Qiyana was released back in Season 9 being the 145th champion to be released in League of Legends. She is an Attack Damage (AD), burst type assassin whose whole kit is based on using the environment around her, known for her flashy plays, mobility and high damage capability, Qiyana is an absolute monster in solo queue however it wasn’t always like this.
Qiyana’s initial release was quite underwhelming with the whole community bashing on her kit, damage numbers and her concept as a whole however in Season 11, she started to gain massive popularity and she now has a constant 15 - 23.2% ban rate and a solid 7-10% pick rate in Diamond+. But what actually caused Qiyana to go from one of the most underwhelming releases to now a highly sought after pick in solo queue? I’ll be covering this and more in this article.
Qiyana made her debut on the rift back in Season 9 on patch 9.13, following the release of Yuumi, the Magical Cat. Now why do I mention Yuumi? On Yuumi’s release, she had one of the lowest win rates in all of League of Legends history, sitting at 29.71% on release and as a result the whole community was hating on her, they started making Reddit posts and just bashing on Riot Games as a whole. Now with this disappointing release, the next champion to be released (Qiyana) had to be a winner for Riot to gain the community back onto their side. However this wasn’t the case.
When Qiyana got announced, she was pushed aside by other big news Riot announced which was overall just a poor timing decision. Mordekaiser has just received his new awaited rework one patch before and TFT had just gotten announced and launched on the PBE servers. With all this releasing it's no wonder Qiyana’s release was overlooked. However this was not the only thing that prevented her from shining. You would think a champion who is not only flashy and mobile but also has high damage potential would be popular amongst the playerbase, but this was not true for Qiyana. For one, Qiyana has an incredibly high skill cap and no one really had a grasp of the champion.
To be able to utilise Qiyana to the fullest was difficult, you could separate the best Qiyana’s from the worst and these high skill high reward type champions were never popular with the majority of the player base in solo queue to begin. (Take Azir as an example.) In addition, on release, there were many frustrating bugs about her causing her to then later be disabled in game. The most pivotal bug was based around her Q and W. To understand these bugs lets just do a quick rundown of Qiyana’s abilities.
Passive - Royal Privilege: Qiyana's basic attacks and damaging abilities deal bonus physical damage to affected enemies.
Q - Edge of Ixtal - Qiyana slashes forward in the target direction, dealing physical damage to enemies in a line, reduced to 75% damage against targets beyond the first. Qiyana’s Q has different effects depending on which element she has taken with her W, Terrashape
Q - Edge of Ixtal (Brush) - Qiyana consumes her current Element (brush) and hurls her blade in the target direction. The blade raises a grass trail behind Qiyana that travels forth, lasting for 3.5 seconds and granting Qiyana invisibility and 20% bonus movement speed until she attacks, casts an ability other than Terrashape, or exits the trail.
Q - Edge of Ixtal (River) - Qiyana consumes her current Element (river) and hurls her blade in the target direction. This roots enemies hit for 0.5 seconds, then slows them by 20% for 1 second.
Q - Edge of Ixtal (Terrain) - Qiyana consumes her current Element (terrain) and hurls her blade in the target direction. Enemies hit while below 50% of their maximum health are dealt bonus damage.
W - Terrashape - Qiyana dashes towards the target location while gathering an Element of the nearest BRUSH, RIVER or TERRAIN she targeted, enchanting her blade. While holding an element, she gains bonus attack speed, attack range, magicdamage on basic attacks and abilities and movement speed while moving near the element she is holding.
E - Audacity - Qiyana dashes a fixed distance towards the target enemy, dealing them physical damage if they are still in range upon arrival.
R - Supreme Display of Talent - Qiyana sends a windblast in the target direction that knocks back all enemies within its path and stops upon hitting terrain. Upon hitting a wall, river or brush, a shockwave erupts, dealing physical damage and stunning enemies.
Upon release there were many bugs to Qiyana causing her to hold a rough 38-40% win rate. Some of the most pivotal bugs were on her Q - Edge of Ixtal. Initially her Q was bugged so that if the player used her Q after taking an element with her W - Terrashape, for some reason the Q would always go in the direction of the enemies base. Her most used ability and main source of her damage went from a skillshot to an ability you couldn’t control:
This was not the only issue because as soon as this bug got patched another bug came to light but more frustrating than the previous. Yes the direction issue may have been fixed but the Q now did no damage at all, it might as well not have existed:
These bugs that existed just made the champion completely unplayable however a new game breaking bug came to light when these got patched and this not only made Qiyana playable but completely and utterly overpowered. This bug was to do with her W’s passive damage and the item Liandry’s Torment (now Liandry’s Anguish). Since her W had an AP scaling, Qiyana players would build full AP with Liandry’s Torment (keep in mind she is supposed to be according to the champion spotlight an “AD burst assassin'') and could one shot enemies with a single Q. This was because the on hit damage from her W passive was being applied at each tick of Liandry’s and with her AP scaling for her W, one Q was all that was needed for a kill:
You can imagine why the community would hate Qiyana, from becoming something unplayable and frustrating to a champion that can 100 to 0 you with one skillshot was absurd. Her horrible first impression combined with nerfs to her damage numbers and her high skill cap and difficulty just made her unpopular to the vast majority of players and drew a lot of hate so she was rarely seen in solo queue. This all changed in Season 11 for the better, and finally Qiyana is getting some of her long awaited spotlight.
Season 11 came to the Rift with a bang with new, fresh items being the biggest change along with item changes, champion buffs/nerfs and rune tweaks as well. The new Season 11 items/item changes put AD Assassins in a position they haven’t been in for a while causing a huge spike for them in solo queue, Qiyana being the most popular in higher elos. These new items allowed these Assassin’s to scale a lot better compared to previous season’s with the new mythic passives, active’s and item changes.
Take Prowler’s Claw for example, probably the most popular assassin item in the current meta. This item provides a 15% damage amplifier and another gap closer which is ideal for a champion like Qiyana. This allowed Qiyana to snowball much faster and create whole new combos and mechanics that would elevate her popularity to another level (see videos below).
All these item changes and additions was a big factor in her rise to solo queue but the most impactful factor was a Qiyana one trick on the Chinese Super Server. His name was “Beifeng”. This player peaked 1800 LP on China’s hardest server, drawing so much attention from everyone around the world. Blowing up from tons of youtube coverage from content creators such as “Midbeast” and countless VODs of his gameplay all over youtube, Qiyana’s pick rate and ban rate skyrocketed. Pair this with some buffs she had received and the Season 11 changes this one player inspired thousands of people around the world to pick up the champion, myself included and thus began Qiyana’s rise in solo queue. Slowly but surely, Qiyana players were sprouting out of nowhere and is now one of the most revered champions in the game.
But where is Qiyana now? At the moment according to statistics she is hovering at a 51-52% win rate in the 3 major regions, NA, EUW and KR in Diamond 2+. Ban rates however are quite the opposite. In both NA and EUW she has an average of 17-18% ban rate but in KR its a staggering 44.7% ban rate in Diamond +. KR being known as one of the hardest, if not the hardest server for solo queue, this really does give you an impression of how fearsome this champion is.
Qiyana, a champion with so much potential in the right hands went from one of the most underplayed to one of the most feared champions in solo queue. With her flashy plays, high damage and mobility, she is not a champion that is easy to master but in the right hands she can easily solo carry a whole game by herself. The pick and ban rates speak for themselves, there is a reason why amongst the higher elo players, she is banned in 1 out of 5 games.
In a Dragon focused meta, Qiyana takes the spotlight as she thrives in teamfights in the jungle unlike other AD assassins because of how impactful her ultimate ability is in teamfights. Merry this with the new season 11 new items and coverage of her from people who have mastered the champion, Qiyana players are being born left and right. People finally understand her capability and potential so why not try Qiyana for yourself, she could be the key for you to climb in solo queue or you could just find her extremely fun, either way she will not disappoint you!
