North American LCS Week 8 Champion Picks Wrap-Up

Hi! I’m (currently) a Silver II support and jungle main and founder of LoLRVA, a summoner community based in Richmond, VA. I’ll be breaking down the most popular champions fielded and their performance in week 8 of the NA LCS.

Both Lulu and Elise achieved a 100% pick + ban rate.

Lulu went 5 W – 2 L and was banned 9 times. Lulu was one of the most contested mid lane picks for her ability to counter-play against prevalent mid lane bursters such as LeBlanc, Kassadin, and Gragas, among many others. Attaching pix to an enemy champion to ensure the glitterlance can do overwhelming amounts of poke.

Elise went 5 W – 2 L and was banned 9 times. Elise tied Lulu for most valuable champion. Despite repeated nerfs to her numbers, Elise remains one of the most intimidating junglers with massive gank capability and impressive teamfight presence, and skirmishing.

Sivir went 5 W – 2 L as well and was banned 7 times. Sivir’s ult is extremely potent in the movespeed-engages and rotation-heavy meta. Her burst in conjunction with the incredible amount of waveclear in her kit makes her inarguably top-tier.

Evelynn went 4 W – 4 L and was banned 6 times. Her performances were strong, attributed to her indirect buff from season four’s vision dynamic of scarce anti-vision. Her permastealth greatly helps her ganking options and counter-play opportunities. 

Pantheon went 2 W – 1 L and was banned a whopping 10 times. While he went 2-1, his performances were only above average and wasn’t really a game-determiner in his wins. The man drop fear is real, but is the drop itself as powerful as that fear? The summoners involved were not necessarily his favorite, which points to the bans being justified.

Leblanc went 1 W – 2 L and was banned another impressive 10 times. Her performance was only reputation-worthy in the hands of Hai. The shutdown to her short reign of terror came in the form of Lulu’s prevalence this week, who can shut her down in lane.

Renekton went 4 W – 2 L and was banned 6 times. One of the current kings of top lane, Renekton had a stellar week, having strong individual performances in all of his matches.

Morgana went 4 W – 6 L and garnered a single ban. It seems the teams had some compositional strategies involving Morgana, and on paper she looks good in the SPELLTHIEF’S IS AMAZING meta, however, her record suggests otherwise. Probably one of the more overhyped picks this week.

Caitlyn likely gets ‘Most consistent’ pick this week, going 5 W – 4 L and being banned twice. Despite unremarkably going 5-4 she performed at least adequately in all her matches.

Kassadin went 2 W – 1 L and was banned a justified 7 times. Not much to say about Kassadin: he’s really good, and snowballs harder than almost any other mid laner. Keep banning him in solo queue. EDIT as of 4.4 kassadin has been significantly reworked.

Lucian went 3 W – 6 L and was not banned, for apparent good reason. He can perform well under safe circumstances, but has great difficulty if he falls behind slightly. The Culling seems slightly more relevant but other ADC/Marksman champions picks in teamfights pack bigger punches and/or of similar strength but with more utility.

Gragas went 5 W – 2 L but was only banned twice. Something of a more esoteric pick, Gragas, for the summoners who play him, is a strong pick even with the belly flop nerf. Players who know their way around his kit can field him anywhere except the bot lane and be quite intimidating.

Shyvana went 3 W – 6 L and was not banned just like Lucian. Her reputation as amongst the top-tier top laners is in question after a shaky performance this week, even in her better summoners’ hands’. 

Kha’Zix went 3 W – 3 L and was banned 3 times. Apparently Riot has his balancing in a nice spot right now. Maybe not. Nobody will question you if you ban him.

Trundle had a good showing with 5 W – 3 L and no bans. CRS Quas exhibited the massive late game scaling Trundle enjoys, achieving 2.48 attack speed, only .02 below the literal cap. His potential to split push and chomp down objectives with frozen domain is something to keep an eye out for in solo queue.

Annie had a solid showing going 4 W – 3 L and was banned one time. Her average performance was fairly adequate, indicating a possible increase in counter-picking strategies from her reign of the past several weeks.

Nidalee will be a future pick to anticipate, going an impressive 3 W – 1 L this week and attracting 4 bans.