Everyone knows that Faker has a hobby… bringing every champion to mid lane, even in professional matches. There was a time when Riven, Gragas, or Master Yi mid lane in Faker’s hands left the world in awe.
Recently, during his livestream, Faker continued to demonstrate his “sly” nature by suddenly showering love on the champion Nunu, repeatedly bringing him to mid lane and building Mejai’s Soulstealer, leaving the audience in stitches. It’s known that Faker refers to Nunu as the “funny champion” because of its snowball rolling animation, which sounds absurd yet is incredibly convincing.
And indeed, because he finds Nunu’s snowball rolling quite funny, Faker hardly bothers with regular farming; whenever his abilities are up, he rolls snowballs straight into the opponents’ faces, regardless of taking a ton of damage himself. Of course, Nunu has excellent healing, so even against strong early-game champions like Corki, Faker has no problem.
“Is Nunu really strong now? Because someone seems to be obsessively building Mejai on Nunu mid” – that’s the concern of Vietnamese fans regarding Faker’s unexpectedly elegant and surprising new hobby. However, the truth is that AP Nunu is currently trending in the Korean ranks, which is why there are matches where Nunu is always banned, and in those cases, the president can only “pout” and pick Volibear to go mid.
The two items that Faker loves to build on Nunu are Hextech Rocketbelt and Mejai’s Soulstealer, even though it gets reset constantly. The scenario is still quite rosy for Nunu with a consistently good KDA; however, the match results seem to work against the president, showing a bitter red color.
Overall, compared to the “try hard” games with familiar champions, fans also enjoy these “fresh air” moments from Faker. Previously, Faker had once been “immortal” with Nunu in the jungle, so bringing it to mid lane is no challenge for him, especially when Nunu is quite strong in this position.
For those who don’t know, this mid lane Nunu meta began in early 2020, originating from a Korean master with about 12 games played on Nunu and 11 wins. Soon after, from East to West, many players began to adopt this unusual strategy, with the most notable being the champion Doinb.
Basically, at that time, Nunu mid would be a support-oriented champion leaning towards the side lanes with the runes “Domination – Predator” combined with “Sorcery” and summoner spells Heal and Ghost. With its quick wave clear and rapid movement to the side lanes using Snowball, Nunu is indeed very strong in initiating fights and supporting teammates.
However, recently, Nunu has been shifted to full AP damage and has proven to be extremely powerful. Specifically, Nunu is the champion that received the most buffs in patch 10.13, with the Q skill increasing damage (from 50% AP to 65% AP) and healing (from 70% AP to 90% AP), allowing Nunu to roam and clear jungle/creeps much more effectively. Not to mention that the ultimate Absolute Zero now creates shields based on bonus health percentage and 150% AP, making Nunu an incredibly sturdy “tower” in team fights. Both tanky and dealing a lot of damage.
Bonus scene of President Faker angrily picking Volibear mid when his “favorite” Nunu was banned. Note that Teddy, who is on Faker’s team, intended to ban Nunu but heard a loud scream from the next room, so he let it go; unfortunately, fate had it that if his team didn’t ban, the enemy team would…