Taliyah is one of the hottest picks right now in the NA LCS. She has been picked or banned in 61% of games this split.

Syndra and Orianna, who are also extremely popular, sit at 68% (54 picks, 99 bans) and 54% (84 picks, 29 bans) respectively. Cassiopeia comes in around 39%, Corki at 34%, and the rest of the midlane champion pool is mixed into flex picks or spread pretty thinly.

Leblanc has been banned 193 times and shows a big presence in champ select, but has really only entered the game 14 times so I don’t really consider her a “popular pick”.

Lae-Young "Keane" Jang, across these popular midlane champions, averages at about a 60% winrate, but on Taliyah in particular, Keane has won 5/7 games, or an astonishing 71.4%! He has earned an 8.0 KDA on the champion and certainly deals a ton of damage in those games. Now, this isn’t to say that those wins are directly attributed to Keane’s Taliyah, but it must be a significant factor to keep putting up such numbers. Let’s take a look at how Keane plays Taliyah, the Stoneweaver.

The Setup: Stormraider’s Surge

This is usually the Keystone Mastery of choice. It usually means that if you hit your first combo or first few shots with Threaded Volley, you can follow up with another one and use the increased movement speed to position so that you can guarantee landing the second round of shards.

In a competitive setting, Keane has only used Stormraider's Surge.

In solo queue, Thunderlord’s Decree is another choice. However, the damage from the second combo that Stormraider's Surge allows you to follow up with outweighs the damage from Thunderlord's Decree and the increased movement speed from Stormraider’s Surge is important for Taliyah to keep chasing or reposition. Usually this is taken to stomp an immobile lane opponent early on and use that advantage to snowball further ahead.

Logical Buildpath

Liandry’s Torment is your bread and butter. This item burns through those pesky tanks and makes it so if you manage to nail people with single shot of Threaded Volley or Seismic Shove, it will burn through a good chunk of their health. Makes extended teamfights easier to turn and gives Taliyah massive poking ability in order to contest objectives or make/break sieges.

Because Taliyah has only one form of hard CC and has no basic abilities to aid escape, Banshee’s Veil is a good purchase. It negates one spell completely and gives you some breathing room. Cooldown reduction is always helpful and gives a good amount of magic resist against tough lane opponents.

Morellonomicon is in some ways a more offensive purchase. It gives more cooldown reduction than Banshee’s Veil and sacrifices the magic resist and spell shield for Grievous Wounds and more mana.

That’s pretty much it. Build to counter your opponent and after these items are complete, the only real additions to make are Void Staff for more magic penetration and Rabadon’s Deathcap to get a nice kick to AP totals.

No Rylai’s Crystal Scepter?

This is usually a popular item on Taliyah. It’s seen a ton in solo queue and some other pro players build it on Taliyah. This item, however, is a mixed bag. Its unique spell effect is to add a slow, which will make landing that Unraveled Earth easier, but it lacks the Grievous Wounds or Spell Shield from the other items discussed above. Keane favors cooldown reduction to launch more spells rather than make the spells easier to land with a slow.

Ability Breakdown

Taliyah’s fantastic damage output comes from the synergy of her abilities.

Threaded Volley (Q) is Taliyah’s main damaging skill. It fires off 5 shots in a target direction. These shards will deal AoE damage on impact. Using this skill creates Worked Ground for 120-66 seconds (based on cooldown), which grants Taliyah a movement speed bonus, but only fires off one shot for half mana cost when she uses Q on it. This can be used for light harassment and also to control waves in the midlane to set up ganks or roams.

Keane launches a single Threaded Volley at the enemy jungler. He takes nearly half his health bar in damage after getting hit by 4 of 5 shots.

Taliyah’s Seismic Shove (W) is her second skill. This is her only form of hard CC and it is extremely powerful when mixed with her other abilities. It can either be used to set up a follow-up Threaded Volley (Q) or activate the boulders in Unraveled Earth (E). This ability can seemingly come out of nowhere if you aren't prepared for it and can be used as an engagement tool as well.

Laying down Unraveled Earth (E), Taliyah effectively zones out an area for its entire 4 second duration. If the enemy choses to fight on the Unraveled Earth, they risk taking a huge amount of damage from activating the boulders. This is great in teamfights as well as taking duels 1v1.

The standard combo is W -> E -> Q. Keane's build focuses on cooldown so Seismic Shove is up more often to surprise enemies and push them into Unraveled Earth and follow up with a Threaded Volley. If you choose to build Rylai's Crystal Scepter, you can try to trap an opponent with Unraveled Earth first to slow, followed up by Seismic Shove and then Threaded Volley.

This is the combo in action:

Keane sees the enemy Gragas coming in for a gank. He strings together a perfect combo and Gragas is forced to back off.

The enemy ADC Tristana moves up and gets caught by Seismic Shove. Keane places an Unraveled Earth for Tristana to get pushed into and fires off a Threaded Volley, which Tristana is unable to dodge while airborne. The combo blows through her entire health bar and now Team Dignitas is able to take the tower and continue pushing.

Here's a good example of how Taliyah's abilities work over the course of a teamfight:

The enemy team attempts an engage, but Keane catches the Gragas with a W -> E combo as he overextends. This forces Ahri to Spirit Rush in, taking a chunk of damage from Unraveled Earth. The rest of the enemy team tries to move forward and fight, but are caught by Shrimp's Jarvan IV Cataclysm. Keane sees this opportunity and launches a Threaded Volley into the Cataclysm and does enough splash damage to take two of them down.

Weaver’s Wall

This ultimate is a huge game changer. This ultimate can split the map in half, creating situations where favorable teamfights can be engaged or objectives can be cut off from enemy access. It also allows Taliyah to move across the map quickly, but the main purpose is usually to create a physical barrier that the enemy is unable to deal with.

Be careful! Weaver’s Wall can be eaten up by Yasuo’s Wind Wall and Braum’s Unbreakable.

This is the most basic use of the skill. Weaver's Wall prevents the enemy team from defending the tower. Adrian's Blitzcrank towards the bottom side of the tower is enough to keep them from even poking Team Dignitas. If anyone gets hit by the pull and is separated by the wall from their team, it's a free kill.

This time, Keane uses the wall to split a team in half. The enemy team looks to try and stop Team Dignitas' Rift Herald attempt. Keane beautifully blocks off the two enemy damage dealers and the rest of the team is able to collapse on Elise and Braum without worry. Braum escapes over the wall, but Elise isn't so lucky.

And here is the ultimate being used to full effectiveness. This Weaver's Wall blocks off the entire enemy bot lane's escape. Keane waited just long enough to bait Lulu's flash out. Riding along the wall, Keane hops in and forces Vayne to flash over the wall. This gank secures a ton of enemy cooldowns, a kill, and a turret.

Taliyah is Keane's most played champion in ranked solo queue this season. It shows in his NALCS stats with a great winrate and insane KDA. This article went over some of the things that makes Keane's Taliyah work so spectacularly and hopefully it helped you better understand the champion and what makes her so powerful.

Team Dignitas plays against Cloud9 in the Quarterfinals soon. Let's get that #DIGWIN!