Different regions, different styles: 2022 Spring Split in picks

With most of the big regional leagues coming to a wrap soon, it is interesting to witness the different styles employed by the teams on the other ends of the globe. It’s also interesting to look at how the top dogs of each region shape the meta – both on the fields of Riot’s competitive leagues, Solo Queue, and even – available only for the lucky – Champion’s Queue.

After a few months of pretty much non-stop action, distinct patterns emerged in different regions. Some were, obviously, heavily influenced by Riot’s balancing patches. Some were a result of long-standing traditions. Some, in turn, were dictated by the region’s aggressive – or, instead, passive – playstyles.

Let’s take a look at the most prominent ones!

A small footnote

Before we delve into the significant differences between the regions, I think it’s fair to start off with the similarities. Here’s a riddle for you: if you were to ask a European, a Chinese, and a Korean League esports’ fan, “Who is the most banned champion in your region?”, what would be their answer? If you paid attention to your favorite team’s games, you know the answer – it’s Twisted Fate.

As one of the most macro-based champions in the entire game, Twisted Fate is an ideal pick on the pro stage. (Artwork by: Riot Games)

Recognized by all the pros as the absolute menace due to the sheer utility and unparalleled gank setup he provides, the Card Master enjoyed the whopping 90~% pick-and-ban ratio across all the major regions. Funnily enough, there are champions with a higher P/B ratio – like Jinx – but Twisted Fate remains king even despite Riot’s attempts to bring him down when it comes to just the amount of bans drawn.

I’m still salty about the fact that the nerf that was marketed as “for pro play only” ended up decimating TF’s SoloQ presence while not even making a dent in his pro-play popularity. Riot Games, please fix.

LEC Spring 2022 (Europe)

Europe has a long history of playing Yasuo at the highest (okay, third-highest) stage. While other regions dismissed Yasuo as “science,” Europeans studied the blade – which left its mark on the early days of the LEC Spring split. As the early days of the European league were played on the patch before the Immortal Shieldbow and Lethal Tempo nerfs, the Unforgiven, as always, was a pain to deal with.

Combined with Diana having a resurgence as a popular jungle pick, Yasuo was somewhat a contested choice as the combination of a well-timed Moonfall + Last Breath is absolutely devastating. Despite the crazy synergy, Yasuo’s dependence on Diana was a significant liability for the rosters – and vice versa. When Riot announced their plans to reduce the two things that made Yasuo a menace in the early 2022 season, the teams decided that this cumbersome two-pick draft exhausted its use altogether.

Still, Misfits Gaming’s Vetheo made an impact in the few games he managed to get his hands on this champion. Aided by Schlatan’s Diana, he established himself as “pretty good at Yasuo,” sitting at 9+ KDA and 100% WR on the champion. The stats are a lil’ bit unfair given the sample size of two maps, but still.

As he’s the Most Valuable Player of LEC 2022 Spring Split, Vetheo’s champion pool is astonishingly massive. (Photo by: Riot Games).

Interestingly, the biggest winner of the early Spring balance patch, Ahri, was left seriously underappreciated by the European midlaners. Despite the champion being propped up to some seriously busted numbers for about a month, combined with her innate affinity for picking out unsuspecting enemies while never being threatened, Ahri remained at a measly 5% presence in pick and bans in the regular season, jumping a tad higher during the playoffs.

But that’s not the worst part – the worst part is her having 0% WR outside of Playoffs. Sure, Ahri became a contested pick in the final stage of the series, but you can’t just ignore her during the regular season and then hope to become cracked at her in under a week. As an Ahri connoisseur with over 300 confirmed Spirit Blossom Chromas purchased, these numbers left me incredibly disappointed in the region. Shame on you.

LCK Spring 2022 (South Korea)

Where Europeans faltered, South Korea picked up tenfold. Despite the changes that turned Ahri into a midlane powerhouse occurring reasonably late into the split, the Nine-Tailed Fox dashed into the top-3 most picked midlaners in no time. No wonder, after all, she is – one of many – signature champions of Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. The man is clearly working tirelessly to make his dream of T1 Ahri come true, busting the pick out 8 times in the regular season, and 3 in the Playoffs.

Fun fact: Ahri features a healthy 100% win rate in LCK Spring 2022 Playoffs, picked 6 times (by Faker and Chovy 3 times each).

Since League of Legends is all about them synergies, Ahri found a sweetheart in Viego (which is reasonably ironic after the lore bits of The Ruined King). Combining Ahri’s deadly CC (a max rank Charm combined with Everfrost Active locks down the unfortunate enemy for 3.5 seconds) with Viego’s damage and snowball passive makes the combo absolutely devastating. In fact, this was the duo that allowed T1 to achieve the team’s 10th trophy in the grand final against Gen.G. In 2 final maps, T1 Faker and Oner would have a combined KDA of 15-1-27.

LCK supports are also notorious for giving a high priority to Yuumi, the Magical Cat. While other regions, especially LEC, found little love for the oversized floating feline even after her absurdly dominant showing in Worlds 2021, LCK clung to the old traditions, granting a champion 35% presence – higher than any other major region.

The face of League, Faker feels right at home when one of his long-time favorite champs is powerful. (Image by: LCK, Riot Games)

Another unorthodox from LCK: Lee Sin. While he was always a popular jungle pick throughout pretty much the entirety of League of Legends’ existence, the jungle monk isn’t what’s interesting this time. Sure, T1’s jungler, Oner, really inflated the stats for the champion with his whopping 14-1 map score on him.

But let’s look at the top of all that – literally. KT Rolster’s Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee brought the champion to the top of his form, single-handedly making top Lee Sin a viable pick with his absurdly aggressive playstyle that seemingly always netted him a solo kill during the lane phase.

But enough about strange picks – let’s talk about some of the most obvious and mundane picks of the year. Talking about Jinx, of course – the currently #1 pick in the entire game, throughout all roles, in both pro and Solo Queue. There’d be nothing interesting to talk about here, except for one man: Deft. With the champion’s power levels as high as they are right now, the meta is perfect for the legendary ADC who rocked a whopping 92% win rate on her at the beginning of the split.

LPL Spring 2022 (China)

Most often recognized for their borderline reckless style of play, the Chinese pros back up their aggressive game plans with appropriate picks. Not only that – the sheer size of the league compared to other regions’ (17 teams in LPL vs 10 in every other major region) makes one expect a curveball or two while watching the league.

Some of the best examples of these curveballs would be the AD Assassin junglers. While their snowball potential makes them perfect for Solo Queue, most professional players view that as a weakness rather than a strength in pro games. Only the Chinese dare use them at the highest stage, as LPL is the only major region to pick Qiyana and Zed (3 times each in regular season), and Talon (12 picks) for the jungle role this split. Team Weibo Gaming even went as far as letting their jungler, SofM, continue using the high-risk Zed pick well into the playoffs.

The Chinese also put a high priority on Hecarim. While the Shadow of War wasn’t a stranger to the professional games in all regions, nowhere he was at the core of most comps as in LPL, where he is sitting solidly as a top-3 contested pick both in the regular split and the playoffs. After all, the Chinese superteam Victory Five uses the pick as a draft core, seeing that he’s Karsa’s most-played (tied with Lee Sin) jungler this split.

(Image courtesy of: PentaQ)

Interestingly enough, LPL toplaners sort of overlooked one of the most aggressive picks of the current season – Akali, the Rogue Assassin. While drawing a lot of bans during the regular split, these were mostly meant to deter LPL’s midlaners from playing the champion. In fact, while banned a comparatively same amount of times in LPL and LCK, toplane Akali was picked 27 times in LCK, and only 15 times in LPL. Given that LPL teams have to play almost twice as many games as their South Korean counterparts, the difference is even bigger than at the first glance.

Given the region’s affinity towards aggressive plays involving a lot of solo kills, not using Akali seems counter-intuitive. The champion seemingly has everything an LPL pro would ever want: great solo kill potential combined with Akali’s incredible slipperiness that can allow her to escape the most deadly of ganks.

LCS Spring 2022 (North America)

Always regarded as the most special region of all, North America never fails to lose its uniqueness. Breaking up the Split into Lock-In and Regular Season is one of these quirks we have to deal with. But the most special part about LCS Spring 2022 is the teams abandoning an absolute pro powerhouse of Twisted Fate.

Even though Twisted Fate was indeed one of the heavily contested champions in during the Lock-In stage at 38 picks/bans over 39 maps, he is almost nowhere to be seen during the regular season. This could be explained by the bulk main event being played on the later patch – but even despite the nerfs to the champion, other regions did not abandon the Card Master.

It’s not clear whether its heavy emotional baggage after seeing Reginald pull out the blue card all these years ago or simply an informed decision by LCS’ midlaners, but Twisted Fate rocked a shameful 20% presence in drafts during the regular season.

Despite that, LCS midlaners found themselves another way to provide utility while being a midlaner: enchanter midlaners. A further evolution of the recent toplane Janna (in fact, LCS remains the only major region to have played this pick), LCS went one step further by picking enchanters like Ivern, Zilean, and even Soraka for midlane. Cloud9 were notorious for these picks back when LS was their coach. LS update when?

LS’ sudden departure from Cloud9 still remains one of the greatest mysteries of the scene. (Image by: LCS, Riot Games)

The blast-from-the-past funnel meta was quickly addressed and neutered by Riot, however, so it didn’t have enough time to become a staple – and thank the Lord for that.

LCS midlaners have correctly accessed Ahri’s role as one of the most flexible picks for midlane. One small issue: despite Ahri’s high presence in the regular season as a second-most picked midlane champion at 25 picks, her win rate is horrendous at 30%. It’s possible that it’s due to some LCS midlaners being enamored with the “no damage special” builds like Everfrost and Cosmic Drive into the “Defeat” screen. Still, Bjergsen makes it work in the playoffs somehow.

Miss Fortune has always been one of the most polarizing designs for an AD Carry. An immobile AD Caster with devastating damage, but a long-cast Ultimate ability that makes all of that damage. It’s easy to see why other regions – besides LPL and now LCS – have passed over Miss Fortune for more self-reliant ADCs. North Americans, however, use her relatively extensively, with the latest MF pick being in the Cloud9 vs Golden Guardians match of Playoff’s Lower Bracket.