It’s taken a long six years, but the Dark Child has found her way back onto Summoner’s Rift at the 2021 League of Legends World Championship.
Royal Never Give Up’s mid laner Cryin has locked in Annie as his pick for the second game of their quarterfinals matchup against EDward Gaming. This is also the first time that the 20-year-old has picked the champion in his relatively short career.
The last time Annie was picked at an international League event was back at Worlds 2015, where she was chosen multiple times as a support pick. She was played nine times at the tournament and had a 4-5 record with a 3.1 KDA, according to Oracle’s Elixir.
Today, Annie still fills a similar role compared to before. Her burst is still formidable as a mid lane champion, especially when combined with other champion abilities like Miss Fortune’s Make It Rain. She even has some decent roaming potential with her E ability since it provides her with bonus movement speed on top of her shield.
She still has the same pitfalls from before, though, since teams can bait out her game-changing ultimate ability. Once she uses Tibbers, her burst potential and teamfight effectiveness drop by a significant amount, since she’ll now have to chain her skills to get her passive Pyromania stun. In that time, she can be easily chased down and taken out by the more mobile champions in the meta.
There are many other mid lane champions that bring much more effective teamfight tools, like Ryze bringing out his rapid-fire spell burst or Syndra with her longer range and more reliable stuns. As a result, Annie shouldn’t see too much playtime throughout the rest of the tournament.
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