Released during the preseason of 2019, Neeko has gone through a relatively long journey to find her way into the professional arena. Her peak power came during MSI 2019, where she was a tremendously strong choice in both top and mid lanes, with a frustrating auto-attack build when played top and strong team-fighting capabilities in the central position of the map.
When Neeko was nerfed from her auto-attack playstyle and turned into a pure Mage with a very annoying Frost Upgrade playstyle, her popularity waned, but her power could not be underestimated. In fact, she was even considered a strategic pick for Faker during the LCK Summer 2019.
However, since the 2019 World Championship, Neeko’s popularity has continued to decline and she has become “bugged” in the latest update of the specialized site Op.gg. Specifically, this champion is the third character after the two traditional champions Wukong and Skarner to receive a R.I.P status due to having too little data for statistics. On another statistics page, LeagueofGraph, the situation isn’t as dire, but her pick rate is only at 1.5%, with a win rate not even reaching 49%.
Many believe that in the current meta with so much focus on Dragon control, champions with strong ultimates like Neeko should be preferred. However, that’s just theory; the reality is quite different. Neeko is too reliant on her ultimate, making her early game participation and support for teammates extremely limited.
Indeed, you have an E ability that can root, but it’s only used to pin enemies near minions. When you have to cast spells in the river, for example, the hit rate is extremely low.
That’s a limitation in Neeko’s skill set. The most important reason why this champion has been forgotten is that there are many other mid lane champions that perform better at what she can do, while being much stronger. A simple example is the two champions Ornn and Rumble, who are extremely popular in the mid lane; they have crowd control and team-fighting abilities similar to Neeko, but instead of needing to engage in battles, these two champions can use their ultimates from a distance and still deal massive damage to opponents.
Moreover, the other champions in the mid lane meta either deal strong early game damage (Fighter class) or can deal damage reliably with straightforward skill shots (Syndra, Cassiopeia, Ryze…), and they are all more effective than Neeko. With damage output not standing out and team-fighting capabilities inferior to other champions, it’s easy to understand why Neeko has been sidelined.
However, since she was just released a little over a year ago, Riot Games cannot immediately rework Neeko as she still has a rather interesting transformation mechanic. They also have no plans to buff this champion further, so her future remains very bleak. Perhaps it is time for Riot to buff Neeko?
