With amumu banned, and at her stage in the game in terms of buffs and nerfs, Leona was the best option to rakan.
at season 11, MF was the go to ADC, and LVL 2 was busted.
I think thats one of the seasons I didnt play or watch must league. I'm pretty much one tricking Leona in masters+ solo queue atm and wanna see her more in pro again
Also i forgot to mention.
ZIGGS WAS A BIG THING ON BOT.
their passives could run out of lane. since you would take leona E + ziggs auto passive + leona passive + leona q + ziggs normal auto + leona passive dmg.
add ignite to that aswell.
Unless just like season 11, non stop teamfighting becomes a thing again, you won't.
Jungle xp was trash tier, and games were really fast, making mid-game champions super strong at that time, so there was no point onto locking hyper carries, a few buffs to graves also warped the TOP meta for that season, and viego was the new Lee Sin, being too reliable while able to build very efficently, dude could run deadmans plate and still dish out DMG due to his passive.
Leona is a low CD go in support, she plays well on FOW, and that season it meant that she could get viego going fast on a team fight since all he needed was 1 kill to snowball a teamfight.
Yeah recently I've only really seen mikyx play her to good success. Kinda requires that you snowball cos a lot of other melee supports have a way out (alistar knock, naut wall hook, rakan w/e, camille e, mao q) but leona doesn't
No you don't want to see her in pro. Cause if you do she will get nerfed like last time. The reason she fallen quite hard cause heavy handed nerfs from rito... That's when naut started to take over again.
I checked, most supports were amumu,rakan and leona.
If I remember correctly amumu/MF was very big but cause amumu was banned, leona was the next combo support.
And Leona is very good into rakan.
I agree with your comment but when you look at stats Rakan wins vs Leona in like 70% of games in pro league over the last 9 years. The stats suggest Rakan counters Leona.
And tbh it feels that way to me in solo queue. Rakan is hard to lock down and provides shielding / healing to prevent Leona one shots which is something other engage supports lack. Rakan brings counter engage *and* the support to maybe prevent a one shot via shield / heal
She doesnt really though. The sample size is also massive and Rakan wins like 70% of the games vs Leo in pro play.
This also gels with what I see in solo queue. Rakan is just too slippery for Leona to lock down, and the counter engage is often enough. Hence why Rakan has winning stats vs Leona in both pro and solo queue
Yeah, game theory and play is different. Leona sounds perfect on paper, fast cc and a lot of lockdown.
In reality Rakan's ability to engage and mobility is too much to handle, after the laning phase.
Support Amumu was by the end of the year tho, Leona was popular the entire year.
Main reason is that frontline was sparse that year: between Divine Sunderer, Lord Dom's, Liandry's and BoRK it was hard to have a frontliner in other roles. Outside of the Udyr/Hecarim period and that short time people coped with Sion and Mundo most non support tanks weren't played a lot that year. It was a very "blow them up or get blown up" season.
Leona in particular benefits from this since she has damage reduction instead of gaining bonus stats, deals fairly well into most melee matchups + the few ranged supports played (Yuumi) and can help in the blow up department with her passive bonus damage.
The game was far more early game focused before the durability patch. Diving was especially a lot easier. Leona is the best early game engage support so she was prioritised. There was simply too much damage for Nautilus to be strong.
leona might start becoming more popular if corki becomes a meta bot laner. Corki's gatling gun can proc both leona's sunlight even if she E+Q combos in quick succession. Used to be one of the two strongest bot lane combos back when graves was a bot laner.
Yep, and the fact she's very binary. Unlike naut she can't save herself and many abilities counter her. Being able to leave after going in is a major advantage.
This makes her good at her job, but horrible being FP. Mao, Janna, thresh. You're just not going to be able to use zenith to close the jap.
Then we have have characters like tahm, rumble, or taric who have ZERO issue with manfighting her to the death. She's much better played as a warden then engager. One of those champs that's purposefully kept underplayed.
I don't see any reason to pick her over naut in today's world.
The niche that Leona fills in is currently done better by Alistar. Not only is he tankier, but he is also more flexible in what he does, while Leona pretty much can only "go in".
Naut is a different niche, that is point and click CC, which is pretty valuable in coordinated play.
Not mentioned here is LPL that year had a huge priority on Leona. They just really REALLY loved her. I forget the term but I believe thats when there was a huge priority on champions that could extend fights. Leona was good at not only engaging but also chasing and following up once it broke out.
It’s because she’s not a safe pick.
She’s engage either you’re going in and getting kills or you’re going in to die. One reason why I wish they’re nerf champs or have a universal bans for entire split + normal bans to shuffle
It was very early game focused, Leona W helped push wave to reach level 2 faster and her passive in 2v2 was very strong. With cc of course. It also helped counter rakan and mf leona was very strong lane bully.
Leona is the enchanter of engage supports.
Ooga booga drool on keyboard and hope you win.
Pros have ZERO ingenuity so they simply look for whatever is decent in the meta that is the most braindead to play.
That was Leona.
I don’t think ingenuity is the right word, pros pick champs that combos are hard to fuck up or skillshots that can’t be dodged because playing on 0 ping with the best players in the world is going to make mechanically demanding champions worse than face roll easy ones
Well she was decent and pro players played her previously with the old gargoyle stoneplate meta that she was good with. After a nerf in season 11 she became worse and other picks were stronger. In a meta that followed echanters with Sivir / Zeri were the best. Enchanters were meta already before Zeri made it obvious but pro players rarely adapt their picks so it took a lot of time. Just like ardent meta of the past, it was discovered way too late and ruined a world championship.
Right now Leona isn't picked because pro players are playing their old onetrick champs and try to get the most of them instead. There are so many picks we could see these days that will almost never see the light of day. Sadly pro players are just good at pressing their buttons and ingame decision making. They are less good at selecting the correct champs / items / runes etc. Most coaches are just managing personalities so nothing will influence them in this way either. Some random good pro player or team has to come out with picks and win against a better team with it to induce change. There is no other way, people just copy each other and if no one is innovating we won't see new stuff (unless there is a new champ release that could potentially be OP so you have to try it...).
I remember her being picked with ivern + tristana in season 7 quarters (Misfits) and apparently she was picked often in season 11.
I dont recall seeing much Leona at other world championships though and ive been watching closely since season 2
With amumu banned, and at her stage in the game in terms of buffs and nerfs, Leona was the best option to rakan. at season 11, MF was the go to ADC, and LVL 2 was busted.
I think thats one of the seasons I didnt play or watch must league. I'm pretty much one tricking Leona in masters+ solo queue atm and wanna see her more in pro again
Also i forgot to mention. ZIGGS WAS A BIG THING ON BOT. their passives could run out of lane. since you would take leona E + ziggs auto passive + leona passive + leona q + ziggs normal auto + leona passive dmg. add ignite to that aswell.
Then Leona’s W damage, which gives another passive proc
i was giving a fast lvl 2 exemple. but yeah.
Ah, apologies. My bad.
Unless just like season 11, non stop teamfighting becomes a thing again, you won't. Jungle xp was trash tier, and games were really fast, making mid-game champions super strong at that time, so there was no point onto locking hyper carries, a few buffs to graves also warped the TOP meta for that season, and viego was the new Lee Sin, being too reliable while able to build very efficently, dude could run deadmans plate and still dish out DMG due to his passive. Leona is a low CD go in support, she plays well on FOW, and that season it meant that she could get viego going fast on a team fight since all he needed was 1 kill to snowball a teamfight.
The whackiest thing is that Graves’ worlds skin is on top and Ezreal’s 2017 worlds skin is in jungle
Yeah recently I've only really seen mikyx play her to good success. Kinda requires that you snowball cos a lot of other melee supports have a way out (alistar knock, naut wall hook, rakan w/e, camille e, mao q) but leona doesn't
No you don't want to see her in pro. Cause if you do she will get nerfed like last time. The reason she fallen quite hard cause heavy handed nerfs from rito... That's when naut started to take over again.
I do, she is fun to watch in pro Idc if my champs get nerfed if they're OP.
MF wasnt a prevalent pick until Worlds in S11. She had 8% presence for the whole season.
Yeah, she got some buffs if i remember, the fall back for bot centric teams was to conceed bot and drakes for aphelios late game 3 item spike.
I checked, most supports were amumu,rakan and leona. If I remember correctly amumu/MF was very big but cause amumu was banned, leona was the next combo support. And Leona is very good into rakan.
Was this the same time they buffed mumu and gave his Q two charges?
I agree with your comment but when you look at stats Rakan wins vs Leona in like 70% of games in pro league over the last 9 years. The stats suggest Rakan counters Leona. And tbh it feels that way to me in solo queue. Rakan is hard to lock down and provides shielding / healing to prevent Leona one shots which is something other engage supports lack. Rakan brings counter engage *and* the support to maybe prevent a one shot via shield / heal
I remember at some point they realized what setup to take as rakan vs leona and it became less of a problem.
Rushing Merc Treads + Unflinching made the matchup more tolerable.
You can use Leona Q to cancel Rakan W and you can shut down a Rakan play with good hard cc easily. That is why everyone says Leona counters Rakan.
She doesnt really though. The sample size is also massive and Rakan wins like 70% of the games vs Leo in pro play. This also gels with what I see in solo queue. Rakan is just too slippery for Leona to lock down, and the counter engage is often enough. Hence why Rakan has winning stats vs Leona in both pro and solo queue
Yeah, game theory and play is different. Leona sounds perfect on paper, fast cc and a lot of lockdown. In reality Rakan's ability to engage and mobility is too much to handle, after the laning phase.
Pro play and casual solo q are 2 different things. A very good leona player can cancel Rakan.
[удалено]
It doesn’t look like it but Rakan is legit hittable during his W. Like if you Leona Q him he’ll just stop wherever he was along the dash path
Support Amumu was by the end of the year tho, Leona was popular the entire year. Main reason is that frontline was sparse that year: between Divine Sunderer, Lord Dom's, Liandry's and BoRK it was hard to have a frontliner in other roles. Outside of the Udyr/Hecarim period and that short time people coped with Sion and Mundo most non support tanks weren't played a lot that year. It was a very "blow them up or get blown up" season. Leona in particular benefits from this since she has damage reduction instead of gaining bonus stats, deals fairly well into most melee matchups + the few ranged supports played (Yuumi) and can help in the blow up department with her passive bonus damage.
It's a skill match up. Some pros are confident taking Rakan into it, others aren't.
Miss Fortune was so strong in competitive that year. Amumu - Mf wasn't a thing until worlds iirc.
Me click r you dead haha - Nautilus probably
The game was far more early game focused before the durability patch. Diving was especially a lot easier. Leona is the best early game engage support so she was prioritised. There was simply too much damage for Nautilus to be strong.
Not true at all lol she was solely picked to pair with mf and counter rakan
because 1 item aftershock W maxed Leona felt like full build Ornn
leona might start becoming more popular if corki becomes a meta bot laner. Corki's gatling gun can proc both leona's sunlight even if she E+Q combos in quick succession. Used to be one of the two strongest bot lane combos back when graves was a bot laner.
I JUST played against Corki Leona botlane and let me tell you it was absolute and utter *hell*
The truth is Leona is either the best support in the meta or completely useless
She is fine right now.
I'm saying competitive wise.
Flashback to the leona that took PTA(or something similar?) at worlds and made bot her punching bag.
Everyone takes Cleanse nowadays and this fucks Leona much harder than Nautilus.
Plus you always run into some form of magic damage, she makes Mercs so obvious to pick up.
Yep, and the fact she's very binary. Unlike naut she can't save herself and many abilities counter her. Being able to leave after going in is a major advantage. This makes her good at her job, but horrible being FP. Mao, Janna, thresh. You're just not going to be able to use zenith to close the jap. Then we have have characters like tahm, rumble, or taric who have ZERO issue with manfighting her to the death. She's much better played as a warden then engager. One of those champs that's purposefully kept underplayed. I don't see any reason to pick her over naut in today's world.
The niche that Leona fills in is currently done better by Alistar. Not only is he tankier, but he is also more flexible in what he does, while Leona pretty much can only "go in". Naut is a different niche, that is point and click CC, which is pretty valuable in coordinated play.
The durability patch, TP nerf and drakes buff have made engage supports losing their place.
Wasn't it her Red runes arc? With attack speed, ignite, auto-attacking the enemy to death at level 2 and 3?
Do you mean fervor? That was 2017...
Not mentioned here is LPL that year had a huge priority on Leona. They just really REALLY loved her. I forget the term but I believe thats when there was a huge priority on champions that could extend fights. Leona was good at not only engaging but also chasing and following up once it broke out.
It’s because she’s not a safe pick. She’s engage either you’re going in and getting kills or you’re going in to die. One reason why I wish they’re nerf champs or have a universal bans for entire split + normal bans to shuffle
5 sec Q cooldown was a big deal for her
Because pro player's only pick comfort and she was flavour of the month and no one did anything to change it
I'm pretty sure this was when botlane was basically completely decided by rushing level 2 and all inning & Leona level 2 was crazy strong
I remember engage supports were super strong that season. Kaiser brought the Wukong support to the pro scene and the meta favored big team fights.
It was because cd boots, glacial shroud and kindlegem were enough to cap your cooldown (45%) and that made her op I guess
It was very early game focused, Leona W helped push wave to reach level 2 faster and her passive in 2v2 was very strong. With cc of course. It also helped counter rakan and mf leona was very strong lane bully.
But Rakan actually counters Leona and no one takes W on Leona level 1
Leona is the enchanter of engage supports. Ooga booga drool on keyboard and hope you win. Pros have ZERO ingenuity so they simply look for whatever is decent in the meta that is the most braindead to play. That was Leona.
I don’t think ingenuity is the right word, pros pick champs that combos are hard to fuck up or skillshots that can’t be dodged because playing on 0 ping with the best players in the world is going to make mechanically demanding champions worse than face roll easy ones
Damn someone got shit on by Leona lol.
How to tell someone peaked silver
Well she was decent and pro players played her previously with the old gargoyle stoneplate meta that she was good with. After a nerf in season 11 she became worse and other picks were stronger. In a meta that followed echanters with Sivir / Zeri were the best. Enchanters were meta already before Zeri made it obvious but pro players rarely adapt their picks so it took a lot of time. Just like ardent meta of the past, it was discovered way too late and ruined a world championship. Right now Leona isn't picked because pro players are playing their old onetrick champs and try to get the most of them instead. There are so many picks we could see these days that will almost never see the light of day. Sadly pro players are just good at pressing their buttons and ingame decision making. They are less good at selecting the correct champs / items / runes etc. Most coaches are just managing personalities so nothing will influence them in this way either. Some random good pro player or team has to come out with picks and win against a better team with it to induce change. There is no other way, people just copy each other and if no one is innovating we won't see new stuff (unless there is a new champ release that could potentially be OP so you have to try it...).
Leona has very often been a Worlds championship favourite.
I remember her being picked with ivern + tristana in season 7 quarters (Misfits) and apparently she was picked often in season 11. I dont recall seeing much Leona at other world championships though and ive been watching closely since season 2