After the rest of this announcement
Each League of Legends player has a goal at which rank they play. Of course, the goal is to climb as high as possible, but we are all limited by our skills. The highest ranks, like in many sports, are reserved for the best, and many will never touch them. One developer managed to wait for the Grand Master tier, the second best tier in the game. So a great achievement, but still criticized by the community for a very specific reason.
Meta abuse?
On Twitter, MOBA game designer Freak proudly announced that he had reached the role of Grandmaster. While he probably expected praise, he received a lot of criticism. The reason? He abused the Maokai just to go up (he was previously stuck at Diamond level). When he managed to reach this level, the champion was simply broke and had a win rate of 54.2%.
So obviously, some people didn’t like that he got to this rank like that. “A player stuck in Diamond 4 suddenly rises to the rank of Grand Master by abusing the role and is the most broken champion in the game.“. Others claim that he “cheated” to increase his ELO, as a character that doesn’t require much skill.
But frac has its defenders, too, like Streamer LS.
Really, if it was that easy, why didn’t every player do it? Quite simply because it is true that Freak’s level is higher than most players. He identified a strong champion, and used it to ascend. Finally, He took advantage of the meta at that moment. Certainly, some pointed out that because of his usage, the move was bold and could call into question his integrity as a developer in LoL, but the champion has since been upset.
How is Maokai performing after patch 14.5?
During patch 14.5, deployed this week, Maokai ran into several issues. Base movement speed has been reduced. Q’s bonus damage against monsters has been increased (keeping it efficient as a jungler), and W’s cooldown has been increased. Changes since then have apparently borne fruit His winrate dropped by 2.3%, but still had a 51.4% win rate.A figure that remains more than decent.
But it was also enough for players to stay away from it, at least a little, as it dropped 3% in terms of popularity. One thing is certain that these nerves were necessary. It was inconceivable that the champion would dominate so much, it could even be argued that Riot Games was slow to act, allowing Tortured Trent to terrorize Summoner’s Rift for weeks.
