Worlds 2022 is shaping up to be a very exciting competition with 24 of the top teams from 11 different regions across the globe competing in one final tournament. From day 1, we’ve already seen an abundance of different and unique strategies being used as teams do everything in their power to take wins and make it into the Group Stage.

As teams do their best to figure out the meta and the best strategies to win, we’re going to take a look into what the meta looks like on Day 1 of Worlds, and try to anticipate how the meta will shift and change as the tournament progresses.

The Meta - Top

Top was, through the entirety of the summer split, the most diverse role. The meta hasn’t shifted much from summer as there haven’t been many patches or changes directed towards the top lane. Top lane continues to see a lot of tanks, bruisers, niche picks, and, most of all, Aatrox.

Only matched by Kalista, Aatrox had an 100% pick-ban rate on Day 1 of Worlds. Unlike Kalista, who was only able to go unbanned one game, Aatrox got picked four times and was banned the other four games. Of the four games Aatrox was picked, he won 3 times. All of the 3 times he won he was selected blue-side first pick (B1). In these 3 games, he was counterpicked twice by Renekton and once by Jax but was able to win in the end.

In the game where Aatrox lost, Detonation FocusMe elected to use Aatrox as a counterpick into Sejuani. This speaks volumes to Aatrox’s strength as a champion and place in the draft. Aatrox excels as a blind pick right now because there isn’t a champion who, in a vacuum, is strong enough to individually shut Aatrox out. On the contrary, Aatrox dictates and limits a lot of the opponent’s options, such as preventing many top lane tanks from being picked.

One of the major downsides of picking Aatrox B1 is that while it can limit your opponent’s draft, it limits your own. Aatrox has the capability to flex mid, but only in very specific matchups, and only with certain players and teams. ShowMaker has shown ability to play the champion, but he only utilized this pick once in LCK this year.

For the most part, Aatrox is limited to just the top lane. By picking a champion that can only play in one role with a linear playstyle, the enemy team has the ability to draft around it in a way that Aatrox becomes a liability to his team. In general, flex picks are much more favorable in draft as it allows the team to adapt a draft in a way that has better individual matchups, better overall compositional matchups and select champions that would be more cohesive with their own team.

In terms of flex picks, we’ve seen a few in the top lane already; namely, Sejuani and Maokai. Maokai has been a heavily anticipated pick ever since his enormous 12.17 changes. Since these buffs, Maokai has been able to flex support, jungle and top comfortably. On Day 1, he was already picked once in top by Fnatic’s Wunder and once in jungle by DRX’s Pysoik and won in both games. Even though the champion looks decent, he was only picked twice despite never being banned. We’ll most likely continue to see Maokai utilized in the draft—mainly due to his draft flexibility and capability to fit into certain comps rather than because of his individual champion strength.

Sejuani also, as expected, returned as a staple top/jungle flex pick. Sejuani was much more popular than Maokai in that she had an 87.5% pick-ban rate being left untouched in only one game. With the utility and versatility Sejuani supplies to her team, it’s unsurprising that teams prioritize her a lot still.

Going Forward - Top

The way teams are trying to deal with Aatrox, by last picking (R5) Renekton, hasn’t worked yet in either of the games. It’s difficult to tell if Renekton is actually good enough of a counter to justify leaving Aatrox open and then using R5 on it, but I can’t imagine it is. The reason Aatrox is being picked is, like I discussed previously, it doesn’t have any champions that individually can punish it hard enough. The way to beat a champion like this in the draft is to pick champions that are strong against Aatrox’s champion archetype.

For example, champions that outrange or outscale Aatrox. Aatrox is a very linear champion. He can basically only be played top and thrives against tanks and champions that want to run into him. Unfortunately, because I doubt teams will explore ideas such as Soraka top or Lillia top, Aatrox blind will continue to be extremely strong. However, I do expect that as teams scrim more and figure out their drafts, Aatrox won’t be as popular as it was on the first day.

Because of the nature of top lane, we should expect the meta to shift and change over the course of the tournament. Top lane is a role where players who are willing to find new counters and niche picks to combat the meta will thrive—especially because of the versatility that the top lane champ pool has in its current state. Ornn and Fiora appeared as expected and we should expect to see them much more moving forward. Hopefully, we’ll get to see different champions in the future, but based on the current champions that are being picked, I predict that Camille, Gangplank and Akshan will all emerge over the course of the tournament.

The Meta - Jungle

The jungle champion pool seems kind of uncertain right now. Tied with mid, jungle had the most unique champions compared to the other 3 roles. The meta is still very undefined for jungle and from the look of it, the jungle role right now is just whatever the team requires. Facilitator junglers still seem like the most favored junglers and despite the 12.18 nerf to Hecarim, he still appears to be one of the strongest junglers.

Hecarim had an 87.5% pick-ban rate on day 1 and out of the three games he played, he won two of them. Another champion that has resurfaced was Graves. Graves received a buff in patch 12.17 and was both banned and picked 3 times. However, Graves only won one of the games where he was picked.

Going Forward - Jungle

Most likely, things aren’t going to change. Facilitator jungles have been for a long time the strongest picks, and this largely began in the Viego-Wukong meta. ADCs, carry mid laners, and top lane bruisers/duelists are all in good spots meaning that there isn’t a lot of space for carry junglers. With that being said, I really hope teams do explore new champions and ideas. One of the potential champions that teams can explore playing is Kindred. Kindred works really well into almost all junglers that are currently being played, even countering Hecarim and Graves. To pick Kindred, the midlane would want to be a more supportive champion rather than the carry ones we’ve been seeing. This can open up picks such as Galio, Zilean, or Seraphine for the midlane.

The Meta - Mid

The midlane meta is still, like in the Summer Split, pretty diverse. There are still an abundance of picks that reflect the same meta that we saw in summer. Of all the mid laners, Sylas was picked the most by being picked 3 times which was somewhat expected. Sylas’ strength as a midlaner lies in his ability to go even and scale in lane against every other midlaner.

Similar to Aatrox, he is blind picked very often because he doesn’t have any hard counters. Also, by selecting Sylas early in the draft, the other team becomes more limited, as they don’t want to give Sylas extremely valuable ultimates such as Gnar’s GNAR!!! or Malphite’s Unstoppable Force. Aside from Sylas, traditional mid lane mages have been the cornerstone of the midlane meta. Viktor, Taliyah and Azir have already established themselves as strong meta mid lane picks.

A bit more surprisingly however, Zoe was utilized by LOUD’s Tinowns—a champion that had not been meta for quite a while. Most shockingly of all, Zac mid lane appeared being utilized by Saigon Buffalo’s Froggy. This niche pick was used against Istanbul Wildcat’s Sylas mid lane and was able to transfer a decent laning phase into being a strong pick and engage champion in the mid and late game.

Going forward - Mid

Firstly, will we see more Zac mid going into the future? Probably not. Zac mid was a result of the meta being so heavily focused on engage and pick champions and I’m willing to bet that Saigon Buffalo are the only team that actually have practiced the pick. Picking Zac mid realistically only works into Sylas as any other champions would outrange and punish the Zac too hard in lane. The pick largely worked because it confused Istanbul Wildcats in the draft and the lane Zac was going wasn’t known until the last second. But unless Zac makes a case for itself being a legitimately powerful flex pick top, jungle or support, I really don’t see Zac mid being utilized anymore.

Unlike other roles, there is no extremely broken mid laner who seems definitely stronger than the rest and the mid lane meta is still up in the air. Sylas will still continue to be picked a lot along with the other midlane mages discussed earlier. A champion that I do expect to show up is Seraphine. Seraphine is a fantastic flex pick enchanter who is still extremely strong. Players like Faker have utilized the pick before and with an engage meta developing at Worlds, I believe Seraphine will appear more and more throughout the tournament.

The Meta - ADC

To no one’s surprise, Caitlyn is one of the top pick/ban champions in Worlds. The core of four ADCs we have seen for so long (Kalista, Sivir, Zeri and Draven) have all been nerfed going into Worlds. Because these main ADCs are considerably weaker, many expected the meta to shift more into a topside carry meta. What we’ve seen immediately from play-ins is that Caitlyn has resurfaced as one of the strongest picks—or at least pros interpret it to be.

Caitlyn was banned 6 times out of the first 8 games and picked once giving her an 87.5% pick-ban rate. In the one game it was picked by Evil Geniuses, it was picked red-side first pick (R1) but ended up losing. Caitlyn’s strength wasn’t reflected very well in this game because Fnatic’s bot lane were able to punish lane blunders and dominate Evil Genius’ bot lane with Miss Fortune and Leona.

Miss Fortune was another ADC that was well anticipated to be strong. She received a large buff in 12.17, and due to her strength from this buff, she was slightly nerfed just the patch after in 12.18 with a couple of changes to her base stats. Miss Fortune’s world's debut was very different from Caitlyn's. She was banned 0 times and picked in 5 games, just over half of the total day one games. Through these 5 games, she built a solid 60% win rate.

Miss Fortune going forth will continue to be a strong staple ADC in the meta. Her power is largely determined on the other meta ADCs but she isn’t strong or overwhelming enough to draw bans, at least for now. Instead, the ADCs that are incurring the most bans are lane dominant snowballing ADCs, including the aforementioned Caitlyn and, somewhat surprisingly, Kalista.

Kalista incurred nerfs in 12.15 and 12.18, but the 30 base health nerf in the World's patch wasn’t enough to reduce her pro-play popularity. In fact, Kalista, only matched by Aatrox, had an 100% pick/ban rate on day 1 of Worlds. She was banned 7 games, and only let through the draft in 1 game, Fnatic vs The Chiefs. Fnatic picked her R1 and Upset ended up going 9-0-2 showing complete snowball and dominance on Kalista including scoring a Pentakill. It’s somewhat surprising that Kalista has stayed this strong for so long even though Renata Glasc has fallen out of favor,

Kalista still individually remains a very scary and dominant pick—but it’s definitely important not to jump the gun on determining Kalista’s strength in Worlds. Kalista is a champion whose strength relies largely on the champions around her. Because most teams are favoring engage supports such as Amumu, Leona or Nautilus, Kalista works especially well and provides a lot of value in these types of compositions. Kalista as a champion is predicated on getting ahead early and snowballing, and if teams eventually start to favor late game enchanter style comps, she will fall out of favor quickly. Personally, I believe that Kalista is a result of the support meta, and not that the support meta is a result of Kalista being strong.

Going Forward - ADC

It’s surprising that we haven’t seen any Ashe ADC being played yet. Even though I believe that the champion has been extremely weak for a long time, she has always been identified as a counter to both Caitlyn and Kalista. Going forward, Caitlyn and Kalista might not need to be picked or banned if Ashe can be used as an answer to these picks. What will end up happening is something similar to when the core 4 ADCs of Zeri, Sivir, Kalista and Draven were strong. Ashe, like Draven, will always be a red-side exclusive reactionary pick. If Ashe doesn't show up however, we can expect to see Caitlyn (and potentially Kalista) prioritized heavily for the entire tournament.

In spite of this, I can’t imagine Kalista staying strong forever. Enchanters are really strong and heavily underrated and underplayed right now, and Kalista as a champion can be punished quite hard in the draft. Champions like Ashe, Rammus or Nasus as well as many others make it extremely difficult for Kalista to play—but it heavily depends on whether teams are willing to explore these picks, or if they would rather just keep expending bans on Kalista. Naturally, Kalista will also only stay if the support meta doesn’t change as well.

In terms of other ADCs, we’ve seen Seraphine, Nilah, Kai’sa, Aphelios and Tristana all played. Unless Tristana is able to be flexed, I personally don’t believe that the champion will be that strong. I do, however, expect to see the other four utilized more as the tournament progresses. After being buffed in 12.16, Kai’sa became a lot stronger and now sits comfortably as a top ADC. We should expect to see her a lot in the future as well.

I’m surprised that Senna hasn’t appeared at all either. Fasting Senna, ADC Senna, and support Senna are all still very strong. The support champion pool being the way it is right now is most likely why we aren’t seeing Senna, but there is a decent possibility she will resurface over time.

The Meta - Support

The support meta that was displayed was quite unexpected. Engage supports were picked almost every game, the only exception being Lux paired with Caitlyn for one game. Amumu, Alistar, and Leona were by far the most popular champions. The other champions that were played were Nautilus, Braum and Rell. I did believe that engage and roaming supports would become more popular as a result of a general read amongst many teams of a change to a topside meta. However, one thing that I overlooked was Evenshroud.

Evenshroud hadn’t been used at all in a very long time and as a result, it was buffed in 12.16 to increase both the duration and damage amplification of its passive Coruscation. Coruscation’s damage amplification increased from 9% to 10% and the duration of it was raised from 4 seconds to 5 seconds. These buffs were enough to not only make Evenshroud the sole item of choice for all of the engage supports being picked, but also cause engage supports to be at the forefront of the meta.

Going Forward - Support

Even though engage supports have been shown to be very strong, I don’t think they will be as overwhelmingly favored going forward. In my opinion, enchanters are still extremely powerful and will be utilized more going forward. We will still probably see Leona, Amumu and Alistar be the most popular picks, but I also expect to see Soraka, Sona, Seraphine and potentially Taric going forward.

All of these champions, especially Taric, excel at absorbing engage and can be used to counteract the current meta engage supports. Taric also has really strong combos with Nilah and Kindred which might potentially be used in the future. Alternatively, teams could also opt into champs that excel at disengaging such as Janna or Lulu. All of these champions are still extremely strong and it’s only a matter of time until they start appearing in Worlds.

Another pick that we may see is Nasus support. Nasus support was expected to receive massive buffs on 12.18 right before Worlds but they were withdrawn at the last second. Nonetheless, Nasus support has been a topic of contention for a long time. His effectiveness in the draft lies in his utility. He’s able to not put any points in Q and only his in E, W and R. His Wither has really good range and is able to slow champions up to 95% in the late game while being able to slow their attack speed as well. By utilizing Manaflow Band and Arcane Comet, Nasus’ E is a decently strong laning phase poke tool and, in the late game, his E is used as an AOE armor shred tool.

Kalista, the most popular ADC at Worlds so far, is heavily reliant on her attack speed and mobility. Kalista is predicated on being able to maneuver teamfights with her dashes to be able to dish out damage. Nasus’ Wither which slows both movement speed and attack speed is extremely effective in crippling Kalista. Because Kalista currently warrants so many bans, I hope to see Nasus support utilized instead as a counter in the future.

Ultimately, Worlds 2022 has already been very exciting to watch with both a lot of anticipated and some surprising picks and strategies shown. It’s impossible to predict how the Worlds meta will develop going forward but one thing we can be certain about is that it’ll definitely be an exhilarating tournament to watch.