I believe
doesn't see a lot of LCS play because he's so bad in any teamfight that don't actually involve someone getting hit by a mushroom. Low ELO, and SoloQ games generally, tend to feature more solo laning/farming and far less teamwork than LCS, and
feasts on both things. The second you get to LCS, everyone is actually generally coordinated and working together at the highest level, which really screws up the squirrel's hustle. Every LCS-level player in League knows how to structure a team to sweep properly avoid the majority of mushrooms, and then the team with
has no frontline. You really don't want him out in front going "You want a piece of me????", going toe to toe with an LCS-level
on toplane scalings to see whose frontline gives way first.
That being said, it would be really fun to see Riot do a "scrim series" where pros are encouraged and rewarded for picking champions across the entire roster! I'd love to see what some of the pros could do on solo-Q and off-meta picks, as one of my biggest issues with pro play is how constrained the meta becomes, leaving no pro-level examples of how to play the wider variety of League's champions.
By the way, I have banned
more or less consistently in the toplane for ages, for what it's worth, especially on the blind. It's not that I can't beat one - but allowing him into the mix severely limits some of my best choices as I play a lot of juggernauts, and I think I'd often choose to pour concrete for an hour over trying to eke out wins against him on any autoattack-focused champ.
I feel it's an older kit that has mostly only survived to the modern era via its less interactive mechanics (the blind particularly), and I would definitely consider
a prime champion for a future rework, though certainly not as urgent as
. This rework wouldn't have to be a major one, just one that takes some community suggestions, like debuffing his blind to a nearsight and/or making it a passthrough skillshot in exchange for giving him a little bit more power in teamfights - maybe something like altering the mushroom throw a bit, give it a hold-down windup and a bounce pattern, and making it explode directly against champions instead of rooting? That would give him more placement range utility in a teamfight while removing the gameplay pattern that gives a lot of melee champions no counterplay in lane against him.