports with a more aggressive laning phase.

Not in my house

The ban phase also offered some interesting titbits with regards to champion preference and difference in overall tactics on the rift. In America the ban cannons were levelled firmly at the junglers with four out of the top five bans all being directed at that position and three of them aimed squarely at devourer item preferring champions, Shyvana, Master Yi and Kayle. These champions however roam free and unbanned in Korea and are not even highly played in spite of this. With slightly more play seen on early pressure junglers such as Lee Sin, Gragas and Nidalee Korean junglers may have decided it is just not worth the risk playing this style that pays off more in the mid- to late game when your lanes and own jungle may be under immediate threat.

Instead the Korean soloqueue would rather be rid of assassins such as Leblanc, Zed and Katarina, who given their penchant for early murder may have more of an impact on the win hard, win fast trend we have been seeing. Some of the reasons these champion may be of less concern in NA is they are oft viewed as having less hard to counter late-game team-fight pressure and bring little CC to the table when compared to those such as Viktor and Ahri.

Honourable mentions

Some other lesser, but noticeable differences included the following:
Graves, Blitzcrank, and Yasuo were all more heavily contested in Korea. As mentioned previously the focus on Graves and Blitzcrank may be a nod to a more aggressive playstyle that occurs in Korean games when compared to those in NA. This may also be the case with Yasuo as his outplay potential, even early game, and heavy snowballing all point to success in a brawly meta.

Fizz, Kalista , Ahri and Soraka all took pointedly higher spots in NA then their Korean doubles. Although Kalista, Fizz and Ahri are all relatively highly prized in Korean professional play they do not seem to have filtered into solo queue as well as in the States. As for the infamous banana slinger, we can again speculate that sustain and lane safety are just not as highly prized in Korea as a good engage with some kill potential.

Conclusion

This exploration into the differences between regions has been an interesting journey and whilst I have done my best to take into account champions filling multiple roles, ban rates and acknowledging that as one moves up the divisions there will be less players whilst conducting my analysis I must put in the disclaimer that your personal, anecdotal experiences may vary! It will be interesting to see how these trends change once the mega-patch that is 5.16 settles and players begin to get comfortable working with the new content.

If you found this data style article interesting and wish to see more data based content (including EU next time I promise), have any questions or want to make a prediction about how the most played list may change in this new patch then leave a comment !

For those interested, here are the top 20 in each region, for the full list please send me a PM.

Rank

KR Solo Queue

NA Solo Queue

Vayne

Thresh

Vayne

Lee Sin

Janna

Alistar

Tristana

Shen