Surely you still remember the horrifying memories of Zeri at various League of Legends (LoL) tournaments around the world. Although Riot Games tried to balance her power, Zeri remained overwhelmingly dominant when paired with certain support champions. Consequently, Zeri had one of the highest pick/ban rates, often reaching nearly 100% across many regions. To prevent boredom, Riot Games decided to bring Zeri back down to earth. They made Zeri weak “pathetically” and she no longer appeared in tournaments.
However, these changes inadvertently led to Zeri, the Spark of Zaun, gradually losing her status in solo queue. Zeri belongs to a special group of champions, who are better utilized by professional players than by casual gamers. Like Ryze, Azir, Aphelios, Akali, etc., Riot Games struggles to balance the power of these champions and often requires players to control the pace of the game to maximize their strengths.
Zeri is very weak in the early game and needs to farm minions to acquire a few key items. In a professional environment, managing the pace of the game is not difficult; they can avoid unnecessary fights and wait for their core champion to gather enough items. In ranked mode, however, the pace of the game ramps up, and Zeri players can easily find themselves in confrontations when their power is still limited.
In terms of champion quality, Zeri is strongest when she has 3-4 core items, around the 25-35 minute mark of the game. Once she has enough items, Zeri players can maximize her damage and mobility, making it difficult for opponents to approach or escape. Therefore, professional players always tend to play slowly when using this champion.
Additionally, Zeri is very strong when paired with support champions that can heal and shield. Among them, Lulu and Yuumi are the best pairings. The common point of Zeri with these supports is: “both scale well into the late game, as long as they avoid fights during the laning phase.” If the opponents do not dominate the laning phase before the 14th minute, your team’s fate will not be easy in the later stages.
After that golden period, Zeri was heavily nerfed by Riot Games. They reduced the interaction of her Q ability, Sparkling Gun, with attack damage, decreased the critical damage of her W ability, High Voltage Surge, and reduced the movement speed per stack of her R ability, Peak Voltage. Since then, Zeri has vanished from tournaments and has not made an appearance at this year’s World Championship.
Currently, Zeri’s win rate is only about 42%, a very low number on the Rift. In the past, not many champions have reached this number, so Riot Games is effectively ruining a champion through careless design. Even the adjustment process has faced difficulties as Zeri is only strong when paired with certain champions. From the start, Zeri’s introduction might have been a significant mistake. With each version, the community is increasingly aware of Riot Games’ champion design flaws.
To bring Zeri back, the developers will have to grapple with finding solutions to buff her power. They will need to consider various scenarios: which abilities to buff reasonably, how Zeri can innovate with new item builds, and how this champion synergizes well with support casters. In the past, the Spark of Zaun dominated the Meta through item builds that focus on on-hit effects (Galeforce, Kraken Slayer, Blade of the Ruined King, Runaan’s Hurricane) and magic power builds. This is not an easy problem for Riot’s game design team.