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Here Comes Vi: Why I Expect the Piltover Enforcer to be a Mainstay in 2017

Aspen522·11/21/2016, 9:43:42 PM·3 votes·1,250 views

NOTE: Please remember that I am not an LCS predictor, nor a Challenger tier player. I am simply a player who enjoys Vi and hopes to see her played more. Thanks!

Vi has been lowkey OP for a while now, and it’s honestly surprising to me that we haven’t seen much of her this year. Even in Worlds, where we got a NOCTURNE game, Vi wasn’t even hovered. I expect that to change in 2017, however, and here are four reasons why.

  1. She’s tanky. The most played junglers during the 2016 NA LCS Summer Split were Rek’sai and Gragas. Why? They were both extremely tanky. Sure, you could build Gragas full AP, but it was much more conventional to build them tanky so that you could save a stronger pick for your support like Karma. Vi fills this role well. Her passive gives her a shield (which scales off of max HP) after she damages an enemy with her abilities, which means she’ll do well if you build HP/tank on her. But you know what’s better than soaking up damage? Dealing it. And Vi can do both.

  2. She has damage dealing potential. My normal build on Vi is Mercs, Dead Man’s, BC, Stalker’s with Warrior enchantment, Triforce, and Banshee’s. With this build, I am very tanky, my shield is huge due to my bonus HP, and I can STILL one shot a squishy target with a Q-auto-E combo (which you can do a LOT now, considering we’re in an assassin meta.) Even against enemy tanks, her W shreds their armor, increases her attack speed, AND deals % max health damage. With her W alone, Vi can punch her way through an enemy tank and get to the backline. Or, she can just skip straight there. Point three.

  3. She’s got massive disruption. You ever wish you could just get that one annoying player alone and beat the stuffing out of him? Yeah, that’s Vi’s ultimate: a point and click spell that that causes her to dash to an enemy champion, uppercut them, and then dunk them. HARD. Not to mention it also deals 75% damage to any enemy in the way AND knocks them out of her way. This ability has many uses, but one of the best is to find the most dangerous target, dunk them and voila. You now have a separated backline, ripe for the killing. But have the preseason changes shifted her power at all? Nope. If anything, she’s stronger.

  4. The preseason changes have made her stronger. With the changes to jungle camps and masteries, some junglers are having a rough time in between the lanes. Not Vi. She’s having the time of her life. Her W already deals good damage, so Gromp, Blue, and Red aren’t a big deal. And the new chickens and Krugs? A few E charges (an AOE cone of damage, for those who don’t know) ensure you take them out fast enough so that your health remains in good shape. And the masteries? Oh boy. Hate dying? Go 0/12/18 and put your keystone in the newly OP Colossus. Wanna pull an error 404: squishy not found? 12/18/0 into Thunderlords. You could even go 18/0/12 with Fervor if you wanna try a punchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunch attack speed build. Vi stands for Viable, and with these preseason changes, that’s what Vi is.

And that’s it! Did I forget anything? If so, please leave a comment! Thank you, and I hope to see more Vi’s in solo queue!

TL;DR: With Vi’s tankiness, damage dealing potential, and disruption kit, as well as the preseason changes, I expect to see a lot more Vi in solo queue and competitive play.

7 Comments

RianDuong11/21/2016, 9:58:58 PM1 votes
  1. She is extremely fun to play. High level junglers might pick her up in solo/duo queue simply because she is fun to play. This can lead to the meta shifting to bruisery jungle picks, like the rek'sai we saw in s5-6.
Papa Slothy11/22/2016, 12:18:39 AM1 votes

I wouldn't be suprised

ToBeSomebody11/22/2016, 2:17:26 AM1 votes

I disagree a little bit with your reasoning on the first point. Malphite and Nautilus are both incredibly tanky and you don't see them in the jungle.

Rek'sai and Gragas are tanky, yes, but they bring plenty to the game in every stage. They're both very mobile, great at engage, and wonderful at ganking, making them good junglers, but that's a lot of champs. Rek'sai provides her team with incredibly valuable information about enemy positioning in fog of war as well as some cross-map mobility (though yes, it is more often used just to get back to the jungle) and Gragas' ultimate is arguably one of the most versatile in the game when in the hands of a pro. Even when behind, a well-placed Gragas ultimate can shift the tides of a game and has to be respected on a championship stage.

The difference with Vi is that generally speaking she doesn't offer those same things. Sure, if you put her in a ring 1v1 with a lot of champs she'll rough them up, but this is a team game. Vi's ultimate is rather easy to manipulate thanks to the travel time, and in high tiers of play this can lead to some very easy kills on the poor girl. Apart from the ultimate, she's sort of a 1-trick pony. You engage and hope things die. Her peel is almost non-existent unless you use the ultimate for it, so it's either all-in or dead. She shares some of those same traits with Rek'sai, yes, but I'd point out what I said above about free vision and global pressure.

But, some positives: I agree that the new jungle is a cakewalk for Vi compared to other junglers. The sustain added by the river plants as well as free mobility through the bombs makes her much more dangerous than she was before. The new shield keystone has the ability to either offset or double up on her passive shield, making her a threat you don't want to focus. The whole point of playing Vi (in the past, anyway, we might see this change with the new stuff) is to single out and destroy a single target. She's got the kit to beat the crap out of squishy targets and survive a good hit herself, and a lot of this new stuff helps her shine in this position.

Vi's always been my go-to jungler, but not because she's better than the others or sleeper OP. She just fits my playstyle. I can't say I agree that we'll see a lot more of her, but I hope I'm wrong :)

catastrophicSkil11/22/2016, 3:13:29 AM1 votes

idk about lowkey OP but she is strong. The problem her is it requires your team to trust your judgement if the teamwork isn't there vi can easily throw a game. The one thing that i encounter more times than not is a team that is confident in their team. Don't get me wrong I currently play a lot of vi because i noticed a lot of these things. However i also notice a lot of my loses are because my teammates either tunnel or refuse to follow up on some engages and this can lead to throws. (I won't say i make the best choice 100% of the time sometimes I do make a bad choice.)

Things to remember when playing vi: There are also a few champs who are meta that make it difficult for Vi Zyra Janna Karma all make her Q much weaker and aall 3 of these champs are currently meta.

Vi is a win more champ when you're ahead she is amazing but when you're behind you will clearly she is a lot less effective because she doesn't have the gold to be tanky and do damage so she cant really engage she can only attempt to peel for carries