Now that Season Six for League of Legends has come to a close, we can look back at the millions upon millions of games that were played around the world and see what interesting things we can find. Thankfully, Riot released an official list reviewing everything, and I’m here to give you the good stuff.
Right off the bat, they provided the champions with the highest win rate in each lane. Honestly, these surprised me. Unfortunately, this stat is unfair because a very small number of people can play these champs in these roles but perform really well. Nevertheless, they are worth mentioning.
Top: Kayle – To be honest, in my hundreds of games played this season, I can count on my fingers how many times I ran into a Kayle, let alone in the top lane. I will say, however, that the Kayles always performed really well, so I guess that counts for something.
Jungle: Amumu – Ahhh, everyone’s favorite mummy. Since season one of LoL, Amumu has been a powerhouse in the jungle, so it comes to no surprise to see him on the list. Back in the season one through four days, Amumu was often banned (in lower elo) because he was just so darn scary. Even with all the jungle changes, Amumu has managed to stay relevant.
Mid: Galio – Similar to Kayle, I never see Galio anymore, meaning he likely got boosted by a small number of players. Either way, his win rate was high enough to secure him a spot on the list. I’m not surprised Galio has a high win rate though, since AD mid laners aren’t played all that often since Zed and Yasuo were banned 24/7.
ADC: Kog’Maw – Despite his many changes during the season, Kog’Maw saw constant play in both ADC and jungle. It comes to no surprise that he obtained the highest win rate in the ADC position given his insane late game carry potential. At one point, he could just stand still with 5.0 attack speed and 1v5.
Support: Sona – Once again, Sona is something we were very used to seeing. Towards the middle of season six, Sona was near broken with her damage and she started to see bans pulled against her. After a bit of nerfing, she was in the right spot to be played as a support without forcing constant bans, which is likely why she landed her spot here.
Next, we are going to look at Riot’s “Breakout Stars,” a.k.a. Who they thought improved the most in terms of play rate and overall consistency. Despite them only listing three champions, you’ll definitely agree that they have put in work to get to where they are.
1. Zyra – Seemingly out of nowhere, Zyra sprouted into the bot lane as a dominating support. If you were looking for an easy lane with strong pick potential, she was your go to plant. When paired with Caitlyn, bot lane became an oppressive force that cornered opponents into ganking with three or more people in order to back you off. It makes sense to me as to why Zyra would be number one on this list.
2. Bard – If you remember when Bard came out, he was never played, and if he was, he was trolling. At first glance of his kit, almost everyone thinks of the idiotic things you can do with his ult, but a deeper analysis reveals his insane outplay and playmaking potential. It took a lot of time for people to realize how strong he was, but as soon as all of his juicy tech was found out, he became a dominant force in the bot lane.
3. Yorick – After what seems like a millennia with no love from Riot, Yorick finally got a rework. Yorick was at a point where if you so much as hovered him, you were immediately flamed and got called a troll. Since his rework, he has solidified his spot in the top lane as a bully with huge split push presence. All it took was one rework to bring Yorick from the depths to the limelight.
Now taking a look at each individual region, Riot gave us what each region’s favored champion was, as well as an interesting fact. Since there are a bunch of regions, I’m just going to focus on the main ones: NA, EU, KR, BR and China.
North America’s favored champion was surprisingly Udyr. It makes sense to me considering most everyone I play with or against are just “those” kind of people; the kind who likes to have fun at the expense of the other nine players, which is something Udyr excels at. The interesting fact they provided was that NA was only .34 average kills per game behind Korea in season six. If that isn’t proof that NA is improving every year, I don’t know what is. On top of that, a huge 13-feet-tall Thresh was built in NA and showed off for millions to see.
Europe West’s favored champion was Cassiopeia, which makes sense given EU is the home of most of the mid lane gods. Throw in the fact that she is mechanically challenging while having a high reward, and you have every mid laner’s dream. EU’s fun fact is that Olaf averages around 20k damage dealt to champions, playing into the idea that EU loves to go deep into the back line. They also hosted League Fest, which is a huge multi-day pro-am tournament with a massive cosplay competition and a £15,000 prize pool.
Onto Brazil, we see that their favored champion was Morgana. I honestly didn’t expect this since most of the talent players we see that come out of BR are junglers, not supports. To back up this stat, they average almost 12 assists a game on Morgana, meaning they like to put in work. On top of that, BR also had a community ran group called Community Co-op, where their goal was to take on huge challenges and create fun stuff based on LoL’s lore. Most recently, they decided to try to bring the Star Guardian skins to life.
Next, we’re going to look at China and their favored champion, Wukong. What makes this so interesting is that globally, Wukong is the 60th most picked champion, while in China, he is the 14th. Either China knows some secret tech with Wukong or they just love to monkey around. Season six also brought the Mid Season Invitational to China, where SK Telecom T1 defeated Counter Logic Gaming to take the title.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Korea. As expected, Alistar was their favored champion. After seeing Cho “Mata” Se-hyeong destroy everything in his path using Alistar at Worlds, I knew Korea was ahead of the game with him. The interesting fact showed that the average CS across all of Korea was 139, which is impressive. Also, a Korean rock band made two songs for the LCK to use during intermission, proving further that the mainstream media is very in-tune with Korean esports.
At the end of Riot’s list, they mentioned a few “definitely not random” stats that were interesting to see. For example, Gangplank had the highest average gold of all champions at an astonishing 13,335, where they rightfully gave GP the nickname “Bankplank.” They also mentioned that Janna averaged the most wards placed per game at 19.9, which is more than I place across four games. Zac had the highest average KDA across all champions with 3.323, which was likely due to his passive. Thankfully, Riot released the necessary information that over one billion Teemos were killed in season six. Seriously, let’s shoot for a trillion next season.
At the end of the season, it is amazing to look back and see all the changes Riot has made to the game. Everything from the champion reworks to major jungle changes made League the game we play today. We got to see the release of Jhin, Aurelion Sol, Taliyah and Ivern, who all have found a special home on the rift. Now that the season is over, we have the pre-season to look forward to, and boy is there a lot of change coming. I can’t want to see what fun facts Riot has for us after season seven.
What were some of your favorite moments from this past year of League of Legends? Let us know by commenting below or tweeting us @GAMURScom.
