The Mid Lane Trifecta Strikes Again!

Y'all know what it is. Since mid lane became the AP lane, Riot's crappy balance has lead to 3 champions completely crowding out other picks in the mid lane; from to , and even supports like have joined in on making mid lane boring and hopeless.

Numerous trifectas later, we've reached season 5's trifecta: .

The balance reason why these 3 champs are crowding everyone out? The ungodly nerfs to mana mages and the failure to properly nerf LeBlanc and Zed's oppressive kits.

Katarina is only in the trifecta because she's resourceless. She's seen numerous nerfs to her, but none of them seem to be budging her from the meta because champions that could easily bully her out of lane ( ) have gotten their faces bashed in with the nerf bat from the godawful mana regeneration changes. Out of the three, Katarina is the least egrigous example because of easy she is to shut down with proper teamplay, and honestly most of the complaints I hear here against her are people that just don't know how to play against her. Kat's just filling the void in the trifecta because LITERALLY NO OTHER MID LANER IS OP ENOUGH AT THIS POINT TO STAND UP TO LEBLANC AND ZED.

Zed is one of the bottom two in the trifecta because his laning is so toxic at this point that he's cemented in with LeBlanc (the trifecta is like the triforce in Zelda, you take the top part off, but the two bottom ones will remain). Because he can poke endlessly thanks to his laughable energy costs on his Q, he can easily bully the majority of champions out of lane with his damage. If all else fails, he'll eventually win the war of attrition, with mana mages having to back because they can't stand up to Zed's energy regeneration. Also, because of his damage and lack of mana gating, enemy mages have to buy regeneration and defense items (the most egregious one being , since it builds into only one AD item) while Zed gets to rush and . While Zed is overpowered and toxic right now, his kit is mostly healthy, and he can be balanced with proper energy costs, cooldown increases, and damage tweaks.

LeBlanc, however, is the worst of the worst when it comes to the three. LeBlanc saw niche play in earlier seasons thanks to the fact that she had a stun in her kit (silence + root = stun). After they took it out, her play rate started to dwindle, much to the pleasure of everyone unfortunate enough to lane against her at one point in their game. And then Riot gutted mana regeneration, and LeBlanc didn't just return, she put a stranglehold on the mid lane metagame. Because Katarina was becoming a thing, a demand for a lane bully that could hit Katarina from the back lines was in. Fizz came in due to his broken numbers, but after Riot finally decided to balance him, he moved on to annoy people top lane and jungle, but he was arguably balanced. Zed quickly took up the mantle due to his energy resource, but LeBlanc followed soon after by being the most toxic mid laner in the game since pre 5.4 Fizz. She quite frankly didn't need a silence in her kit, it only served to amplify her bullshit. She could still make you want to punch a hole in your monitor with her disgusting early game burst damage that could 100 - 0 you before you could even react, and then jump to safety. Her lack of a mana cost on her ultimate gives her even more free damage, and makes her roaming potential second only to Zed. LeBlanc can make short work of carries without having to build mana regeneration items because her kit does so much damage that it makes up for the horrid mana regen changes. All of the counterplay in LeBlanc's kit relies on her messing up, and getting really mad when she doesn't. That's why she's considered to be universally toxic across all ELOs, and is banned in 70% of games.

And according to the PBE, nothing is being done about any of these champs. In fact, thanks to the mastery changes, mana mid laners are going to be even more screwed!

Do you know what happens when Katarina, LeBlanc, and Zed are all banned? Mid lane becomes stupidly diverse. Seriously, I ban Zed and LeBlanc every time I'm captain, and the enemy usually bans Katarina, and when that happens and start getting played in the mid lane again. Hmmm. Why would that be?

Riot, I'm patiently waiting for you to end this streak of balance issues in mid lane so that one of these days I can actually look forward to playing it should i be forced to-

Ah who am I kidding. Aight boards, place your bets! Who are the next 3 champions that will crowd out mid lane when Riot whack a moles Kitty Kat, LeBronze, and Zeds Dead them to death like they've done will all of the other former trifecta members?