Evelynn, the pubstomping champion that has been a problem since inception, has finally recently (well, not so recently) recieved a remake. For the first few weeks after the remake, Evelynn got a huge surge of popularity and was quickly insta-locked every game, but afterwards, it seemed most players returned to being oblivious that such a champion even existed. Why is this?

Evelynn, the widowmaker

Evelynn has been a champion that was out since the early days of Beta. She wreaked havoc since inception to new players that had little to no map awareness, and was shut down by a competent player/team that predicted her movements. She was allowed to be a great source of anger until theV1.0.0.120 patch, which was the patch that Yorick was released. That patch, she was nerfed into oblivion, they removed her biggest asset, the stun that accompanied her invisibility. It was replaced by a mediocore slow that wasn't even remotely close in power compared to her stun pre-patch. Already beating a mutiliated horse, Riot proceeded to reduce the health return on her ultimater by more than half, also reducing the attack speed/movement speed active by 25%.

The reaction from the community was a mix of positive and negative feedback, most of it being negative. Evelynn, a very popular champion back then, was completely destroyed and taken away from the players that used her. Her credibility as a champion quickly dwindled until the point where only hipsters and trolls played her because she was so weak in every role.

As time went on, she was mostly forgotten, although a significant amount of people still awaited her remake. Riot promised the players a complete overhaul of the stealth aspect of the game, that response also got mixed reactions. Months passed on end, and the completion of the stealth rework seemed nowhere near. And then in the recent patch that featured the debut of Zyra, it was done. The promised stealth rework finally completed, after a whopping 13 months of "Soon™", it was finished.

Evelynn natrually saw a huge burst of popularity, offering players a new experience for only 1350 ip, then after a month or so passed, people were oblivious to her. Why? Was it because, like other new champions, a professional didn't pick her up? Or was it because she was a champion that didn't really stand out in terms of uniqueness?

No, no, none of these were the reasons that I believe was responsible for Evelynn's lack of popularity. The reason why I believe Evelynn had little popularity even after the remake is simple, she doesn't excel in any role. The only role she really fits in is as a jungler, but she doesn't have multiple forms of CC, Jungling speed, or any of the popular traits a jungling champion must have to be a popular pick. She doesn't have fast clears to farm the jungle, she doesn't have tons of cc to insure ganks, she doesn't have overwhelming damage to insure a kill or objective either. Simply put, Evelynn is outperformed by every other popular jungler in play today.

So what now?

Of course, I might be completely wrong. A professional player might decide to pick her up and play her competetively, showing people that there IS a way to play Evelynn effectively. But as of now, she's a champion with no hope in being a popular pick.