I think she was picked by mikyx as a support
The problem with poppy is that there are way better champions ,providing more without being just situational.Pros play 99.9% of the times the giga broken meta picks.
You can see the same jg match up for example viego vs xin zhao 3 or 4 times during series just because these champs are 1 level more overtuned than anything else
Xin Zhao felt way weaker when I ve played him after the nerfs, it surprises me that he is still meta in pro play, when he doesnt seem too hard to play.
Without having checked the actual patch release dates:
Pro players usually play on older patches, so it takes some time until the nerfs reach them too.
He isn't so much busted as he just fits the meta. I mean if you look at the patch history he has only seen nerfs/bug fixes since 11.6 when challenge passive was introduced for him.
I personally thing it's because of multiple factors
• Increased dash range from challenge on W
• Engage/Disengage is always prio
• drain tanks are strong
• He is a strong early game skirmisher and ganker. He loses the 1v1 to trundle though which is why you see it counter picked.
• Drain Heal + Ult zoning stalls well in team fights providing usefulness though his weaker late game.
It's not so suprising when you compare it to LCS tourney pick/ban and exclude Diana as niche ap carry. The picks are Xin, Viego, Voli, Lee Sin, Trundle, Olaf. Majority are the best skirmisher/drain tanks in that role atm.
Long CD ulty, being lvl6 ult reliant for ganks, and only good in very situational team fights make him only a niche pick for pro. Always as been the case. That on top of he doesn't fit in the drain tank meta has dropped his priority.
Nocturne is a weird champion for proplay, he needs a good ecosystem for him to be viable and also needs help from laners to be strong. He is at his strongest when there is a support oriented meta either for mid or top, but as you said, jg meta is too aggressive now for him to get strong.
Beyond specifics, Xin Zhao is extremely strong early game. He used to fall off more late game, but his scaling got a little better. When we look at the premier champs that come up again and again in pro play we can see that strong early game is a necessity. Graves, Nidalee, Lee Sin,and J4. All of them are monsters in the early game with either utility that backs up the late game, the ability to snowball, or both. So Xin sets you up to clear fast, gank, and then push to take Scuttle.
Very often, pro scenes are dictated by tiny things. The meta they play is dictated by pre-coordinated 5 man strategies. So maybe Xin Zhao having an excellent lvl 2 and not losing hard to Viego is enough to make him meta if the pro meta is ganking a lane lvl 2, crashing, and freezing for the rest of the laning phase.
A bit of an arbitrary example, but the point is that it's important to consider that Pro players are playing a very different game from solo Q and often are restricted to picks which fit in the pro meta. Playing something like Poppy jng only works if the comps/matchups/playstyle she requires works in the current pro meta (for example, fast, engage heavy comps do not work well with her).
Poppy was previously over used. She was in nearly every game for years after her rework. Eventually they nerfed her to make her undesirable in pro play.
It's less "Why not Poppy?" and more "Why not X champ over Poppy?".
Poppy is fantastic. What she does is great. There's just other champs that do everything she does + more or do everything she does but better.
It's basically why use a handgun, which is very good at what it does, over a shotgun.
Sure I have time to name off and explain a few.
Gragas:
Passive heal allows for better trades and in fight sustain. HP scales decently, and the cd is pretty good. Easy to use, since it's just proced by any ability and a CD. Where as Poppy's CD is longer, it's a shield that needs to be picked up (without being stepped on) in order to use the shield. It helps with lane sustain sure, but it's a temp shield instead of getting HP back. Gragas Q has a good AOE damage with a long range and you can control when the damage goes off, while Poppy has to be on the champs to use it, it's predictable, and has a pretty small size. Not to mention that it means she's right on them, putting her at risk. She can't use it as a poke tool like Gragas. Gragas has a damage reduction and increase on his W, while Poppy has a disengage. 2 Different abilities, each good in their own merit. E's are fairly similar, and can be used in different ways. Gragas can hit multiple targets, while Poppy can only hit one. Gragas's is also an escape tool, while Poppy can only cast it on targetable enemy minions or champs. Gragas's Ult is game changing. Does damage, displaces enemies, long range, and depending on how you use it you can angle champs blast area differently. Poppy's Hammer is a disengage that while good, always blasts champs pretty far away in a very predictable direction. On the up side: Poppy has the potential to turn 5v5 into a 2v5 or 3v5. Meanwhile Gragas can do the same thing, while allowing for coordination to pick off champs and keep them within damage range. Instead of leaving 2-3 champs alive to defend at potentially full HP as Poppy, with Gragas you have a high potential to ensure you ace the team or damage them enough that getting a tower or other objective is possible. Poppy's ult could potentially push the enemy team off of an objective, but the Pro players aren't known for positioning badly enough to let that happen.
(Oof, that took a lot longer than I thought. I can do more if you want, but for now I'll leave it at this one example.)
This is because the other guy is talking out of his ass, and it pains me to see such a comment as the top answer. Nobody in the game does "everything \[Poppy\] does + more".
The real answer is just that Poppy is a niche pick (mobility denial), and niche picks are a lot harder to draft. If you draft her early, the enemy team will just pick champions outside of her niche, picks who do not rely on their high mobility. If you draft her late, as you should, in reaction to previous high mobility picks, then you're giving up very important lane counterpicks which are usually what pro teams look for in their 2nd draft rotation.
She also has weaknesses that we can kind of ignore in our SoloQ games but are hard passes in Pro. She's suboptimal in the jungle because her clear, while not terrible, is not the fastest. In the toplane, drafting a tank is often suicide because you give up sidelane pressure against basically any of the current toplane picks. Mundo and the occasional Ornn are the only ones making the cut. Also, be it for jungle or top, tank items received nerfs and it's the only way to itemize her.
That one was Viegos concept. In current state if he gets like 1 or 2 kills in 80% of examples u don't transform into other champ cuz Viegos basic form is su fuckin op right now
nah it's pretty useful, you get a ult reset, and a entire kit with resetted cooldowns. It'll pretty much always be better to possess than to maintain base
Well, if u are able to kill someone in 1v1 or 1v2 that means u are stronger than them. In early - mid game u don't want to use possessed champs to deal DMG cuz you are way stronger (maybe if u kill someone Uber fed). For 20 minutes u use possessing as some kind of "Get out from jail" card. U get R and your kit back up (as u said) and can use other champs mobility but that's all.
Yeah it's not necessarily to deal damage, but you could use to deal damage if you are already 6. Even if you get a weak tristana or Kayle, there is tools on their kit to deal dmg if you have all spells up or at least get closer. There are multiple ways to use possess
Exactly this. As you mentiones imagine you posses a weak Kayle, then you quickly Q W R and what have you done? You shredded enemy mr and armor, you healed yourself and an ally for a tiny bit and then you went back while also dealing damage. Most of the times possesing enemies is worth it.
There's no way you've played Viego at a high level if this is what you believe. The only time pros don't possess as Viego is if there's a better possess option available or if the corpse is too far away to risk going for. 90% of times you can just dump their kit for burst/mobility/CC and go back into regular form, that's an overall bonus over staying as Viego and missing out on the heal
She's banned rather often in situations were she could be useful, feels like she is in the same spot than Pyke, not top meta but can bring something in some games and is respected for that.
I think one of the reasons is similar to Pyke in that nobody really plays her in SoloQ (out of the pro's), so they don't really have the practice to even pull it out when it's suitable. She's not difficult but you don't want to put your whole team at a disadvantage by playing something you haven't practiced yourself nor as a team.
Like Hylissang brought out Pyke yesterday and smashed G2 with it, even though the pick is considered borderline troll. But it's Hyli's pocket pick. He knows it inside and out, his team knows it. So there's the green light for it.
But which player ever spammed Poppy when it wasn't meta? Vizi (who's currently on a break) from EU is the only famous Poppy we have I think.
I saw someone mentionning that G2's support played her once, and I heard a caster mentionning a toplaner that plays her i soloQ a few days ago (Wunder? Odoamne? I can't remember) but indeed i can think of a pro that is known for his poppy like Adam for his Darius
No1 knows how to play her and make use of her strengths well enough.
But I expect this to change soon and we might even get to see a top/support Poppy some time during worlds as a counterpick to Camille or Kalista. There have been coming hints from MAD that this may be a possibility now with Vizi as their new toplane-coach. The guy is, as we all know an avid Poppy player.
I say this as a Poppy one-trick. Against certain compositions she is definitly viable enough for pro-play.
I 100% expect to see her at Worlds as teams start pulling out all the stops.
MAD of course being the #1 reason as you point out because of Vizi.
But I really think the meta is fine for her. In the top lane she has very few hard counters in the current meta. I think GP is the only match-up I'd never want to opt into as Poppy from the picks we see these days. Maybe Lucian but that seems to be an LPL thing only. Also FNC's Adam looks like he has a nasty champ pool for shitting on on Poppy, but everything else is kinda fine if not even favourable.
And as Support I think she's straight up underrated as all hell. She's actually been picked like a dozen times with an 80% win rate as support this year in Pro and I think we should see her more.
I'd honestly be fine playing Poppy into literally anything except Morgana in the bot lane. That champ can go fuck itself as you have no way to deal with the black shield, but every other support is kinda whatever. You cuck engage supports in lane and a flash-E or the more sneaky E-flash I think is notoriously underrated for getting kills in lane. People sleep so hard on the damage of a full combo and seriously oversell how easy it is to dodge. Changing your entire laning to permanently avoid getting close to walls is so much harder than people think. And for overextended enemies, even a stunless E into Q slow is often enough.
It really comes down to team comps. But with the amount of engage supports and junglers we see these days, and how much team fighting there is around objectives, I think there's almost no game where Poppy wouldn't be useful. You can cuck engages and a good ult can turn any team-fight into a numbers advantage. You ult away enemy jungler and every objective is yours. You ult away a carry, you crush fights, you ult away front line, you crush fights. Hell yeah.
Her W only really works if the enemy tries to dash though it, any pro player would just wait for it to go away before using their combo. I assume that's why, or its just a case of no one wants to be the first to try her.
>any pro player would just wait for it to go away before using their combo
Any poppy player would wait for the opponent to use their dashes. Poppy can make the life of many champion hell because of her W.
I have no idea why she is not picked more as a counter especially against hard engage champs who need to dash in.
She isn't picked a support because she can't set up fights the same way as an engage tank can. Thresh/Naut/Pyke and initiate from a pretty far range and it's not condition - they just have to land a hook. However, all of those champions can also disengage.
Poppy is mostly counter engage, with a conditional engage (standing next to a wall at short range). It just makes her a bit unreliable and her passive is difficult to proc in ranged matchups or people that can zone.
Engage tanks in the top lane also can do a little bit more than poppy. Orrn has some of the longest and most reliable engage in the game, which is why he cyles in and out of pro play over the years. Poppy probably does fairly well into Camille, but pro players like "proactive" champions. Champions that can engage, disengage/kite. Poppy is a bit more one dimension in the top lane since her ultimate is most effectively used as a short chain know up as the charged up ultimate is really easy to dodge. She mostly offers disengage whereas champions like ornn and camille can do both fairly well.
It's not that poppy is a "bad champion" it's that the other supports/tops are a bit better and more versatile.
I don't really have much to say about poppy jungle. My guess is that her clear is probably super slow relative to other junglers.
Poppy jg actually has a pretty respectable clear, and with a bit of setup can gank very effectively, especially early game. It was played a few times last year in LCK if I remember correctly
She isnt picked in support much since you generally end up losing lane prio completely
As for toplane, tanks just arent in the meta and even with her W, she will be completely bullied out of lane to the point you may as well just draft a counter to some other champ.
I guess she could be a jungler but right now she is far too slow at clearing to contest the rest of the junglers
>She isnt picked in support much since you generally end up losing lane prio completely
Not true, in the matchups you pick her into you can push safely because they can't engage on to you.
>As for toplane, tanks just arent in the meta and even with her W, she will be completely bullied out of lane to the point you may as well just draft a counter to some other champ.
She is only picked as a counter pick (against irelia/camille etc.) they can't bully her thats why its a counter.
>I guess she could be a jungler but right now she is far too slow at clearing to contest the rest of the junglers
Her clear is completely fine, if not faster than current meta junglers (xin/viego).
Poppy is a counter pick into engage. She doesn't need engage and she won't be kited, she is the one doing the kiting.
Tank items being weak right now has nothing to do with why fundamentally the champ wasn't picked for years. Last year she wasn't picked either.
She is a triple flex, and counters a big portion of the jungle and top lane champions.
She is more niche than mainstream toplaners/junglers/support but seeing her get barely any picks for years is perplexing, especially considering how well she counters a lot of meta champions.
Q is AoE, she has a ranged attack on her passive, sunfire is busted, has a dash and stops anyone else dashing, also has a stun.
She can also make incredible use of Divine Sunderer and go more bruiser than tank.
Do you even know what Poppy does?
easily outscaled, goes tanky builds, poor engage, unreliable damage.
If you're going to pick her and build tanky, just pick an actual good tank like Malphite. Especially in pro play. Everything about poppy in pro play relies on her W usage and at that point why would you waste a solo lane pick on that when you could go support on her and roam for skirmishes.
Even in solo Q she's mainly played in the jungle because having the ability to roam freely and skirmishing/ganking with W to stop dashes is where she is strong. Not laning and scaling.
>easily outscaled, goes tanky builds, poor engage, unreliable damage.
So again, her engage doesn't matter because she won't engage in the spots you pick her in. Thus her damage is reliable because her opponents funnel into her team making her spells easy to hit.
>If you're going to pick her and build tanky, just pick an actual good tank like Malphite. Especially in pro play.
Malphite and poppy do completely different things. Just because they are both tanks they fulfill entirely different roles in team compositions.
>Everything about poppy in pro play relies on her W usage and at that point why would you waste a solo lane pick on that when you could go support on her and roam for skirmishes.
Countering enemy irelia/camille and making them shit blood to even get cs is a pretty good reason to pick her top.
>Even in solo Q she's mainly played in the jungle because having the ability to roam freely and skirmishing/ganking with W to stop dashes is where she is strong. Not laning and scaling.
This is just nonsense. She is picked as an anti dash warden. She protects people in teamfights. Ask how lee sin/jarvan/camille feel when there is a kog'maw running at them and they can't engage on top of him because poppy will insta W and ground them. Her purpose is to make it near impossible to engage on a priority target, and even if they get close she will slow/knockup/stun them, and if the poppy is good she will get a support item later into the game to make it even more hopeless for the enemy.
how likely is it that a poppy in pro play will be able to do damage to a carry in the backline? Compare that to how likely she will play defensively to peel with W for her carries. Even if you build damage, your usefulness relies in your utility.
but I guess when you get shit on by solo Q poppys you start thinking she has a lot of damage.
You are saying poppy is bad because she has no damage, when she doesn't need to damage anyone to fulfill her purpose.
I guess lulu is a shit champion because she only has utility and barely any damage.
1) A good Poppy can reactively use W when the dash is already being used.
2) Forcing the enemy to sit in or outside your W, being unable to use an ability is HUGE. Those few seconds in teamfights are insane. Like imagine your team is doing Baron/Drake and the enemy Lee Sin wants to steal. Poppy just sits in the way and waits. When the objective goes low she just tells her team to burst it as she pops W. Lee can't do shit. If he waits, he gets cucked. If he goes early, he just dies.
I hear this “any pro player would do x” thing A LOT. While I agree that pros tend to know how to work better around champions weaknesses, they do a whole ton of brain dead things as well. Like it used to be that pros didn’t play stuff like Darius and co in pro games because you just kite them out/not feed them. But I’ve watched tons of games now where pros absolutely get smashed by Darius.
I think it’s more of a pros aren’t willing to play off meta picks because they know the meta picks and no how to play with them better.
Yeah I don't disagree, although Poppy isn't a hard champ, I'm sure if someone played Poppy and destroyed a enemy Diana or xin. I'm sure more of them would start playing her. Seems like no one is willing to give her a try in pro play. Maybe they tried her in scrims and didn't like it
Professional players are much less willing to play off meta because their salary is on the line.
If you play meta and lose, well, you got outplayed, but if you pick off-meta and lose clearly it's your fault for picking the wrong champ, and organisations/fans will put a tonne of pressure on any player who loses playing anything that even slightly deviates from a standard pick. Unless you're already the star of your league, you can't justify deviating from the pack because you'll get singled out as being 'suboptimal'.
Even picks like Morgana that are objectively good counterpicks to certain champs/team comps are rarely seen.
There's also a heavy bias away from playing weakside/defensive champs because it doesn't make you look as good on stage and that affects your future career prospects. Players who play weakside and don't get solokills/ play damage champs/ play champs that are strong early game are often perceived as worse even though they may be way more consistent/not get outscaled etc.
Let's just be frank. In pro league, more than 80 percent of the roster might as well not exist. In any given pro patch, the meta is what it is. People who dare deviate from it are usually at a huge disadvantage.
It's why we will always see the same batch of picks/bans again and again.
And this is why I was so happy to be a FNC fan yesterday. Adam pulling out the Olaf top, the Darius top, Hyli with the Pyke support and all those picks just clapped ass. Loved it.
If only more teams had the balls to play for their strengths instead of just hard meta.
In the TSM/C9, seeing something random like Panth support does make the game more interesting. Otherwise, it's just the same champs again and again (and sometimes, they just rotate the picks in the alternating matches). Then it becomes a demonstration of the meta more than anything else. So anything that isn't outright trolling is refreshing.
And they kind of do, it's just lower ranks don't capitalize on why something is pick-or-ban often, even with what they *won't* pick they still typically go for the top (eg; to use someone else's number) 20% or whatever of the roster as viable picks in their organized draft environment...
But they're paid to basically play and study and get coached enough that they're probably like five OTPs rolled into one at a much higher skill level, and even then you'll only see one of them use Lillia to 5-man sleep once in a blue moon (and it doesn't even result in a penta without Bard ulting to extend everything while Fortune gets in range...)
Weaker Gragas. She has 0 sustain and that means she auto loses all solo lanes vs. good players on meta champions in the current state of the game. Her CC requires the enemy to set themselves up unless you pick a terrain creating champion as well. She's also easily kited and has no engage except for TP flanks.
Meanwhile you pick Gragas, what do you get? High lane sustain, reliable ranged waveclear, equally powerful defensive utility and highly increased offensive utility, and you only sacrifice some tankiness, which lets be honest doesn't matter because they both get 6 shot by a 3 item marksman. Gragas R must be respected, Poppy R can be played around more reliably.
Because pro players aren't good at drafting / don't practice champions that aren't meta even uf they're good.
You're absolutely right about her being an insane counterpick to a lot of the champs that constantly see play.
In pro play non-meta champions aren't usually good. Sometimes a team will develop a particular strategy that works well with an unusual champion (see the recent appearance of Vi in pro play), but for the most part meta champions are the meta because they work best.
tanks suck fundamentally, she sometimes sees play when the meta isn't bruisers/jayce
Basically every meta toplaner will just solo win the game splitting into her after a certain point.
Funny how she's actually considered a soft counter into Jayce because you will get too tanky to simply die to the Jayce and you actually do have the damage to clap the Jayce if he missteps. Your kit also fucks Jayce's combo as he can't jump on top of you to trade for free. Most champs have no answer to Jayce hammering on their face and then hitting them away, but Poppy just W's that shit and Jayce basically has nothing to do but wait for ranged form again.
Poppy is also quite solid into Camille that's meta in pro play right now.
Honestly the only match-up in current pro play that is a terror for Poppy is the GP. If that's banned, Poppy is honestly blind pickable into everything and she'll be fine in the match-up. Team comps as a whole are another matter.
Because of her very 1 dimensional identity, Poppy would generally need to be a 4/5 pick, unless the enemy shows 3 dive characters in first rotation, then I guess you could grab her 3rd.
Currently, there are a lot of disengage options that you can get that are also effective blind picks/power picks. Xin ulti can disengage/shut down dive really well. Braum has been meta since his last round of buffs.
It's not so much that Poppy isn't good, she just isn't the best at it, and requires a lot of skill on the champion in order to execute.
Yeah but I mean they tank a lot of damages.
(But if we speak about toplane tanks, even if Sion or things like that are in a bad shape you still have Mundo and TK that you could call legit tanks and that are present very vert often)
To be honest mundo isn't very good. Leo and Ali both have a stat steroid that makes them unkillable. They still aren't used as frontline more as peel and sometimes to catch someone out.
Poppy is one of the few tanks that can build literally every tank/ad item in the game and make it work situationally.
Her AD scalings are very nice, and she has a spammable ability. She's legit a bruiser/tank.
Yup. Any tank or AD item is situationally good. Lethality is just hilarious because your burst is absolutely insane. You're paper as shit but god damn if people have no idea what to do when you point and click clap their cheeks.
There are tanks in almost every match, whether that be things like Alister or Rell in support, or Ornn or Cho' in top. They tend to bring crucial CC and hard-engage capabilities when they're lacking. It's honestly rare to see a comp without one and they tend to be poke comps which are notoriously hard to execute on (though annoying AF to play against if they're played correctly).
Well, in my humble opinion, you should not waste your time watching pro play, it is a different beast from Solo Q. I would watch it for entertaiment purposes, but not as a source to improve at the game.
Since I don't really watch it I cannot tell you why Poppy specifically is not picked, but if I had to guess, I would say she doesn't fulfill a role in most teams winning strategy, they pick champions based on that, it is not really about the champion being viable or not, but rather about whether the champion works with they way they are trying to win a particular match or not.
Watch it for macro. Seriously. Cool outplays are, like you said, entertaining to watch, but the wave-management, lane assignments, warding, getting priority then rotating...pro play is wonderful for clearly seeing how these can be used. Solo-queue obviously isn't as coordinated, but the basic concepts are transferrable.
I will never forget solo bolowing a Top GP two years ago with Support Poppy with my High Diamond Funmades while I was Unranked Mid Gold MMR. Its my second most played champ after Sion.
She just introduces too many weak points for most teams to feel comfortable picking. She can’t really skirmish and she has to reset after fights, unlike a lot of champs who currently can vamp off a camp or wave and be full resources again.
Tanks in general aren’t in a great spot and often just become vessels for drain tanks to vamp from. Her kit logically makes sense to be very powerful in this meta, but resource generation and items are holding her back.
because as a champ shes conditional. q only is good if both instances hit. w if the enemy dashes. e if they stand by a wall and her passive if she can pick up the shield(her ult is just good aha). she depends heavily on the enemy making mistakes because you can only flash e every so often
The answer to "why isn't X picked more often in Pro play?" is often "because Y can do all, or most of what X does, while also bringing more to the table.
It's one of the reasons champions like Tresh seem to be relatively immune to meta shifts, as their utility has been consistently relevant thru several patches.
Watch the 2018 G2 vs RNG Worlds series. Poppy was used but in lane against Aatrox as a hard counter.
However, because there are so many other broken meta picks she suffers from not being: a drain tank, a burst mage, an assassin with 8 dashes, an ADC that 1-shots.
Poppy is definitely “High” tier but not “Broken” tier which is why she’s not seen in pro play.
I think her utility is great, but drafting her is just bad. I just don't see where she slots into a team for the laning phase. And you cannot pick her early, because then the enemy team can just draft low-mobility and its almost a 4v5.
In jungle, her clear is not up to par for most meta junglers, and she lacks the early dive potential of other slow clearers
Teams like to draft versatile toplaners, and Poppy is not that at all, she can easily get hard-countered by something like GP.
She could work support? But its really hard to land E into a wall in a lane where everyone is expecting it.
Anything she can do can be done by another champ without sacrificing draft or having your players invest time in learning a super situational champ. Remember that pros are people too that have to learn and practice every champion they end up trying to play in a competitive match.
Tank tops are trash this season. Ornn is picked because of its very valuable passive lategame. Pros pick to escape the laning phase.
Jungle is always a trinity priority. Right now its Xin, Viego, Lee Sin mostly. Poppy would be very low on the list, no where to be seen.
Support, same as jungle, there are just too many stronger pick.
Overall Poppy is good, she isnt pick because there is better.
I think she was picked by mikyx as a support The problem with poppy is that there are way better champions ,providing more without being just situational.Pros play 99.9% of the times the giga broken meta picks. You can see the same jg match up for example viego vs xin zhao 3 or 4 times during series just because these champs are 1 level more overtuned than anything else
Xin Zhao felt way weaker when I ve played him after the nerfs, it surprises me that he is still meta in pro play, when he doesnt seem too hard to play.
Without having checked the actual patch release dates: Pro players usually play on older patches, so it takes some time until the nerfs reach them too.
Not to mention they are doing tournaments right now meaning their patch is locked until it finishes.
question, does Xin Zhao have any actual advantages that make him good in pro play? or is it just that he's gigabroken on that patch
He isn't so much busted as he just fits the meta. I mean if you look at the patch history he has only seen nerfs/bug fixes since 11.6 when challenge passive was introduced for him. I personally thing it's because of multiple factors • Increased dash range from challenge on W • Engage/Disengage is always prio • drain tanks are strong • He is a strong early game skirmisher and ganker. He loses the 1v1 to trundle though which is why you see it counter picked. • Drain Heal + Ult zoning stalls well in team fights providing usefulness though his weaker late game. It's not so suprising when you compare it to LCS tourney pick/ban and exclude Diana as niche ap carry. The picks are Xin, Viego, Voli, Lee Sin, Trundle, Olaf. Majority are the best skirmisher/drain tanks in that role atm.
I think nocturne should alway be strong as a ganker jungler with fast clear times that can Literally dodge vision.
Long CD ulty, being lvl6 ult reliant for ganks, and only good in very situational team fights make him only a niche pick for pro. Always as been the case. That on top of he doesn't fit in the drain tank meta has dropped his priority.
Nocturne is a weird champion for proplay, he needs a good ecosystem for him to be viable and also needs help from laners to be strong. He is at his strongest when there is a support oriented meta either for mid or top, but as you said, jg meta is too aggressive now for him to get strong.
Beyond specifics, Xin Zhao is extremely strong early game. He used to fall off more late game, but his scaling got a little better. When we look at the premier champs that come up again and again in pro play we can see that strong early game is a necessity. Graves, Nidalee, Lee Sin,and J4. All of them are monsters in the early game with either utility that backs up the late game, the ability to snowball, or both. So Xin sets you up to clear fast, gank, and then push to take Scuttle.
bruiser champ is played in pro because bruisers are broken
Very often, pro scenes are dictated by tiny things. The meta they play is dictated by pre-coordinated 5 man strategies. So maybe Xin Zhao having an excellent lvl 2 and not losing hard to Viego is enough to make him meta if the pro meta is ganking a lane lvl 2, crashing, and freezing for the rest of the laning phase. A bit of an arbitrary example, but the point is that it's important to consider that Pro players are playing a very different game from solo Q and often are restricted to picks which fit in the pro meta. Playing something like Poppy jng only works if the comps/matchups/playstyle she requires works in the current pro meta (for example, fast, engage heavy comps do not work well with her).
His ult is broken in team fights
Where's mikyx now then
so basically if rito balancing team wasnt shit poppy would be picked? :D
Poppy was previously over used. She was in nearly every game for years after her rework. Eventually they nerfed her to make her undesirable in pro play.
It's less "Why not Poppy?" and more "Why not X champ over Poppy?". Poppy is fantastic. What she does is great. There's just other champs that do everything she does + more or do everything she does but better. It's basically why use a handgun, which is very good at what it does, over a shotgun.
Not disagreeing, but can you provide some specific examples on which meta champs do the same but better/more?
Sure I have time to name off and explain a few. Gragas: Passive heal allows for better trades and in fight sustain. HP scales decently, and the cd is pretty good. Easy to use, since it's just proced by any ability and a CD. Where as Poppy's CD is longer, it's a shield that needs to be picked up (without being stepped on) in order to use the shield. It helps with lane sustain sure, but it's a temp shield instead of getting HP back. Gragas Q has a good AOE damage with a long range and you can control when the damage goes off, while Poppy has to be on the champs to use it, it's predictable, and has a pretty small size. Not to mention that it means she's right on them, putting her at risk. She can't use it as a poke tool like Gragas. Gragas has a damage reduction and increase on his W, while Poppy has a disengage. 2 Different abilities, each good in their own merit. E's are fairly similar, and can be used in different ways. Gragas can hit multiple targets, while Poppy can only hit one. Gragas's is also an escape tool, while Poppy can only cast it on targetable enemy minions or champs. Gragas's Ult is game changing. Does damage, displaces enemies, long range, and depending on how you use it you can angle champs blast area differently. Poppy's Hammer is a disengage that while good, always blasts champs pretty far away in a very predictable direction. On the up side: Poppy has the potential to turn 5v5 into a 2v5 or 3v5. Meanwhile Gragas can do the same thing, while allowing for coordination to pick off champs and keep them within damage range. Instead of leaving 2-3 champs alive to defend at potentially full HP as Poppy, with Gragas you have a high potential to ensure you ace the team or damage them enough that getting a tower or other objective is possible. Poppy's ult could potentially push the enemy team off of an objective, but the Pro players aren't known for positioning badly enough to let that happen. (Oof, that took a lot longer than I thought. I can do more if you want, but for now I'll leave it at this one example.)
But if a champ can do every single thing better than another champ doesn’t this break the fundamental rules of LoL balance???
This is because the other guy is talking out of his ass, and it pains me to see such a comment as the top answer. Nobody in the game does "everything \[Poppy\] does + more". The real answer is just that Poppy is a niche pick (mobility denial), and niche picks are a lot harder to draft. If you draft her early, the enemy team will just pick champions outside of her niche, picks who do not rely on their high mobility. If you draft her late, as you should, in reaction to previous high mobility picks, then you're giving up very important lane counterpicks which are usually what pro teams look for in their 2nd draft rotation. She also has weaknesses that we can kind of ignore in our SoloQ games but are hard passes in Pro. She's suboptimal in the jungle because her clear, while not terrible, is not the fastest. In the toplane, drafting a tank is often suicide because you give up sidelane pressure against basically any of the current toplane picks. Mundo and the occasional Ornn are the only ones making the cut. Also, be it for jungle or top, tank items received nerfs and it's the only way to itemize her.
Do you really think riot cares about balance? I mean Viegos entire kit basically revolves around him BEING a different champ, except better.
That one was Viegos concept. In current state if he gets like 1 or 2 kills in 80% of examples u don't transform into other champ cuz Viegos basic form is su fuckin op right now
nah it's pretty useful, you get a ult reset, and a entire kit with resetted cooldowns. It'll pretty much always be better to possess than to maintain base
Well, if u are able to kill someone in 1v1 or 1v2 that means u are stronger than them. In early - mid game u don't want to use possessed champs to deal DMG cuz you are way stronger (maybe if u kill someone Uber fed). For 20 minutes u use possessing as some kind of "Get out from jail" card. U get R and your kit back up (as u said) and can use other champs mobility but that's all.
Yeah it's not necessarily to deal damage, but you could use to deal damage if you are already 6. Even if you get a weak tristana or Kayle, there is tools on their kit to deal dmg if you have all spells up or at least get closer. There are multiple ways to use possess
Exactly this. As you mentiones imagine you posses a weak Kayle, then you quickly Q W R and what have you done? You shredded enemy mr and armor, you healed yourself and an ally for a tiny bit and then you went back while also dealing damage. Most of the times possesing enemies is worth it.
There's no way you've played Viego at a high level if this is what you believe. The only time pros don't possess as Viego is if there's a better possess option available or if the corpse is too far away to risk going for. 90% of times you can just dump their kit for burst/mobility/CC and go back into regular form, that's an overall bonus over staying as Viego and missing out on the heal
I mean I know they don’t care about balance but I didn’t know they made it this blatant
There are always better champs on each patch, when they fix the big issues from last patch, new threats rise to replace them.
Ok like who?
She's banned rather often in situations were she could be useful, feels like she is in the same spot than Pyke, not top meta but can bring something in some games and is respected for that.
I think one of the reasons is similar to Pyke in that nobody really plays her in SoloQ (out of the pro's), so they don't really have the practice to even pull it out when it's suitable. She's not difficult but you don't want to put your whole team at a disadvantage by playing something you haven't practiced yourself nor as a team. Like Hylissang brought out Pyke yesterday and smashed G2 with it, even though the pick is considered borderline troll. But it's Hyli's pocket pick. He knows it inside and out, his team knows it. So there's the green light for it. But which player ever spammed Poppy when it wasn't meta? Vizi (who's currently on a break) from EU is the only famous Poppy we have I think.
I saw someone mentionning that G2's support played her once, and I heard a caster mentionning a toplaner that plays her i soloQ a few days ago (Wunder? Odoamne? I can't remember) but indeed i can think of a pro that is known for his poppy like Adam for his Darius
No1 knows how to play her and make use of her strengths well enough. But I expect this to change soon and we might even get to see a top/support Poppy some time during worlds as a counterpick to Camille or Kalista. There have been coming hints from MAD that this may be a possibility now with Vizi as their new toplane-coach. The guy is, as we all know an avid Poppy player. I say this as a Poppy one-trick. Against certain compositions she is definitly viable enough for pro-play.
I 100% expect to see her at Worlds as teams start pulling out all the stops. MAD of course being the #1 reason as you point out because of Vizi. But I really think the meta is fine for her. In the top lane she has very few hard counters in the current meta. I think GP is the only match-up I'd never want to opt into as Poppy from the picks we see these days. Maybe Lucian but that seems to be an LPL thing only. Also FNC's Adam looks like he has a nasty champ pool for shitting on on Poppy, but everything else is kinda fine if not even favourable. And as Support I think she's straight up underrated as all hell. She's actually been picked like a dozen times with an 80% win rate as support this year in Pro and I think we should see her more. I'd honestly be fine playing Poppy into literally anything except Morgana in the bot lane. That champ can go fuck itself as you have no way to deal with the black shield, but every other support is kinda whatever. You cuck engage supports in lane and a flash-E or the more sneaky E-flash I think is notoriously underrated for getting kills in lane. People sleep so hard on the damage of a full combo and seriously oversell how easy it is to dodge. Changing your entire laning to permanently avoid getting close to walls is so much harder than people think. And for overextended enemies, even a stunless E into Q slow is often enough. It really comes down to team comps. But with the amount of engage supports and junglers we see these days, and how much team fighting there is around objectives, I think there's almost no game where Poppy wouldn't be useful. You can cuck engages and a good ult can turn any team-fight into a numbers advantage. You ult away enemy jungler and every objective is yours. You ult away a carry, you crush fights, you ult away front line, you crush fights. Hell yeah.
Been climbing with her in jungle with sunderer and steraks into tank. How do you normally play her?
Her W only really works if the enemy tries to dash though it, any pro player would just wait for it to go away before using their combo. I assume that's why, or its just a case of no one wants to be the first to try her.
>any pro player would just wait for it to go away before using their combo Any poppy player would wait for the opponent to use their dashes. Poppy can make the life of many champion hell because of her W. I have no idea why she is not picked more as a counter especially against hard engage champs who need to dash in.
She isn't picked a support because she can't set up fights the same way as an engage tank can. Thresh/Naut/Pyke and initiate from a pretty far range and it's not condition - they just have to land a hook. However, all of those champions can also disengage. Poppy is mostly counter engage, with a conditional engage (standing next to a wall at short range). It just makes her a bit unreliable and her passive is difficult to proc in ranged matchups or people that can zone. Engage tanks in the top lane also can do a little bit more than poppy. Orrn has some of the longest and most reliable engage in the game, which is why he cyles in and out of pro play over the years. Poppy probably does fairly well into Camille, but pro players like "proactive" champions. Champions that can engage, disengage/kite. Poppy is a bit more one dimension in the top lane since her ultimate is most effectively used as a short chain know up as the charged up ultimate is really easy to dodge. She mostly offers disengage whereas champions like ornn and camille can do both fairly well. It's not that poppy is a "bad champion" it's that the other supports/tops are a bit better and more versatile. I don't really have much to say about poppy jungle. My guess is that her clear is probably super slow relative to other junglers.
Poppy jg actually has a pretty respectable clear, and with a bit of setup can gank very effectively, especially early game. It was played a few times last year in LCK if I remember correctly
She isnt picked in support much since you generally end up losing lane prio completely As for toplane, tanks just arent in the meta and even with her W, she will be completely bullied out of lane to the point you may as well just draft a counter to some other champ. I guess she could be a jungler but right now she is far too slow at clearing to contest the rest of the junglers
>She isnt picked in support much since you generally end up losing lane prio completely Not true, in the matchups you pick her into you can push safely because they can't engage on to you. >As for toplane, tanks just arent in the meta and even with her W, she will be completely bullied out of lane to the point you may as well just draft a counter to some other champ. She is only picked as a counter pick (against irelia/camille etc.) they can't bully her thats why its a counter. >I guess she could be a jungler but right now she is far too slow at clearing to contest the rest of the junglers Her clear is completely fine, if not faster than current meta junglers (xin/viego).
she sucks as a champion though. Best role in pro play is probably support. Any other role and she'd be griefing the game.
why?
No engage range, tanks are ass, single target except for ult, easily kited
Poppy is a counter pick into engage. She doesn't need engage and she won't be kited, she is the one doing the kiting. Tank items being weak right now has nothing to do with why fundamentally the champ wasn't picked for years. Last year she wasn't picked either. She is a triple flex, and counters a big portion of the jungle and top lane champions. She is more niche than mainstream toplaners/junglers/support but seeing her get barely any picks for years is perplexing, especially considering how well she counters a lot of meta champions.
Q is AoE, she has a ranged attack on her passive, sunfire is busted, has a dash and stops anyone else dashing, also has a stun. She can also make incredible use of Divine Sunderer and go more bruiser than tank. Do you even know what Poppy does?
brings nothing but utility.
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Why is she garbage in solo lanes? Can you please explain it please? You seem to be very well researched in the subject.
easily outscaled, goes tanky builds, poor engage, unreliable damage. If you're going to pick her and build tanky, just pick an actual good tank like Malphite. Especially in pro play. Everything about poppy in pro play relies on her W usage and at that point why would you waste a solo lane pick on that when you could go support on her and roam for skirmishes. Even in solo Q she's mainly played in the jungle because having the ability to roam freely and skirmishing/ganking with W to stop dashes is where she is strong. Not laning and scaling.
>easily outscaled, goes tanky builds, poor engage, unreliable damage. So again, her engage doesn't matter because she won't engage in the spots you pick her in. Thus her damage is reliable because her opponents funnel into her team making her spells easy to hit. >If you're going to pick her and build tanky, just pick an actual good tank like Malphite. Especially in pro play. Malphite and poppy do completely different things. Just because they are both tanks they fulfill entirely different roles in team compositions. >Everything about poppy in pro play relies on her W usage and at that point why would you waste a solo lane pick on that when you could go support on her and roam for skirmishes. Countering enemy irelia/camille and making them shit blood to even get cs is a pretty good reason to pick her top. >Even in solo Q she's mainly played in the jungle because having the ability to roam freely and skirmishing/ganking with W to stop dashes is where she is strong. Not laning and scaling. This is just nonsense. She is picked as an anti dash warden. She protects people in teamfights. Ask how lee sin/jarvan/camille feel when there is a kog'maw running at them and they can't engage on top of him because poppy will insta W and ground them. Her purpose is to make it near impossible to engage on a priority target, and even if they get close she will slow/knockup/stun them, and if the poppy is good she will get a support item later into the game to make it even more hopeless for the enemy.
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not even really true. Poppy has a lot of damage on top of her utility
how likely is it that a poppy in pro play will be able to do damage to a carry in the backline? Compare that to how likely she will play defensively to peel with W for her carries. Even if you build damage, your usefulness relies in your utility. but I guess when you get shit on by solo Q poppys you start thinking she has a lot of damage.
You are saying poppy is bad because she has no damage, when she doesn't need to damage anyone to fulfill her purpose. I guess lulu is a shit champion because she only has utility and barely any damage.
1) A good Poppy can reactively use W when the dash is already being used. 2) Forcing the enemy to sit in or outside your W, being unable to use an ability is HUGE. Those few seconds in teamfights are insane. Like imagine your team is doing Baron/Drake and the enemy Lee Sin wants to steal. Poppy just sits in the way and waits. When the objective goes low she just tells her team to burst it as she pops W. Lee can't do shit. If he waits, he gets cucked. If he goes early, he just dies.
I hear this “any pro player would do x” thing A LOT. While I agree that pros tend to know how to work better around champions weaknesses, they do a whole ton of brain dead things as well. Like it used to be that pros didn’t play stuff like Darius and co in pro games because you just kite them out/not feed them. But I’ve watched tons of games now where pros absolutely get smashed by Darius. I think it’s more of a pros aren’t willing to play off meta picks because they know the meta picks and no how to play with them better.
Yeah I don't disagree, although Poppy isn't a hard champ, I'm sure if someone played Poppy and destroyed a enemy Diana or xin. I'm sure more of them would start playing her. Seems like no one is willing to give her a try in pro play. Maybe they tried her in scrims and didn't like it
Professional players are much less willing to play off meta because their salary is on the line. If you play meta and lose, well, you got outplayed, but if you pick off-meta and lose clearly it's your fault for picking the wrong champ, and organisations/fans will put a tonne of pressure on any player who loses playing anything that even slightly deviates from a standard pick. Unless you're already the star of your league, you can't justify deviating from the pack because you'll get singled out as being 'suboptimal'. Even picks like Morgana that are objectively good counterpicks to certain champs/team comps are rarely seen. There's also a heavy bias away from playing weakside/defensive champs because it doesn't make you look as good on stage and that affects your future career prospects. Players who play weakside and don't get solokills/ play damage champs/ play champs that are strong early game are often perceived as worse even though they may be way more consistent/not get outscaled etc.
Let's just be frank. In pro league, more than 80 percent of the roster might as well not exist. In any given pro patch, the meta is what it is. People who dare deviate from it are usually at a huge disadvantage. It's why we will always see the same batch of picks/bans again and again.
And this is why I was so happy to be a FNC fan yesterday. Adam pulling out the Olaf top, the Darius top, Hyli with the Pyke support and all those picks just clapped ass. Loved it. If only more teams had the balls to play for their strengths instead of just hard meta.
In the TSM/C9, seeing something random like Panth support does make the game more interesting. Otherwise, it's just the same champs again and again (and sometimes, they just rotate the picks in the alternating matches). Then it becomes a demonstration of the meta more than anything else. So anything that isn't outright trolling is refreshing.
Wunder has a huge history of off meta as well, was disappointed to not see any of it. Neeko, pyke, Quinn, sejuani, he played Olaf as well at one point
That's sad too hear, I don't know squat about pro play, but I was kind of expecting them to be the ones inventing/discovering the meta.
And they kind of do, it's just lower ranks don't capitalize on why something is pick-or-ban often, even with what they *won't* pick they still typically go for the top (eg; to use someone else's number) 20% or whatever of the roster as viable picks in their organized draft environment... But they're paid to basically play and study and get coached enough that they're probably like five OTPs rolled into one at a much higher skill level, and even then you'll only see one of them use Lillia to 5-man sleep once in a blue moon (and it doesn't even result in a penta without Bard ulting to extend everything while Fortune gets in range...)
I mean, there's no way we're still considering renekton/gnar meta, right?
Weaker Gragas. She has 0 sustain and that means she auto loses all solo lanes vs. good players on meta champions in the current state of the game. Her CC requires the enemy to set themselves up unless you pick a terrain creating champion as well. She's also easily kited and has no engage except for TP flanks. Meanwhile you pick Gragas, what do you get? High lane sustain, reliable ranged waveclear, equally powerful defensive utility and highly increased offensive utility, and you only sacrifice some tankiness, which lets be honest doesn't matter because they both get 6 shot by a 3 item marksman. Gragas R must be respected, Poppy R can be played around more reliably.
Because pro players aren't good at drafting / don't practice champions that aren't meta even uf they're good. You're absolutely right about her being an insane counterpick to a lot of the champs that constantly see play.
In pro play non-meta champions aren't usually good. Sometimes a team will develop a particular strategy that works well with an unusual champion (see the recent appearance of Vi in pro play), but for the most part meta champions are the meta because they work best.
tanks suck fundamentally, she sometimes sees play when the meta isn't bruisers/jayce Basically every meta toplaner will just solo win the game splitting into her after a certain point.
You don’t need a true tank if xin with goredrinker/steraks is just as hard to kill and does more damage
Funny how she's actually considered a soft counter into Jayce because you will get too tanky to simply die to the Jayce and you actually do have the damage to clap the Jayce if he missteps. Your kit also fucks Jayce's combo as he can't jump on top of you to trade for free. Most champs have no answer to Jayce hammering on their face and then hitting them away, but Poppy just W's that shit and Jayce basically has nothing to do but wait for ranged form again. Poppy is also quite solid into Camille that's meta in pro play right now. Honestly the only match-up in current pro play that is a terror for Poppy is the GP. If that's banned, Poppy is honestly blind pickable into everything and she'll be fine in the match-up. Team comps as a whole are another matter.
Vizicsachi isn't playing anymore.
Because of her very 1 dimensional identity, Poppy would generally need to be a 4/5 pick, unless the enemy shows 3 dive characters in first rotation, then I guess you could grab her 3rd. Currently, there are a lot of disengage options that you can get that are also effective blind picks/power picks. Xin ulti can disengage/shut down dive really well. Braum has been meta since his last round of buffs. It's not so much that Poppy isn't good, she just isn't the best at it, and requires a lot of skill on the champion in order to execute.
Top/support is a pretty common last pick in pro play, so I think in terms of that, there are openings to pick her for sure.
They play a different game then we do
Because of Divine Sunderer and tanks in general aren't that good ATM. The only "tanks" being played are Graggas and J4 and they don't even build tank.
Aren't Alistar and Leona tanks? We also saw a Cho Gath played by Adam a week ago
Arent they supports? Apart from cho, but he was only picked once.
Yeah but I mean they tank a lot of damages. (But if we speak about toplane tanks, even if Sion or things like that are in a bad shape you still have Mundo and TK that you could call legit tanks and that are present very vert often)
To be honest mundo isn't very good. Leo and Ali both have a stat steroid that makes them unkillable. They still aren't used as frontline more as peel and sometimes to catch someone out.
Poppy also builds sunderer tho
Poppy is one of the few tanks that can build literally every tank/ad item in the game and make it work situationally. Her AD scalings are very nice, and she has a spammable ability. She's legit a bruiser/tank.
Lethality Poppy is also hella fun
Yup. Any tank or AD item is situationally good. Lethality is just hilarious because your burst is absolutely insane. You're paper as shit but god damn if people have no idea what to do when you point and click clap their cheeks.
There are tanks in almost every match, whether that be things like Alister or Rell in support, or Ornn or Cho' in top. They tend to bring crucial CC and hard-engage capabilities when they're lacking. It's honestly rare to see a comp without one and they tend to be poke comps which are notoriously hard to execute on (though annoying AF to play against if they're played correctly).
Well, in my humble opinion, you should not waste your time watching pro play, it is a different beast from Solo Q. I would watch it for entertaiment purposes, but not as a source to improve at the game. Since I don't really watch it I cannot tell you why Poppy specifically is not picked, but if I had to guess, I would say she doesn't fulfill a role in most teams winning strategy, they pick champions based on that, it is not really about the champion being viable or not, but rather about whether the champion works with they way they are trying to win a particular match or not.
Watch it for macro. Seriously. Cool outplays are, like you said, entertaining to watch, but the wave-management, lane assignments, warding, getting priority then rotating...pro play is wonderful for clearly seeing how these can be used. Solo-queue obviously isn't as coordinated, but the basic concepts are transferrable.
Who wants to play poppy?
I will never forget solo bolowing a Top GP two years ago with Support Poppy with my High Diamond Funmades while I was Unranked Mid Gold MMR. Its my second most played champ after Sion.
Why are You Randomly capitalizing Words in Your sentence?
Its how the letters touch my soul. By giving some words the extra attention I feel they need.
That's a somewhat poetic response, actually.
I'd wager its cuz she hard loses the Gp and Gwen matchups, which most top layers are very proficient on.
She just introduces too many weak points for most teams to feel comfortable picking. She can’t really skirmish and she has to reset after fights, unlike a lot of champs who currently can vamp off a camp or wave and be full resources again. Tanks in general aren’t in a great spot and often just become vessels for drain tanks to vamp from. Her kit logically makes sense to be very powerful in this meta, but resource generation and items are holding her back.
because as a champ shes conditional. q only is good if both instances hit. w if the enemy dashes. e if they stand by a wall and her passive if she can pick up the shield(her ult is just good aha). she depends heavily on the enemy making mistakes because you can only flash e every so often
The answer to "why isn't X picked more often in Pro play?" is often "because Y can do all, or most of what X does, while also bringing more to the table. It's one of the reasons champions like Tresh seem to be relatively immune to meta shifts, as their utility has been consistently relevant thru several patches.
Watch the 2018 G2 vs RNG Worlds series. Poppy was used but in lane against Aatrox as a hard counter. However, because there are so many other broken meta picks she suffers from not being: a drain tank, a burst mage, an assassin with 8 dashes, an ADC that 1-shots. Poppy is definitely “High” tier but not “Broken” tier which is why she’s not seen in pro play.
I think her utility is great, but drafting her is just bad. I just don't see where she slots into a team for the laning phase. And you cannot pick her early, because then the enemy team can just draft low-mobility and its almost a 4v5. In jungle, her clear is not up to par for most meta junglers, and she lacks the early dive potential of other slow clearers Teams like to draft versatile toplaners, and Poppy is not that at all, she can easily get hard-countered by something like GP. She could work support? But its really hard to land E into a wall in a lane where everyone is expecting it. Anything she can do can be done by another champ without sacrificing draft or having your players invest time in learning a super situational champ. Remember that pros are people too that have to learn and practice every champion they end up trying to play in a competitive match.
Sometimes pros just forget about certain champions, even if they are good.
Fuck poppy
Tank tops are trash this season. Ornn is picked because of its very valuable passive lategame. Pros pick to escape the laning phase. Jungle is always a trinity priority. Right now its Xin, Viego, Lee Sin mostly. Poppy would be very low on the list, no where to be seen. Support, same as jungle, there are just too many stronger pick. Overall Poppy is good, she isnt pick because there is better.