After receiving a whole plethora of changes in her latest mid-scope update, Neeko has taken over with one of the highest ban rates in League of Legends.
The Curious Chameleon is currently being banned in 23.2 percent of her games, which has placed her behind Zed, Blitzcrank, Kha’Zix, and Malphite on the leaderboard. This is also a huge shift from her previous ban rate, which was hovering around 0.3 percent, according to League stats aggregate U.GG.
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Neeko’s new kit has become a social media phenomenon after Riot Games gave her the ability to transform into multiple different aspects on Summoner’s Rift, including minions, neutral jungle monsters, and jungle plants. As a result, there are many more ways to bamboozle your enemies as the game goes on, and plenty of unique strategies when looking to gank an enemy.
For example, popular streamer and pro player Broxah showed off Neeko’s potential with a hilarious play where he pretended to be a minion walking up to his mid laner. He played the part of a minion perfectly and it eventually fooled the enemy Viktor into engaging his teammate. When Broxah was close enough, he threw out his Tanglebarbs to root his opponent, leading to an easy kill.
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Since most players are still learning about Neeko’s abilities and are afraid of getting put on a highlight reel, they have been banning out the champion in many of their games. Funnily enough, it’s clear that League players still haven’t mastered her new kit, since she currently has a horrendous 41.5 percent win rate in the jungle position and sub-50 percent win rates in support and mid lane, according to U.GG.
As the player base learns how to use her efficiently, we could see both Neeko’s win rate rise and her ban rate fall once people begin to catch on to how they can counter her trickery in following patches.