When we watch LCS, there is a decent resemblance to the game that we play ourselves. It's the same roles, similar item builds, the goal is to kill the enemy nexus, and---to some extent---the set of champions played is similar. But just how similar are LCS bans and picks to soloqueue?

This article takes a look at champion banrates, pickrates, and winrates in LCS and general play. LCS data was all gathered by myself; general statistics were taken from LoLKing's Champions page here on 18 February 2014.

The purple line in each graph represents equality (a plot of y=x): anything below the purple line occurs (is picked, banned, or wins) more often in LCS than in general, and anything above the purple line occurs more in general than in LCS. Outlier points are labeled on the graphs, and some points that are not labeled are discussed in the text.

Keep in mind that champions with 0% banrate or 0% pickrate in LCS are not included in those respective charts, thus the discrepency in number of points above vs below equality.

Let's look at banrate first.

Kassadin, of course, sits at nearly 95% banrate in soloqueue and above 95% banrate in general. Nerf pls! It's important to remember that Yasuo was unavailable in the first week of play, and so his banrate is artificially deflated in LCS. However, the other FOTM champions of Elise, Vi, Kha'zix, and Gragas are underbanned in LCS compared to soloqueue. Of these champions, Elise and Kha'zix both have over 60% winrate in LCS. Vi is positive, but Gragas sits at an astonishingly negative 36% winrate given his 36 picks. The only champions with lower winrates that have been picked at least 10 times are Ezreal and Wukong.

Annie, Kayle, and LeBlanc occupy places as under-represented in bans in general play but very frequently banned in LCS; both Annie and Kayle have negative winrates in LCS, while LeBlanc has a 100% winrate in NA LCS, 71% overall. General winrates for all three champions are close to 50% in general play, with Kayle at 53% and Annie and LeBlanc both slightly negative.

Due to target bans, Olaf and Pantheon sit at almot 1/5 banrate in LCS, though they are almost never banned in general play.

For the rest of the bans, there's a fairly decent correlation between general banrate and soloqueue banrate, with LCS banrate generally slightly higher, due in large part to the underrepresentation of Yasuo, Elise, Vi, Kha'zix, and Gragas in LCS bans. Draven also deserves mention for being banned in almost 1/5 of soloqueue games but only a single time in LCS.

The trendline here, though not shown, is y = 1.0042x - .0067, with an R^2 value of .5442 reflecting the large number of outliers.

Next, champion popularity, or pickrate:

We have two different graphs for champion popularity. The first graph shows raw numbers in general play and soloqueue, but several champions have not been played a single time in LCS, despite the fact that there are people who play them in soloqueue or other matchmade games. So let's renormalize our numbers for pickrate, removing these champions. This won't change any relative positions, but it will bring the data somewhat closer to the y=x equality.

We can see that Trundle is one of the most significantly underplayed champions in general play (though his general winrate is slightly below 50%, at 49.3%), as is, somewhat surprisingly, Thresh, given the fact that Thresh's banrate is almost exactly the same in LCS as in general play. Shyvana, Dr. Mundo, Lucian, and a few other champions in a cluster with them are also fairly significantly underplayed in general. There is no correlation between overall winrates or between LCS winrates among that cluster of 8 champions.

We can also see several champions who are frequently played---and feared---in general play but are all but ignored in LCS. Blitzcrank and Amumu each sit on pick percentages of about 15% in general play but only a single pick apiece in LCS. Tristana, Nasus, Katarina, and Jax are also fairly significantly underrepresented in LCS (not labeled on the graph due to space constraints).

Also notice that Vi and Gragas's pickrate difference is in part due to their higher banrate in general play than in LCS.

Finally, let's look at winrate.

In the graph, we can see a plethora of champions played in LCS that were only played once or twice and either won or lost all of their games. So let's redraw the graph, requiring that each champion be played at least twice in LCS and removing the two champions (Katarina and Nami) that were picked more than twice but still with a 0% winrate.

Of course due to the smaller sample size of LCS, the winrates will be more spread out in LCS, but in general there is almost no correlation between LCS winrate and general-play winrate. Let's draw a trendline on our graph, in red. Note that, while not shown on the graph, the data points for Nami and Katarina are included in the equation.

With a slope of -.017 and an R^2 value of .014, there is almost no correlation between the two winrates! There are 15 champions out of the 51 total that have winrates within 5 percentage points of each other, most with numbers close to 50% in each category. And it's not just that the LCS picks have a lot of outliers with few total picks---Thresh has 65 picks in LCS and a winrate differing from general play by 7.5%, and Lucian with 52 picks has a winrate differing by 9.7%.

In fact, that middle ground of 15 champions accounts for only 1/3 of LCS picks. In other words, the champions who differ by less than 5 percentage points between their LCS winrate and general winrate account for 1/3 of total picks in the LCS, not counting champions that were picked less than 3 times. LCS winrate is a terrible predictor of overall winrate!

Now, it is worth noting that the data used here is overall winrate, not just soloqueue winrates. The correlation is probably somewhat stronger if only considering high diamond/challenger soloqueue. However, be warned! LCS winrate does not mean a champion will or will not work in a less team-oriented environment.

So, in summary, pickrates and banrates are fairly well correlated between LCS and general play. However, there is almost no correlation between LCS winrate and overall general winrate.