The global meta heading into the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational has trended mainly toward one game mechanic: shielding. Riot has seemed to engineer the meta to this state gradually as Season 7 has gone on, buffing items like Forbidden Idol whilst releasing items like Redemption  and making Locket of The Iron Solari a more viable buy for Top laners/Junglers. However, this emphasis on shielding didn’t truly pick-up until the Blade of the Ruined King changes on Patch 7.5, enabling the return of hyper-carries in the bot lane to finally make use of the stat buffs supports gave. The then season long narrative that ADC is useless was displayed when they got access to an early lifesteal item, with attack speed and %-health damage attached to put an end to the then season long narrative that ADC was useless.  That narrative -- “ADC in 2017” -- at this point seems almost like a great long-con by Riot given the shape of the meta headed into the biggest tournament of the year so far. Riot slowly chipped away at the marble, releasing champions like Ivern, slowly buffing Lulu throughout patches and continually leaving the Forbidden Idol item path untouched despite overwhelming presence.  They’ve even carved out a space for Orianna and Shen, two old-school shielding favorites, to work their way back into the meta with various number tweaks and favorable meta match-ups.

The prevalence of five core shielding champions presents us with potential for both teams to draft shield centric team compositions (Ivern/Lulu vs Ori/Karma for example, with those champs being interchangeable). LPL mid laners such as DoinB, Xiye, Scout and Athena began to innovate with Karma mid early on in the split to give more flexibility to their shielding compositions. In the LCK finals Faker showed the same emphasis on flexibility by picking Karma and Lulu, reinforcing the idea we’ll be seeing dual-shielding compositions. The flexibility, and frankly safety, of these champions will cause the meta to revolve around Karma, Lulu and the shielders that follow them.  The flip side of the coin becomes champions and team compositions that beat shield-centric team compositions or expose them at their weak points. Three main tactics have been proven to dismantle a hyper-carry, shield based team: early game champions, pick compositions and split-push/isolation champions (I’ll expand on this term later). These styles already have their place in the current meta to act as a counterbalance to the eminent dominance from compositions built around Kog’Maw/Ashe/Twitch/Cait/Jinx.

The Anti-Shielders

The ideal way to defeat a shield-based composition is to develop an early game lead with champions that excel in the mid game, capitalizing on your power spike and burning through the opposing team’s buffs before their carries can deal any damage with your superior mid game. Traditionally, this is the point in the game which pick compositions excel and in Season 7 with top laners like Camille and Fizz, it’s also where split push compositions tend to thrive.  This leads for the perfect duality of shield team comps and team comps which can beat shield team comps. Beginning with pick based champions, we can start to see the weaknesses presented by heavily investing into a teamfighting based shield composition.

Catching out either a) a shielder or b) the hyper carry can create the domino effect against a team that relies on those two things as their sole win conditions. Teams are especially vulnerable to this in the early-mid game where they’re still spread out and can’t coordinate a perfect 5-man group, but also have to contest vision with you around the river. Though it’s important to build a lead before reaching this phase, if you have the correct champions then you can still snowball the game from an even point during mid-game skirmishes.  Drafting a jungler such as Elise with a healthy clear and adept ability to force ganks from level three onward is ideal when trying to secure an early lead. Additionally, building a general composition that can layer crowd control with champions like Syndra, Nautilus, Varus and Thresh are the secret to success. Ensuring the target you select as a team doesn’t escape and is successfully picked off is essential, especially against a shielding composition. Specifically, you want to catch out the main shielder, or whichever is squishiest; in most cases this is Lulu or Karma (whichever the opposing team got). However, pick comps aren’t as cookie-cutter as that, leaving room for champions like Rengar, Talon, LeBlanc and in some cases Orianna. If proper CC and engage is drafted to enable these high burst champions then they fit perfectly as the burst damage needed to secure kills on isolated targets. The first three on the list shine at running away with an early lead when it’s given to them, which perfectly fits the theme of what a pick composition wants to accomplish. Another pair of champions you can add to a pick-based team are Camille and Fizz, which segways into split-pushing and isolating champions.

Camille has been at the forefront of professional play since she’s been enabled for her extremely powerful E, isolating ultimate and insane ability to win-out in a 1v1. Though he didn’t see play until Patch 7.5, Fizz’s bruiser build coupled with his long range, re-worked ultimate makes him function the same way as Camille, just a little less powerful. Both of these champions work as team fights and as split-pushers that can leak pressure into side lanes and give you numbers advantages on other parts of the map.  Diverting pressure to side-lanes and forcing multiple members to come deal with you is the cornerstone of a split-push playstyle and this works quite well at disrupting 5v5 death ball compositions. Isolating champions and either forcing them to get help or die can be enough pressure to breakdown a team and force a mistake when their composition relies heavily on coordinating around their carries. If you can get the likes of Camille, Fizz, LeBlanc or Talon in a side lane bullying whoever matches them there, then you have a chance at forcing the hand of your opponent.  Any split-pusher can accomplish this, but Fizz and Camille dominate the category because they’re able to assist their team at picking enemies off without being reliant on a TP flank. Their long range CC and gap closers are something other top laners don’t possess which creates a dichotomy between the duo and the rest of the champions in top lane. Having so many powerful champions available to multiple playstyles makes pick and ban one of the most important parts of the tournament. 

The Recipe for Success

The foundation for any success at MSI 2017 will be in having a concrete plan and prepared adaptations to opposing drafts when heading into the pick/ban phase. Early on, the coach and team must identify first what they want to accomplish in the draft and second what the other team is trying to achieve. Based on the cards the opponent reveals, there should be according response to either a) deny key champions from the other team or b) draft to counter their key champions.  Below, I created a tier list of what I believe are the top champions that fall into the two categories I’ve covered: shielders and anti-shielders with pick/ban % being on Patch 7.6 across all major regions.

Teams will have their own unique tier lists and champions which they think counter the top tier meta picks, but overall these will be the core champions at the event. There are a few exceptions to the rule that I’ve included who synergize with and against a shield composition and will see play in a variety of team comps as flexible picks. With styles being well defined and multiple flex picks sitting at the top of the table, pick/ban may well end up being the most important factor at the tournament.

If you enjoyed this feature, follow the author on Twitter at @LolTJae. Sources: Oracle Exlier, eswiki, league of legends