There is a theory that the vast majority of League of Legends players are aware of: champions with a lot of skill shots tend to have lower win rates. The reason lies in the fact that these champions are relatively difficult to play and can easily lose games when handled by inexperienced players. Ezreal is a prime example of this, as the Explorer’s win rate usually hovers around 46-47%.
However, since patch 11.11, Ezreal’s win rate has significantly increased. In fact, after the release of patch 11.12, other statistics such as Ezreal’s pick/ban rate have also skyrocketed. Specifically, Ezreal now boasts a 37.9% pick rate and a 26.3% ban rate along with a win rate of 51.86% according to the specialized site U.gg. So what has made Ezreal become the super “overpowered” champion that everyone wants to pick (or ban) like this?
To answer this question, we need to go back to patch 11.11 when Ezreal received buffs to two important stats: health regeneration per level and base armor. This power increase improved Ezreal’s lane sustain and skill trading in the bot lane significantly. Additionally, Ezreal also became sturdier in the mid-game with the popularity of building Iceborne Gauntlet.
However, Ezreal in patch 11.11 was only a bothersome champion, not overwhelmingly powerful like he is now. It wasn’t until patch 11.12 was released and Riot heavily nerfed two champions, Varus and Kai’Sa, that Ezreal had the chance to shine. Essentially, Varus and Kai’Sa are champions that can counter Ezreal very well from the laning phase to team fights. When these two champions were nerfed and became less popular, Ezreal quickly rose to become the strongest marksman in League of Legends.
Players have also gradually realized that choosing Ezreal helps to mitigate the inherent weakness of marksmen, which is being too squishy and easily taken down. Normally, marksmen need to build a lot of pure damage items and almost have no defensive stats in the mid-game. Therefore, marksmen are very susceptible to being taken down during this phase. However, Ezreal can effectively protect himself with items like Divine Sunderer and Iceborne Gauntlet along with a substantial amount of health and armor.
Not stopping at just increasing his health, Divine Sunderer also provides Ezreal with armor penetration and magic resistance thanks to its mythic passive. These stats interact extremely well with this champion as Ezreal can deal a tremendous amount of mixed damage through his W – Essence Flux or R – Trueshot Barrage. As a result, Ezreal is showing superiority over other marksmen with damage output that is not lacking but with significantly better survivability.
In summary, Ezreal is currently proving to be an overly strong champion in the marksman role. If you want to climb the ranks quickly, this is the perfect choice at the moment. As for Riot Games, they should consider reducing Ezreal’s power in future patches to bring this champion back to a balanced state.