One Apex Legends character has been completely sidelined at the ALGS Championship by the majority of teams, despite their dominance in the meta earlier in the year.
Buffs and nerfs to popular and overperforming characters are fairly common in every modern franchise, and Apex is no different. The 2023 Apex Legends Global Series has now been played throughout four different competitive seasons, with pros constantly adjusting strategies alongside each buff and nerf to key legends to stay on top of the meta.
Those changes have now seen Seer picked just six times in the first half of the Groups Stage matches, according to Apex Status. That composes less than two percent of the total pick rate across all teams.
Out of the 40 teams, only two chose the Ambush Artist as part of their compositions—NA’s FaZe used him on World’s Edge, and EMEA’s GoNext on Storm Point.
Previously, Seer was considered one of the most essential legends in the meta for both Split One and Two Playoffs, with a pick rate of over 60 percent across all teams. He was run in the most popular legend composition alongside Bangalore and Valkyrie, which comprised over 27 percent of teams at the height of its popularity.
However, throughout the year, Seer found himself the target of multiple nerfs, constantly being tuned with each event and season, especially when his scanning abilities proved to work too well in each meta. He could scan enemies through Bangalore’s smoke, scan or use his ultimate to ensure safety when rotating by Valkyrie’s Skyward Dive, and was the only Recon legend who could track through Catalyst’s Dark Veil, giving him broad versatility in almost every situation, which pros picked up for the Pro League and LAN events.
Respawn recognized the issues presented by Seer’s interactions but took multiple months to introduce working fixes that correctly stopped his scans from going through Cataylst’s walls, among other changes that slowly but steadily diminished his popularity.
The biggest change to Seer’s kit came from the Dressed to Kill update, which nerfed all abilities, alongside changing the primary purpose of his Tactical, Focus of Attention.
Now, instead of canceling in-progress healing or reviving, Apex enemies that are scanned would receive a slow and have their abilities silenced for 10 seconds, overtaking Revenant’s role in shutting down the kits of enemy legends; Revenant Reborn did not feature any silences as part of the reworked abilities.
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Despite these changes, many pros continued to run Seer in compositions, with the legend continuing to dominate the Split Two Playoffs pick rates and peaking at a 58 percent pick rate, the second highest among all 23 playable legends.
However, as players scrimmaged in the month-long gap between Playoffs and the Championship, a new aggressive meta emerged, focused around Catalyst, Bangalore, and Horizon, who presented offensive ultimates that could push enemies out with long-lasting abilities that aren’t disabled by Seer’s silences.
With Catalyst’s wall also working as intended, teams cannot find easy kills by shooting scans through walls, paving the way for Horizons’ emergence as the premiere skirmishers. She allows her entire team to engage over enemy walls from a height advantage, alongside providing defensive utility and multiple repositioning options mid-fight.
Teams who look to run a Recon legend also greatly preferred Bloodhound over Seer, who could easily scan enemies while in their Ultimate, Beast of the Hunt, through Bangalore’s smoke and after passing through Catalyst’s walls without problem, further pushing Seer out of the meta, as he fails to offer the same offensive chances.
Today, Seer sits near the bottom of the pick rate leaderboard in the ALGS Championship, and in the global pick rate, the lowest he’s been since his season 10 release and continues to drop in popularity and relevance.
With four more days in the Championship, Seer might continue to see niche use but stands as one of the most forgotten characters in the current Apex meta.
