Why weren't Nami, Soraka, or Sona played in this year's Spring NA LCS? Why was Leona unpopular?

CandiedYams·Mar 19, 2018·1 votes·1,761 views

NA LCS Spring 2018 stats: Top KDA, team ranking, picks & bans, ...

During this year's spring split (NA LCS), pro teams made it very clear that their meta consists of tanky supports. Their top 4 played champions were , , , & , which were picked 20-50 times each. Most of the squishy supports were picked 3 times or less each ( , , , , & ), with the exception of (picked 10 times). What I am trying to understand is why these non-meta/squishy picks were more desirable than , , and , who were picked 0 times but could have been just as useful as support. On another note, since pro teams preferred tanky supports, why was only played once? She is very tough and has a lot of crowd control so why was she so unpopular?

Thoughts?

6 Comments

woodvsmurphMar 19, 20183 votes

Nami cc is too hard to hit, her heal is not too valuable unless you can get all bounces compared to it's mana cost. Soraka is too squishy and offers no disengage. Sona was gutted for part of the split. Her damage is rather low for the mana costs - eventually they reverted this and it's better, but still nothing amazing. She's probably dead if she gets in range to land an ult on enemy backline. If she can't ult anything other than the enemy tanks/frontline, it's kinda wasted; there's better champs to offer more peeling and protection.

Leona is an all-in champ. Playing agro and going all-in has been punished very hard with current system - just look at toplane: gp, vlad, gnar, and supertanks. Missing? Riven, renekton, jax, kled, etc. you know... the champs that like to go in, do damage, and make toplane worth watching and playing. Thus, leona faces same issue to a smaller extent bot lane. Taric, tahm, and braum are more about protecting your adc against all-ins and don't NEED to win lane. Leona kinda needs to win lane. Alistar is somewhat in the same boat as leona however, he counters rakan (a common support pick in pro scene) and he can be played as pure defense/disengage. Furthermore, he's naturally tankier with his ult and offers more cc if he can land his full combo of basic abilities than leona can offer pre-6. In short... until leona is made to be the strongest engage tank and playing agro is no longer punished so hard so easily leona will not be played much.

chipndip1Mar 19, 20182 votes

Because Riot doesn't give a single flying fuck about Sona in the pro scene, Soraka's really only half decent as a Janna counter because all her value is just shoe-horned into spamming heals...and Nami's cc is really hard to land.

7thHeavenMar 31, 20181 votes

RITO logic: 50% win rate champ is balance

KythersApr 2, 20181 votes

Sona is a lategame carry, I doubt games are decided late enough for her to matter in LCS

Also supports like Nami, Sona and Soraka get absolutely destroyed by Alistar

CandiedYamsApr 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Also supports like Nami, Sona and Soraka get absolutely destroyed by

It's really hard for a mage support main like myself to hear that xD especially since that isn't typically the case in my elo (trash), but I guess pro's have a different story. BTW, Nami was played a couple of times in NA LCS PLayoffs so far and Olleh did pretty well vs TahmKench (and won) but Adrian not so well with Nami against (he lost) . I wonder what made the matches so different.

http://www.gamesoflegends.com/champion/stats.php?id=60&season=S8&tournament=NA%20LCS%20Spring%20Playoffs%202018

KythersApr 2, 20182 votes

I don't watch pro games, but it's likely the rest of the teamcomp

Nami ult can completely shut down and peel engages in lanes from things like a sejuani + team behind, but high mobility/flank based engage teams will wreck her