Best of Insane Champion Picks That Actually Worked (League of Legends)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- In some ways, League of Legends is a safe game. In terms of champions, you kind of have to pick what everybody else picks and just play game better than they do.
Sure there are counter-picks and the odd fringe meta lock-in, but straying from the pack and going for that truly off-meta pick can be risky, to say the least.
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The good thing about sucking at this game is you just don't have to worry about the so-called 'meta'. In Bronze you can just play whatever the hell you like, and the only thing that's going to really matter is who sucks the least.
Some Bronze players may feel differently, but most of them are just unwilling to acknowledge how much they suck. Me personally, I know how much I suck, and I revel in it.
Buffoon1980 I need teammates like you in casual.
Honestly that's true until high diamond and above, where mistakes becomes really rare and the meta changes a lot, then it may be up to the pick to put you ahead if you can't snowball easily on the enemies.
But otherwise you can play anything really, as long as it's not too bad (like some champions really suck this season compared to otherwise, just watch the bottom meta, you can't play anything there otherwise even if you're better you'll lose) and if you're good on your champion.
I do not know if that's the best exemple but I main Ahri with 70% in diamond, there are stories of OTP players reaching master and challenger on off-meta picks aswell (even though they sometimes struggle and go down when the meta shifts).
But the game is really who sucks the least until very high level, and even forward, it's a skilled game for the most part. At least that's how I feel.
Thats a lot of sucking going on... I like it.
Really its that way all the way up until gold, were all trash, I love it too, lets me have more fun
This is why I haven't tried to play to much ranked past silver. I like the competitiveness of it and really want to get good but at the same time it's fun to not be restricted to meta champions.
How could you forget about Unicorns of Love picking Poppy, a move that was so bold and successful that it brought about her remake?
Kobold Necromancer also got them into the LCS. Was the first time it was ever played on the LCS stage ever when they pulled it out.
I felt ashamed too that he missed to insert it in the video... What a poor content
@@mutugrof7012 there are so many off meta picks in pro that the video would be hours long not to mention how long it would take to make it
Damn straight
Also uol picked Warwick once iirc
11:13 "THIS IS A INSTA-LOCKED MISS FORTUNE" - my brain in solo que
That game Hai played teemo, he really showed just how far fundamental concepts can take you in this game. They won that game by creating space through ganks or invading the jungle, and then setting up mushrooms and moving to another objective, forcing TSM to fight through the mine field before they could group up and contest. By the end of the game, C9 had TSM in a stranglehold, not even letting them out of their base for fear of stepping on another mine.
"There is Faker... scratching his head in bewilderment at his own ability to kill Ambition."
Can't believe you cut that line! lol
"insane champion picks that actually worked" holy hell guys, the support player picked a support. what the hell was he thinking?
It was ardent censer meta at the time and it was unthinkable to play a supp that doesn't buy ardent censer.
also he had fervor of battle on leona
Aero Biba um. I’m pretty sure at the start of the video he said they’re also gonna show some picks that DIDNT work out so...
He had full AD runes there and it was a cheeze move that actually paid off
Some insight about Pepper's roaming Alistar. That was a thing in season 0, so it was pretty much unknown for anyone who hadn't played at that time. I had an online friendship with Edward and we played a hell lot of games together in CIS private games where we would pick some ye old strategies like that (Zilean support, jungle Nunu, the list is wide) from time to time to see if they could be used in current meta. Roaming Alistar is a completely different from default support role because you have to put pressure on opponents everywhere constantly while leeching XP from teammates early on and it's a pretty much all-in.
Loving the more frequent uploads over the past few months. Great stuff - thanks for the work you do!
Agreed
Insane league picks? Gigabyte Marines period
Archie's urgot, period
Double smite + 2 tank in bot, period
Faker's Riven was strangely absent. His response to the mid LeBlancs was the Exile and not a damn person saw it coming outside of SKT T1
I watched that game with Kikis in the jungle. The drama of that game was that Bjergerking was "the best" in Europe. and Power of Evil wanted to trash him on the international stage. So they picked the TF specifically to bait Bjergsen into playing Xerath, something he'd been playing alot of. Once baited, Bjergsen had to play Xerath against Leblanc.. and Power DUMPED on him. got like 3 solo kills in lane. Jat said about 3 times during that match, "I honestly just wish we could leave the cam on Kikis so we can do this at home."
Watching BeyondTheRift, they talked about that Hai teemo pick. It was the first split bjergsen played and he won lane/solo killed every mid laner at the time apart from that time Hai picked Teemo.
the leona was more about the fevor of battle keystone btw.
Karamin non LCS watchers don’t get that. Fervor of Battle Leona was a hot topic for a week after that lol
Just like Mf support or Lucian mid xd
i think mf support was a zyra counter
i think it was i remember something along that way
Misfits had the hearts of the world in that series. Almost won it.
i still get goosebumps everytime i see the skt vs msf match
I miss Kikis in the jungle.
BHSDiscGolf same
he's play on IHG actually on jg
lcs and kikis in the jungle? - no boring games n f*ck the meta ;d
U are lucky, Gilius benched
Kiki
Imagine green screening an office full of people behind you lol
God i remember I was cheering for Ignar's BC and Leona the entire time.
Salman Memehood me too, that years Misfits Lineup was amazing anyways, 5 amazing players. Now PoE and Ignar are gone, it‘s not the same anymore.
that ANX/G2 game was insane for the poppy into anivia walls strat that just tore G2 apart
3:30 funny part about this is that the Teemo was actually bodyblocking Gragas and Lucian lmao.
Where the hell is Darien's Warwick???
Kampacha They hate gambit, almost never talk about m5/gambit, and they only put edward on this list, if they research more, almost all old gambit have they unique pick
And Dimond’s Karma in the jungle, mid lane ap yi by AlexIch, also Genja make corki a meta pick on the world’s (forget the year) Give more love for M5/old GMB, they was amazing!
"He's forced a Warwick ban."
Genja also made Kennen adc a thing
AP Yi was in EU meta at the time, nothing special. AD Kennen was very known at the top-level (Kennen+Janna was a thing months prior to the assembly of that team), Genja just made it popular.
Corki is a signature champ of Genja, I remember him playing it for lulz in mid at the finals of amateur online cup in summer 2011 and roflstomping opponents :)
watching this in 2019 is just wild. this entire year was a crazy ride when it comes to what is and isn't meta
"We're playing TSM, it's off meta time!"
being off meta isnt about picking the one random right thing that works . its blood sweat and tears dedication trying to find the most ridiculous build that works and then polishing it into something meta
no. it's not the most rediculous build. It's finding out what works and why.
Meta is just whatever happens to be most effective in a general scenario, because then you don't have to build specific team comps around it (that can be weakened with target bans). Most people jump on this 'most effective' pick because either a pro did it, or they see it commonly played.
The best way to find builds/counters to meta picks is to ask "what is it that makes this pick so good?" then "who has/what can i build that can counter/is good against that thing" You start bringing in picks that people didn't expect, or may not have seen in a while. They call you off meta. The big question then is, can you make it work?
if you do, and people realize it, you are no longer off meta, you've created a new way for the meta to go
"this pick is like christmas" *picks christmas skin*
"This team comp is like Christmas" **proceeds to pick Bad Santa Veigar**
HOW CAN YOU FORGET DARIEN'S WARWICK?! Darien was actually the first guy not respecting meta champions or meta builds...
Can we appreciate that a vast majority of these clips, were used against SKT to try to give an advantage against the best team in the world, and yet all of them ended up being not enough to stop SKT from winning the series, even if the picks were super effective.
IGNAR IS A GOD!. That MSF and the ROX Tigers are one of the greatest team ever
u mean skt
Romnys Gonzalez MSF really isn’t one of the greatest teams ever, they haven’t won a trophy beyond challenger promotion
How does being skilled in a game equal to being a god?
William Hobbs They were able to get 2-1 against skt, veteran world champions. That's something, especially for a rookie team.
Everybody has gotten a 2-1 against SKT before. They just shine when they need to - unfortunately SKT is dead now. Griffin is probably making worlds this year.
Thanks for the conent, its about time that people found this great channel :) love from norway
Viscizaci's Yorick (with Cassio)
Marcel DA ́vis Oh man forgot about this one! That was huge and fun!
I'm watching this not even knowing what this game is called and what the deal is, and it's still interesting to watch.
I missed Darien´s Warwick. When that finally got banned, it was such a great moment
Man. This just shows me how far the presentation for these replays and coverage videos have come lol.
I’m a Teemo fan so... I clicked.
Gosu peppers Alistair but no diamondprox shyvanna, everyone thought it was a trash jungler until he played it and showed the world what counter jungle is
This video just further illustrates that to beat high level kr teams you cant play a standard game. WP misfits i tip my hat to you once again.
I think that this question of "meta" ends up spoiling this type of game and sometimes the company itself helps in that. many characters nowadays that were specific to a certain function have now lost their primary feature rendering it useless or making another hero disappear. in the end, by wanting to please everyone the company ends up making changes that takes the final fun of the game. either hero doing double duty is acceptable, but when all lose their functionality much of the affinity for certain heroes disappear. currently play the moba called Onmiojy arena. very good.
What about UOL picking poppy top lane into Mundo?
My favorite
This is also my favorite. This is what made me fall in love with UoL. They are still my team to this day and it was so huge. It changed their series all around against Millenium to make the LCS. Was so huge!!! It was also their stop of showing off their unique style that matched their unique name.
Not only that, it even made them BAN POPPY for the next game.
Vizipoppy was amazing!
@@DeviltoGeorgia34 vízi with long íííííííííííííí ;) (víz means water)
I’m just shocked I didn’t see Tabe’s Annie Support from season 3. He literally invented it that season and it was crazy and so good it became meta because of him until it got nerfed
i´ve been waiting for like 8 years for Teemo to be meta, or to be picked at WORLDS
we shall see
Meanwhile, a Grand Final in Dota has more hero variety than a whole LoL Season.
except you realize you're watching Dota and then close the tab
Then you have DotA where 107 out of 112 heroes were picked during TI7.
MultiZymethSK History will be made if someone picks techies at TI8.
Then you have LoL where 132 out of 141 champs were played in season 8. Lel
Yes that’s because Dota has far more spread out patch changes, this allows the meta to settle. But in lol the meta changes so much the pros don’t have the time to learn all the niche counter picks.
GRZELJAN ti is 1 tournament season is like 6 months right OMEGALUL
Leonlx we know man, counter picking is the core of dota resulting in 99% of everything becoming viable as long as the situation arises. Its just videos like these that make us wonder how lol is structured. Like in this video, I dont know whats happening but it seems like pros didnt pick the so-called best champions but somehow made them work. In dota this is done regularly. Even in the same patch, when someone finds something so powerful, be it a hero combo, skill item combo, build combo etc. People start doing the same thing and some begin to experiment more, resulting in several "metas" in the same patch.
The Poppy Anivia combo was the best thing I have seen besides fakers zed. Not going meta. Doing what they know. and a simple play that works. Worlds needs more of that.
The "insane" champions are like nocturne jungle and leona support? Yi mid is pretty silly, i'll give you that one. But "INSANE"? Nah, i wanna see some annie jungle or something borderline unplayable if you wanna call it lack of sanity.
There is huge difference between pro play and solo que.
timothyLucasJaeger yea whoever made this vid is kinda dumb lol
The thing that made that Leona different was that ignar had fervor of battle and was doing lots of damage and being really aggressive early. And the nocturne was lvl6 at 5 minutes. The picks weren't "insane" but they were very unusual in pro play and the way they were played was even more unusual and it's not something you usually see being done in pro play where everyone plays what's strong in the meta.
The meta for that Leona pick was back when people spammed ardent censor shield supports. So Leona and aggressive supports were pretty rare for pro play.
Do you think the only off meta champions are champions rarely picked in solo queue? Leona was off meta in pro play and fervor was even more off meta. Teemo isn't even that off meta in solo queue for example but he's super off meta for pro play. How many nocturne games have we seen from 2014-2017 in professional play?
You should be able to understand there is a difference in meta between pro and solo play.
Leblanc in season 2 been the same champion and everybody was like "LB is UP coz it can assasinate 1 champ and die" and then we have whole composition to counter LB
UOL 2015, top lane poppy, and yorrik (pre rework), jungle udyr, shaco and top lane nocturne and ap mid kogmaw.
Yeah, the Yorick-Cassiopeia game was one of the best LoL games I've ever seen.
I can't be the only one thinking, if they did this video one and a half years later, half of the list would be G2 picks XD
MSF vs SKT was the best game ever
The interesting fact of Ignars Leona was that he played her with fervor of Battle, this is why he did so much damage
The problem with these "off meta picks" are, they directly influences solo q in that region or around a lot of regions, these champions are picked because they worked in a certain situations (example being rox tigers picking mf support to counter zyra vs SKT ) they are not classified as good in solo q "because the pros picked them and that means it's good for me in gold 3 or plat or diamond etc. " , especially NA and EU. Korea has reasons, NA/EU(mostly NA) is kinda just trolling a lot of the time when they pick outlandish champs they came up with, in both NA/EU solo q and Professional.
Alecxis Garcia It's not true that it's Korea most of the time that starts those working off-meta picks, actually EU players have come Up with Off Meta picks/builds that then got adapted by Koreans who often refine those picks/builds. Genja comes to mind for example
Ray Black anything prior to season 3 to me didn't matter, the game was still being figured out and champions were as simple as they could get , genja pretty much popularized trinity kog and then stopped playing. Skarner is the only thing I can remember Koreans picking up from Western teams and at its most popular it had among the worst win rates that summer. Not much good comes from Western teams and if there are picks seen In both regions it's more likely korea is picking it for a good reason. An odd champion pick in Na/Eu isn't made credible just because Koreans touched it at after.
to be fair, the MF pick wasnt against "Zyra and SKT" it was, and still is, good against Zyra. Period.
Honestly, i wouldnt be surprised to see MF show up in Pro against soon with the prevalence of Hiemerdinger because MF can turn his turrets against him much as she can with Zyra plants
Ben Walker thank you. I am geting freelo off Heimerdinger while everyone else is angered by it. (Still bronze, I suck)
Alecxis Garcia They affect nothing. Only if those picks are actually working. But situative picks like u saying doesn't affect solo q. Everyone playing what they want or what they can play. They can switch only if they will knew this pick is OP. Like there was a Darius bot as Faker i guess? But i havent seen one since then. Swain/Heim/Vlad yes - they are working just fine. But situative pick like Darius bot? Meh, not so good. So there is none of them in solo q.
M5... a time where LOL wasn't boring as fuck
16:48 this is why they sent Ssumday to NA.
well NA is the league of random ass pro Teemo picks.
LOL Ignar is featured TWICE with his game. That man is a beast.
Diamondprox's volibear nasus udyr and probably like 5 more that im forgeting....
Diamond's Karma!
Shyvana. Tank Eve? I do remember him playing tank Eve to great effect but not sure if the idea was his.
Thanks for the captions :D They just got you a new sub
the most insane one should be when i was level 1 i picked ezreal as jg without smite, died 10 time to the monster, never jg again until now
there was a pro jungle ezreal one season im pretty sure. my memory is so bad though.
Great video, please do this for unsuspecting dota 2 picks!
kikis udyr or shaco jungle? if i remember right both games won.
they arent really the kind of picks this video is bringing up. Those two are still effective junglers and everyone knows it, they get played often enough in solo-queue across the board. They were odd to see in Pro, but by no means the surprise these picks were
kikis gnar jungle
Ben Walker No idea why you bring up soloq when he is talking about a pro player. Literally the whole video was about it. Like Teemo is seen alot more often than Udyr in soloq, at least in low elo.
In pro play, Udyr was (or gets) played like once a year and i cant even remember a Shaco ever since that game.
Btw, it was S5 EU spring split quater finals, UOL vs GMB.
It was 2 Udyr games after a useless Nautilus one. He was so annoying as Udyr, GMB had to ban it and he pulled out a Shaco game like its his daily routine.
UOL won that 3-1, still one of my favourite Bo5 series.
FLASH! BEAR! SLAP!
I missed Vizicsacsi's OLD Poppy
Yeah shaco game was awesome, he took tiamat and trinity and splitpushed the fk out of ennemis (if I remember correctly). I was really suprised it wasn't mentioned in the video.
That was a Battle of Fervor Leona. Not your daddy's support Leo. IgNar was ready to HAM in that bot lane. The balls to pull off those plays in that tense 2v2 tho. Too bad he left Misftis and joined BBQ Olivers. That jungle TF is also the reason Riot added the resets to the jungle camps.
You should do a top 10 of the best back caps in LCS history
Become a huge fan of yall recently - consistent content on youtube is everywhere, good content is out there if you know where to look, but high quality, consistent videos is really impressive, and I've been watching and loving every single one of these. These videos have rekindled my passion for e sports and I can't thank you enough for that!!
no kayn mid by caps, sad
I refuse to believe there was a time and place where Leona wasn't the best pick for support.
No diamondprox's jungle karma lololol
😂 lmao @9:15 the look on qt's face
Huni's Lucian is god tier now tho
Ignar's Leona wasn't off meta. His mastery was, but Leona was about as meta as it got, and really the mastery made sense in the matchup and had been used before by plenty of Challenger players.
your hand movements are weird
I mean, the only issue I found with this video was that Rekkles picking Kennen vs C9 at 2015 Worlds was really the progenitor of him being known for that pick, hence why the casters pre-call the pick before he even selects it in the clip vs G2 you show
I miss the old casters. :(
papa is way better than monte IMO
I gotta say, most video introductions are boring/time wasting, but this one was very well done
Ehhh my man Colin McNeil!! 😃😃😃
Colin McNeil yo brother!! Waiting for the next csgo content! Lots of love man! #respect
Colin McNeil aah man no problem we all know that! You guys are great and you are awesome :-).
hear the crowd there roaring like suckers for this league of Lego. ..
WHERE'S HUHI ASOL
They lost the game when he brought it out. He has had some insane plays with it, like against ROX, but it has had problems
shoulda been in the later section of the video then lul
@@willho4202 If you mean the game against Rox in Worlds 2016 then CLG won that game. Huhi went something like 11-0.
"Best of Insane Champion Picks That Actually Worked (League of Legends)" - Proceeds to show a troll pick of Teemo ending in a lost game with a 0/1 Teemo. Nice.
Wait.. someone picks Leona.. an actual support, a support that was meta for a long time and that is what you guys consider "insane"? I don't know about that...
Netsuko she wasnt really meta in competitive play?!
Fervor of battle leona...
Netsuko It was ferver of battle leona and it was ardent censer meta. At that time it was unthinkable to pick a support that doesn't buy ardent.
So barely dropped out of high pick is insane. But a pre-rework Poppy isn't?
Teeeeeeemo for the win. That sneaky little squirrel lol.
Score in the lck finals this year, last game playing nocturne, it was such an amazing sight
the Dig vs M5 game was the first professional game of league i ever saw...i enjoyed this solo urgot bot with blue ... and alistar+lee sin double jungle ...
You literally could take nearly the whole early years of the Unicorns of Love. Like Vizicsacsi playin the old Poppy Toplane, and so on.
Worth mentioning that Huni played Lucian again and crushed. I think that was more just a matter of crumbling under pressure than anything.
Archie helping Levi's noc was actually pretty cool not gonna lie
Prediction: anything gigabyte Marines doing literally anything, like nocturne jungle, urgot top, galio solo bot, trist and Lulu duo top
When he said it could even get you to worlds, i only thought about Licorices hecarim top vs tsm in gauntlet
Surprised Nautilus support didn't make it on here. That blew people's minds at the time, even though it was my first ever main. It was always good
You know how insane rekkles is with kennen when the only thing that could stop him was riot nerfing adc kennen to the level of unplayable
If champion is off the meta it doesnt mean its weak. It means there is no comp around it. But people dont understand it.
You can't really hear it in the video but when the mf support was locked in for ROX the arena went ballistic, we loved that shit
Even his teacher called him ZionSpartan
Today: We have Sion, Mages at bot, Mid Naut vs Lucian, etc
Sadly this was done before Caps Wukong pick, that has to be among the best ones imo.
He´s the best midlaner atm.
This is the attitude that makes League of Legends great !
I got an LOL ad on this, heh! Not that I really need it.
ignar's blitz against skt was a joy
The editing on this video was great. Love it
rekkless is the reason why shen is perma ban on Fnatic in 2017-2018 because of the shennen combo and ability of shen to counter gank and help other lane
Everyone remembers Keane's Urgot vs TSM. That's epic as hell
Don't let the Leona in the first clip distract you from the ivern
Had no idea that Zuckerberg was doing league highlights now.
It's funny that Leona was such a crazy pick when now she's popular in the meta
You forgot the legion. Darien and his picks