League of Legends: which champions might we see more (or less) of at Worlds?

It’s been almost a month since we’ve seen pro League of Legends teams in action. How might they adapt to the Worlds Patch 9.19?

Worlds is upon us and there are a litany of questions, from who will perform or slump to whether NA will finally not be a massive joke. However, this is also the first time that we will see professional League of Legends on the Worlds patch, 9.19. One question is, how has the meta evolved.

More from International Tournaments

• 2023 League of Legends Worlds Finals Preview
• 2023 League of Legends Worlds Quarterfinals Bilibili Gaming vs Gen.G
• 2023 League of Legends Worlds Quarterfinals Weibo vs. NRG Recap
• Worlds 2023 Swiss Round Three Preview
• League of Legends 2023 World Championships Storylines to Watch

Looking at the most-picked/banned champions from summer worldwide (per Gol.GG) and comparing them to the EUW solo queue accounts that players have been using to boot camp (per trackingthepros.com), we can get a sense of what new picks might be featured at Worlds. We’ll go through each role to see which picks seem to be cropping up more or less often compared to summer.

Top lane

The highest presence top laners included the perma-bans like Aatrox, Irelia, Gangplank, Kennen, Kled, and Renekton, but also featured flex picks like Karma, Sylas, Neeko, Jayce, and Akali.

For the most part, these picks seem to be about the same, except I will note that there has been a lot less focus on Aatrox among the top lane accounts I previewed. In addition, a new champion who is getting a lot of play is the reworked Pantheon, who is the most-played champion on the accounts of Licorice, Fudge, and Evi. He’s also among the three most-played for stalwart tops like Impact, Robo, and Bwipo.

As for other champions getting a lot of play top, Ekko and Fiora are two of the champions with a lot of tops spamming games on. In addition, lesser picked champs like Shen, Camille, and Qiyana top seem to be fairly popular.

So, my concluding thought is that those high-presence champions I mentioned will stay fairly intact. However, I’d expect picks like Aatrox, Karma, Sylas, and Neeko to be picked less. In addition, I think we’ll see a lot of Pantheon and Fiora to join that group, with the Ekko, Shen, Camille, and Qiyana kind of functioning as niche picks.

Jungle

It should come as no surprise that Sejuani was the highest-presence jungler in the summer, followed closely by Jarvan IV, Gragas, Elise, Olaf, Skarner, Rek’Sai, and Lee Sin. There were also some flex and off-meta picks like Aatrox, Qiyana, Karthus, Xin Zhao, and Trundle.

Looking at the champions being played, though, there isn’t a whole lot of consensus. Some players are spamming Lee Sin, the solo queue monster, while a lot of junglers are experimenting with Qiyana and Ekko jungle. Sylas remains a sought-after pick, while a lot of players are spending time practicing AP junglers like Taliyah and Karthus.

Simply put, I have no idea where the jungle meta is going, but there is one thing that I can say for certain: no one is playing Sejuani. She isn’t on anyone’s recent solo queue match history, so we might finally be free from her clutches.

My guess is without her Gragas becomes the default early-pick jungler along with potentially Olaf and Skarner. We could see a fair amount of Lee Sin, along with some Ekko and Qiyana jungle. It will be very interesting to see how the jungle meta shakes out.