We have gone through half of the League of Legends (LoL) 2019 Spring Split in most major regions. It has surely been a fun season of LoL since only ¼ of the season, we have seen quite a lot of interesting strategies, crazy champion picks, and even some insane rule breaking from pro LoL teams all over the world.
That means that the meta has been improved a lot, in comparison with the 2018 season’s meta. In the preseason period, we have seen quite a lot of new updates from Riot Games in LoL: minion bounties, turret plating, Karthus damage, new crit items, and 2 new imbalanced champions. This means we are beginning to see more diversity. So why don’t we take a step back and analyze what the LoL professional meta is like at the moment?
Early game is important now
The biggest change from the 2018 season is the pace of the pro game. Specifically, matches are a lot faster now. According to LoL stats site Games of Legends, the average LoL game times in the beginning the year is 32 minutes (kinda the same as the average game time in LoL World Championship 2018). Games got a little longer in Patch 9.2, but have reduced to just under 34 minutes.
This is a much faster pace than the LoL average games in the past years (normally 35 to 38 minute average games). The biggest reason for this is believed to come from the fact that Riot Games has made the game faster by increasing the number of dragon spawning in a game, reducing the amount of vision control capability, and making early-game objectives like turret plates much more important. The result is that teams with strong early games tend to win with domination while their opponents can't do much of anything to prevent.
Solo lanes can carry the team
Where teams are focusing on their power, which is the solo lanes in this meta. The tank meta is dead (trust us, don’t pick full tanks champions like Mundo in top lane now). Even more, Galio can't go for his regular tank items now. That results in top-laners playing high damage champions likes Jayce and Kennen, while mid-laners being in favor of Zoe, LeBlanc or Lissandra (well, Lissandra with Aftershock is not a classic AP mage, we admit).
The return of the AP mage champions is due to the nerfs to Irelia and Akali (which have finally taken them out of mid lane). That would open for mid-laners to pick traditional mid-lane champions (which normally are AP mage champions). Alongside traditional mages like Ryze, Orianna, and Syndra, we are wondering if Azir has a chance to come back. A lot of AP mage champions in mid-lane also means AP mage counter champions like Zed and Yasuo may have their chances now
Ranged champions are having advantages
The thing that could limit assassin champions is the advantage of ranged champions in this meta. Pro teams have found out that ranged champions have better minions control, which leads to an easier contest for turret plates. The turret plates now contribute a lot to early game leads. If done correctly, teams can buy key items faster and build a snowballed game by taking more turret plates than the opponents before they disappear in 14 minutes.
On Patch 9.3, eight of the ten most popular champions (not counting support champions) are ranged. This is a huge change from years past. Of course, ranged champions have weaknesses—they are normally squishy, and they will fall behind if they don’t have any early leads. But pro teams see that if they can get a lot of turret plates down, their ranged champions have the chance in the later stages of the game.
Pro coaches' creativity
An especially interesting improvement in season nine is just how creative pro teams have gone. From blocking minions to no-farm lanes with Frostfang, coaches’ creativity are in the next level now. Those are their efforts to make the game much more fun to watch.
The creativity has come to the champions selection as well. Champion diversity in the first half of the LoL 2019 Spring Split is a lot higher than last season. Nearly every champion is viable right now (even Sylas), and many champions can be played in different roles (Galio and Yasuo are perfect examples). It makes the game fresh and fun for us to enjoy.
Crit ADCs will return?
The big changes for crit items have gone live. So, as a result, we’ve seen some more crit champions like Sivir or Jinx after the domination of Lucian and Ezreal, but the second most popular crit champion in bot-laner now is Yasuo.
But we believe that it will only take some more time before more crit ADCs reappear in the games. Teams must be figuring out which team comps to play around crit champions. Only ¼ of the season went by, and that means crit ADC champions will get more update. And with their ability to take turret plates, long ranged crit champions like Tristana and Caitlyn will have their day soon.
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