After 4 days of competition in the Play-In Stage of the 2023 World Championship, the playstyle of the tournament has gradually been determined. Among them, Xayah and Kai’Sa are emerging as the strongest picks in the ADC position with an incredibly high ban/pick rate at Worlds 2023. Specifically, Xayah and Kai’Sa have 100% and 83% appearance rates at Worlds 2023, respectively.
In the case of Kai’Sa, despite being chosen frequently, her win rate is only at 42%, which is quite low. In fact, fans have discovered that Kai’Sa with the build of Galeforce and Guinsoo’s Rageblade has not secured any victories. After 6 games using this build, Kai’Sa has recorded 6 losses.
So what has caused Kai’Sa with Galeforce and Guinsoo’s Rageblade to have alarming statistics at Worlds 2023? Basically, the two items combined with Nashor’s Tooth will help Kai’Sa evolve all three skills at 3 items. This allows this champion to have good damage output and mobility when completing all three items.
However, the weakness of this build is that Kai’Sa will be very limited in damage during the mid-game. The reason is that Galeforce and Guinsoo’s Rageblade do not interact well together. Meanwhile, matches in Worlds 2023 place a heavy emphasis on ADCs’ power spikes at 2 items for engaging in team fights and objective contesting. As a result, Kai’Sa with Galeforce and Guinsoo’s Rageblade appears extremely weak in the mid-game.
Sadly, the first player to apply this build at Worlds 2023 was Slayder from GAM Esports. The weaknesses of this playstyle contributed to GAM’s defeat against LOUD on their opening day of the tournament.
Fairly speaking, the Galeforce, Guinsoo’s Rageblade, and Nashor’s Tooth build is not weak for Kai’Sa. However, given the nature of the matches at Worlds 2023, this playstyle is challenging to execute effectively. It is very likely that ADC players at Worlds 2023 should skip this itemization style for the remainder of the tournament.