League of Legends: New champ starts terribly, is directly in last place

The newest champion in League of Legends has a crash landing. A few days after the launch, Smolder is the worst of all characters.

When a new character is introduced in League of Legends, many people fixate on the early days of performance. If it becomes apparent that a new champion is too weak, the disappointment is great – and that seems to be the case with Smolder. A few days after the release of the little dragon, he is at the bottom of the food chain – ranking behind all other champions.

You can watch the trailer for the current season of LoL here:

What is wrong with Smolder? The newest champion in League of Legends has a crash landing – at least when you look at the statistics. If you take a look at the win rates of the individual champions, you have to scroll down quite far to find Smolder (via u.gg). In last place is the little dragon with a win rate of around 43% and even behind other catastrophically rated champions like Ezreal or Sylas.

Is that bad? No, not really. It is quite normal for a new character in League of Legends to have a tough start. At the beginning, various factors come together that cause a champion’s win rate to plummet, as long as they are not completely overpowered:

• A new champion is played by many who just want to try him out – and then often have little knowledge of the corresponding role.
• It takes time to fully understand a champion and their potential, and to make the most of them. Therefore, most players start out playing suboptimally and lose to those who have a much better command of their champions.

Additionally, Smolder has a relatively high skill ceiling – so it requires quite a bit of experience to bring out good performance from his kit.

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Generally, it only takes a few weeks for a new champion’s win rate to stabilize on its own. If this does not happen and Smolder is still at the bottom of the list in 2 or 3 weeks, then League of Legends will probably consider buffs.

Have you tried Smolder yet? How do you like the little dragon?

Even though the developers would like to hide it – but the layoffs at Riot will have an impact on LoL.