Why some champions are "instapicks"?

YumaS2Astral··2 votes·594 views

I'm referring to those champions in particular: Yasuo Riven Katarina Annie Nidalee Ezreal

I am not saying they are broken (although I think that some of those champion are broken). But that they are "overpicked". This is just really... boring. People complain about the lack of diversity on this metagame, yet the first thing they do when they see Kat open is picking her.

I don't know it that's because I am on a different server than all you, but that's what happens on my server. Those picks are "instapicks" and they aren't even generalists like LeeSin, for example. They are just champions that people pick, no matter against which matchup, no matter the composition of the team (I have seen some people on my team that pick Yasuo even though my team has no other champion with knockups). Sometimes I ban those champions just to prevent them from being picked because I don't want to see them on a battle.

Those champions are boring to see because they are picked on EVERY situation. I wonder why people say they are fun. They are NOT fun. Playing as Yasuo is boring. Playing against Yasuo is boring. Playing with a Yasuo on my team is boring. And the same applies to the other champions that I mentioned.

There is a difference between a champion that is "overpicked" and a champion that is part of meta. For example, RekSai, Rumble, and Gnar but they aren't "instapicks". Even though they are popular, when you pick Rek'Sai for example, you don't pick her for just no reason other than "I want to pick her". You pick her when you need a tank for jungle, that has a knockup and good map control. If you need a tank with good teamfighting presence, you pick Sejuani. If you need a tank with good dueling potential you pick Rammus (although he is not part of meta). As for Rumble, you don't pick him just because he is open, you pick him when you need to counterpick something such as Shen or Malphite, or if you want to zone your opponents, because he has such good teamfighting potential.

When I see someone picking Riven or Yasuo I am always in doubt if they are picking those champions because they are good with them, or because they are counterpicking the enemy, or just because "they are open".

10 Comments

junglerboy161 votes

The reason there are insta picks is because players know for a fact that they have a good chance of winning if the can use that champ well, and people who don't understand the champ think the act of picking them in itself makes them more likely to win.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

But this can be said about many other champions that are not them.

For example, if you play Poppy correctly, you are very likely to win because at late game she can explode carries and can't be focused due to her ultimate.

If you play Shaco correctly, you will leave the enemy jungler so far behind that the enemy team will essentially play a 4x5, making them a lot more likely to lose.

If you play Zilean correctly, as long as you have one or two hypercarries on your team, you will never lose because you will always give them a second chance just in case that they are focused.

Yet they don't see nearly as much play as the champions I mentioned above.

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted} Playing as Yasuo is boring.

What the fuck are you talking about? Death is like the wind and it's always by my motherfucking side. Playing Yasuo is like doing a line of coke, it's probably a bad idea but holy shit are you in for a fun time. If I didn't suck a barrel of asses with him I'd use him in ranked if we had an AP top without any hesitation.

Anyway, while all of those champions are some of the most-picked champs around, none of them are actually number one in their lane with the exception of Riven.

What a lot of those champions have in common is immense carry potential if they get ahead. In the magical world of Yolo Q people have the mindset that they have to carry the game, and despite Spec Ops: The Line telling us this line of thinking is bad everyone wants to be something they're not, a hero.

Annie IMO is mostly used because she's very simple to use and reliable. The others have huge carry potential, above average mobility, and are fun champs to play. Riven players in particular are known to instalock her because she's their waifu.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

Annie IMO is mostly used because she's very simple to use and reliable. The others have huge carry potential, above average mobility, and are fun champs to play. Riven players in particular are known to instalock her because she's their waifu.

Then you are saying that some champions are overpicked because of how they look like?

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

Then you are saying that some champions are overpicked because of how they look like?

It's not necessarily all about looks (sure she's very good-looking, but most League girls are). A lot of people adore her character and lore.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

Lol. Ahri and Vi are 100x more beautiful than Riven.

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

Lol. Ahri and Vi are 100x more beautiful than Riven.

Riven beats Ahri in the looks department. Thus sayeth The Lord.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

{quoted}

Riven beats Ahri in the looks department. Thus sayeth The Lord.

Lol nope. Vi and Ahri are the true divas <3

Arthali1 votes

then Ahri leads you off and kills you...

Matthias91191 votes

I am not saying they are broken (although I think that some of those champion are broken). But that they are "overpicked".

Looking at pick rate in NA solo queue in the last month (from http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/ ):

Ez is 8th most popular (17%) Annie is 10th (17%) Riven is 15th (14%) Yasuo is 18th (13%) Nidalee is 36th (10%) Kat is 55th (8%)

I mean, they're all in the upper half of popularity in solo queue, but they're not being picked every game. It may be one of those things where there are a significantly higher number of people who "main" those champs than some others (high-mechanical-skill carries tend to do that), but overall they're not being picked at crazy rates.

Kat does get banned a lot, so if you looked at pick+ban rates she might rank higher.

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