Zeri has become the most problematic new champion in League of Legends history. After debuting at the start of season 12Riot Games has tried to modify it eleven times and does not intend to stop anytime soon. The developer has announced a further power reduction in the upcoming 12.16 patch which will eventually lead to additional issues. Far from being a pessimistic and unjustified prognosis, it is about the harsh reality of a champion who suffers a lot in ranked matches and who is not exactly brilliant in the pro game.
Riot is losing patience with Zeri and is about to make a gigantic mistake
While players continue to complain about Zeri, the reality is that he is one of the worst champions in the game in ranked matches. In the lower skill brackets, his win rate is just over 46%, and he doesn’t improve much if you consider only the best players. The highest skill group that Riot Games looks at is the one that includes all players Diamond level 2 or above, where the champion has a 47.5*% success rate.
Zeri’s reign in the competitive system isn’t even on the table anymore. Although we’re coming off of a banner week for her, she no longer meets Riot Games’ criteria for reducing champion power. According to the developer, any hero whose Competitive Presence is above 95% in a single patch or 85% in two consecutive patches should be nerfed. However, in the past few weeks, she has only appeared in 77% of matches. Moreover, she did it with a ridiculous success rate, winning only 46% of the professional matches she was selected in.
Although the win percentage of champions in competitive play is not a reliable statistic, it is useful to understand the tendencies of such a character. This is especially true in a case like that of Zeri, who has been the most successful League of Legends champion in professional play for the past few patches. We can deduce that players use it more out of habit than for its power. It’s a fairly common occurrence in competitive gaming and one that Riot Games explained: for a champion to stop dominating the elite level, they not only have to be bad, but the players also have to think so.
It is by accompanying all this data that we come to the conclusion that Zeri’s power reduction is very bad news for League of Legends. She will no doubt disappear from professional play or be reserved for a few prodigies, but she will also receive a knockout of necessity in ranked matches. Indeed, the character is likely to suffer from problems very similar to those that Ryze or Aphelios have been experiencing for some time and from which it seems that the balancing team at Riot Games has not learned all the necessary lessons.
Even if League of Legends is sometimes frustrating, especially by giving the impression that victory is a bit of a lottery where you have to fall on relatively calm and focused mates, it is still possible to achieve certain individual feats.