Cover-Credits:
The Summer split of League of Legends esports is in full swing across all regions. With the teams fighting for a spot in the much-anticipated League of Legends World Championship later this year, the stakes of this split are higher than usual. Teams are whipping out new picks and adapting to the durability update Riot Games pushed a few patches ago. Notably, champions like Taliyah who were given mid-scope updates in League of Legends are all doing exceptionally well, both in pro play and Solo Queue. Taliyah, the Stoneweaver, is a prime example of this as pros and coaches are prioritizing her as a roaming mid-laner.
Taliyah in pro play across regions
In the Season 12 Summer Split, across the major regions of League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK), League of Legends Pro League (LPL), League of Legends European Championship (LEC), and League Championship Series (LCS), Taliyah has been spotted in most matches. According to Games of Legends, at the time of writing this article, the following were Taliyah’s stats in the 2022 Summer Split in the major regions:
Bans: 890
Picks: 436
Pick/Ban rate: 52.2%
Win rate: 56.9% (248W - 188L)
Taliyah stats by roles:
Jungle
Games picked: 88
Win rate: 63.6%
Mid-lane
Games picked: 346
Win rate: 54.9%
Bottom lane
Games picked: 2
Win rate: 100%
At the moment, Taliyah is making the mark as one of the best mid-laners in the meta, thanks to her roaming potential and her ability to pick off players using her Ultimate - Weaver’s Wall. While top teams are performing really well with her, the bottom-tier teams are still figuring out how to best use the champion.
LPL caster Joseph "Munchables" Fenny wrote on Twitter, “Taliyah is hilarious. On the top teams, she's absolutely INSANE GIGA BROKEN 100% MUST PICK/BAN. On the bottom teams, she's a pure garbage bait pick. #LPL”
In the LEC, MAD Lions’ mid-laner Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer showed how valuable the Taliyah pick is. In the MAD Lions vs Fnatic match-up, Nisqy picked Taliyah and Fnatic tried to counter it by picking Ahri. The game was neck-and-neck with MAD Lions struggling to kill Fnatic’s attack damage carry (ADC) Elias “Upset” Lipp, who played Sivir. Sivir by nature is really hard to kill because of her ability to kite and run away with her ultimate and her spell shield. MAD Lions jumped on the Sivir multiple times and failed to kill her.
However, at 31.30 minutes, Nisqy found the perfect pick on Sivir by isolating her from the rest of Fnatic and killing her. Minutes later, the game was over.
With all the regions getting closer to the end of the regular split, it will be interesting to see how Taliyah is used and if at all Riot’s rework has actually paid off multifold.
