Time to start some trouble - Introducing Ekko to pro play
Is Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time, going to shatter the League of Legends meta? The brand new AP assassin will be hitting the LCS stage in Week 3, and many pros have been chomping at the bit to take him to the Rift. Others, well, have apprehensions.
One thing they agree on is that, if given the right opportunity, Ekko is going to do a ridiculous amount of damage. If he's able to land Timewinder (Q) for poke, dash in with Phase Dive (E), and stun with Parallel Convergence (W), he'll blow up just about any squishy he can get his timey wimey hands on. If they survive all of that, there's always the massive scaling on Chronobreak (R) to finish them off in big ol' area of effect fashion.
To find out exactly how well he may do in pro play, we sat down with some NA LCS pros to chat about Ekko's strengths and weaknesses.
Don't blink
Lae-Young "Keane" Jang is particularly excited about the opportunity to to play Ekko. "When I was first watching Bjergsen's stream, he was really strong. All of his mobility, his escape skill, he has some burst damage," says the Gravity mid laner. "He has everything a mid lane champion needs."
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But, despite all his strengths, Ekko isn't a champion that can win games all on his lonesome. "[The strength of Ekko competitively] depends on the player and team composition," says Team Impulse mid laner Xian "XiaoWeiXiao" Yu. "If you have an all-in team comp it can be very good. But he can't single-handedly win a team fight."
Because he's so capable of weaving in and out of fights, XiaoWeiXiao says he'll be best in team compositions that can get him to the fight. "If we have... a Sivir, a mobile, all-in composition, he's good," he says. "With his ult, you can go in with the team or you can back off. It's very good."
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With his ability to get back out, many players believe that he'll be best used as an assassin that can, uh, assassinate other assassins. "I think Ekko can be good against assassins, because he can just ulti and go back and heal everything when an assassin tries to burst him," says Keane. "Let's say they have a Zed. Then, Zed's going to come in and then Ekko (I think) W makes a circle around and stuns. So if Zed ultis, Ekko can just W around it and counterplay it."
With the meta shifting away from assassins in general, though, it will be interesting to see if Ekko finds a place right away on the Rift.
Reverse the polarity
While Keane and XiaoWeiXiao are hyped to play the new champion, many pros are fairly apprehensive about how the time-traveling kid will fare in pro play. Team Liquid support Alex "Xpecial" Chu, is primarily concerned with his lane matchups, notably with two of the more popular mid lane champions in the current meta. "Azir, Viktor, these are champions that can pretty much one shot him or kite him back really easily," he says. "He has a lot of ways to avoid getting jumped on and killed, and Ekko doesn't really have a way to go on these guys and lock them down. He has really good CC, but it requires a two-second preparation time, and Azir is not going to wait for you. "
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He compares Ekko to another crazy mobile mid lane champion. "His issues will be what were plaguing Kassadin for a while," says Xpecial. "People weren't laning effectively, and felt like he had a lot of bad matchups. Same thing with Ekko."
As a result of his rough lane matchups and general difficulty, many players suspect he'll be very much a situational pick. "I think some teams are going to pull [Ekko] out against some champions," says Keane. "Not as a planned pick, but maybe [a Red] side last pick as a surprise. It's going to be fun."
Teams looking to pick up the Boy Who Shattered Time will definitely have to be careful of counterpicks, as any "champion who can CC will [counter] Ekko, like Ryze, or anything with stuns and stuff because if Ekko gets CC'd, then he has to ulti or he just dies," says Keane. If he has to use Chronobreak to escape and heal up, he's giving up a huge amount of damage.
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It's clear that teams haven't quite figured out how to best use Ekko. In fact, in just one day of LCS eligibility, he's already been played in two separate positions -- Henrik "Froggen" Hansen played him mid, while Karim "Airwaks" Benghalia played him out of the jungle -- but didn't find victory in either one. We'll have to wait for him to find his first win.
Will Ekko find success on the pro stage? Keep your eye on Lolesports for all the time-traveling action. If you missed out on either of his appearances on Day 1 of Week 3 of the European LCS, or any other games, head over to spoiler-free VODs page.
