The ongoing Worlds 2022 tournament is played on patch 12.18, but Riot Games has made changes since 12.16 that impacted the meta directly.
League of Legends analyst and content creator Nick “LS” De Cesare released his annual Worlds 2022 competitive champions tier list, created with inputs from pro players and high Elo players.
He clarified that the list would not be reflective of the current meta at Worlds, and has followed up with another tier list showing what he thinks pro players will favor, in addition to their “assumed power level of champions.” Interestingly, the biggest differences lie in the jungle and support role.
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Champions picked at Worlds 2022 aren’t reflective of their current strength in the meta
While Hecarim is the undisputed top jungler so far, the other three that LS listed — Fiddlesticks, Kindred, and Karthus — are nowhere to be seen in his pro player tier list and in Play-Ins.
Even though they are innately overpowered, they require teams to change up their compositions, play around them, and adopt a different style altogether.
Poppy and Vi, who were frequently picked during the Summer playoffs across regions, are placed in B and C tiers, but are likely considered S-tier by pros. They have been played a total of five times so far in the Play-Ins.
The other role that contrasted with LS’ competitive list is support. While he believes that Lux and Seraphine are the most overpowered bot lane duo right now, it’s highly unlikely any team will pull out this unconventional strategy.
What’s more, every single Z-tier support champion in LS’ list is absent from the higher tiers on the pro player list, namely Soraka, Sona, Janna, and Senna.
Sona is instead listed under “certain players only,” alongside Singed who is Gen.G support Son “Lehends” Si-woo’s signature champion. Other champions in this category include Nasus and Zoe, the latter of whom T1’s Ryu “Keria” Min-seok has been practicing in solo queue since MSI 2022.
LS’ list showed that enchanters are overall stronger than engage supports, who do not fare as well in drawn out team fights since patch 12.10’s Durability Update. However, in the pro player list, Nautilus, Leona, Amumu, and Alistar are ranked highly, which is borne out by their popularity in the Play-Ins.
Leona (12 games), Amumu (11 games), and Alistar (8 games) have been the most picked supports so far. And if there’s one thing that everyone agrees on, it’s that Yuumi is still extremely strong and will not be slept on during the Group Stage.
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