Despite registering incredible numbers in presence rate during the Summer Splits, Tristana happens to be nowhere at the League of Legends 2023 World Championship.
The Yordle marksman was a staple during the second split of the season across the major regions, especially towards the end with the start of the Summer playoffs. In comparison, Tristana is nowhere to be seen at Worlds: throughout the tournament, she has been picked only five times with only four bans registered, totaling a staggering 13.4 presence rate.
Why did she drop so much in priority, and why is there such a stark contrast? Let’s dive deeper into the analysis.
Tristana’s small but impactful nerfs from Patch 13.16
The LCK and the LPL recorded 83 percent and 82 percent presence rates for Tristana during the Summer Split, according to stats site Games of Legends. The western regions went even higher, boasting a 91.8 percent presence rate in the LCS and 97 percent presence for the LEC. All four major regions (LPL, LCK, LEC, and LCS) played their respective Summer Playoffs (and Regional Finals) prior to the patch where Tristana received a few base stats nerfs.
In Patch 13.16, the Yordle Gunner had her base health, base armor, and base magic resistance reduced. To compensate for those changes, the devs increased the armor growth by 0.3, bringing it to 4.5 per level.
While the champion did get a bit more resistant in the late game (1.4 armor increase at max level), she was overall weakened. This is because Tristana wants to be able to use her kit and passive to trade during the early game, especially when played as a mid laner. That was one of the reasons why she gained so much popularity: she could be flexed between mid and bot lane, giving teams an edge when it came to draft preparation.
Now that Worlds is played on Patch 13.19, those nerfs have been applied, and Tristana is easier to punish and kill. She can still be picked, but the risk of having the strategy fail is also higher, which brings us to the second point.
Her advantages aren’t really advantages anymore
Aside from having the flexibility between the two roles, Tristana was a great mid lane counter pick to most mid lane mages. Considering their need to scale up and build several items, Tristana could punish them during the laning phase.
Tristana would also guarantee permanent lane priority over the laning phase with her pushing power from the E passive, making it easier for the team’s own jungler to move around the map for plays freely. Additionally, Tristana is one of the fastest champions at taking down turret plates with her E, allowing her to generate more gold without the need to kill champions.
While the last strength is still relevant, the other advantages aren’t really that decisive in the new meta. There are some good picks that can answer Tristana, such as Syndra and Sylas, and the meta doesn’t really need that much priority since it’s much more important to have strong teamfighting over better early skirmishing power.
Tristana’s lack of synergy with meta champions from other roles
Speaking of the meta, Tristana is also not helped by how team compositions are being created at Worlds 2023. Having the ADC in the mid lane role requires magic damage on other sides of the map, and there aren’t many pro-play-oriented picks that work out.
So far, the top lane mostly had Rumble as the only AP-heavy pick. Jungle is also in a similar spot, with Maokai and Taliyah the most picked magic damage champions. And even though they might be played together, Maokai doesn’t offer enough damage, while Taliyah doesn’t share strong synergy with Tristana.
Likewise, the bot lane doesn’t have many AP options, with Ziggs being the only mage picked and only once in the tournament (according to Games of Legends). Kai’Sa was the only ADC champion who could hybridize her own damage output, but her strongest build has now become the Lethality build with Duskblade of Draktharr, which puts more focus on physical damage.
If a team were to run Tristana, they would now be forced with few magic damage options or commit to a double marksman team composition that can be itemized against by stacking armor. In either case, the overall effect is not that positive and paired with the other issues, Tristana becomes more of a hindrance.
Her lack of influence in teamfights
All of these points bring us to the last reason why she is struggling to show up at Worlds 2023: the value in the team fights. After several weeks of exciting matches, teams have understood once again the importance of having strong team fighting and the need to have multiple AoE abilities that can either set up teammates or deal massive burst damage to take them down.
Tristana doesn’t excel in any of these situations, and she can be easily picked off due to her nature as an ADC. While you could argue she has the Rocket Jump to reposition herself, the cast time is too long in teamfights where things happen in tenths of a second. Unless players have exceptional positioning and god-like reflexes, it’s hard to play around the pick.
Besides, if all Tristana has to focus on is dodging key abilities, then she won’t likely get into a position to freely dish out her DPS, defeating the entire point of choosing her in the first place. Overall, it’s a risky strategy that doesn’t pay out enough dividends.
So, is she going to be picked again?
It’s clear now that Tristana can only be picked if she satisfies certain conditions and whether the team thinks it’s worth practicing the champion. Based on what we saw so far at the tournament, however, the general impression is that Tristana won’t get picked again: there are far too many strong picks available, like Orianna, Neeko, and Azir, that guarantee a much higher level of impact in the teamfights that do not compromise the team composition as much.
Unless we somehow see a series of mid lane champion bans all within one game, then the Yordle won’t likely step into Summoner’s Rift for the 2023 season.
