Assembling SoloQ and Flex to assess Kayn, Rengar and Yi & insights.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to make that post as a reflexion to champions balances. I believe that we've seen lately odd stuff put on the PBE that probably are leaving many ppl, including myself, confused. Where and how can we find sense in thoses recent changes and those "yasuo will be weak this patch"? Is about the very high end pro players, is it forcing a meta for worlds?

Even though it remained since its beginning a heavily soloQ-based game (I call it myself), still remains a 5vs5 games leading ppl to group up... play flex - which doesn't only include pro players. This lead to the concept of organized VS disorganized. My thoughts regardings last changes to League including last seasons is that balances may be made according to high elo organized environnement rather than soloQ. Ppl will say "worlds" or "LCS"... but I did anyone tried to give a proper assessment of this? I'm going to try to evalute those champions taking their determinants both in soloQ and Flex seperatly in dia + to aggregate them into a final score.

Let's look at winrates in 5vs5 flex and soloQ this patch : https://u.gg/lol/tier-list?queueType=ranked_flex_sr

Dia + : flex - SoloQ - Average (no ponderation for equal importance).

Kayn : 47,52% - 48,28% - 47,9%. Rengar : 52,83% - 51,55% - 52,19%. Master Yi : 48,21% - 47,69% - 47,95%.

The problem being to what extent winrates defines a champion strenght or weakness? Honestly, I don't think winrate is a significant determinant on strenght or weakness. It's the easy way but disregards the fact that those winrates can be buffed by other ppl carrying. It does give an indication of the number of games won but doesn't explain what made them won those games. Another stuff that may be used to evaluate a champion contengency is the pick rate and ban rate. I will proceed to add % pick and % ban to get a % of presence/perception.

Flex dia + : Pick rate - Ban rate - Rank -> presence/perception

Kayn : 7,7% - 4,1% - 30/35 -> 11,8%. Rengar : 8,1% - 12,9% - 5/35 -> 21%. Master Yi : 5,2% - 6,8% - 28/35 -> 12%.

SoloQ dia + : Pick rate - Ban rate - Rank -> presence/perception

Kayn : 6,5% - 2,6% - 25/34 -> 9,1%. Rengar : 6,4% - 10,9% - 8/34 -> 17,3%. Master Yi : 3,5% - 4,3% - 29/34 -> 7,8%.

What we can see is that those champions are all more present or perceived stronger in an organized environnement rather than in SoloQ. Rengar is actually over the top right there ranking 5th in flex with a 21% presence rate.

Average perception/presence rate (no ponderation) - Average winrate :

Kayn : 10,45% - 47,9% Rengar : 19,15% - 52,19% Kayn : 9,9% - 47,95%

Winrates from Kayn and Yi are at roughly 48% which is not bad at all and rengar is having a great time obviously. Presence and perception indicate +/- 10% for Kayn and Yi which is good enough assuming we've 34 possible jungler according to u.gg (2,95% for equally distributed presence rate (100/34)). Rengar 19,15% do not need any further comments.

**Now the question is what those buffs are targeting? **

Kayn Shadow Step (E) duration increased from 5/6/7/8/9 seconds to 8/8.5/9/9.5/10 seconds Shadow Assassin bonus movement speed increased from 70% to 80%

Rengar Thrill of the Hunt (R) Camouflage duration increased from 12/16/20 to 12/20/28 Cooldown lowered from 130/100/70 to 110/90/70

Master Yi Meditate (W) cooldown lowered from 35 to 28 damage reduction increased from 50/55/60/65/70% to 60/62.5/65/67.5/70%

Personal thoughts based on the results :

It does seems to be despite my assumptions and the general perception towards worlds that these guys are performing lesser in soloQ than in Flex AND that those buffs are mainly targeted at soloQ. Indeed, ** They do seem to indicate that those champions have issue translating early leads into a win to "solo carry" in soloQ.** Despite their winrate (that are not that bad let's be honest), Kayn and Yi looks to me fairly pick/banned enough, especially in Flex, which makes me think that they're in a bad spot at all. Overally, I cannot really find a reason for these buffs. Presence rate indicates decent numbers for yi and Kayn despite their winrate. Rengar numbers and presence rate support the idea that he's performing very well (too well?) currently.

**Gameplay Board what do you think? **

Those "determinants" (winrate - ban rate - pick rate) are also very much partial according to me. So It does requires some knowledge of the champions themselves. So I'm calling upon the board community to help me and mostly OTP to understand what those buffs are actually mainly targeting and what they expect from them. Mainly Organized or disorganized environnement? Also, what will be the consequences in organized and disorganized?

Cheers,

[poppy-wink]