In League of Legends, the mid laner Faker has earned a reputation as the greatest player of all time. Now he has established the champion, Kai’Sa, in a new variant for the mid lane as a meta pick, despite the fact that she is actually a bot laner that few wanted to play. Yet, regular players wonder: Is the champion really as good as she seems in Faker’s hands?
What kind of champion is this?
- Kai’Sa, the “Daughter of the Void”, is an unusual ADC champion who relies primarily on skill shots with long range on her W. The special twist of the champion is that her abilities “evolve” when she reaches certain thresholds with her items: her Q changes at 100 AD, and her W at 100 AP.
- Kai’Sa was popular around 2020 but got nerfed so much in 2021 that she was hardly played. Her laning phase is considered too weak, she has no crowd control and practically no escape options when things get tough, which in the eyes of some fans is already way too sexy.
- The currently trending bot lane champs in LoL are Jinx or Aphelios. Kai’Sa was mostly played in the bot lane as artillery from the backline. She does have high burst damage but no sustained high damage. However, a new variant of Kai’Sa is surfacing: she is being played as an “AP champion” in the mid lane.
Jinx is not only popular in LoL but even has “her own” Netflix series:
AP Kai’Sa is a killer from a distance – At least in Faker’s hands
How did the trend come about? The trend is primarily due to superstar Faker. The South Korean national hero pulled out Kai’Sa in the mid lane in a series against Kwangdong Freecs in mid-March and finished the match with this unusual pick with a KDA of 4-3-5. In the hands of the ultra-talented mid laner, Kai’Sa suddenly looked like the new meta overpick or simply “unfair”.
Faker only played Kai’Sa twice in the LCK but also repeatedly used the champion in SoloQ, delivering strong performances there.
How does Faker do it? Faker plays Kai’Sa with an AP build and takes advantage of her immense burst damage late in the game to deal a lot of damage from the background.
This fulfills the power fantasy of a mid laner, influencing the match significantly from the safety of a great distance, by bringing enemies to the brink of death even before the start of the actual fight and softening them up.
Many try Kai’Sa but fail due to issues
Is Kai’Sa really as strong as it seems? That is still up in the air. The site Inven has spoken to some professionals who currently see high potential in Kai’Sa but also clear weaknesses:
Kai’Sa is a champion with clear strengths and weaknesses and needs specific situations to function perfectly.
Pro player Palafox explains: Kai’Sa can reach a point where she deals 1,000 damage with her W over half the map, which is already great.
However, this takes a while. Only once she has 100 AP does her W really start to shine, as Inven notes. Before that, she has a rather weak laning phase. Everything gets better once she has her first items.
Inven further concludes: Even in long team fights, Kai’Sa cannot really convince because she lacks the sustained damage typical of marksmen. She rather plays the role of an assassin.
How difficult many “normal players” find it to play Kai’Sa is evident from her mixed statistics. As reported by AFKGaming, she has a win rate of only 44.8% as a mid laner in solo queue. It is believed that many “normal players” do not understand how to play this champion.
However, Faker believes that “his champion” could succeed. In an interview with Inven he says:
I think it is a lot of fun to play Kai’Sa. I had a lot of fun with her, and I think other pros will also play her when they realize how much fun it is.
Faker
The season in LoL is now heading into the hot phase with the playoffs. It will be exciting to see if Kai’Sa can establish herself as an interesting pick in the mid lane.
The meta in LoL is constantly changing:
A champ in LoL is so strong in 2022 that he was banned in every single match in Korea
