Which are the strongest LoL Champions at Worlds 2022? How will teams read the meta, and what picks or team compositions will they prepare? With the biggest tournament of the season coming up soon, we will focus on finding the best Worlds LoL champions and the hot picks for all participants.
LoL Worlds Most Picked Champions: Incoming Meta Shift?
Riot has announced that patch 12.18 will be adopted for Worlds for the whole tournament, with the exception of Udyr, who will be disabled. Having said that, most teams in the world have competed in playoffs under patch 12.15, and many changes were made in the subsequent patches, some of which have drastically shifted the meta. This will directly impact all the participants and shake things up both in terms of preparation as well as on-stage performance.
For this reason, we will consider all three patches and try to predict the strongest LoL Worlds champions, identifying which will be popular and which will be picked or banned.
See also: Best bookmakers for LoL Worlds
Worlds High Priority LoL Champions Picks
Hecarim
The Shadow of War disappeared from the meta at the beginning of the season when Riot decided to nerf him to the ground. After almost an entire season, the balance team decided to buff him back again, and he returned into a “broken state”. He has become so strong that Riot decided to adjust him for the Worlds patch, but he should still be a highly contested pick. Whatever his pick and ban rate will be, it will be higher than anything he had in the past.
Bel’Veth
The newest jungler has been under the radar for quite a while now. Bel’Veth was occasionally seen over the course of the summer split due to its special mechanics that make her hard to master. Remember that Bel’Veth is a carry jungler, and as such, she wants the team to play around her. In a meta where junglers played for the lanes, teams likely didn’t want to focus on her.
Now, however, teams will have some preparation time, and with most of the meta junglers being tagged, Bel’Veth should rise in play rate at LoL Worlds. An additional point is that she counters Hecarim and most bruisers, thanks to its mobility and damage reduction on her E. If she starts to find great success, she will likely become a pick-or-ban champion.
Aatrox
Out of all the top-lane LoL champions, Aatrox will likely be the most played. The Darkin Blade can hold his own against all the other meta champions and even win against some of them (front-line tanks like Ornn and Sejuani). In the playoffs of the major regions, he was the most picked champion, with a total of 45 games played (and banned on 28 occasions). He has great sustain, thanks to the Eclipse and Death Dance synergy, but then he also deals tons of damage with the Eclipse’s mythic passive and Serylda’s Grudge. His low mobility can be problematic, but the ultimate can also solve that problem, especially if you have ally champions that can speed him up or lock down enemies.
Based on the current meta revolving around team fighting and picking enemies off, Aatrox shines. We’re not expecting major changes up in the top lane, so it will be more about how all the other roles will change.
Ornn
Speaking of Ornn, many teams are sleeping on the Forge God. He was seen quite often in playoffs, more in the west rather than the east. This is mainly due to the difference in approach between regions. Korea and China are willing to play the more “volatile” counter pick: these counters are a double-edged sword since any mistake can mess up the whole flow of the game. It essentially puts pressure on the laner to play the lane (and the game) correctly. In the west, instead, they prefer opting for the safer option.
What makes Ornn so good is his scaling. Even if he falls behind on farm, he can close the gold gap with the Ornnaments, giving himself and his whole team additional stats. It makes room for error and a very straightforward win condition for both teams and has a powerful ultimate for engaging or disengaging. Picked 40 times and banned 43 times, Ornn should have similar popularity at Worlds.
Draven
Draven was one of the only popular picks from playoffs that didn’t receive a major nerf, making him an obvious top pick among the meta worlds LoL champions. Most of the other meta ADC, which include Miss Fortune and Twitch, will be pressured out by Draven thanks to his superior damage and if he manages to snowball with his passive, the Axe Master will shred through any team.
With some of the enchanters also getting nerfed, Draven will even be stronger. The only thing that might hold him back from being a perma-present pick is how hard it can be to master him. Only a bunch of players have played Draven before Worlds, so it will be crucial to understand if teams have trained him or not. In case Draven is not picked by teams, MF, Caitlyn and Twitch will likely be the best picks.
Soraka
We mentioned previously how some enchanters were nerfed in the recent patches and will likely fall out in priority at Worlds. Well, Soraka is not one of them, and she might be one of the best LoL Worlds Champions. The healer support benefitted from the current slow meta, allowing her to reach her items and spikes once she hits the levels on the spells. Aside from that, just like Aatrox, she counters the comps that want to make picks and burst down a single target. With Soraka, it makes that almost impossible for the enemies (unless Soraka herself gets picked).
There are other support picks like Janna and Bard that might become popular at Worlds, but Soraka will likely be the support with the highest pick-or-ban rate.
