As the world championships draw to a close with both groups and quarterfinals already behind us, it’s a good idea for all semifinalists to take a look at what has been, and what might come. Looking at champion statistics is a great starting point.

When looking at the list of champions picked and banned, one thing stands out from the better part of the rest: Gangplank is the only champion with a 100% pick-or-ban rate throughout groups. To complement that, he also sports a 100% win rate, making Gangplank close to a must-ban on red side. A very close runner-up is Mordekaiser, who went unpicked and unbanned in just one game this tournament, but sports a 100% win rate in his four played matches akin to Gangplank. His 98% pick/ban rate also tells a lot about the strength of the champion.

The top laner highest on the list is Darius – and this should come as no surprise to anyone. Strong sustain, good damage, a fearless and hard to counter all-in, and a resettable execute make him an insanely strong laner, and being a juggernaut, he needs but one damage item to be a damage threat throughout the entire game. On the other side of the spectrum, the top laner that dominated the last international tournaments was Rumble, and he’s fallen off so hard that he has only been picked up once this tournament: MaRiN picked it up in SKT T1’s game against the Bangkok Titans, which they won.

Elise tops the list of most dangerous jungler. Her high damage, crowd control, speedy clear and mobility around the jungle make her a deceptively mobile champion, and with a build that amplifies her innate damage and makes her brawly just the same, it’s a risky champion to give away. However, a jungler doesn’t come without weaknesses, and her early game squishiness make it so she doesn’t top the charts like Gangplank and Mordekaiser do: while she does sport a 96% ban rate, she saw the victory screen in ‘only’ 63% of her games. The least impactful junglers thus far have been Rengar and Jarvan IV, who both rock the list with a 0% win rate: Jarvan in the hands of Clearlove in the EDG vs SKT game, and BKT’s 007x played Rengar once against EDG, whereas the other game came from AHQ’s Mountain when faced with Cloud 9.

Lulu actually tops the chart of most contested mid lane pick. While her flexibility means this could also be a top lane ban – specifically against a number of high quality Lulu players – the mid lane is where she’s seen the most daylight, and with mixed success at that: from the 16 games in which she’s been picked, she’s only seen 50% turn into a win, and combined with the 29 bans, she sports a 92% pick/ban rate. Azir comes second as the one pure mid lane pick, with a 67% pick/ban rate and a whopping 73% win rate. The flip side is the fallen king of the mid lane, Kassadin, who was only picked in one match, which he then lost. Oh how times have changed.

The undisputed queen of the botlane is Kalista at the moment. Her safety in lane, her ease in farming, unrivaled mobility and damage output beyond compare – even without crit – was enough for people to dump a ban onto her for little under 70% of the games. And the games she got through, people had a relatively easy time dealing with her: a 40% winrate out of 20 games isn’t exactly that good when compared to the 60 by Jinx. Twitch is the hand-me-down of the botlane: the one game he did show up, he lost. 0% winrates are abundant.

I’m going to list two supports here, because one has been on this list for as long as he’s been around, whereas the other needed a few tweaks recently to give him that bump into viability. Thresh, sporting a 55.1% pick/ban rate and a 52% win rate, has been around for as long as time can remember. The long ranged initiation, pick potential, safety and engage-ability his kit provides make him a hotly contested pick. On the other hand, the literal wall of botlane is Braum, who comes in a close second with a 47% pick/ban rate (3 less bans than Braum) and a relatively disappointing 40% win rate in his one-less-than-Thresh 20 games. And where there’s two winners, there’s two losers: Blitzcrank, a champion as old as time, known for his insane Flash-forcing potential, and Brand, the pick creating second hand mage from the bottom lane, both sporting a 0% winrate in that support role. Sad days.

Kennen is a champion to keep an eye on, because he’s been played in a multitude of roles across his career. Midlane Kennen used to be a thing once, but his ability to farm from long range bumped him up to the top lane, or down to the bottom lane as a support – the hamsterball comp with Kennen and Kalista was a thing for a long while (and still is). But little did people know that Kennen was also a potent marksman: Rekkles showed up huge, getting a quadra kill in the FNC vs IG game – which was back-to-back with his previous Kennen performance, which was equally good.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to perform well on champions, especially when champions are flexible. A lot of bans stem from fear of a player’s capabilities on a certain champion (or in the case of Gangplank and Mordekaiser, a fear of the champion itself). Shen’s able to perform in both the toplane and the support role; Lulu’s been performing in toplane, midlane and the support role, and Kennens newfound flexibility into four out of the five available ones makes it so beside the obvious power picks, there’s a lot more flexibility on the Rift than initially meets the eye.

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