League of Legends Patch 8.21 Rundown

[ryner]

19:30 - "Karthus is actually doing very well in 3 roles, with a +50% winrate in Jungle, Mid, AND "...People complain about Irelia, but Karthus is "objectively" (inserting my own quotation marks here) stronger than Irelia."

30:19 - "It's crazy to me how people use generic winrates as a measure of power."

10/10, classic Rito employee

[dend]

I'd love videos with nothing but Phreak ramblings on League of Legends state of the game / Champions

[cristianbernal]

to be fair freak, a team fighting mage won't dive into the backline, stun the entire team, and then reset her way through everything while being tanky.

[alexiwright]

Another thing to add to the list of reasons why I love Phreak Patchnote rundowns is that while other patch reviewers skim over changes, or just don't really think about the change that might be happening to your favorite champion. Phreak comes prepared with a table and a full breakdown regardless of champion, and honestly that feels really nice.

[SangoProductions]

Why do people fear the assassins rather than the objectively "I win 3% more often" champions. Because, 1. They actually play against the assassins, and 2. Good assassins can just say "Hey, you, I'm not going to let you play for the next 20 minutes, until you surrender. Have fun."

[emilemil]

"Generic winrate data..." <-- this, don't ever assume anything from this.

There are so many factors to take into account when assessing champion strength that you can't distill it down into a single percentage. Inexperience is one such factor, and a pretty big one at that, but I can list many more:

Team synergy. A Yasuo immediately becomes much stronger if a Malphite is on your team, and Kog'Maw becomes much stronger in a team with 3 tanks. A champion can have a mediocre winrate but be very strong in the right team. Communication also matters a lot, for example with Ryze who is significantly stronger in pro play due to the nature of his ultimate requiring good team coordination.

Champion counters. Some champions like Diana have absolutely atrocious average matchups, but can be highly successful against the right opponent, such as Diana against Syndra.

Generalists. While the last two points mentioned champions with varying winrates, there are also champions with very stable winrates, typically because they have a very safe laning phase with reliable gold income, making them difficult to counterpick. Examples are Sion or Janna. They're also popular champions to main because they can be safely first-picked, further inflating their winrate because the average player of that champion will have more games under their belt.

Mastery curve. Some champions peak higher than other champions, and some champions are quicker to master. This skews champion winrate depending on the ranked tier it's played it. Champions like Lee Sin and Aurelion Sol are a lot more powerful in higher tiers because they are difficult champions to play. Aurelion has a high winrate because only mains in high tiers play him, but Lee Sin has a low winrate because lower tier players play him a ton as well.

One-tricks. A lot of champions are really popular and have dedicated followings who will always play that champion, even if their matchup is terrible or it results in a poor team comp. Their skill with the champion pulls the winrate up, but it would be even higher if the champion was only picked when appropriate. For example Zed has a lower winrate than he should have because he's often picked by one-tricks in teams with way too much physical damage already, and the midlaner is typically the player providing magic damage.

Role. Most good team comps need a tank, but not all teams have a tank since a lot of players would rather play a damage dealer. This means that tanks have a higher than average winrate simply because of all games where one side has a tank and the other doesn't.

Oddities. In some cases champions are strong because opponents don't know how to play the matchup, or which champions to counter with. They may even be unable to counter because they don't have enough experience on the right champions. This is especially true for champions who does very unique things. For example a lot of top players struggle against Singed because he's nothing like their typical opponents, and marksmen/supports can struggle against Swain because they're used to being safe from snares when behind minions.

Meta. Fizz sits at a very high 52.68% winrate, and the reason for this is because he counters many popular picks, most notably Irelia who he has an absolutely massive 65.38% winrate against. Fizz' winrate is temporarily inflated by her presence in the midlane meta, and will likely fall off if she leaves that meta. Other factors are game length, which objectives matter the most, etc. Often champions can have wildly fluctuating winrates not due to them being generally overpowered, but because they are particularly suitable to the current meta. Graves for example became much stronger because he's really good at contesting the scuttle crab early on, so any changes to the crab (or any change that makes the crab less of a priority) indirectly affects the strength of Graves. Sometimes these changes don't have to come through patches, but can happen naturally through players simply changing their behavior over time. The winrates of many junglers changed for example when the average player realized that taking Krugs early was a viable option, leading to new jungle paths that were suitable for other champions. This was without any changes to the actual camps, just players being very slow to adopt new strategies.

...and the list could go on.

[cmck]

Well let's see. Irelia has around a 51% win rate with almost a 17% pick rate. Karthus has a 52% win rate with a 2.5% pick rate. I know which one I'm more scared of.

You don't see karthus enough to know how strong he is without looking it up and since you don't even see him to begin with he's just a waste of a ban. You're better off banning what's popular rather than the extremely low pick rate champs that happen to have decent win rates.

Irelia on the other hand is popular so you'll run into players who use her more often and she has a good enough win rate to justify not wanting to play against it.

You ban and complain about what you're likely to see. There's no point focusing on what isn't in your games no matter how strong it is. If you tell a silver player kalista is broken they won't give a shit. Kalista will always be ass in silver and never picked.

[tobiaserdt]

Phreak youre not doing a good job of analizing the data when you say Karthus is a stronger Champion than irelia because he has a higher winrate. The point about karthus is that hes so rarely played that prople are simply less aware of his streghts and play simply worse against him than they do against irelia while she is literally counterplayless if the one who plays he knows what hes doing while karthus is just a massively scaling but in earlygame useless champion. The other reason why Irelia's win rate must be lower is her big play rate that involves many newbies not knowing how to play her while karthus is basically only played by mains who know what they so usually. ALSO Karthus mains win 56% of games statistically while Irelia mains win 60% what you said about the Karthus state is simply wrong and im a bit disappointed that you, who is know for very detailed rundowns made this statement

[Saddlebagssale]

The main difference between Irelia and Karthus is the playrate. Why would someone ban a champion they have very little chance of seeing even if it is stronger, than a champion almost everyone wants to play and is still strong?

[glokazuns]

I laughed my ass off when you shout casted that Go to your room comment in the c9 group stage game. Hilarious. Great casting ! Looking forward to hearing your casting in the final! Cheers.

[ElectrifyingHBK]

Irelia movement speed nerf is like a slap in the face and Akali is still completelly ignored after like 3 or 4 patches now. What...

[rmtsapphire]

You’re a legend for getting this out while worlds is on

What a champ

[Tpworm]

thanks, this rundown has help me a lot .

[emanuelecorbellini]

I think the reason for which people tend to ban assassins and complain about them more than team fighting picks is the flip-coin problem. If you are confident in your carry performance and in your 56.7 winrate, you know that you can probably fight your way through a Karthus. However, you also know that a fed Irelia takes the game out of your control. So for every few games where you have a easier time because they have a bad irelia, there is that game that you have no control on, because the irelia gets fed. So banning her is not only good for your winrate, but also for your mental, as you don't get frustrated because your mid goes 0/4/0 at minute 12.

[xlXOsPrEyXlx]

Hey Phreak, in regards to your comments about Essence Reaver, most people on Adcs aren't really complaining about it because of its gold value but more because of its play style. As an adc, your ult is something you either use wisely in the middle of a team fight, or something to use towards the end. The only two I can see starting with their ults and benefitting from the current stats would be Sivir and Lucian.

I think what had made Essence Reaver so desirable in the past was its general cool down relating to crit and not just only having cool downs during the teamfight. Someone like Xayah who usually doesn't want to lead a fight with her ult really made amazing use of the old stats whereas the new ER just seems more built for bruisers that have a steroid as their ultimate that they activate before a fight.

Just my two cents.

[EverEvie]

Phreak, Do keep in mind that builds may differ on matchups, So for Example, on a easy to abuse match up irelia maxes E for the cool down to trade more often, but since it is an winning match up her win rate is going to be naturally higher. So sometimes going for the Most popular build is better. (i do not know if that is how Irel works, just throwing it out as an example)

[Axowobo]

Ofcourse people hate Irelia. She counters other assassins with her w, has an easy way to get on most mages and a landed skillshot usually means the death for any midlaner or results into an all in on the toplane.(which seems pretty straight forward to me) Additionally, even though she is mostly seen as an assassin, she doesnt build like one, Making her tankier than any other assassin. Her drawbacks are that the burst isnt quite on the same lvl as other assassins, she still needs some setup to get her job done and that she has to get into the enemy backline. the low winrate most likely is a product of the players themselves. Every single Irelia has the Yasuo complex of being either 10/0 or 0/10, blaming it on the enemy jungler for taking advantage of her most likely way too aggressive playstyle. You can actually leave your midlane without 10 kills and you are still gonna be really strong . :)

[simonnilsson]

Phreak, just a top on your rambling, People who spam max an ability will obviously have a lower winrate on that champion.
Take Zac for ex, many players above Plat, max W second, only cause they play against more tanks than fighter, But if they play against fighters its a stright out easier matchup to max Q first, BUT zac players who max q second against fighter will maybe have just as bad day against them as maxing W. Meaning the 2nd max ability is a depending on situation, not which is best in winrate.
If I play Zac and max W 2nd and are against 5 ranged champions. My chance to win the game dropped by an entire 5%. But if you compare that winrate with against tanks and cc machines matchup, the winrate increase with 5% instead.
Its all about situations and you should never say ”max E every time cause you have to” If massively behind on Zac, you should max Q over E first to be able to be useful for teamfights.

[thejakobistable]

I think Riot created so many unique champions that they cant track the strength of champions like karthus or shaco effectively anymore and parts of the community have to suffer under that.
Anyway, thanks for the video I really appreciate this content.

[alfafox]

Interesting point about regen not keeping up with health growth. I actually think that (totally impulse read on my part) it is healthy for it to be this way because if regen scaled too hard along side health, poke champions would be pushed out of the meta too far. Thoughts?