Hi fellow summoners,here is a guide that I wrote a few years ago and kept updating from time to time. It is not perfect and only basic (might be I forgot to add a champ or 2 to be honest but I tried to include every champ, also some stuff might be a bit outdated, I´ll try to fix it up if I find something):
Edit: Before you read any further and be like "Eh but this and that combination isn´t really good because this champ favors this and that blablabla...This guide is meant to show Concepts of how it is supposed to be in general.You always have to adapt depending the match up, player skill, etc.
Types of Botlanes
Everyone knows it: Botlane is a case of its own. With more than 40 different champions played on Botlane, there is a huge amount of possible match ups and types of lanes.
This article is meant to categorize the usual Marksmen played on Botlane to give you an easy to find weaknesses and strengths of each Marksman.Please be aware that a champion can fit into several classes at the same time.
For that we will divide the marksmen into 5 classes:
“Lane Bully”, “Spellcaster”, “Tank Shreds aka On-Hit User” “Hypercarry aka Crit User” and “Utility”

Lane Bullies
What is a “Lane Bully?”A “Lane Bully” is a marksman who has strong laning capabilities and can dominate a lane if he does his job correctly. Most common examples are: Caitlyn, Draven, Lucian, Miss Fortune (most common in Low Elo) Senna, and Varus (Lethality Build). Each of them has strong laning power due to their kit:Caitlyn has the biggest auto attack range of all Marksmen LvL 1, Dravens attack damage is higher than anyone´s else, Lucian can burst down people in a few seconds due his double shot passive, Miss Fortune can zone people with her Q and deal monstrous damage, Senna has good range and built in sustain + her Q applies Glacial Augment and Varus with a Lethality Build can kill people with 3 Q´s.
At the same time these Marksmen usually fall off in the late game (please be aware of Senna here due to her in build infinite scaling) due to their early power (to make them balanced) so they tend to lose more often if they can´t end the same fast.If you play a “Lane Bully”: Try to be aggressive early game and make use of your power to snowball the game into a fast win. If you play against them: Try to play safe and go for farm instead of risky plays.

Spellcasters
What is a “Spellcaster”?A “Spellcaster” is a marksman who relies mostly on his spells to deal damage/ effective.The most common examples are: Ezreal, Aphelios, Jhin, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Samira, Sivir, Varus (Lethality Build) and Xayah.“Spellcaster” put a lot of focus onto their mana management but on the same time they are able to put out a lot of damage/ control on the game if they have the mana they need for their spells. Not every “Spellcaster” is strong in the early game, but every “Spellcaster” can dominate a certain state of game with their kits (Aphelios is special here because he relies less on his mana and “spells” and more about his ammunition and what guns he has and how he uses them but it is still the same idea in my opinion).The downside of playing a “Spellcaster” is pretty similar to the downsides of a mage: If their spells are on cooldown or if they are out of mana, the damage they can deal is way lower than at their best.If you play a “Spellcaster”: Play around your cooldowns and mana. Use your spells to deal as much damage as possible, back off and then go back in when your cooldowns are back up.
If you play against a “Spellcaster”: Make use of cooldowns and the enemy being out of mana. If you see them waste their spells, go in and blow them up.

Tank Shreds
What is a “Tank Shred”?A “Tank Shred” is a marksman who´s main damage comes from effects which get applied with every auto attack. The most common examples are: Kai´Sa, Kalista, Kog Maw, Varus and Vayne.“Tank Shreds” usually have spells in their kit which allow them to deal bonus damage with every attack/ every specific attack numbers. For example: Vayne does bonus damage with her W every three hits, Kai´Sa applies bonus damage after stacking 5 hits of plasma.Almost every time “On-Hit User” go for the same to items: “Krakenslayer” and “Phantom Dancer”. The reason for that is that “Krakenslayer” deals bonus damage every third Auto Attack and “Phantom Dancer" buffs your attack speed by 30% after attacking 4 times.
Their Itembuilds rely mostly on attack speed and their effects per attack so the damage per attack is low compared to other marksmen. The longer a fight goes, the stronger a “Tank Shred” gets.
If you play a “Tank Shred”: Play around your stacks. Depending on how much stacks you need, try to fight as long as you need. As Vayne play around your three hits, as Kalista try to stack as many spears as possible and then execute the enemy with your E “Rend”.
If you play against a “Tank Shred”: Be careful of long trades. Since “On-Hit User” get stronger with longer trades, limit yourself to do short trades to deny their strength and reduce their hp before you all in them when they can´t make use of long trades anymore.

Hypercarry:
What is a “Hypercarry”? A “Hypercarry” is a marksman who builds items with “critical strike chance”, the exception here is Kog Maw. The most common examples are: Aphelios, Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jinx, Jhin, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch and Xayah.
“Hypercarries” rely on their “critical chance strike” to deal high amounts of damage with every attack. Critical attacks deal 175% damage instead of the usual 100%. By building “Infinity Edge” the damage gets further increased to 210%. These Marksmen usually buy at least 3 items with “critical strike chance”, with “Infinity Edge” being the “Core” of the build.“Hypercarries” usually get to their strongest point quite late in a game. They need time to farm gold to get their items but when they got them, they outscale most other Marksmen classes.If you play a “Hypercarry”: Try to play safe early on (Only exceptions are Draven and Cailyn depending on match up) and try to farm as much gold as possible to get to your items fast and then crush the game by killing non tanks with 2 or 3 hits.If you play against a “Hypercarry”: Overpower them early on before they can stack up their critical strike chance since their high damage output is based on “luck”. The item parts for “infinity Edge” are quite expensive so try to punish that by forcing them into bad recalls.

Utiliity:
What is a “Utility” marksman? Utility marksmen are marksmen who´s kit revolves around their team for the biggest effect. The most common examples are: Ashe, Kalista, Sivir, Senna and Varus.
They all have an ultimate which needs the team to be useable/ for the best use. They got spells for “the greater good” than just using all of their spells for winning a 1v1. Ashe can catch out a target with her ultimate, Sivir boosts the whole team with movement speed which allows them to either gap close fast to get a good engage or disengage without getting caught that easily. Kalista even need her Oathsworn to activate her ultimate and the W passive (bonus damage if she and her sworn hit the same target in a short amount of time) so she depends even more on her team/ oathsworn to be nearby. To be fair, Varus Ultimate isn´t as “good” as Ashe ultimate due to its range, but on the other hand it provides a possible bind onto all 5 targets and can disrupt the enemy formation pretty well.
If you play a “Utility” marksman: Play around your team. Use the fact that your champion is best when having back up or when trying to make a play/ making the engage. Don´t hesitate to use your ultimate to get a catch on an enemy in the mid- to lategame since this can lead to a free baron, turret or maybe even nashor. Stick with our team and create openings to decide the game in your favor.
If you play against a “Utility” marksman: Be aware of the possible sudden engage by the enemy team using their marksman ultimate. As a tank try to stand in front of your team to “eat up” the ultimate if needed so your carries are still able to respond in a fight and don´t die in the first 2 seconds. Try to catch the marksman off guard and alone (the best would be a pincer attack), so he as to blow his ultimate to escape from one side just to die to the other side and create a 4v5 scenario for your team with the marksman being dead or back to base.

The Triangle of Support:
There are quite a few Supports in the game so there are a lot of different match ups and how a lane can play out depending on who you play against who, etc.
This is a rough outline to group supports in a class, what they are good at and what they struggle with if played correct and how it should play out in theory.
This “Triangle” shows the idea of who beats who
Poke -> All in -> Sustain/ Peel -> Poke ( -> = Beats)

All in
“All in” supports like Alistar, Thresh, Leona, Nautilus, Pyke, Rell etc. excel at going in till either one side is dead or has to back off. This kind of support beats “Sustain” supports since the “Sustain” supports don´t get the time/ chance to really make use of their shields and heals. Your heal won´t help your ADC if he´s going to die anyways.
While they do have an advantage over sustain, they lose out against “Poke Supports”, because they don´t get the chance to all in due to the damage the lane already took by the poke of the enemies. The only chance for you to score kills in such a lane is by going in after coming of a recall so they didn´t have the time to poke you down.
“All in” supports are usually picked with strong early game ADC to force kills and resources from the enemy and get your ADC as much gold advantage as you can early on in the game.

Sustain/ Peel
“Sustain/ Peel” Supports are champions who are able to negate damage due to their kits via shields and heals. Common examples are Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, Soraka.
Their strong point is to keep their ad carry alive so he stays able to fight and farm in lane despite taking damage.
They beat out the “Poke” supports because they can block the incoming poke via their shields (which can´t be dodged) and are able to deny the high aggression of the enemy botlane. In case of having a heal instead of a shield they can even restore health that got lost by poke if they were not in range or their spells on cooldown to deny the poke.
A “Sustain” support is usually picked with a strong scaling ADC to make sure he survives the lane and get him to his items as safe as possible.
For the "butthurt" people :D :
As a subclass of "Peel" Supports we got the, let´s call them, "Warden" Class:"Warden" Supports are champions who protect their ADC by "thowing themselves between their ADC and the enemy". They wait for the enemy to engage and then counter after the enemy blew their shots to get back at them when they try to retreat. Common examples are: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench.
Their strong point is that they are able to take a punch while offering safety for their allies from enemy champions that try to "dive onto them".They beat the "All in" Supports at their own game because they abuse the fact that the enemy is trying to use their strength and then "swap" their strength into a weakness when they failed.
They usually play rather reactive than proactive since they rely on the enemy to step up first.At the same time they struggle against ranged match ups since they are easy to abuse for the enemy via poke. "Warden" don´t have a good way to deal with that kind of playstyle.

Poke
Poke supports are often times mages who went down from midlane to botlane, like Annie, Brand, Fiddlesticks (a jungler tho), Lux, Morgana, Senna, Seraphine, Vel´Koz, Xerath and Zyra.
Each of them offers quite a bit amount of damage and range with their spells what makes them able to harass the enemy botlane from far away without fearing taking damage in return. Their goal is to harass people do death or to force them back/ to the point where they can´t fight and have to “forfeit” the lane in their favor.Keep an eye on your mana pool and cooldowns since “Poke” supports rely heavily on their mana to deal damage just like “Spellcasters”. If you play Senna out of this bunch of supports, since she has a sustain spell, you can be more aggressive and trade harder since you can heal back up ( take notice on how you use your Q, try to heal up your ADC and yourself and hit the enemy champions for best usage).
For the same reason on one hand this kind of support beats “All in” supports since they deny the possibility of an all-in by the enemy because they are too low on hp to win the fight.
You have to be careful regardless after an “All in” support comes back to lane because that is the best point in time for him to turn onto you.On the other hand they have a hard time against “Sustain” supports due to getting their poke denied or healed back up by “Sustain” supports.
Try to bait out their shield or heal and then dump damage onto them so they can´t block the damage coming in and try to kill them before there cooldowns are coming back up.
“Poke” supports can be picked with early game strong and weak ADC to either enhance the killpressure and the possible lead or to cover the weakness of a weak ADC so they get some breathing room. But if things turn bad they tend to be worse than the other support classes due to them being less “supportive” due to their kit.

Synergies between ADC and Support classes
Overall there are 3 ways to “build” a bot lane. Each way differs in their strengths and purposes and I will just call them “Comfort picks”, “Synergy” and “Compensation” to make it easier to understand.
Comfort picks:
“Comfort picks” is literally what you think, you just play whatever you are best at. This has the chance building a mismatch on bot lane if people don´t communicate a lot with each other because every player plays to his own tune. I bet you all already saw something like a Thresh + Vayne lane where Thresh engaged and Vayne just stood in the back, chilling her life and continues to farm while Thresh fights for his life. What went wrong? The bot lane probably didn´t talk with each other, picked whatever they wanted and now are playing for two different goals. Thresh wants to play aggressive and score a lead in lane while Vayne just wants to sit back and scale up. If they don´t “group” up and play together they are likely to lose bot lane hard. On the same time, because they picked their mains, they are more likely to perform well compared to playing other champions to “fit” something because they know their champion (damage, tankyness, kit, spikes, etc.).
Synergy:
Synergy is when you pick a champion that fits the playstyle of the champion from your partner, e.g.: Thresh-Lucian, Kog´Maw-Lulu, Ashe-Zyra, Draven-Leona.
If you partner picks something that wants to get a lead early game you pick something that is strong early game to help him achieve his goal (winning lane), if he just wants to sit back, farm and scale up (on ADC side) you pick something that excels at peeling so your ADC survives the laning phase (Nami, Yuumi, Lulu, Braum, Tahm Kench, etc.) and can wreck the enemies later on. The downside of this “strategy” is when you can´t achieve your goal (either win lane or scale up) because then you are in a really bad spot.
If you need 5-10 more minutes to hit your item spike as jinx or Tristana, Kai´Sa, etc. the game might be over before you get there and if you lost early game as someone like Lucian, Miss Fortune, Lethality Varus, Caitlyn, etc., depending on match up you might get outscaled by the enemy and will “lose” to their advantage due to their kit later on. If you play against another early game champion, he might snowball the lead onto other lanes so your whole team starts losing, etc.
Compensation:
Compensation is pretty specific and usually works only in one direction and that is the Support compensating the ADC in the early game.
The Support should play a poke/mage support to do this since these champions are very strong in lane and that´s when they want to shine. The poke support has the “duty” to get/ create openings/ advantages for his scaling ADC so he might scale earlie has an easier laning phase. A scaling ADC who can´t get touched is a happy ADC, even more if he gets a few free kills.
The Support shall make the lane more “competitive” so you are able to put more pressure on the enemy team as a whole (if their ADC has to recall 24/7 he can´t do shit + it forces their Jungler do something). Problems will occur if the Support dies while trying to get advantages since he can´t really expect help from his [still] weak ADC.
This playstyle requires a lot of work/skill from the Support since he has to do the main work in lane while he can´t afford f*ck up. If he f*cks up, he lost bot lane single handily and maybe even the game.
To the question: “Can you compensate an early game ADC with a late game Support?”:Hardly. Most "late game” Supports would be “Sustain” Supports since they excel at keeping their team alive and allow their carries to dish out the damage they need to do.
Even if you peel a Lucian really well, chances are bad that he will carry a team fight compared to a Jinx if they are on even terms.
Edit: Feel free to argue or comment as much as you like, just by doing that I got what I wanted:People thinking about it

Basic Guide for Botlane Match Ups/ Champ Classes

Hi fellow summoners, here is a guide that I wrote a few years ago and kept updating from time to time. It is not perfect and only basic (might be I forgot to add a champ or 2 to be honest but I tried to include every champ, also some stuff might be a bit outdated, I´ll try to fix it up if I find something):
Edit: Before you read any further and be like "Eh but this and that combination isn´t really good because this champ favors this and that blablabla...This guide is meant to show Concepts of how it is supposed to be in general.You always have to adapt depending the match up, player skill, etc.
Types of Botlanes
Everyone knows it: Botlane is a case of its own. With more than 40 different champions played on Botlane, there is a huge amount of possible match ups and types of lanes.
This article is meant to categorize the usual Marksmen played on Botlane to give you an easy to find weaknesses and strengths of each Marksman.Please be aware that a champion can fit into several classes at the same time.
For that we will divide the marksmen into 5 classes:
“Lane Bully”, “Spellcaster”, “Tank Shreds aka On-Hit User” “Hypercarry aka Crit User” and “Utility”

Lane Bullies
What is a “Lane Bully?”A “Lane Bully” is a marksman who has strong laning capabilities and can dominate a lane if he does his job correctly. Most common examples are: Caitlyn, Draven, Lucian, Miss Fortune (most common in Low Elo) Senna, and Varus (Lethality Build). Each of them has strong laning power due to their kit: Caitlyn has the biggest auto attack range of all Marksmen LvL 1, Dravens attack damage is higher than anyone´s else, Lucian can burst down people in a few seconds due his double shot passive, Miss Fortune can zone people with her Q and deal monstrous damage, Senna has good range and built in sustain + her Q applies Glacial Augment and Varus with a Lethality Build can kill people with 3 Q´s.
At the same time these Marksmen usually fall off in the late game (please be aware of Senna here due to her in build infinite scaling) due to their early power (to make them balanced) so they tend to lose more often if they can´t end the same fast.If you play a “Lane Bully”: Try to be aggressive early game and make use of your power to snowball the game into a fast win.If you play against them: Try to play safe and go for farm instead of risky plays.

Spellcasters
What is a “Spellcaster”? A “Spellcaster” is a marksman who relies mostly on his spells to deal damage/ effective.The most common examples are: Ezreal, Aphelios, Jhin, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Samira, Sivir, Varus (Lethality Build) and Xayah.“Spellcaster” put a lot of focus onto their mana management but on the same time they are able to put out a lot of damage/ control on the game if they have the mana they need for their spells. Not every “Spellcaster” is strong in the early game, but every “Spellcaster” can dominate a certain state of game with their kits (Aphelios is special here because he relies less on his mana and “spells” and more about his ammunition and what guns he has and how he uses them but it is still the same idea in my opinion).The downside of playing a “Spellcaster” is pretty similar to the downsides of a mage: If their spells are on cooldown or if they are out of mana, the damage they can deal is way lower than at their best.If you play a “Spellcaster”: Play around your cooldowns and mana. Use your spells to deal as much damage as possible, back off and then go back in when your cooldowns are back up.
If you play against a “Spellcaster”: Make use of cooldowns and the enemy being out of mana. If you see them waste their spells, go in and blow them up.

Tank Shreds
What is a “Tank Shred”?A “Tank Shred” is a marksman who´s main damage comes from effects which get applied with every auto attack. The most common examples are: Kai´Sa, Kalista, Kog Maw, Varus and Vayne.“Tank Shreds” usually have spells in their kit which allow them to deal bonus damage with every attack/ every specific attack numbers. For example: Vayne does bonus damage with her W every three hits, Kai´Sa applies bonus damage after stacking 5 hits of plasma.Almost every time “On-Hit User” go for the same to items: “Krakenslayer” and “Phantom Dancer”. The reason for that is that “Krakenslayer” deals bonus damage every third Auto Attack and “Phantom Dancer” gives 30% bonus attack speed after stacking 4 stacks.
Their Itembuilds rely mostly on attack speed and their effects per attack so the damage per attack is low compared to other marksmen. The longer a fight goes, the stronger a “Tank Shred” gets.
If you play a “Tank Shred”: Play around your stacks. Depending on how much stacks you need, try to fight as long as you need. As Vayne play around your three hits, as Kalista try to stack as many spears as possible and then execute the enemy with your E “Rent”.
If you play against a “Tank Shred”: Be careful of long trades. Since “On-Hit User” get stronger with longer trades, limit yourself to do short trades to deny their strength and reduce their hp before you all in them when they can´t make use of long trades anymore.

Hypercarry:
What is a “Hypercarry”? A “Hypercarry” is a marksman who builds items with “critical strike chance”, the exception here is Kog Maw. The most common examples are: Aphelios, Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jhin, Jinx, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch and Xayah.
“Hypercarries” rely on their “critical chance strike” to deal high amounts of damage with every attack. Critical attacks deal 175% damage instead of the usual 100%. By building “Infinity Edge” the damage gets further increased to 210%. These Marksmen usually buy at least 3 items with “critical strike chance”, with “Infinity Edge” being the “Core” of the build.“Hypercarries” usually get to their strongest point quite late in a game. They need time to farm gold to get their items but when they got them, they outscale most other Marksmen classes.If you play a “Hypercarry”: Try to play safe early on (Only exceptions are Draven and Cailyn depending on match up) and try to farm as much gold as possible to get to your items fast and then crush the game by killing non tanks with 2 or 3 hits. If you play against a “Hypercarry”: Overpower them early on before they can stack up their critical strike chance since their high damage output is based on “luck”. The item parts for “infinity Edge” are quite expensive so try to punish that by forcing them into bad recalls.

Utiliity:
What is a “Utility” marksman? Utility marksmen are marksmen who´s kit revolves around their team for the biggest effect. The most common examples are: Ashe, Kalista, Sivir, Senna and Varus.
They all have an ultimate which needs the team to be useable/ for the best use. They got spells for “the greater good” than just using all of their spells for winning a 1v1. Ashe can catch out a target with her ultimate, Sivir boosts the whole team with movement speed which allows them to either gap close fast to get a good engage or disengage without getting caught that easily. Kalista even need her Oathsworn to activate her ultimate and the W passive (bonus damage if she and her sworn hit the same target in a short amount of time) so she depends even more on her team/ oathsworn to be nearby. To be fair, Varus Ultimate isn´t as “good” as Ashe ultimate due to its range, but on the other hand it provides a possible bind onto all 5 targets and can disrupt the enemy formation pretty well.
If you play a “Utility” marksman: Play around your team. Use the fact that your champion is best when having back up or when trying to make a play/ making the engage. Don´t hesitate to use your ultimate to get a catch on an enemy in the mid- to lategame since this can lead to a free baron, turret or maybe even nashor. Stick with our team and create openings to decide the game in your favor.
If you play against a “Utility” marksman: Be aware of the possible sudden engage by the enemy team using their marksman ultimate. As a tank try to stand in front of your team to “eat up” the ultimate if needed so your carries are still able to respond in a fight and don´t die in the first 2 seconds. Try to catch the marksman off guard and alone (the best would be a pincer attack), so he as to blow his ultimate to escape from one side just to die to the other side and create a 4v5 scenario for your team with the marksman being dead or back to base.

The Triangle of Support:
There are quite a few Supports in the game so there are a lot of different match ups and how a lane can play out depending on who you play against who, etc.
This is a rough outline to group supports in a class, what they are good at and what they struggle with if played correct and how it should play out in theory.
This “Triangle” shows the idea of who beats who
Poke -> All in -> Sustain/ Peel -> Poke ( -> = Beats)

All in
“All in” supports like Alistar, Thresh, Leona, Nautilus, Pyke, Rell etc. excel at going in till either one side is dead or has to back off. This kind of support beats “Sustain” supports since the “Sustain” supports don´t get the time/ chance to really make use of their shields and heals. Your heal won´t help your ADC if he´s going to die anyways.
While they do have an advantage over sustain, they lose out against “Poke Supports”, because they don´t get the chance to all in due to the damage the lane already took by the poke of the enemies. The only chance for you to score kills in such a lane is by going in after coming of a recall so they didn´t have the time to poke you down.
“All in” supports are usually picked with strong early game ADC to force kills and resources from the enemy and get your ADC as much gold advantage as you can early on in the game.

Sustain/ Peel
“Sustain/ Peel” Supports are champions who are able to negate damage due to their kits via shields or heals. Common examples are Bard, Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, Soraka.
Their strong point is to keep their ad carry alive so he stays able to fight and farm in lane despite taking damage.
They beat out the “Poke” supports because they can block the incoming poke via their shields (which can´t be dodged) and are able to deny the high aggression of the enemy botlane. In case of having a heal instead of a shield they can even restore health that got lost by poke if they were not in range or their spells on cooldown to deny the poke.
A “Sustain” support is usually picked with a strong scaling ADC to make sure he survives the lane and get him to his items as safe as possible.
For the "butthurt" people :D :
As a subclass of "Peel" Supports we got the, let´s call them, "Warden" Class: "Warden" Supports are champions who protect their ADC by "thowing themselves between their ADC and the enemy". They wait for the enemy to engage and then counter after the enemy blew their shots to get back at them when they try to retreat. Common examples are: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench.
Their strong point is that they are able to take a punch while offering safety for their allies from enemy champions that try to "dive onto them". They beat the "All in" Supports at their own game because they abuse the fact that the enemy is trying to use their strength and then "swap" their strength into a weakness when they failed.
They usually play rather reactive than proactive since they rely on the enemy to step up first. At the same time they struggle against ranged match ups since they are easy to abuse for the enemy via poke. "Warden" don´t have a good way to deal with that kind of playstyle.

Poke
Poke supports are often times mages who went down from midlane to botlane, like Annie, Brand, Fiddlesticks (a jungler tho), Lux, Morgana, Senna, Seraphine, Vel´Koz, Xerath and Zyra.
Each of them offers quite a bit amount of damage and range with their spells what makes them able to harass the enemy botlane from far away without fearing taking damage in return. Their goal is to harass people do death or to force them back/ to the point where they can´t fight and have to “forfeit” the lane in their favor.Keep an eye on your mana pool and cooldowns since “Poke” supports rely heavily on their mana to deal damage just like “Spellcasters”. If you play Senna out of this bunch of supports, since she has a sustain spell, you can be more aggressive and trade harder since you can heal back up ( take notice on how you use your Q, try to heal up your ADC and yourself and hit the enemy champions for best usage).
For the same reason on one hand this kind of support beats “All in” supports since they deny the possibility of an all-in by the enemy because they are too low on hp to win the fight.
You have to be careful regardless after an “All in” support comes back to lane because that is the best point in time for him to turn onto you.On the other hand they have a hard time against “Sustain” supports due to getting their poke denied or healed back up by “Sustain” supports.
Try to bait out their shield or heal and then dump damage onto them so they can´t block the damage coming in and try to kill them before there cooldowns are coming back up.
“Poke” supports can be picked with early game strong and weak ADC to either enhance the killpressure and the possible lead or to cover the weakness of a weak ADC so they get some breathing room. But if things turn bad they tend to be worse than the other support classes due to them being less “supportive” due to their kit.

Synergies between ADC and Support classes
Overall there are 3 ways to “build” a bot lane. Each way differs in their strengths and purposes and I will just call them “Comfort picks”, “Synergy” and “Compensation” to make it easier to understand.
Comfort picks:
“Comfort picks” is literally what you think, you just play whatever you are best at. This has the chance building a mismatch on bot lane if people don´t communicate a lot with each other because every player plays to his own tune. I bet you all already saw something like a Thresh + Vayne lane where Thresh engaged and Vayne just stood in the back, chilling her life and continues to farm while Thresh fights for his life. What went wrong? The bot lane probably didn´t talk with each other, picked whatever they wanted and now are playing for two different goals. Thresh wants to play aggressive and score a lead in lane while Vayne just wants to sit back and scale up. If they don´t “group” up and play together they are likely to lose bot lane hard. On the same time, because they picked their mains, they are more likely to perform well compared to playing other champions to “fit” something because they know their champion (damage, tankyness, kit, spikes, etc.).

Synergy:
Synergy is when you pick a champion that fits the playstyle of the champion from your partner, e.g.: Thresh-Lucian, Kog´Maw-Lulu, Ashe-Zyra, Draven-Leona.
If you partner picks something that wants to get a lead early game you pick something that is strong early game to help him achieve his goal (winning lane), if he just wants to sit back, farm and scale up (on ADC side) you pick something that excels at peeling so your ADC survives the laning phase (Nami, Yuumi, Lulu, Braum, Tahm Kench, etc.) and can wreck the enemies later on. The downside of this “strategy” is when you can´t achieve your goal (either win lane or scale up) because then you are in a really bad spot.
If you need 5-10 more minutes to hit your item spike as jinx or Tristana, Kai´Sa, etc. the game might be over before you get there and if you lost early game as someone like Lucian, Miss Fortune, Lethality Varus, Caitlyn, etc., depending on match up you might get outscaled by the enemy and will “lose” to their advantage due to their kit later on. If you play against another early game champion, he might snowball the lead onto other lanes so your whole team starts losing, etc.

Compensation:
Compensation is pretty specific and usually works only in one direction and that is the Support compensating the ADC in the early game.
The Support should play a poke/mage support to do this since these champions are very strong in lane and that´s when they want to shine. The poke support has the “duty” to get/ create openings/ advantages for his scaling ADC so he might scale earlie has an easier laning phase. A scaling ADC who can´t get touched is a happy ADC, even more if he gets a few free kills.
The Support shall make the lane more “competitive” so you are able to put more pressure on the enemy team as a whole (if their ADC has to recall 24/7 he can´t do shit + it forces their Jungler do something). Problems will occur if the Support dies while trying to get advantages since he can´t really expect help from his [still] weak ADC.
This playstyle requires a lot of work/skill from the Support since he has to do the main work in lane while he can´t afford f*ck up. If he f*cks up, he lost bot lane single handily and maybe even the game.
To the question: “Can you compensate an early game ADC with a late game Support?”:Hardly. Most "late game” Supports would be “Sustain” Supports since they excel at keeping their team alive and allow their carries to dish out the damage they need to do.
Even if you peel a Lucian really well, chances are bad that he will carry a team fight compared to a Jinx if they are on even terms.

Each Special move used in the entire series so far (As of Prowling Anxiety) in order.

Crippling Depression (Varus)
First Appearance: New Varus Build
Use: Buffering the Ultimate while flashing to get more range on it
Fun Fact: Varus' special move list is called The Arsenal of Abnormalities

Psychotic Anxiety
First Appearance: Understanding Botlane
Use: Using flash to curve Pyke's e for style points or to gain more range to catch enemies just out of range

Autism Zone
First Appearance: Lethality Pyke
Use: Allows Papa to increase his Chromosomes tenfold for a short amount of time but is useless unless Papa already has a large amount ready.
Fun Fact: The name was later changed to Asberger Syndrome due to Copyright and Papa wanting to make a callback to the Nexus Blitz filler episode and was changed to only be allowed to access one at 80% or more autism level.

Forgotten Dememtia
First Appearance: Lethality Pyke
Use: Papa dashes with his E and uses his R to curve the phantom so it hits his opponent.

(Not a special move) Pink Pyke Cloak
First Appearance: ppp
Use: While wearing the Pink Pink Cloak Papa gains the power of gayness becoming so powerful that no words in the human vocabulary can describe him forcing the narrator to go silent while Papa wrecks his enemies
Fun Fact: I will be including characters different forms on this List.

(Not a special move) Blood Moon Pyke Skin
First Appearance: Blood Moon Pyke
Use: While in this form Papa's chromosome power is boosted however it requires a large amount of chromosomes to remain in this form.
Fun Fact: In order to gain access to this power Papa had to join the Blood Moon Clan and perform the ritual of paying the 5$ lifetime membership fee.

Crippling Depression (Pyke)
First Appearance: Pyke is very weak and definitely needs the buffs. Thank you League of Legends!
Use: Using flash to buffer the use on Pyke's q to get more range.

Menacing Menpause
First Appearance: Pyke is very weak and definitely needs the buffs. Thank you League of Legends!
Use: A 3 hit combo of Q, E backwards, Tiamat (or just a regular AA depending on the season) to proc Electrocute to get his target low enough for an execute with his R.
Fun Fact: This move probably changed the most during the series as its core component of Tiamat and sometimes even Electrocute were removed depending on how viable they were on Pyke. It is also the most usable of Pyke's Weapons of Disorder as it doesn't require flash or too many chromosomes.

Epileptic Epitaph
First Appearance: Clean Combos
Use: Allows Papa to see 10 seconds into the future. Papa can spend more chromosomes to see farther. Papa must already be at high chromosome levels to use Epileptic Epitaph although the exact level vary based on different translations, manga, or anime.
Fun Fact: Although it first appeared in Clean Combos Epileptic Epitaph was only scarsley used in episodes like The Duty of a Carry, Tenacity Stacking etc. and it didn't even get its name until Auto win at level 16. (It was just called precognative ability until then).

Chromosome Stealing
First Appearance: BAN SYLAS
Use: Being only usable by a select few characters It allows them to steal the chromosomes of other characters and gain the power of them.
Fun Fact: This ability was first used by Sylas and is the main reason he is my fav character. No other character (yes even Evil Morde and Evil Papa) made me feel so much dread when they appeared. The way he just ruthlessly stole WhyGuy's chromosomes still gives me chills each time i watch the episode. There are only 3 characters who have demonstrated having innatley having this ability (Sylas, Papa. Evil Papa).

The Snap
First Appearance: Tenacity Stacking
Use: At the Cost of 50% of the League playerbase WhyGuy can skip his Promos. This only works if Papa has been in The Hardstuck Zone for atleast a month and if Papa recieves a comment asking for more cliffhangers.

Shining Jaundice
First Appearance: Well Designed Item
Use: Using either the Stopwatch or Zhonya's Hourglass the user's skin becomes golden protecting them from any harm for 2.5.
Fun Fact: Anyone can use this special move and it was used throughout the entire series but first got a name in the episode Well Designed Item.

Lazy Editing
First Appearance: Return to Masters
Use: At the cost of 88% Autism level WhyGuy can erase the process of a game skipping it entirely.
Fun Fact: Papa's most costly move which has only been used once in the entire series so far.

Death Realm Warp
First Appearance: Well Designed Rework
Use: Usable only by the current Ruler of the Death realm (Currently Mordekaiser) it allowes them to warp themselves and 1 other person into the death realm for 1 on 1 combat within a confined space
Fun fact: It's time for most peoples favorite villain: Evil Mordekaiser! While I personally like Sylas more, the sheer power Mordekaiser presents from here on out towards the entire series unquestionably makes him a very close second.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (or ADHD for short)
First Appearance: Well Designed Rework
Use: A move created by Papa specifically to counter Morde's Death Realm Warp which puts his body in constant motion becoming UNCONTAINABLE.
Fun Fact: One of Papa's most worthless moves due to only being a counter to 1 specific thing makes this move very weak. But the fact that someone forced Papa to create an entirely new move speaks volumes for Morde himself. What a shame that this move is very easily countered.

Tourettic Transition
First Appearance: Pyka and Sona Bot Lane
Use: At the cost of Autism Levels Papa can skip anywhere betweeen 10 seconds and 20 minutes of a game.
Fun Fact: Like Epileptic Epitaph this ability appeared a long time before it actually got its name in Harvesting my adversaries with Dark Harvest Pyke.

Crippling Anxiety
First Appearance: Pyka and Sona Bot Lane
Use: A combo move where Papa and Varus combine the moves Crippling Depression and Psychotic Anxiety to form a new even more powerful move.
Fun Fact: This is the very first combo move used in the series and I must say that it's pretty cool.

Dead Weight
First Appearance: Mordekaiser's Revenge
Use: This move enhances the users desire to strategically iINT without getting banned
Fun Fact: This move is most often used in the series by villains and very rarely by allies of Whydra.

Radiating Retardation
First Appearance: Dominating with Domination Runes
Use: The users chromosomes increase by 3 for every second that passes while in this state.
Fun Fact: This move can be techincally used even at low Autism Levels but due to it's high cost when you leave this state it's very unsafe to use it while below 90% Autism Levels.

(Not a special move) Project Pyke Suit
First Appearance: PROJECT: Pyke
Use: When wearing this cybernetic form Papa stays at a permanent 80% Autism level and has a permanent Epileptic Epitaph installed. The suit also has a built-in casette player and a navigation assistant.
Fun Fact: Papa rarely uses this suit after its first appearance even after it was cleansed of the virus due to the fact that Papa prefers the risk of losing Autism levels for the reward of more than 80% than the safetey of a permanent 80%. Evil WhyGuy also wears a pink chroma on his suit to combine the powers of the PROJECT Suit and the ppc (Pink Pyke Cloak).

Cybernetic Anxiety
First Appearance: Mama vs Papa of Realm 51
Use: PROJECT Pyke's version of Psychotic Anxiety.
Fun Fact: We don't know which of the 2 moves is stronger but my guess is it depends on the amount of chromosomes the current user has.

Technostressing Depression
First Appearance: Mama vs Papa of Realm 51
Use: PROJECT Pyke's version of Crippling Depression.

Diminishing Discrimination
First Appearnace: League of Legends makes me sad
Use: After landing her Q Mama smashes her keyboard with utmost finesse dealing massive damage and enlightening teammates that Supports should not be underestimated.
Fun Fact: Mama has decided that instead of focusing on various diffeerent moves for different situations she will just perfect 1 move that can be used in any situation. I am still sad that this means we will most likely never see the other moves in the Feminist Movement though (Whining Wamen, Bobcut buster, Entitled Endurance).

Cultural Appropiration
First Appearance: Swain OP! Must ban instead of Pyke
Use: By becoming a bird himself Papa enducated uncultured 2 birds with his might showing them the power of Swain.
Fun Fact: I only put this on the list due to a YouTube comment as I don't even really see this as a special move.

Vision of Whydra
First Appearance: YouTube comments made me a better Swain player
Use: Thanks to the help of all Swain mains within Whydra Papa unlocked his 2nd move in The Communist Manifesto where he hits an enemy with his full power W changing the game according to his vision.
Fun Fact: Welcome to Swain's own set of special moves: The Communist Manifesto.

Cold War
First Appearance: Game Changing Snipes
Use: With the help of a german science device, Papa shoots out icicles while in his ultimate form running at them with Appreach Velocity.

Death Defying Time Skip
First Appearance: Deadliest Weight
Use: With the help of an Ad Papa skips his own death
Fun Fact: Once again I am hesitant to even include this as it is more of a flashy way of using Tourettic Transition.

Blighting Vasectomy
First Appearance: The Arrow of Retribution Returns
Use: Hitting an enemy with a fully charged Q while his W is up to completely destroy a far away enemy

Crippling Vasectomy
First Appearance: Autofilled Varus Mid
Use: Similar to Blighting Vasectomy but now with Flash added in for more range.

Sniping Seizure
First Appearance: Sentinels of Light vs Shadow Isles
Use: Senna shoots a blast of combined Light and Darkness at a far away low hp enemy killing them with so much power that PaMa (Papa and Mama) undergoes a short seizure from the satisfaction.

Reverse Your Kill
First Appearance: Insane Healing with Fleet Footwork
Use: Using Piercing darkness while imbued with the power of Fleet Footwork, taste of Blood and Adent Censer, Senna overcomes the weakness of being squishy with massive healing powers.

Wildfire Windup
First Appearance: AP Maokai with Ocean Rift is Free Win
Use: A combo of TreeGuy's non-ultimate abilities starting with Twisted Advance, Brambly Smashing his target near his Sapling burning the target's body on a molecular level so fast like a Wildfire
Fun Fact: Behold TreeGuy's special moves: The Armaments of Nature!

Forest Grump
First Appearance: AP Maokai with Ocean Rift is Free Win
Use: TreeGuy's version of Crippling Depression where he flashes and then Twisted Advances for a suprise root.

(Not a special move) Reforest Frustration
First Appearance: AP Maokai with Ocean Rift is Free Win
Use: A passive ability where WhyGuy's chomosomes sync with nature giving him more options to plant empowered saplings while frustrating his enemies.

Rheumatic Roots
First Appearance: AP Maokai with Ocean Rift is Free Win
Use: Using Nate's Grasp out of vision to catch the enemy off guard and root 3 or more enemies.
Fun Fact: This move is best used when contesting Objectives.

(Not a special move) Amazon Bushfire
First Appearance: Bites the Bush
Use: Used by Evil Papa to burn the entire Rift reducing the amount of bushes and limiting TreeGuy's power.

Bites the Bush
First Appearance: Bites the Bush
Use: Using Epileptic Epitaph Papa forsees someone entering a specific bush at low health and plants a Sapling in preparation to utterly annihilate them.
Fun Fact: This easily lands in my top 5 moves just for the amazing effects the anime used to show it's power.

Psychotic Assault
First Appearance: Getting my Pyke back in shape
Use: A variation of Psychotic Anxiety where he hits someone with his q before his e to do more damage.

Forgotten Dementia: Ultima
First Appearance: OMNISTONE
Use: A variation on Forgotten Dementia which involves Pyke's Q

Pedophiliac Predator
First Appearance: OMNISTONE
Use: WhyGuy's pedophiliac tendancies spread across the Rift warning any nearby enemies that enter his vicinity.

Sedentary Stroke
First Appearance: Easy Executes with Dark Harvest
Use: By standing completely still Papa managed to perfectly blend into the background

Crippling Counter
First Appearance: Omnistone Sett
Use: By filling Sett's testosterone gauge up to 75% papa blasts his enemies in a wide radius dealing true damage to those caught in the middle
Fun Fact: Meet Sett a.k.a. Testosterone Furry

Paraplegic Pursuit
First Appearance: Hexflash Powerspike
Use: A fully channeled Hexflash followed by a burst of movement speed from Nimbus Cloak, Celerity and Sett's Q

Prowling Anxiety
First Appearance: Prowling Anxiety
Use: Extending the reach of Psychotic Anxiety with the use of Prowler's Claw

State of Attack Damage Carries

*WARNING\* I'm not some uber mega challenger 1000 lp player, I'm just an average Joe who thought about writing something about his favorite role in his favorite game, and as such, this is a rather subjective view of Attack Damage Carry.
Hey y'all! ADC is fun, and as I said earlier I thought about typing something up for Attack Damage Carries in the bot lane (no not you Swain). Here goes nothing.
Kai'sa - Top tier. Mobility, stealth, mixed damage, survivability, Kai'sa's got it all. Itemization is always fluid with Kai'sa and many players try to reach all 3 evolutions. She can basically build whatever and get away with it. Only slight shortcoming is her mediocre range much causes her to get bullied in lane by the likes of Ashe and such, but that doesn't stop her from being the most picked ADC (according to OP.GG as of 2/1/21 she has a whopping 54.27% winrate).
Samira - Also top tier. Samira is basically "I kill you before you kill me". Once she hits that S rank and has at least one capable teammate to set up for her, she can shred through the entire enemy team. Shieldbow makes sure that she stays alive while she does that too, and her E makes sure they can't run away or vice versa. Once again has rather short range, but oodles of damage makes up for it.
Miss Fortune - Miss Fortune is not like the past two ADCs. MF has no built in dash or survivability. What she makes up with is her ridonculous amounts of damage two very good build paths: PTA, Galeforce, Collector, etc. or Comet. Manamune, Eclipse, and into more lethality/crit. MF basically exists to press R (as shown in C9 vs 100T a week or so back where Zven managed to get back to back Pentas) and auto with her Crit build or to spam her abilities with her Poke build. She has a rather strong laning phase too with her Q and E, which all combine together to set her at the front of the pack.
Jhin - My man and pseudomain. Jhin is like MF. Able to use the shiny new marksman and lethality items very well, but dashless and squishy. He makes up for it by having a very strong laning phase, and being able to set up for other plays a screen away with his W. Good Jhins hit all four shots during R, the best Jhins constantly drop traps. What stunts him is his awkward reload mechanic which many players aren't used to, capped attack speed, and rather large amount of skillshots (Yes, I too am a victim of ADC syndrome). Otherwise, Lightning McQueen hits hard and zooms fast (Seriously tho, try max movespeed Jhin, it is no joke).
Vayne - Hunter of Monsters and LP. Vayne has been the traditional late-game ADC for god knows how long, and has settled in nicely into this hectic season. Able to use the marksman items well, combined with her superb kit make for one lean mean monster killing machine. The rageblade changes have hurt her a bit, but my girl is tough and she moves on. Although Vayne is overshadowed by the likes of Kai'sa and Samira which basically does what she does better, she is certainly still a force to be reckoned with.
Lucian - Dashman. Though not very often seen in his "main" role of ADC anymore and more commonly flexed to the top or mid lane in pro play, Lucian is still a relatively strong pick in the bottom lane of Summoner's Rift. His short range is made up for by his ubiquitous doubletaps and dashes which are the hallmark of his kit. Lucian is also able to use the marksman items well, particularly Kraken Slayer, Essence Reaver, and Navori Quickblades which allow him to spam his abilities like back in the days of old with Spear of Shojin.
Ashe - Pew Pew archer. Ashe is a very good ADC to practice fundamentals with e.g. kiting, good positioning, etc. She was really popular for a time due to her Manamune Imperial build, but after Rito changed that she has mostly defaulted back to her DPS build. What limits Ashe is her lack of a dash and survivability, but she makes up for it with loads of utility, damage, and range. Overall a very solid pick, but outshined by most of the aforementioned.
Tristana - Also another traditional ADC hypercarry. You would think Tristana would be amazing. Has a dash, oodles of damage, and self peel with ulti. So why's she not at the front? Mostly due to a bad matchup into Kai'sa and that Tris needs time to scale. Games aren't taking as long and usually end somewhere shy of the 30 min mark, which is about where Tris starts to REALLy come online. Also assassins are ~~broken~~ very strong right now which is bad for this role in general.
Senna - Senna has a special place in my heart. She's probably my favorite ADC to play. Senna suffers from the same shortcomings as Jhin and Tris. She needs time to scale, and her attack speed is funky which causes a lot of players to shy away from her. But if you're willing to take the time to learn her and hopefully your games go long enough, she is an absolute monster as seen in heh C9 vs 100T. Senna also got some buffs and a theory crafted new Kraken Slayer Rageblade build which may boost her a bit, but we've yet to see the numbers reflect this.
Aphelios - Aphelios used to be dummy broken, the definition of 200 years. Insane AOE damage, healing, the works. Now Aphelios is sort of this jack of all trades, master of none character who's weapons give him wide utility, but the inconsistency of his ammo mechanic stops him from being an utter beast. Additionally, the nerf to Kraken Slayer's interaction with Severum's Q certainly hasn't helped him much. Aphelios is very hard mechanically, but players who learn him reap the benefits?
Caitlyn - The ol' sheriff has seen better times. She was very dominant for a time being, and Rito decided enough was enough and knocked her down. Caitlyn saw multiple nerfs which resulted in her fall from grace, though Rito has seen this and given her some love recently. Caitlyn also suffers from a lack of survivability and a good dash (no e doesn't count, it's barely a dash), though some still manage to pull her off like xFSN Saber. Caitlyn's attack speed in the early game is extremely low, which makes laning a difficult manuever. Caitlyn's overreliance on combos to dish out fatty damage and nerfed kit are the reason for her bad placement on the totem pole.
Ezreal - What happened to Ez? For as long as he's been in the game, Ezreal has been prevalent in the bot lane and was at one point the most popular ADC. Yet as of recently, my boi has been struggling. His inability to use the new crit items and manamune nerfs combined with the shining stars of Kai'sa and Samira have caused him to take a backseat for now.
Draven - Draven will forever be immortalized by his chief proponent: Tyler1. Draven on paper should be great, able to use items well, has great damage, but once again a lack of survivability, an overreliance on axes, and Kai'sa/Samire are what stops him from greatness.
Kalista - Almost done here, bare with me. Kalista has a special place in pro play because of her objective control with E (though I haven't played her enough after the nerf to it long yonder to know if this is still the case), engage potential with ulti, and unparalleled. ability to kite. What sets her back is a small range which can result in her being counterpicked by Ashe and such, mechanical difficulty in her passive, and that her attacks only do 90% of AD.
Sivir - Sivir used to be utterly broken in Season 9. Then Rito nerfed her mana costs to high heaven and here we are today. Sivir has gotten some love recently from Rito, but she hasn't seemed to make a comeback. Her spell shield and ulti provide some insane utility, but the fact that W can't proc onhits is a major shortcome. Also Sivir gets face rolled by Vayne who is strong right now so :/
Xayah - Xayah used to be really strong too. Emphasis on used to be. Now you rarely see her, unless she's paired up with Rakan which makes her painfully average. Xayah needs time to scale, but unlike other champs that do she doesn't have many redeeming factors to make up for it. She also has bad matchups into almost every meta ADC so rip birdwoman.
Twitch - RATATATATATAT. Twitch is a late game monster with the potential to hypercarry. Sadly, like I've said before, games usually end before he's able to reach his potential. Coupled with squishiness and no dash, Twitch is outshined and rekt by his counterparts in the botlane. But the new AP build and buffs to his kit yield promise. Maybe I'll get one shot out of stealth again soon?
Varus - Varus suffers from many of the aforementioned problems. No dash, squishy, and no survivability. Combined with his overreliance on skillshots, Varus is just simply not good enough to compete with the meta. Also R is ridiculously slow now and that was a cornerstone of his kit.
Jinx - Jinx finds herself here at the bottom of the pack. Personally, I don't think Jinx is that bad. Her potential to pop off, passive resets, and oodles of damage should redeem her lack of a dash and survivability. But once again she needs time to scale which she simply doesn't have.
Alright folks that's it! If you made it to the end congrats, and may the odds be ever in your favor on the rift!

I feel terrible for deriding this 0/10 Varus.

2021 LEC Preseason Power Rankings

Hello there! LCK Rankings seemed to go pretty well and LCK and LPL has started already! So might as well keep it coming with LEC Rankings.
I have a fair bit of confidence in LEC. I've spent a lot of time watching the EU Masters scene, along with Prime League and LFL. So a lot of these newer players I have some insight on. Also, LEC is going to be a heck of a lot of fun this year. Compared to LCS, LEC develops their young talent so much better and it will be a joy to watch them come onto the stage. As always, I understand that I can learn more as I go from people who watch even more intensely and insightfully. I'm willing to grow every day.
I've wanted to do this a lot for each region because I find it very hard to find player rankings in a lot of Power Rankings (not to mention it being hard to find power rankings themselves for regions like LCK and LPL in english). I know I'm not the #1 source on all these regions. Sometimes not even close (As I've learned doing LPL Rankings). However, I put a lot of time and work to give people some talking points before each season begins and I hope people can enjoy, converse and appreciate that. Okay, enough small talk. Lets get to it!

10 - Astralis (10th in Ceiling, 9th in Floor)

Top: Whiteknight - 10th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Zanzarah - 9th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Nukeduck - 9th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Jeskla - 9th ranked ADC
Support: Promisq - 10th ranked Support

A year after Origen (No longer in the league) put out one of the highest hype level teams in the league, Astralis acquired their spot in 2021 and creates....one of the least hype level teams LEC has seen in a long time. There's not much to say positively with this roster, but there a few things that could bring hope. First is Whiteknight, who has one literal thing going for him: The hope Malphite is meta. Last year, Whiteknight went 5-0 on Malphite games in Prime Division on BIG. However, his overall performances all year left a lot to be desired. Outside of a few standout performances, he has been very forgettable the past few years. And most of that is in PRIME League. Not to mention his horrendous split on UOL a few years back. Of the bottom tier top laners, it's easy to have very little confidence in Whiteknight over his past performances. Then comes Zanzarah. Of the AGO ROGUE players, the one with the least hype is probably Zanzarah. This doesn't mean he's a bad player. His 9th place ranking is really that the other junglers are quite hyped coming in. However of every Astralis player, he could easily have the standout split of the team and outplay this ranking. To do that, he will need to expand his pool a bit like he did in the most recent tournament for AGO Rogue. Most of the year saw him on Sett, Sejuani, Trundle and Jarvan IV. He'll need to show he's capable of carry champions on the LEC scene if Astralis wants a shot. Nukeduck is on the team because LEC can not stop the "Year of Nukeduck" memes. The one remaining Origen member was the weakest member of the team. While Nukeduck has a deep champion pool, none of them have stood out for quite some time. Most LEC teams seem to have him figured out. While he CAN be an impact at times, it's too inconsistent. Then there's the fresh bot lane from Mouseports. Jeskla had some good performances in PRIME League's Grand Final, where his Jhin and Caitlyn looked lethal in team fights. He has the potential to be a solid carry, but needs more development and time on the big stage. For Promisq, not many are sure if he's got much, even after he was the famed sub for G2's super team a few years back. He's got the flexibility to play many champions, however his laning and warding is a big issue for him against top tier supports, which PRIME league lacked last year. A lot feel he'll be outclassed once he reaches the LEC stage, especially in lane with Jeskla who, outside his Caitlyn, seems to struggle a bit laning himself in his young career. This is a team with a lot of possible weaknesses and no true strengths. If they look to surprise, they will need to come out with serious chemistry over the other teams. Otherwise, Astralis will likely just be steamrolled over throughout the split.

9 - SK Gaming (9th in Ceiling, 10th in Floor)

Top: Jenax - 8th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Tynx - 4th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Blue - 10th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Jezu - 10th ranked ADC
Support: Treatz - 9th ranked Support

SK Gaming is probably one of the trickiest teams ranking for the LEC. There's a lot of possibilities for how the players could play. While potential could be really surprising, each came from very different situations last year to form one really quirky team. However, there is a clear spotlight on the team's jungler Tynx. Of all the new junglers and middle ground junglers, Tynx has some of the highest potential. His games last year for LDCL were pretty spectacular overall. Between his great team fighting Skarner, his aggressive Trundle and Lee Sin, his favorite jungler who his still meta in Graves' pure aggression and his overall control of the jungle and his lanes with a plethora of picks, he became the LFL jungler to be truly feared. The big question is if it can translate to LEC. But plenty of EU personalities are extremely high on Tynx and feel he can be a jungler that can surpass Razork and even Gilius in the middle of the pack. His work will be cut out for him though with the rest of this roster. Jenax is the team's top laner, yet a good portion of his 2020 experience was in the mid lane. In Spring of 2020, Jenax played mid lane for SK Gaming. The performances did not have a strong impact for SK, yet the team decided to keep him on and move him to the top lane. Jenax became the tank/team fight specialist for SK, with decent results but very little carry potential. He'll likely have the same role this year, which puts him near the bottom, due to his limited goals for the year. Blue is a mid laner coming from Fenebrance in the TCL. Blue actually had strong stats in the Spring Split of TCL, with a lot of MVP performances going his way. Syndra, Sylas and even a Yasuo game highlighted his strong spring. However, his Summer Split went very poorly. Blue struggled to have good performances in a region lacking much in mid lane. He played better on aggressive champs, yet failed to bring up good team fighting performances on control mages. With the current meta, it leaves a lot of worry for Blue in LEC, known for their talent in the mid lane. The bot lane could be the key for success here. Jezu comes from Misifts Premier of the LFL. He's a fresh prospect at ADC, yet his team fighting ability and setup on champions like Miss Fortune, Ashe and Ezreal shined in 2020. However, his laning stats need work, especially his CSing. He'll pair up with Treatz, who played for TSM in Academy and on their main team for a short stint. Honestly, Treatz was not bad on a team that felt like a jumbled mess when his was on the main team. He was strong sticking next to his ADC on a TSM team of pure chaos. With a little improvement in potential roaming and warding for team fights and developing good chemistry with Jezu, he can enable the youngster for success. SK will have to mesh well to surprise. However, there's a lot of younger talent with potential here and could move up in Summer, if the younger core blossom on the LEC stage.

8 - Excel Esports (8th in Ceiling, 7th in Floor)

Top: Kryze - 9th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Dan - 8th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Czekolad - 6th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Patrik - 3rd ranked ADC
Support: Tore - 8th ranked Support

Excel is a really compelling team for the LEC that might not get the same hype as other teams, due to the fact their overall performance in 2020 left a lot more questions than definitive answers. Kryze is one of the weaker top lane performers from Summer Split. After his strong Spring Split on Unicorns of Love Sexy Edition, highlighted by his Ryze play, Kryze came to Excel as a hopeful prospect into the Summer Split. However, his transition from aggressive style of Ryze/Gangplank/VladimiCamille did not have success on the European stage. His KDA was pretty rough all around, not to mention one of the lowest kill participation stats of any player last year. Summer Split was an eye opener and his champ pool limitations showed. He rarely played tanks all split and even on his potential carry champions, he found very little results in kills and map control. Going forward, he'll need to show more adaptability and that when he does pick carry picks, he can execute against the LEC's best and help his team get more consistent wins. The other returning pieces to this team are the bot lane of Patrik and Tore. Patrik is still considered a monster ADC, in some eyes the second best in the league behind Rekkles. Last year, Patrik pulled off one of the most unbelievable plays on Aphelios that embodied the "200 years" meme. Patrik quite literally 1v5ed G2's team to help secure Excel a win. Given a carry champion, Patrik can carry in remarkable ways. With what we've seen from LPL so far, that bodes well for him in Spring 2021. The only real issue was his struggles in Spring 2020. But his talent level is insane. The guy beside him in Tore gets punished in these ratings unfairly. Tore's a good player. Very solid. He performed quite well statistically last year and showed a good champ pool. His decisions helped empower Patrik and on a team with a clear identity, he did good on his specific role. The support pool is very deep and flexible in LEC. It would be good for Excel if Tore can develop a better roaming game, in order to empower elsewhere. They might need more of that with a new jungler in Dan. Dan comes in from Fnatic Rising, who dominated UKLC in Spring and NLC in Summer. However, a lot of wondered if Dan would ever make LEC, being on the scene as early as 2014. While he's known around Fnatic for his communication and knowledge of the game, the mechanical prowess has not shown when he has been given plenty of time in Fnatic's developmental scene and even substitution opportunities, to show he deserved a promotion. Last year, he relied a LOT on VolibeaGraves. It will be a big year for him to prove that his experience will merit results and he can be a worthy LEC player. While the hype might be low for Dan, the hype is high for the new mid laner in Czekolad. Another AGO Rogue product of last year, Czekolad might very well be the most exciting of the bunch. Known throughout the year for his Azir, Orianna and Syndra, Czekolad has flexibility in his picks, play style and impact. When AGO Rogue needed him to carry, he carried. At EU Masters in Summer, Czekolad averaged over 5.7 kills per game and an average KDA of 5.5 for the tournament. There's a lot of hope he'll bring some hype to an Excel team needing some excitement somewhere outside the bot lane. If Czekolad can find it, Dan can be the consistent, reliable jungler and Kryze can improve, this team could have a sneaky chance at fighting for a spot in the playoffs.

7 - Team Vitality (7th in Ceiling, 6th in Floor)

Top: Sygenza - 6th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Skeanz - 10th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Milica - 7th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Comp - 6th ranked ADC
Support: Labrov - 5th ranked Support

Team Vitality are looking to do something similar in their building of their team that went to Worlds in 2018. A team with most of their growing roster from last year returning will look to build on their impressive performances from Summer Split. The new addition to the team comes in the top lane. Yet another AGO Rogue product, Sygenza brings a lot to the table. His champion pool has developed throughout the year, each with their own style. While his team fighting picks like Gangplank, Aatrox and Renekton are his specialty, he plays pure tanks like Sett and Ornn well, along with some split pushing games on Camille and even assassin games on Akali. His time on AGO Rogue showed his flexibility and potential. The question is can he be that flexible and effective against the LEC talent, which will be a much tougher task than in Ultraliga and EU Masters. How he plays against the likes of Armut, Broken Blade, Odoamne, Wunder and Bwipo will be the true test of his potential. The biggest disappointment for this team last year was the play of jungler Skeanz. In 27 games in the LEC last year, Skeanz found wins in 5 of them. Statistically, he wasn't awful. However, his overall impact of the game felt lacking in a lot of Vitality's games. It's a big reason he was benched to begin the Summer Split in favor of Nji. However, he came back and performed better on the Summer iteration of Vitality. However, he needs to show a lot more consistency and impact, if he wants to be a key cog for this team. In the mid lane returns Milica, who only got to show his skills in the Summer Split. However, he brought a lot of positives when he did play. Showing off 10 different champs in 18 games, his mid game rotations and team fight prowess came through clutch in a lot of Vitality's wins. However, he didn't really stand out in any specific thing amongst mid laners in the league and could use some work positioning around the map and roaming for his other lanes, when he has the chance. Still, his growth could very well be the key to Vitality's success. The highlight of last year for Vitality came from their bot lane. Comp and Labrov really shined together. Comp really put himself together in Summer and improved his positioning in team fights and laning struggles. When Vitality was succeeding, Comp was very good at laying down incredible, consistent damage on champions like Caitlyn, Ezreal and Kalista. There's still more for him to grow on in lane and expanding his pool, but Summer was massive for it. However, it was even bigger for Labrov. Coming in from BIG in the PRIME league for the Summer Split, Labrov shined next to Comp and really became one of the surprise impact supports in the league. His movement around the map and playmaking opened a new avenue for Vitality to become playmakers and dictate the pace of the game, especially on his mobile mages like Lulu, Yuumi and Bard. He held the highest kill participation of any support in the league's Summer Split for supports that played at least 10 games....by over 8%. The consistency is a big one for him to improve on, but he's definitely a key to this team's success, if not THE key. This relatively young roster will rely on everyone to be key contributors. If they can get that, they're definitely in the running for playoffs and will scare even the top teams, when they're on point.

6 - Misfits Gaming (6th in Ceiling, 8th in Floor)

Top: HiRit/Agresivoo - 7th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Razork - 6th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Vetheo - 8th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Kobbe - 7th ranked ADC
Support: VandeDenyk - 4th ranked Support

While it's VERY close race from 6th to 8th and Excel and Vitailty have cases to be in this spot, Misfits has the little bit more flair to them which could end up being a beacon of hope or a disaster. Misfits are yet again fielding more than five players, something Western teams have stayed away from after past failures. This includes two starting top laners in HiRit and Agresivoo. Agresivoo is the project from Misfits Premier, who many feel will be the starter for their first game. He performed very well, especially on the EU Masters stage. His laning will need improvement, as his farm numbers are a bit low compared to the LEC top lane pool. However, he's a great team fighter capable of commanding carry champions and tanks alike. If he doesn't start, Misfits will go with former LDCL top laner HiRit. The last time HiRit played on a pro stage was in Turkey, but he left a good mark for Fenebrance. Highlighted by his Aatrox in Spring 2020, HiRit's team fighting prowess helped Fenebrance dominate Turkey en route to a title for the split. However, he did not play in Summer and did have a high death count, even with Fenebrance's success. Still, his laning and team fighting are strong points. The question for Misfits will be if he can replicate that for them or if Agresivoo is the better option. Both are extremely capable of being good top laners in LEC. The jungler will be Razork's place to reign for Misfits once again. Razork's big plus side is his innovation. His Fiddlesticks game out of nowhere really left a bright mark on his record. However, his consistency labels him a "coin-flip" jungler a lot. When he goes to influence the game, he either sets Misfits up for success or sets them up for failure. It could be even worse in Spring, as the meta still favors heavy farm clearing junglers that get ahead, which Razork is much better on play makers like Sejuani, Lee Sin and Gragas. A big outlet for Razork's playmaking was in the mid lane, which is now occupied by Vetheo. Another LDCL project, this time from 2020, Vetheo comes in with a bit of a deep and wonky champion pool. His growth throughout the year in becoming a more team fight involved mid laner really shined at EU Masters, highlighted by his Zoe and Orianna. However, Vetheo is a very "green" prospect. On LDCL, he made a lot of baffling decisions and needs lots of work on map awareness. If he doesn't clean that up, LEC teams will pounce at every opportunity. Mechanically though, there's a lot to be hyped for if he can flesh out the decision making. Then there's Kobbe. A former superstar of the European LCS a few years ago on Spylce, Kobbe took the Spring to try out NA on TSM. When that fell apart, he came back to Misfits for Summer. Kobbe's best performances last year were on hyper carry attack speed champions like Kai'sa, Xayah and Varus. With the meta shifting that way and a more reliable support next to him, this could be a year of Kobbe returning to form. His synergy with the rest of the team will be key, as his positioning put him in dire situations last year and cost Misfits a lot. Next to him is the likely starting support in Vander. While Denyk is still on the roster and a very capable and aggressive support, Vander comes in the likely starter. Vander was spectacular on Rogue last year, making strong team fight plays on his Nautilus and Braum regularly. His veteran leadership and strong warding around objectives will help a lot, along with his supportive style giving Kobbe a lot of room to work. If he can pull the trigger more often and be a tiny bit more aggressive on engages for his team to follow up on, something Misfits lacked last year at all of their positions, he could be a key cog to get this roster that holds plenty of carry potential players into the playoffs and give the top LEC teams something to watch out for.

5 - FC Schalke (5th in Ceiling, 4th in Floor)

Top: Broken Blade - 4th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Gilius - 5th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Abbedagge - 4th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Neon - 8th ranked ADC
Support: LIMIT - 6th ranked Support

After their near dream run to Worlds last year, Schalke has retooled their roster and looks to find a better rhythm to start the season, replacing two key positions on their team. Whether they succeed or not will likely depend on how much impact they can carry from their fantastic run at the end of Summer. One of those new pieces is Broken Blade. His stats leave a bit to be desired, but the amount of pressure he accumulated for TSM most of their season really shows his prowess, especially with his outplay potential in 1v2 situations. His champion pool is also a huge plus, as both splits BB fielded at least 11 unique champions in the 18 game splits. He did great work on a TSM team last year, going through the ringer on decision making and execution. On a more stable situation in Schalke, especially if they can get off to a better start, he could shine in a league that has a lot of question marks in top laners this season. For the fans of god Gilius, they were excited to hear of his return to the squad. Gilius bounced around from Schalke's main team to their Prime league team most of the season. However, after Schalke's 0-6 start, Gilius returned to the main roster. After a 1-4 start with him there, Schalke went on a rampage, winning 7 straight games to finish 8-10 and squeak their way into the playoffs. His aggressive style and expertise of Sejuani, along with his willingness to embrace the meta on picks like Nocture, Kha'Zix and Lee Sin gave Schalke the edge they needed over the other LEC teams. It might not have ended in Worlds, but hopes are super high for Gilius yet again, as the meta has stayed similar to the jungle meta of last Summer. The other key piece to Schalke's run was Abbedagge. One of the most aggressive mid laners in Spring Split, Abbedagge played with fire in lane. His laning usually left him near the top of CSing among all mid laners for both splits. However on the big run for Schalke, he played a lot more confident, dying much less and using his lane priority a lot more effectively. His pool is incredibly deep and with his control mages (specifically Orianna, Azir and Zoe) one of his strengths, the meta should set up extremely well for him yet again. The question mark for this team comes in the bot lane. Neon is the ADC yet again. Neon only joined the team in Summer, after spending Spring in Schalke's Prime League squad. It's not really fair to look at him lowly at eighth. He's a very safe laner and plays well to Schalke's win conditions during their run. Mainly taking team fight oriented marksman like Ashe, Senna and Ezreal in order to help the team win. However, that could get tricky with a meta that seems to favor hyper carry ADC's more than utility. The key will be Neon's chemistry with new support LIMIT. A great example of a player growing a lot from Spring to Summer, LIMIT really shined in the Summer Split for SK Gaming. His movement into roaming playmakers like Bard, Morgana and Thresh became a key for a team desperate for answers in moving the game forward. His fit with Crownshot was fantastic and his kill participation was one of the highest among supports in the league for Summer. However, his role could be amplified with Neon's safe laning. Still, this league has some incredible supports. You could very well make the case between him, Tore and even the potential of Trymbi deserving of the top half of supports in the league. He will need to show consistency throughout the split and proactivity for his team, in order to stand out. For Schalke, playoffs could very well be on the horizon. The meta sets up well for their play style and with good chemistry all around, they could be a dark horse to challenge G2 and Fnatic.

4 - MAD Lions (4th in Ceiling, 5th in Floor)

Top: Armut - 5th ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Elyoya - 7th ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Humanoid - 3rd ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Carzzy - 5th ranked ADC
Support: Kaiser - 2nd ranked Support

What a weirdly exciting and disappointing year for MAD Lions. Coming into their first season into the LEC, Mad Lions stormed on the stage, placing no worth than fourth in the LEC regular season and playoffs of Spring and Summer. This included a historic 3-2 upset over G2 in the first round of the Spring Playoffs. It even included a Worlds berth. However, the youngsters suffered a devastating feat of falling out of Play-Ins, the first major region team to ever fall before Group Stage. It caused some changes coming into the year and a lot of stepping back on a team that hyped the entire LEC fan base with incredibly strong surprise play. The first change is in top lane, where TCL standout Armut from Supermassive comes into the fold. Armut was a big reason MAD Lions lost at Worlds, due to the top laner's ridiculously strong laning. His champ pool always seemed to adapt in TCL, from Aatrox and Fiora to Ornn, Shen and even Wukong. The key to Armut was his mechanical prowess and lane dominance, which would give Supermassive a place to snowball the game off of. However, Armut does have an issue with greeding in lane for any bit of lead he can get, which teams like Unicorns of Love took advantage of at Worlds. This will be a different beast for Armut, but the upgrade in solo laners and overall team should give him more agency to take over games and not worry about being dog piled on, when there's a lot of other strengths of MAD opposing teams will have to account for. The other big change for MAD is moving on from Shadow and bringing in Elyoya from Movistar Raiders. After Shadow's departure for a future in the LPL, MAD decided to go to one of the standout junglers of the Superliga. Even in the Spring, Elyoya was showing off his Graves, one of the strongest junglers of the current meta. He was a beast on the pick all year and will likely look to get priority on it when he can. He also plays a fair bit of Trundle and Pantheon. His aggression and reaction time will be key with two very strong laners, who will likely get heavy gank pressure from opposing junglers. Elyoya is very young and will need time to get his rhythm. However, he has the tools and mechanical skills shown in his play for Movistar to garnish a lot of hype on this very talented MAD roster. Another big piece to MAD's success last year is the standout performances from Humanoid. His numbers were far from insane last year. He ranks among the middle of the pack statistically. However, it's more about how well he embraces his role on the team. Humanoid always let the resources for MAD in the jungle and support roams go elsewhere, being left on a island most of the games. Still, he impacted the game himself on mids that can push lane easily and roam well. His role on this team fits his style perfectly and with a player like Armut, who will merit a lot of attention, he should get more freedom to continue his great mid play. The bot lane returns with Carzzy and Kaiser. Carzzy had a fantastic 2020, making his entrance to the LEC a memorable one. His Ezreal, Senna and Kalista really shined on the stage for a team excited to boost up their ADC. If he can do a little bit better CSing in lane and better performances on more carry oriented ADCs in the current meta like Kai'sa and Jhin, he should continue his strong play. The real big impression of this team is Kaiser, who has made himself in "Best Support" conversations, after his performance last year. He did everything so well. His KP% and vision score numbers were near the highest around the league. He also showed nine unique champions in both splits, showing his flexibilty. Kaiser even played the carry role in certain games with Wukong, with Carzzy playing the Senna. He also thrived in those situations. With Kaiser being such a multi-dimentional threat and the additions to the roster, MAD Lions will be a forced to be reckoned with yet again to everyone in the LEC.

3 - Rogue (3rd in Ceiling, 3rd in Floor)

Top: Odoamne - 3rd ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Inspired - 3rd ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Larssen - 2nd ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Han Sama - 4th ranked ADC
Support: Trymbi - 7th ranked Support

The other big surprise of 2020 in the LEC was Rogue, who went from middle-of-the-pack team to a Worlds representative and best regular season team of Summer in the league. Their Spring was decent, but their Summer became a monster season for the still fresh squad. What's even scarier is this team might have gotten better. The big upgrade for Rogue is signing veteran Odoamne to the team. His stats were through the roof in Summer of last year, being a part of the Schalke's miracle run. Even before that run, Odoamne was the only consistent positive for the team in the entire calendar year. He ranked near the top of the league in both splits in KP% and KDA for top laners. His prowess on plenty of champions showed in Summer, piloting 12 separate champions through 18 games. Odo has been around this league a very long time and has been a high ranking top laner in almost every single season. This year should be no different, except his chances of returning to the Worlds stage just got a whole lot better on this Rogue squad. One of the big reasons for that is the growth of every single player on this team, including Inspired in the jungle. In the Summer Split, Inspired put up a ridiculous KDA of 9.7, dying on average only one time per game. These were mostly on tanky, engaging champions including Trundle, Sett, Volibear and Olaf. He brings a lot of flexibility, with playmaking champions being his wheelhouse. However, he did struggle a bit at Worlds with the farm-heavy jungler meta. If he can continue to grow his pool and playstyle, it's only a matter of time until his name being in the conversations with Jankos and Selfmade will be a normality. He still has time and a great environment to continue to grow. One player that already is being in Top 2 conversations in their role is Larssen. Rogue got the gift of watching Larssen put on fantastic performances over and over again last year. His Orianna was near unstoppable in the league last Summer and his stats, no matter the champion he was playing (He played 7 unique champions in Summer and 12 in Spring), were insane. Summer specifically, Larssen had a KDA of 6.5, which is almost two points higher than any other mid laner (Specifically Caps at 4.8). The only thing keeping him off Caps is consistency and experience, which will come over time. While his international play at Worlds felt very weak, Larssen is just 20 and his growth and time to be a top tier mid laner in LEC is only beginning. He will be a major threat to every single team in the league. Another player coming off a great season is Han Sama. Making his first Worlds appearance since the fable Misfits team that almost took down SKT, Han Sama shined under the Rogue spotlight in Summer. Han Sama really embraced the Aphelios last year, using him in 15 of the 36 of the regular season Rogue games. He also shined on Senna, even using her four times in Rogue's Summer Playoff run. He is capable of both hyper carry games and supportive utility games. He's a great switch knife ADC player for this team. However, he may have to adjust now that Rogue has gone young in the support role, promoting Trymbi to the roster. Yet ANOTHER AGO Rogue product, Trymbi is coming off a fantastic season and a very strong performance at AGO Rogue's EU Masters title run. His Rakan shined the most in his five games playing him, where he posted an over 80% KPA and over 12 assists per game. He likes to be the proactive player and does have the ability to roam around the map to make plays. It could be a different kind of fit next to Han Sama and in a league filled with exceptional support talent, Trymbi will have a lot of growing to do on a team considered the best challenge to the two juggernauts of EU in G2 and Fnatic. However, Rogue are looking very strong with this new look roster and have shown to have a very good coaching and development staff in their organization at every level. This team will have Worlds expectations and it would be silly not to see them as a legit favorite for one of those spots.

2 - Fnatic (2nd in Ceiling, 2nd in Floor)

Top: Bwipo - 2nd ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Selfmade - 1st ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Nisqy - 5th ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Upset - 2nd ranked ADC
Support: Hylissang - 3rd ranked Support

After losing their superstar player and face of the franchise, you would think Fnatic would be taking a huge hit in their standings in the league. However, this iteration of Fnatic is still very strong all around. If last year taught us anything, Fnatic has been planning this change in team mentality before Rekkles even left. The key to this team's win condition seems to be in their jungler Selfmade. In a sluggish start to Spring Split, Fnatic took a change of mentality and gave the freedom for Selfmade to be the main carry for this roster. Giving him reigns to draft picks like Graves, Lee Sin and Kha'Zix and become the main carry of the team. They even sent Rekkles on picks like Soraka and Senna, to empower him. His damage numbers were insane all year and he took over many games for Fnatic. It really showed in the playoffs of Summer, where his Evelynn and Hecarim went unmatched until the Finals. His play even came inches from knocking out Top Esports from Worlds contention. He was a beast and with a jungler meta continuing the trend, he very well could continue to be a dominant force in LEC. However, his Graves was the weakest of those picks (2-8 in Graves games from Summer Split to end of Worlds). If Fnatic wants to win those Graves games, he'll need to improve in that regard. His best partner in charge is returning to the top lane in Bwipo. The difference between Wunder and Bwipo really is miniscule. Both are incredibly good in the top lane. For Bwipo, it comes down to his speciality picks and flexibility in top lane. His wild picks that broke the meta, whether it be his Rengar and Zac in Spring Split, his Cho'Gath and Urgot in Summer or even his Singed on the Worlds stage. It's almost impossible to gameplan against him. No matter what he plays, Bwipo is statistically great on whatever he plays. Outside of his ridiculously high death count in Summer Split (3.8 deaths per game, one death higher than any other top laner in the region), he was superb for Fnatic and will look to be one of the best top laners in the LEC. One of the new pieces to Fnatic will be Nisqy. In his return to the LEC from his time on Splyce, Nisqy will look to remind the world of his Spring performance and not so much his Summer performance. In Spring, Nisqy played 10 champions in Cloud 9's 17-1 split. His champions varied in roles all around, from his poke mages in Zoe to his scaling mages in Veigar to even aggressive slice-n-dice team style of Yasuo and setup top laners going mid in Rumble. He did it all and was successful in pretty much all of them. He played each of listed champions one game in regular season AND playoffs for Spring. His Summer still started off strong, with a variety of picks all around. However, Summer Split saw a lack of synergy team wise. Nisqy, charged with a lot of roaming mid laners in Twisted Fate and Galio, could not find the same rhythm and his team fell short of Worlds. LCS is not necessarily known for their mid lane pool and Nisqy will have a lot more defined a role on this Fnatic team. The big question is if he can have the same success he at times had in NA. If he can, Fnatic could prosper a lot from even more flexibility. In the bot lane enters the new face of ADC for Fnatic in Upset. Last year saw the excitement of Upset fall to the struggles of Origen. In Spring, Upset came out firing with strong performances on Aphelios, Miss Fortune and Senna. In Summer, his team failed to get the same wins on his Ezreal, Aphelois and Senna. However, many equate that to the team performance overall. Even with that, Upset still was second in the LEC in KDA for ADC's, only trailing Rekkles. His numbers did drop a lot in Summer. However, the meta is taking a shift to hyper carry ADC's yet again. That could be massive for Upset. Another thing that will help is having a very active support in Hylissang. Hyli had a very strong Spring on his active playmakers like Thresh and Rakan. However, his Summer felt like a bit of a disappointment overall. His 4.6 deaths per game in Summer was the most among supports that played over half their teams games. His KP% was fairly low as well. However, his Summer Playoffs and Worlds performance saw a lot more of the play we saw from Spring split. Hyli, when he's on, is one of the better playmaking and game changing supports in the league. For Fnatic to truly challenge G2, Hyli will need to be strong and active. Fnatic has a great team of flexibility and adaptability. It showed in their unique gameplan against TOP. However, it will help them to have a reliable plan going into a season with a lot of very good LEC teams in the middle of the pack. Each of those teams are very capable of testing Fnatic regularly. For now, however, having that flexibility other teams do not gives them the edge.

1 - G2 Esports (1st in Ceiling, 1st in Floor)

Top: Wunder - 1st ranked Top Lane
Jungler: Jankos - 2nd ranked Jungle
Mid Lane: Caps - 1st ranked Mid Lane
ADC: Rekkles - 1st ranked ADC
Support - Mikyx - 1st ranked Support

The super team of Europe have become the even Super-er(?) team. This is going to be VERY fun. G2 are the best team talent wise in Europe and are fielding a team that will have a lot of people having Worlds title hopes. The big talking point is of course the one change on the roster. G2 changed out the dynamic of having Perkz playing ADC for the most notorious ADC in Europe's history in Rekkles. It was an interesting year for Rekkles, as yet again he dominated the league in the stat department for his carry performances. His KDA was at least a point higher than any other ADC in both splits. He's the best the league has to offer. Yet he found himself yet again relegated to non-carry roles more often than expected (Soraka and Syndra games four times in Summer). With a move to G2 and the meta shifting towards his favor, it could very well be an early season where G2 look to give Rekkles whatever he desires and a chance to show the world he's ready to face anyone. Helping him out will be Mikyx. G2's support really showed his flexibility last year, even when G2 was struggling to find their footing. He played it all. Super supports (Tahm Kench and Taric), Engagers (Nautilus and Leona), protectors (Braum and Yuumi) and even roamers (Bard and Rakan). Mikyx played them all and succeeded on them all. G2 gives him a lot of free reign and his playmaking makes a huge difference. Now with the best ADC right beside him, it will be a marvel to see what Mikyx decides to do with more firepower. Speaking of more firepower, Caps is the best mid laner in Western League of Legends. Without having to worry about another Spring relegated to ADC duties, Caps will look to shine in another Summer like he did on his plethora of picks in the mid lane. From his insane mages like Zoe and Syndra, to his assassins in Akali and Sylas. Caps will look to make a statement to the league, especially against another good chunk of new mid laners. For the jungle, Jankos will just hope the meta stays what it is, so he doesn't have to play Sejuani. Jankos really seemed to shine the most in Summer playoffs on his Sett games. Along with his Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, Trundle, Elise and Pantheon, when he gets playmakers, Jankos shines. Given the way the meta goes to a lot of carry, fast clearing junglers, Jankos' team fighting prowess and mental edge in working the jungle will be put to the test. Then there's top laner Wunder. He's taken a similar role to Bwipo in "being able to play whatever" in Top Lane. Spring saw him play 11 unique picks including Sona, Janna, Soraka, Bard, Kalista and even Neeko. His Summer Split was just about the same, with 13 unique picks including Dr.Mundo, Karma, Cho'Gath and Kayle. While a couple of those were in troll games, it just goes to show the amount of flexibility Wunder has. His numbers are also still among the top of the league. G2 legitimately make the case they have the best player at every position (Selfmade might have an argument there, but still...). They are a behemoth of a team that is VERY dangerous to the rest of the world. The goal is proving the World Finals in 2019 would not be the last time G2 Esports take the professional League scene by storm.

My take on how to build Varus this season [Patch 10.25].

On the topic of new item hybrid stats, champions that got hurt by the changes, how they should be changed, and game wishlist

Opinions on lethality? (Bit of a rant)

CloudTemplar's thought on LCK final

T1 vs GenG:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36F-vrXQkis&t=3619s
Well T1 got v9(9 LCK titles). This kind of sound ridiclous when we talk about it. It is hard to win even once but nine times? It is a great feat for Faker as he was the only one standing after all the changes. AS for Gen G it was a bit sad to see their performance ends on such on a sour note. Before we start the analysis I think it is natural to be very critical of GenG but they did pretty well too. I think there is a mentality in Korea culture and sport in general where only the winner get recognized. GenG did really well in the season and was able to grab first place in the season. I don't think it is right to overly criticize them since second place is still very impressive and that their opponent was T1.
After the series, I was thinking about how to summarize this series to the general public. After the game was over the people who were involved(analysis and casters)talked a bit about the game and we had generally the same consensus. I think there is 3 main reasons T1 won.

1. Varus

There were many OP/tier 1 champions in the history of league. But it is very hard for the OP champion to stay tier 1 as people find counters to the champion. The most recent example is perhaps Ornn who was kind of OP. And varus is the new OP.
We have seen the power of varus ever since KT vs Damwon and the power of the pick is shown in the T1 series. Is there a counter for varus? What can you gain from giving varus in pick/ban? Did the GenG won many scrims against it or do they genuinely think it is not a good pick? Or does the pick not work for them in scrims? Does they know how to play it? There are many questions that people ask but the answer to all these is pretty simple: scrim result.

Scrim

Sometime in pick/ban people would ask why did the team pick/ban like that? The answer is scrim. Especially in LCK there is a culture where they see scrim's result the most important data. Team by teams varies but from what I heard teams in LCK they see scrims much more seriously. The biggest use of scrim is research. "Is this pick good? Is this comp good" if it doesn't pass in scrim it will not be used. This is partly why LCK are slow to adapt and why there is very few surprise pick in LCK. From what I heard, teams oversea would sometime bring out picks they never played before. But in LCK every single pick, every single comp has been tested in scrims before coming up on stage.
One consequence of this scrim culture is that it is hard to find scrim partners near the end. Most team that didn't make it to playoff would take a break so there are less teams to scrim against. There were many cases where teams would panic because they couldn't find a scrim partner before the finals.

Back to Varus

So maybe the GenG's scrim result shows that vaurs isn't that OP however most of the people I talked with all agree that varus is OP. So I think that is a mistake from GenG. Let's talk about why varus is OP. So there are two builds: Meteor(lethality varus) and Lethal Temp(On hit varus). Meteor has a strong laning phase and strong late-game. Now some people would be wondering why I think Meteor has a strong late-game. Yes, there are games where varus couldn't get a lead and fall behind at late game but he has burst. There are many viable burst champions in this meta like Zoe, Corki,and Jayce where if they are paired with varus they can instantly delete enemy carries or even tank together.
When you pick varus in pick/ban you don't only pick one(varus) burst champion but multiple burst champions. This creates a situation where the enemy has to dodge all the skill shots or they will die instantly. This over many games and many skill shots could make the players very tired. And the tanks champions that could fight against are not as strong as before and it is hard to pick them in a pick/ban phase
There is another strong advantage burst champions have: they have strong laning phase. So they also give lane priority to the junglers. Varus itself is a good pick but paired with other burst champions (that are strong on its own) being able to burst down carries and even tanks, having lane priority, and at the same time give enemy players tremendous stress. Not all burst champion win lanes but even Corki who doesn't win lane could go 50 50 and do pretty well.
What is kind of interesting is that GenG had opportunities to pick varus but didn't. I think in Game 3 GenG is basically saying they can't play varus in their bans. There is a reason why team has time to prepare for playoff after the season. A lot of time picks in the regular season doesn't show up in playoff so it is a time for them to try new stuff, practice old picks, and fix their weakness.No, I don't think Ruler hate playing varus. I think GenG made a mistake neglecting varus.

Extra: Ornn

I have so many things to talk about Ornn. I feel a bit sad about the result because to be very honest I thought Rascal did very well. He did good in laning phase and it is not like the pick lost them the game. HOWEVER, if you want to pick Ornn you have to aware of trundle and Sylas. I have said this so many times. I am actually tired and frustrated by saying this again(he always said this in cast). If those two champions are picked Ornn has headaches the whole game. Ornn doesn't lose against Sylas in lane in fact there many times where Ornn actually win the laning phase. The problem is that is not like Ornn is going to completely wreck Sylas in lane. Sylas would eventually outscale him and is fine losing a few fight here and there. Arghghgh there are so many things I want to talk about pick/ban... let's just move on.

Before we move on

One pick that goes good against varus is Ezreal. Ezreal's laning is not that strong but once laning phase is over he could be stronger than varus. This is what Damwon likes to play. They pick Zoe, Jayce, Ez against it. Once they establish a poke synergy it is very hard for the opponent to deal with.

2. Jungle Contest(Sniping); Cuzz vs Clid

Let's talk about the jungler. It is going to be about pick/ban again lol. Before we start though the game can be divided into pick/ban and ingame(plays). Of course the plays in game are also important but I am just going to talk about things that gave player an advantage before they even move their character. Of course even though varus is OP but if he get hooked all game they would still lose.

So for one game 1 T1 lost two bans and GenG chose red side. GenG choosing red side give me the feeling that they prepared something for this series. Normally teams want to pick blue side because there are pick like varus. It is way easier for blue side to grab those OP champion than red side. And it is actually harder than you think to counter pick on red side. So I thought GenG prepared something. GenG banned Cuzz jungle pool and then Cuzz picked Graves. Graves is NOT a surprise pick. He is actually picked in lanes too and DRX has banned him before. So Cuzz just pick Graves because he is one of the power pick left. Then the problem is they didn't pick varus and Ornn came out too quickly.

T1 picked Corki and varus which formed the burst synergy with graves. I am not sure what GenG is planning in this pick/ban. When Yuumi came out I was like -.- . It seems like they are betting mid/jungle fight but Cuzz was able to track Clid very successfully. I just feel like the pick/ban are giving players way too much responsibility/stress to win the game. I remember when I was casting the game I kept talking about Azir's ult. "Yes, but Azir still have his ultimate, Azir can change the game with his ultimate, he has to ult." Why did I kept talking like a parrot? Because that's the only way they can win the game. It is just too hard for a player to do. But do you know what is funny? Game 1 was the closest game of the series.

Game 2

GenG have similar ban but this time they banned graves instead of olaf. But graves is basically AD Olaf. They have the similar role and priority. So the ban wasn't very impactful. I really doesn't what GenG want from this pick/ban. The only thing I got was "Ruler hardcarry us". They got better initiation than game 1 but-

3. The General Direction of the Game-> Feels like a different team(GenG)

"What is good and What do we want" Is what we are trying to analyze in pick/ban. Poke(Shooting), Early game, Late game. But in game 2... Okay so, first of all, they again don't have lane priority. And just because you have Ornn, Ez, and Zilean doesn't mean your late game is better. Because there are champions like Corki. If he finishes his core item his damage is through the roof and his bomb passive allows his team to have objective control. Corki is so strong in this meta. Let's talk about how to counter Corki. 1. You pick a champion that out scale or scale equally as him. Yes, in a vacuum Zilean outscale Corki and he synergizes very well with hard carries. But if you trade Varus for Ez...The reason why Damwon was able to win against Vaurs is because of Nugri. If Nugri didn't hard carry it would be very difficult for Damwon. One thing I really don't like is analyzing the pick/ban from the result. "Because they lost the pick/ban is trash" I really hate those analyses. But just from a pick/ban metagame perspective, it was really... Clid again wasn't given jungle priority.

Back to GenG

So GenG had probably the most time out of all time. It is not probably they did have the most time to prepare. But they missed the priority of varus, they target banned Cuzz but it didn't really had an effect on the game... I think the biggest difference between T1 and GenG is GenG's journey was too easy. If you looked at their games they kind of won games very easily. Mid and Jungle BAM, Mid and Jungle BAM, ZOE, ZOE, ZOE, ZOE& REKSAI, ZOE&LEESIN.
They won very easily through their mid and jungle. They kind of got lost when they trying to figure out a way to win without mid/jungle. If mid/jungle doesn't work I guess we have to go for Ruler. But that didn't work quite well. If mid/jungle doesn't work I guess we have to hope Rascal hard carry like Nurgri. I don't think that would work either.
GenG's game plan is always to explode the enemy in the early stages of the game. But in their previous games with T1 it didn't work out. People made mistakes, T1 deflects it, and etc. It is almost like a trauma. It feels back they want to do half and half. Half explode game early and Half scale. In the end they wouldn't able to add variety to their game plan.
T1, on the other hand, didn't go to the final easily. T1's first round was really tough but they had a clear goal on what they want to work on. I think GenG should've either go 100% explosion playstyle(like their previous style but even more aggressive like lpl) or go 0% and go scale. In-game 1 they should just go all-in instead picking scale. But if they wanted to do that they had to pick vaus. Varus is such a vital pick for early game comp that would allow bot to win if mid/jungle couldn't.

Extra: So why didn't Damwon pick varus?

One big difference between GenG and Damwon is that Damwon never played around bot. Damwon play around top side and they already assume bot will be losing so the varus pick didn't impact them that much. For them, it is far more important to pick champions like Jayce.

Extra:MSI

One thing I wanted to say in LoLPark after the series was to call out G2. "COME AND FIGHT US G2, IG YOU COME OUT TOO, YOU ARE LUCKY MSI GOT CANCELLED YOU PUNK, OUR T1 ARE GOING TO umm XDDD" But to be honest I am not sure if T1 would win if they play right now. I think it would be closer than the one before(Last Worlds)... Actually never mind I have lost confidence in our teams now...I didn't say it because it is a bit too aggressive and people might take it in the wrong way(just some banter).
edit1: some minor spelling/grammar fix

TLDR: Varus OP.

An examination of possible improvements in pro play

The contend of this examination is based on my own personal observation and thoughts + issues that LS has pointed out countless times on his stream and twitter
The case in favor of scaling team comps
Unlike other traditional sports, League does not have a set time limit after which the game ends. There is no penalty shootout or any sort of sudden death to decide a winner. Additionally and more importantly every champion becomes naturally stronger by leveling up and purchasing items. League can be considered however to have an “artificial” time limit, that being when all champions have reached level 18 and a full build (unless there are perma scaling champions like Veigar in the game). At this point a champions ability to influence the game stagnates.
The way League's current game design functions ensures that champions will get stronger, every player receives a minimal amount of gold (20.4 Gold per 10 Seconds, starting a 1:50 mins). This gold gain can not be influenced by the opponent and accumulated gold can not be lost. Obviously a players main income source in the form of last hits can be influenced by zoning him away and by crashing waves into the tower while the player is not in lane.
Experience gain can be influenced by the opponent by zoning the champion outside of exp range. However experience gain being based on proximity and not last hits makes it pretty much impossible to permanently deny experience to a champion. It does create level leads though and determines who reaches level 18 first.
Denying gold and experience is a huge part of League but the fact remains that gold and exp gain can only be slowed down, not stopped. If the game goes long enough every champion will reach level 18 and a full build.
The scaling of individual champions differs vastly from one another. Early game champions like Lee Sin and Renekton scale better with levels than with items. They are predicated on pushing early leads and snowballing from them. If they just passively farm without trying to set their opponents behind, they will soon be outscaled. The longer the game goes on the less impactful they become. The difference between a three item Renekton and a six item Renekton is comparably small. The difference between a three item Cassiopeia and a six item Cassiopeia is massive.
Here we reach a concept for which LS uses the term “Onus” which can be translated as “The responsibility/duty/burden”. Some of you who watch his streams might remember moments in which he stated something like: “The onus is on X team to make something happen.” What is meant by this is the fact that a team comp that scales worse than their opponents HAS to be active and aggressive, HAS to push their advantages. HAS to go for objectives. Otherwise they will get outscaled and lose. And scaling is always happening, it's a ticking time bomb. In contrast to an early game team comp, safe passivity favors a scaling team comp. A scaling team comp does not need to win lanes or take risky team fights, it does not need to set up dives to put enemy laners behind. The only “Onus” that's on a scaling team for quite a while, is to not lose. An there is only one way to lose the game. Unless the Nexus falls the game is not over. This grants a scaling team plenty of leeway in their behavior. “But what about Herald, Dragons and Baron?” I will get to that question in detail a bit later on.
This fundamental nature of League's game design incentivizes the picking of the best scaling champions for all positions. “But well-scaling champions tend to be weak in lane, they will just be crushed by strong early game champions.” Generally it is true that well-scaling champions are weak early but there are some exceptions like Ornn, Gankplank and Caitlyn. The recently returned Camille also falls in this category.
Ornn in particular is an absolute monster in a well- scaling team comp. Just the value of the stats he offers to his team and himself alone is insane. There are multiple charts out their detailing the gold efficiency of his upgraded items. I don't know if they are accurate and still up to date but the total gold value of the six items that most likely will be upgraded is more than 6000 gold. That is what Ornn can give to your team. For free. No other champion in the game has such a big impact on the stats of his team mates.
Even if all the champions on the well-scaling team lose their lanes to early game champions it's not the end of the world. It is possible to lose lane in a controlled way, this mostly entails avoiding deaths, and getting last hits/soaking up exp whenever safely possible. Losing the first tower on every lane actually offers some benefits to a well-scaling team, mostly in allowing the set up of the perfect freezing spots for safe farming, right outside the T2 tower range. Additionally the remaining towers are in closer proximity allowing for champions to help each other out faster in emergencies. The new smaller area is easier to defend than the larger area between the fallen outer towers. LS refers to this small area between the T2 towers as “The Triangle” and has pointed out its values in defensive play many times. I am not advocating for letting the opponent take plates and towers for free but it is important to keep the real value of the T1 towers in mind and not to over value them. Dying to protect a plateless T1 tower is an unnecessary mistake. There seems to exist the common misconception that League is chaotic, that anything can happen. League is actually pretty formulaic and controllable. Especially in the early game, it is nearly static. The only real variance at the very start of the game comes in the form of a possible invade, a Blitz or Syndra pick offering the maximum amount of cheese since they can steal buffs over walls. Personally I consider invades a near useless tactic in terms of risk and reward. It's a coin flip that can go either way. If a team with superior scaling gets invaded at red buff it is actually best not to contest the buff. Teams make the frequent mistake of contesting objectives which at that specific time hold little relative value. Retreat, try to match the steal by having the jungler and the midlaner rush to take the opponents raptors or even red buff. Even if the better scaling team decides not to risk a matching steal, the loss of a single buff is not nearly as bad as it is perceived. That is especially true for well scaling junglers whose main objective lies in power farming and not in frequent ganking. If an early game jungler like Lee Sin stole the red buff of a Graves, he might rejoice over his steal but unless he can use it to pull of a successful gank he is quickly going to fall behind the power farming Graves anyway. Lee Sin has to push his advantage to be useful, Graves doesn't. He can just safely continue farming his own jungle. Having lost the red buff doesn't change this behavior, it only slightly slows down his clear for a while. Losing the red buff to another well scaling jungler, like a Kindred, is of more concern. However, the more late game champions there are on a team the less likely it should be that said team will attempt an invade as this risky behavior counteracts what the strategy of the team comp aims to achieve.
Let's talk about cheater recalls and freezing.
The cheater recall is an ideal tactic and should be employed every game. It is easier to pull off in the mid and top lane since laners here tend to have better early wave clear. The cheater recall is employed by slow pushing the first wave, making sure your minions are always healthier than the opponents. When the second wave arrives both waves should be still somewhat close to the center of the lane (however slightly pushed towards the enemy tower). When the third waves arrives (the cannon wave) it will pile together with the remains of your second wave. The enemy waves will also have piled (sooner than yours since they are closer to the enemy base). When your third waves arrives you hard shove the enemy waves as fast as you can to crash both of your waves into the tower before the opponent can clear them. This allows you to recall with enough gold for a second Doran's ring/sword/shield or a long sword/corrupting pots etc. The time you have managed to gain by this cheater recall is enough to walk back to lane without having to use teleport. The wave will have reset and your opponent who was busy shoving back the wave now has to decide if he should back which will lose him gold an exp or if he is going to stay. That would mean facing you, fresh from the fountain and with an item advantage, while he will be low on HP and mana. There is only one risk when attempting a cheater recall, the initial slow push somewhat exposes one to the enemy jungler. This can of course be mitigated by wards. Even in the event that one laner has to abandon the cheater recall attempt because of jungle pressure , there are still two other lanes who can pull it off since the jungler can only be at one place at a time. Despite these obvious advantages cheater recalls have not yet completely caught on in pro play. LS frequently criticizes players failing to do so while praising those who do employ cheater recalls.
Freezing is the ideal tactic to be employed by laners in a well-scaling team comp. Manipulating the enemy minions so they permanently pile up just outside of your tower range (Some champions like Anivia can also influence friendly minions by blocking their path with her wall). This leads to an ideal and safe farming spot while forcing the opponent to overextend, opening him up to potential ganks. The opponent is forced to commit to risky play or he will lose out on gold and he might even be zoned out of exp range. This is a laners worst nightmare. Breaking a freeze is hard and risky. The easiest option is to use long range poke abilities to thin out the enemy wave or to force the opponent to back. Of course for this option there need to be long range poke abilities available on the team. If that's not the case, the lanelaners need to move up close with the same goal of either clearing the minions or forcing the opponent to back. This however is the ideal moment for the opponents jungler to gank and therefore is a very risky option. The better option is to call on your own jungler and set up a two/three man dive to force the opponent of the toweclear the wave. This is somewhat risky as well and even if all goes well it's not an ideal situation as multiple people will be sharing exp and potentially gold as well. It will also reveal the position of the jungler allowing the opponent laners to know they are safe and giving the opponent jungler the chance to counter jungle or match gank. If the freezing laners are getting dived it should be their highest priority to survive and withdraw safely, they should not try to contest. A freeze will end naturally when the freezing laner chooses to recall. In bot lane it is possible to have one player recall while the other maintains the freeze. In pro play freezes are still not very common despite the massive advantages it provides for scaling teams. We can see LS malding regularly on stream whenever a player is in an ideal position to freeze and doesn't do so. Alternatively we sometimes get to see his delight upon seeing players freeze correctly. Teams and players not recognizing the advantages of freezing seems to be one of LS's main criticisms of current pro play.
The main argument against freezing is the lack of objective/vision control it causes. This is true, however the ideal situation to set up a freeze is when there are no relevant objectives on the map. It is quite possible to freeze until an objective comes up, abandon the freeze to contest the objective and afterwards set up another freeze. The best counter to a freeze is to set one up before the opponent does but given that freezing is uncommon in pro play, the first teams that will pick up the tactic will have a great advantage. Another argument against freezing is the often stated “loss of momentum/tempo”. This is correct again, however a well-scaling team comp has no need to make plays happen. It does not need to destroy towers and then quickly rotate to another lane. It does not need to catch people out of position. Until the very late game, when the well-scaling team comp switches from defensive to offensive play, all it needs to do is survive while soaking up as much gold and exp as safely possible.
In some cases it is not even necessary to break a freeze even when an objective is up, it might just not be worth it. This is the issue of teams overvaluing certain objectives. According to LS, the Rift Herald is the most overvalued of these objectives. He frequently criticizes teams decisions to have two or even three players secure Rift Herald when they could just have stayed in lane farming. The Rift Herald on average manages to take three plates from a tower, that's 480 gold shared between players close to the tower. If we have three players present that makes 160 gold for each. The average gold worth of a single wave of minions at this point in the game is somewhere around 130 – 140 gold. Lets assume the three players are the top, mid and jungle players, that's most likely. How many waves do top and mid lose while killing and employing Herald? One at least, possibly two. Those are losses in both gold and experience. After tower plates have fallen Herald loses even more worth, granting only 160 gold locally shared if it manages to kill a tower. This makes the second Herald pretty much worthless other than for damaging towers. Another problem is that using Herald is conditional, it can time out and therefore HAS to be used at some point if taken. If the situation is unfortunate the Herald might be killed before it even reaches a tower, then it is worth nothing. Unlike just staying in lane and farming, taking and employing Herald is a gamble that's not really worth it. Especially not for well-scaling teams. One can argue that Herald can be used by early game team cops to accelerate gold leads, push towers and thereby create momentum but those things are irrelevant for well-scaling team comps.
The next objective is the Dragon. LS has argued that conceding the first two Dragons to the opposing team is not necessarily that bad for a well-scaling team comp. I personally would even say that the third Dragon can also be left to the opponent. The important part however is to keep denying them the fourth Dragon and with that the soul until it can be claimed by the well-scaling team comp. For those team comps I would rank the value of the Souls like this: 1. Ocean 2. Inferno 3. Mountain 4. Cloud
The Elder Dragon also has to be denied to the opposing team.
Baron spawns at 20 minutes and the fourth Dragon at the earliest as well, if the first three Dragons have been taken immediately after spawning, which is unlikely. This grants the well-scaling team at least 20 minutes of farming before having to worry about any neutral objective. If Baron and the fourth Dragon are up at the same time, the Dragon needs to be prioritized. If the opposing team goes for it, it needs to be contested. Should the opposing team prioritize Baron instead, the well-scaling team should immediately take the Dragon, thus buying another 5 minutes of time before the action needs to be repeated with the next Dragon. Should no Dragon be up when the opposing team attempts to take Baron, it would be best to force them of it with the least amount of investment possible. If it is still early in the game a full teamfight at Baron should be avoided. It is easier to force a team away from Baron than it is to take it. The well-scaling team does not have to take Baron, it only needs to force the opposing team away. If that's not possible it is better to just let the opposing team take it instead of trying to contest it. There is no need to coin flip the Baron early in the game. The worst scenario that can happen is when the fourth Dragon spawns right after the opposing team has taken Baron. This team can now decide to immediately take the forth Dragon as well. At this point in the game the well-scaling team is likely not strong enough yet to contest the Dragon against a Baron empowered team. This problem can be avoided by following LS's idea of only conceding the first two Dragons. This is not without risks either as it might lead to a teamfight when the third Dragon needs to be secured. This would likely take place around the 15 to 18 minute mark, at this time the well-scaling team is still at a disadvantage in a direct confrontation since the item break point has not been reached yet. If however the opposing team should not be in a position to contest the third Dragon, it should be taken as fast as possible by the well-scaling team. The point where the game starts to swing in favor of the well-scaling team is with the completion of the third item (not counting boots). Most early game champions fall off at three items and get overtaken by better scaling champions. Completion of the third item for most if not all champions on the well-scaling team should be somewhere between the 25 to 30 minute mark.
My idea of conceding three instead of two Dragons is based on the following: Instead of risking a team fight around the third Dragon that would likely be lost, it is safer to just stay in lane and farm. Additionally the fourth Dragon serves as a tempting bait for the opposing team that is only one Dragon away from Soul. The fight for the fourth Dragon would take place around the 20 to 25 minute mark, possibly even later. This is closer to the item break point and therefore a less risky fight than the one for the third Dragon. Once the item break point has been reached, the fourth Dragon, Elder Dragon and Baron can be used by the well-scaling team comp to bait the opposing team into teamfights. At this point team fights will have become advantageous to the well-scaling team. With the exception of the forth, fifth, sixth and seventh Dragon, no main neutral objective should be taken after a successful teamfight, Baron and Elder Dragon need to serve as permanent baits. Taking the opponents jungle camps before going back to freezing is probably the best option. Once the opponent team has respawned, the well-scaling team has to take position in close proximity to Baron and Dragon/Elder Dragon so they can bait the opponent again. The lane dominance of the early game team comp and the resulting destruction of the T1 towers (potentially some T2 Towers as well) in the earlier part of the game will have caused the minions to be located in close proximity to the well-scaling teams base, where the minions are held as long as possible with the help of freezing. Given this state the worse-scaling team comp can not farm and the jungle camps have been taken after the latest team fight. Going for Baron, Dragon/Elder Dragon is their only hope but this is were they will keep losing team fights to the team comp that now outscales them and still keeps scaling, ever widening the gap. At this point the worse-scaling team is doomed. The well-scaling team can maintain this position, alternating between, freezing, taking own jungle camps and baiting/fighting team fights near Baron and Dragon, theoretically until they reach 6 items on each champion. That would be the safest option. Once the well-scaling team has gauged their strength as sufficient enough that losing any team fight is highly unlikely (be that before or after reaching six items), the team can now take both Elder and Baron and tear down the opponents base as an unstoppable force to end the game. The best time for this is of course after having successfully baited and beaten the opponents in a teamfight.
It may sound counterintuitive but the early game is the most important part of the game for a well-scaling team comp. Luckily it's also the most controllable part and can be practiced easily. LS has proposed that teams should mutually decide to also train “Blitz games” against each other. I assume these games would contain the first 15 to 20 minutes before calling an end. In this manner teams can train the early game twice as often as you can play two “Blitz games” instead of one normal one. I have no idea though what the best ratio between normal scrim games and “Blitz games” would be.
On the matter of Drafting
This is the problem that is easiest to fix and therefore causes LS the greatest amount of agony whenever he has to witness teams failing to do so. I already pointed out that well-scaling teams have an inherent advantage based on how League is designed as a game. Early game champions that have to push their advantages and need to make “things happen” to be useful are referred to as “Sinner Champions” by LS. The biggest offenders in this category to him being Renekton and Lee Sin. LS has pointed out that teams frequently fail to understand the strengths and Win Conditions of the team comps they are assembling in draft, as well as the opponents team comp. This often leads to situations in which teams hamstring their team comps or even counter pick themselves despite seeing what the opponents have picked so far. When Aphelios was picked up in pro play he was considered incredibly OP, LS pointed out that the reason for this was teams picking short range champions against him instead of trying to counter him with long range poke.
Teams also tend to not play towards their Win Conditions, the recent TES vs Flyquest game (the game Flyquest won) showed some excellent examples. TES's team comp scales slightly better than that of Fly. Yet when they got invaded by Fly instead of match stealing Fly's raptors or safely retreating they chose to contest their own raptors, losing both their Support and their raptors in the process. TES scales better, there was no need to coinflip over a raptor camp and a Red Buff. TES hard shoves bot lane (too fast for a cheater recall) and their Support gets hooked by Fly's Blitz and dies. Once again: TES scales better. Since they were not going for a cheater recall there was absolutely no need to hard shove. Instead try to freeze and play safely since Blitz is going to punish every mistake extra hard. TES's Support Lux scales way better than Fly's Blitz, just avoid dying. Next TES attempts a three man dive top lane. The dive fails, almost kills TES's midlaner and costs him two waves in mid lane + teleport. I say it once again: TES scales better. There was absolutely no need for that top lane dive. None. TES's Urgot outscales Fly's Gnar naturally as the game goes on. Urgot even bought Cull being aware of this. There was no need to try and get Gnar behind. This sort of pointless and risky play should be avoided at all cost by better scaling teams. TES mid laner picking Galio was another blunder that happened in draft. Oriana and Syndra had been banned away and Fly had picked the amazingly scaling Azir, thus making mid lane a tough spot to pick for. Nevertheless, Ziggs, Vel'Koz, Xerath (LS considers these three to be good answers to Azir), Veigar or Cassiopeia would all have been better picks than Galio who has little synergy with the rest of the team and handicaps the scaling somewhat.
LS had the following to say during his casting of the Quarterfinal Game 3 between DWG and DRX after Chovy picked Vel'Koz: “We've been talking about the inevitability of the eventual three making their way into mid as the next evolution of mid lane. Right now it's mostly Oriana, Azir, Corki who are controlling everything for a long time but the one-up to them is Xerath, Vel'koz and Ziggs but no one's really been able to pilot them consistently enough to just make them the mainstream meta. And then once they come in, very ancient mid laners like Fizz and other things start coming back.”
Mid lane seems to be most ahead of the meta right now, with support being furthest behind. The overall evolution should be taking place like this: Well-scaling teams with strong disengage and terrain control (we see the terrain control part currently in Oriana and Azir).Mages are finally returning in the Support role (we have Morgana and Lux already but Zyra as the best fit needs to return). This will then be countered by well-scaling teams with long range poke (the emergence of Xerath, Vel'koz and Ziggs as mentioned by LS). Mages will remain in the bot lane as most of them fill the poke role already. This will then be countered by well-scaling teams with hard engage and gap closing champions (Like Fizz as LS mentioned. LeBlanc and Ekko I guess as well). Mages should still remain in the bot lane, the benefit of having a secondary scaling AP carry is just to great to dismiss even if they might be vulnerable to engage. This will then be countered again by the well-scaling teams with strong disengage and terrain control that emerged at first. We will then be left with these three main comps circulating and replacing each other unless there will be drastic changes to Leagues game design that disinsetivizes picking well-scaling team comps.
For teams to draft efficiently they need to understand their own Win condition as well as the opponents Win condition. Based on this they can pick the champions that serve them the most while denying the opponents their best champions. I am of the opinion that picking in favor of your own teams Win Condition is always better than just flatly trying to counter the opponent. Only counter pick if it also furthers the teams Win Condition as well. The Win condition and the strategy intended to fulfill it need to be paramount. The idea of comfort or signature picks needs to disappear. Players should always be training an playing champions that fulfill their role the best inside the current meta. When the meta changes the players need to switch champions and retrain. Given this the most ideal player is an allrounder who is not bound to any specific way of playing. This is the most effective way to play the game. Too often we see players shine when champions of their preferred play style are in the meta only then to see them struggle once that's not the case anymore.
On Itemization
This seems to be LS's second biggest criticism of pro play. His opinions on the matter of Morellonomicon vs Liandry's Torment is well know by now and it has affected pro play. We even have seen some Gankplank's buy Liandry's as a third item as recommended by LS. LS main criticism of players buying Morellonomicon came from the fact that it is a situational item that only outshines Liandry's if the opponents team has plenty of healing. People tend to forget that Liandry's “Madness” passive amplifies all damage by up to 10% not just magic damage, it also applies to Liandry's own passive burn. For Liandry to reach the maximum of 10% damage increase you need to be in combat with enemy champions for 5 seconds meaning it reaches it's peak potential in drawn out fights. But even in shorter fights it is worth it, each second of combat increasing damage by 2%. If three of your abilities end up dealing 300 damage each and you are at max Madness stacks you just got an extra 90 damage on top of that. Liandry's is most likely the best damage item in the entire game since it's burn increases in value the more HP the target has.
Next we have LS's opinion on Black Cleaver vs Trinity Force. LS argues that most toplaners who end up buying Black Cleaver would benefit more from buying Triforce instead, even if they can't use the mana. Examples LS gave were Aatrox and Renekton. He argues that the spell blade proc and extra attack speed outshine Black Cleaver's armor shred in terms of damage as most champions lack the ability to easily stack the shred, or that they lack AoE to reliably apply it to multiple targets. In general LS seems to be of the opinion that Black Cleaver should only be purchased if the opponents team is really stacking up on armor. In terms of junglers he advocates to instead build lethality items like Ghostblade and he has praised players building it on Graves, instead of Black Cleaver. LS is critical of having multiple champions on a team build Black Cleaver and has mentioned that players should clearly communicate who on the team is going to build it. Recently it seems that LS considers Senna to be the best user to build Black Cleaver if necessary.
LS also has been vocal about the value of Locket of the Iron Solari, especially as third item on Ornn and Sett. Since the shield the item provides scales with a percentage of the user max HP it reaches it true potential if build on tanks, giving the ability of shielding an entire team for hundreds of HP. It's like having a Karma on your team but packed into an item instead.
For Ornn LS also recommends to build two ruby crystals instead of finishing Bami's Cinder, citing that it is cheaper, grants more HP and does not mess with the ability to freeze as Bami's AoE burn does. Later the item can then still be finished into Sunfire Cape.
The pre season item changes are most likely going to change what champions were are going to see in each role but it does not change the inherent advantage of well-scaling champions. It will also take time until the most effective builds for each champion will become clear. The new mobility item for marksmen might bring immobile hyper carries back in the meta, Jinx is already in a good spot and could be picked already. Kog'Maw is likely going to return to the bot lane. Varus might as well.

varus lethality build bot video

Varus est un champion de League of Legends et se joue sur la Botlane.Afin de maîtriser ce personnage, nous vous proposons un guide sur les runes à utiliser, les objets à acheter, les sorts d'invocateur à choisir et enfin les sorts à maxer en priorité.. Les runes de Varus Bot sur LoL. Sorts d'invocateur de Varus Bot Limited to 1 type of Healing Potion. UNIQUE Active: Consumes a charge to restore 125 Health and 75 Mana over 12 seconds and grants Touch of Corruption during that time. Holds up to 3 charges that refills upon visiting the shop. Touch of Corruption: Damaging spells and attacks burn enemy champions for 15 magic damage over 3 seconds. (50% Damage for Area of Effect or Damage over Time spells. [10.2] Lethality Varus vs Attack Speed Varus. Varus build guides on MOBAFire. League of Legends Premiere Varus Strategy Builds and Tools. View builds, guides, stats, skill orders, runes and masteries from Pros playing Varus İntikam Oku. Check Varus's stats: Games Played, Pick Rate, Win Rate, and more. Varus has a strong early lane, auto attack the minions permanently and use Hail of Arrows and auto attacks on the enemy whenever you can. The Arcane Comet and Scorch will make trades very good for you in addition to the 575 attack range, high attack damage and life steal the slowed enemy will have a hard item if you use it to your advantage. When you bought Tear of the Goddess you can try to Welcome to the METAsrc Varus build guide. We've used our extensive database of League of Legends stats along with proprietary algorithms to calculate the most optimal build for Varus. This algorithm is able to determine the best summoner spells, item build order, skill order, runes reforged, rune stats, counters, and team mates. Varus build guides - op.gg provides builds, counters, guides, masteries, runes, skill orders, combos, pro builds and statistics by top, jungle, mid, adc, support in Varus build with the highest winrate runes and items in every role. U.GG analyzes millions of LoL matches to give you the best LoL champion build. Patch 11.3 Lethality Varus is currently the cream of the crop when it comes to bot laners on Patch 10.10 and the champion is set for a lengthy spell in the ADC S tier. Make the most of this by reading through this guide, practicing the champion, and consistently nailing your targets with lethal Piercing Arrows. Varus. Champion Tier: Tier 5. Q. W. E. R. Counter Champion; Strong against; Sivir Win Ratio 35.84%: Counter Miss Fortune Win Ratio 46.55%: Counter Jhin Win Ratio 46.60%: Counter Xayah Win Ratio 54.83%: Counter Aphelios Win Ratio

varus lethality build bot top

Korea's FULL POKE Bot Lane Lethality Varus is back ...

Dark Harvest Full AD Varus Mid Gameplay Guide 0:00 Build 0:06 Runes Season 10 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/EternalHeroLoL Enjoyed? - Like 👍, Comment & Su... Kespa cup has been going on for a while now in Korea and they are cheesing hard with this new bot lane! $500 RP Giveaway (10 Winners)!! = https://gleam.io/vo... how to play the new worlds class varus build!! varus adc + current bot lane meta guide - patch 7.20 - duration: 31:20. ... korean lethality varus build is incredible! ... If you enjoy the video, subscribeKorean Lethality Varus - Challenger Varus ADC Full Gameplay - Patch 9.13 S9 Season 9 2019 - League of Legends (LoL)OPGG: htt... 7.2 Gameplay - KDM Ssol (Varus) 15-7-17 Varus Lethality Build League of ADC. ... Full Lethality Varus Highlights│Season 7 Patch 7.2│League ... Korea's FULL POKE Bot Lane Lethality Varus is ... Poke Varus is back in the top 3 ADC win rates. Let's try him out... Level 5 Q has a 10 second base cooldown. 40% CDR knocks it down to 6. Consuming an enemy'... Back to Escaping Low Elo! We're playing Varus today to see if he's still viable! Like, Comment & Subscribe! League of Legends Varus Bot Gameplay. ...

Varus • Bot Build Guide - MetaJunkies

varus lethality build bot

varus lethality build bot - win

Varus mid vs bot with lethality build?

This is why I play lethality mid now, no supports begging me to build attack speed

Basic Guide for Botlane Match Ups/ Champ Classes

Basic Guide for Botlane Match Ups/ Champ Classes

Each Special move used in the entire series so far (As of Prowling Anxiety) in order.

State of Attack Damage Carries

I feel terrible for deriding this 0/10 Varus.

2021 LEC Preseason Power Rankings

My take on how to build Varus this season [Patch 10.25].

On the topic of new item hybrid stats, champions that got hurt by the changes, how they should be changed, and game wishlist

Opinions on lethality? (Bit of a rant)

CloudTemplar's thought on LCK final

1. Varus

Scrim

Back to Varus

Extra: Ornn

Before we move on

2. Jungle Contest(Sniping); Cuzz vs Clid

Game 2

3. The General Direction of the Game-> Feels like a different team(GenG)

Back to GenG

Extra: So why didn't Damwon pick varus?

Extra:MSI

TLDR: Varus OP.

An examination of possible improvements in pro play

varus lethality build bot video

varus lethality build bot top

Korea's FULL POKE Bot Lane Lethality Varus is back ...