At the beginning of the current 2022 season, Wukong seems to be completely “out of meta.” Although not a weak champion, his overly simplistic and dull playstyle makes him less appealing to players, resulting in only a 2% pick rate in solo queue. Meanwhile, the situation in professional tournaments isn’t much better. For instance, during the LPL Spring 2022 group stage, Wukong was only picked twice.
Therefore, Riot Games has had to research and try to find ways to make Wukong more attractive. It seems they have come up with a solution to buff his jungle capabilities and allow Wukong to be more flexible in positioning rather than being confined to the top lane. The goal of Riot is to transform Wukong into a valuable “flex pick” in tournaments.
As seen in the video above, Wukong in patch 12.7 can use W – Nimble to bypass many thin to medium-thick walls. This allows Wukong to execute extremely surprising ganks by sneaking up behind opponents and attacking from unexpected positions. Moreover, Wukong’s ability to dash to the Dragon and Baron pit easily will also help him create surprises in major objective fights.
Not stopping there, the key factor that will make Wukong extremely strong in the jungle role is the additional damage from his E – Cyclone when used on jungle monsters, which will increase to 180%. This allows Wukong to farm the jungle at an incredibly fast pace, giving him more time to gank, which has already been buffed. These two factors promise to make Wukong much stronger in the jungle position in patch 12.7.
One more thing to note is that patch 12.7 will be released before MSI 2022. Therefore, it’s quite possible that Wukong will be a strong pick in this major tournament after being buffed so significantly. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Wukong transforms and ranks among the most picked champions at MSI 2022.
