Cover-Credits:
Zeri, the Spark of Zaun, was the first new champion on the Summoner’s Rift in Season 12. Riot Games introduced her to the players as an attack-damage carry (ADC) with a very unique and highly-mechanical ability kit. She can literally zip, zap, and zoom on the rift and run circles around her enemies. After much anticipation, Zeri finally made her way onto the rift with the release of Patch 12.2 but has been the recipient of numerous nerfs with each patch. In patches 12.3 and 12.4, she was heavily targeted. Riot first nerfed her base damage followed by significant changes to curb her bruiser builds.
In Patch 12.4 currently, despite all the nerfs, Zeri has the highest ban rate in Platinum and higher tiers in League of Legends Solo Queue, according to U.GG. Zeri has been heavily target banned but still boasts a pretty decent win rate on top, mid and bottom lane. Zeri has a ban rate of 57.2%.
In the top lane, Zeri’s pick and win rates are 0.8% and 46.94% respectively. Mid-lane Zeri is sitting on a win rate of 46.52% while her pick rate is 1.1%. ADC Zeri has a win rate of 51.12% and a pick rate of 14.3%.
When Zeri was released in Patch 12.2. Two days into her release, players started spamming her in Solo Queue. At that time, Zeri had a 39% win rate in over 17K matches and the Zaunite ADC debuted with one of the worst early win rates for any new champion.
However, as players figured out which runes and items work best on her, Zeri turned into a menace on the rift. With insane mobility thanks to her kit, players were finding it difficult to lock her down without crowd-control (CC) and slay her. Unfortunately, her damage output was still questionable and players were looking forward to Riot buffing her. Contrastingly, all she has received are nerfs over the last two patches in League of Legends.
Why is Zeri getting banned?
Zeri is a very fun champion to play but is very hard to lane against. Unless the opposing team has chain CC abilities or champions that can quickly burst her down, Zeri always comes out on top and runs amok on the rift. Her mobility is insane in the game because she can kite (evade) around and do damage at regular intervals. No other ADC apart from Ezreal can kite as she does.
On a Reddit thread, one user commented, “Even if you have hard CC, most hard CC is a skillshot which she can dodge. If you have hard CC and she takes cleanse then she's just a f***** nightmare to deal with because realistically in big fights you need to catch her twice, which isn't easy when she is so mobile. She is basically a champion that makes most skill-based situations completely based on her own and negates the enemy players’ skill. Which is innately unhealthy for the game.”
Dilemma over Zeri’s build path
In Patch 12.4 notes, Riot wrote, “Zeri's spark still has a bit more shock than she needs, so we're nerfing her overall power in a way that should hit her bruiser builds harder than her crit builds.”
The patch notes explained that Zeri’s Trinity Force build ended up being much stronger than expected and that her win rates skyrocketed. As a result, Riot targeted this item build and forced those playing Zeri to go the crit route.
Surprisingly, players still lean towards the bruiser build on Zeri. Most websites like U.GG and Mobafire still suggest going Trinity Force as her core item, followed by the Titanic Hydra. A user on Reddit pointed out why players might be still prioritizing this nerfed build instead of critical strike. They wrote, “I think it's a lethality Xayah kind of situation - it's easier to pull off for less skilled players (less punishable playstyle) and it helps you snowball early game. Late game crit may be better, but to pull it off you need to actually be more experienced with the champion, their power levels, and most importantly play around the fact that you will get punished for being squishy and not farming for your late game spikes. With crit Zeri you have to be so careful to not get blasted or to get mispositioned without E, plus you need to play for your late-game scaling, while bruiser will spike earlier and will be able to brush off a lot of damage. Plus kiting is insane (reason why I don't go ER (Essence Reaver) 2nd item on crit build, I prefer kiting from Zeal)”
Both the builds seem to work fine on Zeri at the moment and players can mix and match for good results. The build path players choose depends on the game. Most of them feel that the critical strike build is not very flexible and grants her only attack speed and flat damage. That being said, the critical strike build allows her to scale pretty well into the late game. All in all, Zeri is a nightmare to play against and she can literally hop over walls when you intend to gank her.
