As a veteran League of Legends player, concepts like Fighters, Tanks in the top lane, Mages in the mid lane, or Marksmen in the bot lane seem all too familiar. However, for newcomers who have only become acquainted with the game in the last 2-3 years, the familiar faces in mid are Yasuo, Zed, Talon… assassins or high-damage champions with quick execution capabilities.
Partly due to the desire of new players to showcase their skills, and partly because Assassins in the mid lane are currently too strong compared to the rest, they are gradually replacing the old character classes. The last Mage released by Riot was Neeko last year, and while she is still considered a new champion, this shape-shifting character hasn’t been in the meta for about half a year.
So what is the reason that Assassins dominate Mages like this? The answer lies in two factors: champion quality and power threshold. Assassins inherently have to deal a lot of damage and be mobile; therefore, they create immense pressure on their lane opponents, not only in terms of farming minions but also kill pressure. For Mages, this is even more annoying, as most of their skills are skill shots, and against champions that can dash continuously, how can they hit their abilities?
The second factor is that Assassins reach their power thresholds too early. With champions like Zed, Talon, and Qiyana, just with a single lethality item, even just a small component like the Duskblade, they already have significant damage. This leads to early fights or objective contests where Assassins always have an advantage over Mages, who are still busy pushing lanes and earning gold for items.
Some may wonder why not buy Seeker’s Armguard early to counter Assassins? But my friend, there are 5-7 types of Assassins, how to build against Akali or Diana? Should the first item be the Abyssal Mask? How will you get energy with that build?
That is the challenge for Mages; they need items to increase their energy and freely cast spells, requiring a primary damage item and at least one defensive item. Meanwhile, with their mobility and inherent defensive mechanisms, Assassins can build full damage while still being hard to kill.
These two factors have led to a meta filled with Assassins in the mid lane, and then Fighters like Sett, Mordekaiser, and Garen are brought to mid to counter these assassins. Mages find themselves in a more difficult situation as facing these behemoths means they cannot trade damage and hope to exchange kills, nor can they run away without losing lane pressure. They are much tankier than Assassins and deal comparable damage, and while you can kite those Fighters, you can’t do the same with minions.
The consequence is that Mages are now almost completely extinct in solo queue; it’s no coincidence that Ryze was buffed in patch 10.6, as he and his colleagues are performing terribly in terms of stats and need power boosts. Ryze currently has a win rate of only about 46%, and the pick/ban rate is under 5%, a situation that is also happening with other Mages.
Riot Games is developing League of Legends to cater more towards younger gamers, those who always want to showcase their skills while playing, which inadvertently causes traditional Mages to lose their standing in solo queue. Perhaps if you want to witness champions like Ryze, Orianna, Syndra… showcase their magical prowess, the best place for players is in professional tournaments.