LEC & LCK Unique Champion Picks in the First Week of 2022 Summer Split
Leagues are being played on the Durability Update patch
Cover-Credits:
The first week of the 2022 Summer Split in League of Legends Esports (LoL Esports) has already come to a conclusion. The League of Legends European Championship (LEC) and the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) had Super Weeks with three days of continuous League of Legends action and the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) had its regular best-of-three series for five days straight.
The leagues played the opening week matches on the LoL Patch 12.10 which introduced the Durability Update to the players. With these sweeping changes, the pros are also experimenting with picks and bans and are evidently mixing things up.
Some of the unique champion picks the leagues locked in during the opening week are:
Sejuani top
Yasuo support
Camille support
Sejuani top lane with Teleport and Ignite in LEC
Sejuani was locked in the top lane in two matches during the opening week of the LEC 2022 Summer Split by Team Vitality’s Barney "Alphari" Morris and Misfits Gaming’s Joel "Irrelevant" Miro Scharoll. Both the players played Sejuani against Ornn top lane with Teleport and Ignite and additionally, both the Sejuani games were red-side picks. However, this pick has not found much success in the top lane yet as both Vitality and Misfits lost their Sejuani top games.
Sejuani’s tankiness and area of effect (AOE) ultimate are exceptionally valuable in team fights and aid during the mid-game. As a top-lane tank, her main job is to ensure getting picks on squishy targets like the mid-laner and the attack damage carry (ADC). Sejuani comes fully online in the late game with a complete item build to make her the tankiest champion on the Rift.
Yasuo support in the LCK
On Day 3 of the LCK 2022 Summer Split, T1 went up against Nongshim RedForce (NS) and won the series 2-0. In the first match, T1 Ryu "Keria" Min-seok locked in Yasuo support to pair with Senna ADC. While it is not uncommon to play melee champions along with Senna, people were genuinely surprised to see Yasuo being picked in that position. Common pairings with Senna are usually Tahm Kench or the Trundle.
The idea is to farm minions so that Senna collects her soul drops and gets stronger as the game progresses. So technically, this could also be seen as an ADC pick in the bottom lane. The surprise factor was that Keria, a support player, played a skirmisher champion like Yasuo. The pick worked out well for T1 as it stomped NS with a KDA ratio of 10.
Camille support
T1’s support player Keria pulled off another surprise on the opening week of LCK 2022 Summer Split by locking in a non-traditional Camille pick. It was the first game of the best-of-three (BO3) against KT Rolster and the team rightfully punished the pick as KT won the first game in just 31 minutes.
