Sivir's sheer ubiquity in Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau's LoL Master Series is noteworthy primarily for the needs it answers. This isn't the first time that she's been popular in the bot lane: with her high-mobility ultimate and stun-negating Spell Shield, she's been the bane of many pick comps before. With On The Hunt, she slips in and out of fights and enabling the front-liners of her team to do their work with fewer obstacles (namely, taking less damage to get into the fight). She has, however, been absent for a while—Spell Shield only does so much versus an increasing roster of gap closers and assassins, and her short auto-attack range makes her less safe versus the likes of Corki and Tristana.
Her return to the forefront of competition didn't happen in a vacuum. Sivir's scary again, and her new partner-in-crime has a lot to do with it.
SHACKLED STRATEGIES
There are a lot of assassins and hard initiators in the current metagame. Rengar's returned to prominence in the jungle, Kassadin's a frequent top-lane presence, and it isn't unusual for a team to spend all three of their bans on mid lane, as Lissandra, LeBlanc and Fizz are all currently relevant. The early days of 2015 are defined by millisecond reaction times and absolutely no margins of error for squishy carries, and this is especially so in the LMS, where teams are demonstrating a notable preference for double-AP pick compositions.
In prior seasons, this actually worked against Sivir. While she is very good at frustrating a single mage, a double-assassin strategy easily overwhelms the protection provided by Spell Shield. So the obvious question the teams in Taipei are asking is: "well, what if you made her tankier?"
Janna was the first attempt. Throughout the first week of the LMS, Sivir and Janna bot lanes were the default strategy, to some success. But with Lissandra and top lane Kassadin locking Sivir into the fight, mere tankiness wasn't enough to keep her alive against that sort of high-damage burst: it was too trivial to tear down the shield then lock her down for sustained fire with Frozen Tomb. But you can't freeze a Black Shield target.
Morgana's been a familiar presence in the Southeast Asian scene for the last year: not only does Black Shield provide a similar tankiness against all of these AP assassins running around, but it extends the duration of her invulnerability against all forms of crowd control.
But even more important than the wider margin of safety she provides: Morgana opens up many more offensive options for Sivir to get her revenge. Assassins rely on hit-and-run strategies: blow up a target, then get out of the way of return fire. They don't last very long if caught, and Morgana is great at catching them. After their spells are wasted on attempts to catch Sivir, the hunters become the hunted when Dark Binding and Soul Shackles hold them down. Hong Kong Esports' Olleh demonstrated the shocking efficiency of the strategy in the last game of the LMS's Week One.
ON THE HUNT
There are demonstrated limitations to the bot lane strategy. Black Shield is useless against high physical damage burst, as demonstrated by Dream or Reality’s recent loss against Midnight Sun. The combined firepower of Rengar and Lucian, in particular, makes it pointless to even cast it: it'd be a waste of mana for damage that goes through anyhow.
It's also a strategy that inherently relies on strong early-game control, and that isn't available against all matchups. Corki, in particular, often forces Sivir into a difficult situation: his mixed damage quickly burns through Black Shield, mitigating her margins of safety, and his long-range pokes makes it dangerous to close in on him. If Sivir's stuck laning against Corki and Janna, it’s usually to her detriment.
However, the advantages that the pair offers in teamfights is too much for teams to ignore, especially in a combat-happy LMS. The smooth transition from defense to offense guarantees their continued presence as the season marches on.
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