G2's Kikis talks champion diversity and Nidalee jungle

It's still weird to think of Kikis as a top laner. Even now, four weeks into the EU LCS 2016 Season Spring Split, our first instinct is to picture him in the jungle. Yet his effortless switch up to the top lane proves once again what we already knew.

Kikis has a knack for adapting to change, whether it's new metas, champions, or lanes. He and the rest of G2 are looking strong as we approach the half-way mark of the Spring Split, with the team at the top of the standings alongside H2K.

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"The thing for me is that I always adapt," Kikis reiterated to us.

It's something that's always been true throughout his LCS career, during which he would easily find new, unknown champ builds that his opposition would never expect. He invented Twisted Fate jungle and several other picks, some of which are still played in dynamic queue to this day. And having such a wide champion pool is pretty handy on recent patches. "I like the meta right now, because you have the variety of champions. You can play mages like Lulu and Lissandra. You can play tanks like Malphite and Shen. You can play carry champions like Quinn, Graves, and Fiora. It just depends on what the team needs and what you're best at."

During G2's game against Fnatic, the team drafted Nidalee for their jungler Trick. It was a choice not favoured by the casters at the time, but one which Kikis defends. "Our game plan this game was siege, poke, and split push. We got Corki and Nidalee for the poke, Fiora for the split push, so we always have pressure all over the map." But Nidalee's been looking weaker than other junglers for a while. Is her poke damage enough of a reason to bring her onto the EU LCS stage?

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"The thing about Nidalee is that she seems a lot stronger with the new enchantment, Runic Echoes, in the jungle. More than the Runeglaive," Kikis says. The Runeglaive enchant had a Sheen-like effect, doing extra damage on the next basic attack after an ability is cast. Runic Echoes, on the other hand, deals area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies on each ability cast after a short charging period, similar to Luden's Echo. "Because when she's poking she doesn't really benefit from the Sheen active, but the Luden's active damages everyone and it's actually a lot of damage. So before she was still played, but she wasn't considered the best pick because she would fall off really hard in mid to late game. It's a bit similar now, but she has stronger mid game so she can make up for it," Kikis explains.

Kikis also clarified why we're seeing some other champs make a reappearance. Lissandra is being flexed into both top and mid lane roles, despite seeing very little (if any) play out at Worlds 2015. "Sometimes it's like, a champion is not played, then a few things change, and suddenly it's the most broken champion in the game," Kikis says. "I think the reason Lissandra is getting more play is because she benefits from the AP items that were buffed. Rod of Ages and Abyssal Sceptre are really good on her. Also, a lot of bruisers top lane were nerfed and Lissandra wasn't great against those. She doesn't have huge burst against tanky champions."

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Last week we also saw the return of Quinn to the top lane. She's been out of favour for a while, but seems to be finding her footing (winging? clawing?) again in the current meta. She is, "getting more popular across the world," Kikis says. "They already played Quinn in the LCK and I'm pretty sure they played it in the LPL top lane. The champion is really strong to play around. She's a really strong laner, you can put a lot of pressure and if you have the pressure on the lane you can spread the advantage to other lanes through her ultimate and roaming. She's a really great duelist so she fits with the split push, Teleport role."

Some good advice for any top laners looking to rise through the ranks of the dynamic queue! As for Kikis, does he have any crazy picks of his own to show off any time soon? "I don't have anything crazy yet, but that doesn't mean I won't stop looking."