Midlane Slayer Meta Emerging

Ifneth·May 28, 2018·13 votes·8,143 views

Judging by op.gg, a slayer meta is emerging, with the top ten midlane champions being slayers, champions work like them, or champions that reliably counter them.

Talon. Your standard AD assassin.
Twisted Fate. His Gold Card reliably stops their all-in, and his ultimate lets him roam.
Zed. Your edgier AD assassin.
Zoe. Sleepy Trouble Bubble to stop all-ins but also to high end burst.
LeBlanc. Chains and Distortion to avoid all-ins and has high end burst.
Irelia. Dashes and Damage Reduction to avoid all-ins with lots of sticking power and sustained damage.
Yasuo. The one and only.
Ekko. AP Assassin.
Fizz. AP Assassin.
Lulu. Shield and slows to deny trades and polymorph to deny all-ins.

Do you agree or disagree, and what do you think of this?

45 Comments

BjørnetjenestenMay 29, 201811 votes

Riot is giving assassins **% total ** armor ~~shred~~ penetration with item 3035 changes. item 3053 will grant bonus AD and spear of shojin... enough said.

..Wait i forgot** Hail of blades**, another assassin rune. Meanwhile mages cant even have fucking waveclear or shields or a fucking decent keystone..

Yes this is another braindead assassin meta... sigh

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Note: Armor Pentration is not the same as Armor Shred. Armor Penetration is for you. Armor Shred is for you and your team. Last Whisper and its upgrades offer Armor Pentration, not Armor Shred.

I like that Riot is adding true fighter items to the game. Right now, they all build the same few items first and then buy tank items. Now, they’ll be able to buy items for their own class like Marksmen, Mages, Supports, and Tanks do. Besides formally recognizing the class, this change offers Riot balance levers for it. No more having to wonder about how Randuin’s Omen fits into, say, both Xin Zhao and Ornn’s builds.

BjørnetjenestenMay 29, 20181 votes

Corrected, still doesnt make much of a difference, why do they need access to this giant ammount of penetration (both flat and %), while still maintaining overtuned ad values on items. Armor will be completely worthless, on anyone with lower hp than a true tank.

The problem with fighter items, is that they might be fine for the intended group, but Rengar Khazix Zed Talon Kayn (blue) are not fighters at all, but are still able to abuse the shit out of the new steraks and shojin.

Its like the balance team has no clue, what the consequences will be for these changes...

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Riot wants to move away from having champions be relevant only at certain stages of the game. Giving AD Assassins an option for scaling penetration will keep them relevant during the late game, letting Riot reduce the reliability of their early game per a recent post.

Remember, AP Assassins have had more flat and scaling penetration sooner than AD Assassins ever did, and they’re alright. MPEN doesn’t scale with levels like Lethality does. You get 18 from Sorc Shoes and 15 from Oblivion Orb, and Void Staff offers 40% Magic Pentration. You’ll be doing true damage to squishies and nearly true damage to ones with a single MR item.

BjørnetjenestenMay 29, 20184 votes

Except that ap assassins cant proc their whole inventory for 300-500 "true" dmg per AA cough.. hail of blades.

Giving AD Assassins an option for scaling penetration will keep them relevant during the late game, letting Riot reduce the reliability of their early game per a recent post.

But i guess thats a good thing then IF they keep their promise and actually nerf assassins instead of straight up buffing them, like they did with the duskblade nerfs

Reaper ClawsMay 29, 20181 votes

Khazix with Shjoin is kind of a paradox. Do you want to fight around three people or pickoff isolated targets? Steraks ,however, would be pretty nice.

KeshaunMay 29, 20181 votes

Stormrazer on AD assassins + Duskblade will make the first auto hit like a truck. Critical strike on first auto plus Duskblade passive. Sheesh!

Reaper ClawsMay 29, 20183 votes

Better than a brain dead adc meta.

BjørnetjenestenMay 29, 20181 votes

Not really, only assassins and their hard counters will be viable.

RevaliMay 29, 20184 votes

Hail is blades is actually really bad on most assassins.

the champions I think have the most success with it are Mordekaiser TahmKench RekSai

The last whisper change was probably needed and shifted the item more twardds being able to be bought by fighters assassins and adcs.

Steraks Im on the fence about, I think its overreaction as the shield is still off bonus hp right? at most an assassin will have that and cleaver. its a lot of survivability that's probably unnecessary but more then likely will never be bought in reality.

AirKingNeoMay 29, 20181 votes

Hail of Blades is actually just really bad.

They need to make the attacks deal a flat bonus damage plus a percent bonus damage, and then give the rune a more proper cooldown so Kennen can't bully top lane with it.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Anyone who has a three-hit passive will like it, but assassins will like Electrocute more.

RevaliMay 29, 20181 votes

That would seem to be the case, but some characters actually don't want it, as a lot of 3 hit passives tend to favor extended trades, not short. unless your name is mini gnar.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

But what if your opponent also wants an extended trade? Hail of Blades could let you trade and escape quickly.

MetalGearTeemoMay 29, 20181 votes

Darius

Colton147May 28, 20183 votes

Buff Corki , Lux , and Ziggs .

Slythrin UmbreonMay 29, 20183 votes

Ziggs feels fine, can't comment on the other two except that I've seen a youtuber doing well with Lux.

M00ndanc3May 29, 20185 votes

lux has been getting nothing but changes and buffs with the only real nerf beinging her e has a smaller radius. I think shes fine.

AirKingNeoMay 29, 20183 votes

https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/middle/diamond

and Lux still sucks.

Warlord RhinarkMay 29, 20183 votes

Lux and Ziggs most definitely don't need buffs.

Maybe Corki.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Maybe after the Fleet Footwork nerfs.

AirKingNeoMay 29, 20181 votes

Ziggs has sucked for like a year now.

Lux sucks by design so I guess buff her shield or something.

Reaper ClawsMay 29, 20182 votes

Fuck yes, I love slayers.

Athenes LuluMay 29, 20181 votes

~~if lulu is "good against mages" then how come she was the one who "ended the assassin mid meta" back in seasons 4 and 5?~~

[sg-lux-2]

edit: im a retard but lets make lulu midlane meta again so we can bring back mages :^)

Anu3isIIMay 29, 20181 votes

Why is Lulu there? Especially when her most picked item is Banner of Command to counter Mages?
The options you offer in your pool are skewed. Firstly, you shouldn't ban your hardest counter every game, you should ban champions that can affect negatively the whole team. Secondly, many mages consider Assassins as their hardest counter, since they are made to murder carries. So they will consider them stronger than they really are.

CJ10002000May 29, 20181 votes

Ok you have to understand one thing and that is lulu is to assassins what singed is to bruisers in the early game.

An annoying as fuck champion that is too safe to fight and our trades you if the player has half a brain cell.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Yep!

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Banner of Command now offers Armor and Magic Resistance rather than magic immunity. It works on everyone.

Yeah, my poll options could have been better, but people in solo-queue usually pick and ban selfishly, making their draft choices at high elo a good yardstick for the meta.

AirKingNeoMay 29, 20181 votes

it always gave armor

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

I mean to the minion.

AirKingNeoMay 30, 20181 votes

it always gave armor to them minion

Frontline FuryMay 29, 20181 votes

We’ll be entering a slayer meta in 8.12. Atm its not quite pick/ban (Irelia is showing up consistently but not ban worthy just yet) but that might change in two weeks.

Champions like Kai’sa and Jax still have ban priority.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

That depends on whether the coming fighter items will make fighters stronger overall or just not fall off as hard later if they want to build damage.

AirKingNeoMay 29, 20181 votes

Jax doesn't have much ban priority. You might want to check banrates.

https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/diamond/by-banrate

Serika ZeroMay 29, 20181 votes

Personally, I think TF is a poor choice vs assassins. But this might be just because I suck at playing TF.

Good choices vs assassins will usually be the classic ones like Oriana, Ahri, ~~Lissandra~~ (buff lisa pls)

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

Never underestimate the power of the ~~Scout’s Code~~ a point-and-click stun.

Serika ZeroMay 30, 20181 votes

Lulu - it tastes purple is better vs assassins ;) which is why people are losing their minds and demand lulu nerfs, again

Malix FarwinMay 29, 20181 votes

Theres always going to be champions at the top, the real question is whats the relative difference between the top and the median.

Also i do not know where you are getting your Data from but its not matching up at all with any site i am using.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/home/ http://na.op.gg/champion/statistics

Both have the top 10 performers as:

Aurelion Sol Wukong Singed Xin Zhao Draven Talon Twisted Fate Graves Kled

Only 3 in the S Tier are Mid and only 2 are the ones you mentioned: They are sitting around 51% WR

The WR for mid laners currenty range from 54% to 45% and there are about 17 mid laners(rounding to the nearest) that are not 50%+ WR. They are not brokenly OP when the majority of the mid laners are seeing similar results.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

My original post wrote that

... the top ten midlane champions [are] slayers, champions work like them, or champions that reliably counter them.

Not the top 10 overall.

Giga BaboonMay 29, 20181 votes

Mages are dead.

5050BSMay 29, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Giga Baboon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ecyvjEYa,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2018-05-29T18:04:39.220+0000)

Mages are dead.

QFT

5050BSMay 29, 20181 votes

Because of the AD items and Pyke on the PBE midlane is almost always one of these AD champs. Iv been playing Illaoi mid and being very successful.

IfnethMay 29, 20181 votes

In fairness, that’s PBE.

5050BSMay 29, 20181 votes

True but Iv played vs like Yasuo and Zed top lane on live and Illaoi wins vs them. Same goes with these others. Squishes dont do so well vs Illaoi.

Iv also found midlane to be very safe for her. The River walls are perfectly setup for tentacles and are safe from ganks.