There is one champion who has been consistently banned in the high-elo matches of the Korean solo queue ladder in Patch 13.1.
According to U.GG, Elise has not only been the most-banned jungler but also the most-banned champion in Korea at Master elo and above. With a whopping 63.9 percent ban rate, Korean players don’t want to play against her. This is further proven by her current win rate, which is above the 55 percent mark.
Why is Elise so strong currently?
Elise only received one minor change in the latest patches, adjusting the cast range on her Neurotoxin (Q). Aside from that, she has been untouched. So why is she having such a high success and ban rate? There are two main reasons.
First, Elise is one of the few strong AP junglers in the current meta. While there are other magic damage junglers like Maokai and Zac, none of them can equal Elise’s burst damage. Having a magic-damage-dealing champion in the jungle makes it easier for teams to have more even damage distribution, thus making it harder to itemize against.
Second, the current meta heavily favors hard-ganking junglers. Elise has one of the best gank setups with her cocoon (E), and on top of that, great diving abilities with her Rappel in spider form (E). In a meta where snowballing is key, Elise is the perfect champion to abuse in solo queue. For that reason, the champion is heavily targeted on the Korean ladder.
That said, the Spider Queen doesn’t seem to receive the same treatment in other regions, especially in the west.
So far in the Master and higher rankings, Kassadin has been banned in 51.4 percent of games, being the only champion that has crossed the 50 percent mark, according to U.GG. At the same time, he holds an eye-watering win rate of 52.32 percent and is considered one of the best champions to pick for the mid lane in the meta. Despite having a 52.26 percent win rate at Master and above on EUW, Elise is only banned 13.7 percent of the games (stats taken from U.GG). Similarly, Elise has a 13.8 percent ban rate in NA but boasts an even higher win rate (54.29 percent, according to U.GG).
While it’s hard to pinpoint the main cause of the discrepancy, there is one fundamental element that might explain it: players’ aggressiveness. Elise is a champion that requires a great understanding of early-game planning and aggressiveness, which is something that the Korean solo queue ladder is known for. At the highest elo, those players can bring out Elise’s maximum potential more consistently, making it a nightmare to play against it. While Elise’s value drops in the later stages, Korean players can delay her bad scaling by hard carrying in the first minutes of the game.
This is further proved by Elise’s presence in professional play. While she hasn’t been picked in the LEC so far, the LCK already had five Elise games, with four wins on the scoreboard already, according to Games of Legends. Given how strong she has been in solo queue, she’s likely going to be picked in the upcoming matches.
