Photo: Riot Games
When you are the GOAT of League of Legends, you have absolutely all the rights! It’s unclear if Faker moves around with a halo above his head, but the Korean has an aura that commands respect. Untouchable for years at T1time doesn’t seem to have any hold on this mid laner who continues to string together big performances.
When 15th win of his LCK team at Spring Split 2022, Faker even allowed himself a little fantasy. While there was a win all around, he decided to release a mid Kai’Sa, an unconventional pick. The victory was there, but was it really a good idea?
Kai’Sa mid, why this pick?
You should know that this year, Faker is not the first midlaner to play this champion on the midlane. Before him ordno (Czech league) and EMENDED (NLC) tried the experiment. When Kai’Sa is played mid, her itemization scales accordingly. As in ARAM, we play it AP with mage items (Echo of Luden, Void Staff…) even if we still buy a Muramana for the simple reason that the object loads much faster than an Archangel Staff.
The main advantage of Kai’Sa mid it’s his ability to poke while providing a source of magic damage. Theoretically, the champion also brings flexibility as he can be played as ADC, but in the specific case of Faker, he was chosen as the last pick and there was not really any suspense. The character is also very good at follow-up engages them with his ultimate and his synergy is very well known with Nautilus. On the other hand, we doubt that the matchup against LeBlanc is really favorable to the ADC of formation.
The Kai’Sa of Faker, what did she give?
Faker won, but to be completely honest, he surely would have won with any champion. His botlane walked on opponents and his jungler oner stepped up to widen the gap. It’s hard to judge the GOAT Kai’Sa in these conditions, but for the moment we really haven’t been convinced.
- In lane phase : Kai’Sa suffered a bit against LeBlanc. The mage had constant push and priority early in the game. The usual ADC needs time to scale, buy items, upgrade skills, and charge up her Tear of the Goddess. LeBlanc in return had the freedom to dictate his pace and roam the rest of the map.
- In mid/late game : Kai’Sa AP’s poke did some damage but nothing too impressive. On this account, you might as well take a champion like Xerath who has a lot more weapons and damage or the very popular Corki. In addition, we really did not see much of the explosiveness of the champion. He wanted to go-in several times but it didn’t bring anything… except for deaths or instant flash-outs.
The game was in any case under control and Faker may not have played all the way. But while he has already played 71 different champions in the LCK since the start of his career, it is clearly not Kai’Sa who convinced us the most… We are keeping the idea for ARAM, but for the Ranked we will pass our turn.