league of hotshots? observation on state of S6

noticed a trend in the meta, but I'm unsure whether this is just a solo queue / bad mmr thing or an actual, proper meta.

I feel like hotshot is a pretty descriptive term, but I'll define what I mean more explicitly... basically, a champion who dominates the first handful of minutes of the game, but then crashes lategame- their power curve drops like a brick.

this describes a lot of champions, like , but their other distinguishing feature is incredible mobility or disengage- champions like , , , , etc. the important thing is not their ability to catch up with opponents, but to run away from them.

what makes a hotshot special is the fact that their disengage does a decent job of compensating for their lategame. they'll regularly dominate the early game, but if they can't transition that into a quick win, it's still difficult to mount a comeback against them, because so many resources have to be used up just to catch them or keep them pinned down.

for example, is not a particularly big lategame threat in comparison to his excellent early-mid, but even after he's fallen off, teams will regularly have to burn ultimates on him if they want to kill him, because his kick, wardhop, and base MS will get him out of very nearly anything.

this means that, even after losing a fight, most hotshots can get away clean, recall, and be there to defend or contest objectives the enemy team tries to take, and the enemy team will typically be at a disadvantage because they've burned their cooldowns for little benefit. the situation is a little better for the opposing team if they don't play greedy and try to kill each fight, but that still puts them at risk, for a variety of reasons.

all this is made more interesting by the fact that most of these champions are great splitpushers- dealing high damage in combination with great disengage is a good way to take turrets fast without getting caught, and the turrets will still be taking damage from you like it's midgame, since they don't scale.

so hotshots dominate the early game, take a few outer towers and so restrict the enemy's options, then mount a creeping offensive until the game ends- slowly splitpushing, keeping the map dark, and wasting time by escaping fights. even when the enemy team should theoretically be outscaling them, fights remain mostly even because of their ability to disengage from any encounter that doesn't benefit them.

obviously, this isn't a new thing- and have been playing like this for years now. but season 6's changes- which darkened the map, assisted splitpushes, and gave heavy advantages to teams that win the early game- seem, from my perspective, to have turned these champions from cheesy pubstompers that prey on the uncoordinated into serious, respectable threats, with their own very well-defined strategy that is as distinct as the teamfight, tank, poke, pick, and protect comps we've seen in the past. it's just as easy to make a well-rounded team of hotshots as it is to make a well-rounded, say, engage team, which makes me think that- even though their proper roles range from bruiser to assassin and even to ADC- they can be put in a fuzzy category of their own.

tl;dr: high mobility / disengage champions with good early games have always been pubstompers, but in season 6 they now seem to make up a valid and very effective strategy that borrows the best from pick and disengage strats.

again, this is only my experience, and this trend might not be the case in higher MMR- although, looking at win and ban rates, I think it is- but even so, even low elo meta shifts can be interesting in and of themselves.

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