Cover-Credits:
Spanish League of Legends pro team BISONS ECLUB locked in Nasus as its attack-damage carry (ADC) during its playoff series against G2 Arctic in the LVP (League of Videogames Professionals) Superliga Spring 2022 on 17th March. BISONS ECLUB’s bot-laner Frederik "Guubi" Mortensen locked in Nasus as a potential counter pick to the meta Zeri bot lane and caught everyone by surprise. This is not the first time that the league has had some interesting champion picks. Back when the enchanter support top was trending, Barça eSports top-laner Jakub "Dreedy" Viceník locked in Janna against team Giants in February.
Nasus was locked in as the ADC in matches 1 and 2 of the series and to support the Nasus ADC, the team picked Senna, who dishes out extra damage and also has good range in the lane. In the past, we have seen the Senna and Tahm Kench combo work pretty well where the Senna would play a passive, support role while Tahm Kench would farm. The idea behind the pick is that Nasus outright counters champions with good movement speed and attack speed because of his ability kit.
Nasus pick in the bottom lane
According to Games of Legends, Nasus, a traditional top lane champion, has been spotted 12 times in League of Legends esports in this split and only twice in the role of an ADC, both during this series.
Nasus ADC stats are as follows:
Win rate: 50%
KDA: 1.3
Damage Per Minute: 393
Nasus’ W - Wither helps him catch up to menacing champions like Kalista and Zeri, who can run around players in circles. When Nasus casts W - Wither, he ages an enemy champion, decelerating their movement speed and attack speed over time.
Additionally, his E - Spirit Fire reduces the armor of enemies who stand on it. While casting Spirit Fire, Nasus unleashes a spirit flame at a location, dealing damage and reducing the armor of enemies.
In the playoffs, the Nasus pick worked out well in the first game but was not so good in the second one. In the first game, the laning phase was not in favor of the BISONS and G2 Arctic won comfortably in the early game with the classic pairing of Zeri and Renata Glasc. The match was fairly even but around minute 15 in the game, Guubi managed to kill Zeri all by himself. From there, BISONS grew a steady lead and picked up the first win of the series in 33 minutes.
In the second match, the Nasus pick was not working out well as this time around, the Zeri came out on top and evened out the series with a win over the BISONS.
Cloud9’s former head coach, Nick "LS" De Cesare, also took to Twitter to talk about this counter-pick. He wrote, “Holy s*** someone actually finally did the Nasus into Zeri (he also destroys Kalista) that's very nice to see. Also in general Nasus prob can just be a support but no one wants to take time to learn him and how the bot m/u's go. 45% armor shred + wither creates interesting stuff.”
He explained on Twitter that the Nasus pick works well in team compositions that heavily rely on movement speed and attack speed. LS pointed out that Nasus in the support role was probably the best way to play him in the bottom lane when paired with champions that opt for the lethality-build.
The downside is that Nasus ADC or Nasus on support is purely circumstantial and the build always depends on the game flow and the enemy team’s composition. Players also need to have practiced this over and over again to have some idea of how it works. Nasus gets punished easily by support champions that have a larger range and a better poke potential.
According to U.GG, both Nasus ADC and support picks have a very low sample size to analyze the win rates in Solo Queue. But top-lane Nasus is ranked S tier and has a win rate of 50.84%. It will be interesting to see whether Solo Queue players test this strategy against champions like Zeri and Kalista.
Subscribe to AFK Gaming's Newsletter
Get a weekly recap of all the latest developments in the global esports industry with our esports business insights newsletter: AFK Weekly
Subscribe for free to receive insights, analysis and opinions on the biggest developments in esports business, provided by our team of experienced journalists in collaboration with thought leaders across the industry.
