Dplus KIA is third in the LCK 2023 Spring Split behind Gen.G Esports and T1. While it has been a decent split so far, the expectations were probably a bit higher, considering the team’s great off-season, picking up world champion ADC Deft and former T1 top laner Canna.
A few days ago, Dplus mid laner ShowMaker was caught exploring innovative build paths for Ezreal in solo queue. The Korean player spammed a few Ezreal games in the mid lane, using Moonstone Renewer as a Mythic item. While it seems like a troll build at first, he had some great results, scoring high KDAs and winning all three games played so far (according to trackingthepros).
Ezreal has been popping up a lot lately in solo queue as a bot laner, having the highest pick rate across all ADCs worldwide (according to stats site U.GG). His long-range poke makes him a great safe pick to choose when you don’t know which enemies you are facing, and he also scales fairly well into the late game.
In addition to that, his build path costs less compared to other crit-based marksmen since Essence Reaver and Muramana both cost below 3000 gold. Despite all these upsides, why is ShowMaker playing it as a mid laner with Moonstone Renewer? There are a couple of reasons.
First, playing Ezreal in the mid lane is a great way to flex him across the two roles, making it harder to draft against. On top of that, Ezreal’s kit allows him to farm relatively safely and also have good lane push if he keeps auto-attacking the minion waves. If anything happens, he can easily run away using his own E.
Regarding the build, he doesn’t have any particular Mythic item that works optimally or better than anything else. This is why Moonstone Renewer is built: he can use his Qs and poke to proc the item’s passive and heal his allies during the fights.
In late-game situations and extended fights, Moonstone Renewer’s value goes up exponentially. It also gives worthwhile stats for him, like the additional ability haste and health, and it’s highly cost-efficient (only 2500 gold). Paired with Essence Reaver and Muramana, he can get reach the three-item spike a lot earlier.
Even though ShowMaker didn’t get to full build in his solo queue games, the remaining items for this Ezreal mid lane build should be fairly similar to the traditional one used in the bot lane. The remaining two items should be Serylda’s Grudge to take advantage of the item’s passive slow and hit more abilities (which increases the healing from Moonstone) and Frozen Heart for the extra armor.
While it’s early to judge the effective power of this new Ezreal build, there are good enough reasons to try it out. With playoffs around the corner, though, this might be the spicy pick Dplus and ShowMaker need to fight for the title.
