After the MSI 2022 grand final, one champion got stuck in our minds with its amazing strength, and she is here to stay until the 12.10 patch. Gwen was already a strong choice for many situations, but as the meta shifts to more durable champions, her high damage, somewhat tankiness and true damage bonuses makes her an S+ choice. Let’s look at what Gwen did during MSI, and what more she will do.
From the day she joined League of Legends, April 2021, Gwen has been a great pick for top lane, and in 2022, she is back on top of the meta. Her strong presence on MSI 2022 was expected, there isn’t a single champion that got played as much as her and won as many as her games.
How did she affect MSI 2022 that much?
To answer that question, we should first have a look at Gwen’s statistics in MSI 2022, other competitive leagues and finally, SoloQ.
Gwen has an 87% presence at MSI 2022, fourth after Ahri, Lucian and Wukong. She was played 42 times, the most played champion in the competition, and was played by 11 different players, the most in that area as well. There are several champions with good win rates, but among champions that were played more than ten times, Gwen’s only rival is Xayah’s 68.4% in 19 games, as Gwen has 66.7% in her 42 games, sharing the percentage with LeBlanc, but LB was picked 15 times.
Such a great win rate in such a great number of matches looks incredible. Let’s have a look at Gwen’s overall performance with gol.gg’s data. The champion was played 933 times and banned 1479 times, making her presence 63.1% on the first half of LoL esports in 2022. Her overall KDA is 2.8, and the best Gwen players were:
RNG Bin - 77.8% WR, 5.2 KDA, 18 games
DRX.C Clear - 71.4% WR, 4.8 KDA, 14 games
T1 Zeus - 71.4% WR, 3.6 KDA, 14 games
VIT.B Szygenda - 88.9% WR, 5.5 KDA, 9 games
RA Cube - 61.5% WR, 3.4 KDA, 13 games
Finally, let’s have a look at Gwen’s current SoloQ record with LeagueofGraphs. On Diamond+ ranked games, Gwen has 8.2% ban rate, 50.0% win rate and 8.9% popularity. She is the best counter pick for tank champions like Shen, Malphite and Nasus, while champions that could outdamage her in a melee fight like Renekton, Sett and Darius seem to be good counters against her.
With the new durability patch, Gwen will become an even better choice and that is reflected on her win rates, Gwen was actually struggling in SoloQ for the last couple of months. However, she is now a part of the nightmare squad with champions like Fiora, Darius, Olaf and surprisingly, Vayne.
She successfully stat checks any enemy, even Gangplank which is supposedly a counter pick. She is great against tanks, great in team fights, and there weren’t many champions in the top lane that were as strong as her, so the wise choice for most teams was to ban her. T1 refused to do that, and that might have cost them the series as they only lost the games where RNG played Gwen in the finals.
Especially in skilled hands like Bin, Gwen turns into a killing machine, you always have to either answer her on side lanes which is virtually impossible, or try to kill her in the early game, but her team wouldn’t let you as they know Gwen is their winning condition. In fact, even if you do commit and stop Gwen in the early game, she can easily get back if the enemy plays their cards right.
What is Gwen capable of?
Gwen is an AP melee champion, using her skills and auto attacks both to deal lots of damage over time. Thus, she could be considered a DPS (damage per second), rather than a burst champion. Although she deals tons of magic damage, her greatest strength is her ability to deal tons of true damage as well, which makes her a great choice against tanks and on top lane.
Gwen’s auto attacks deal extra damage, especially with Nashor’s Tooth, one of her core items. Her Q is her main source of damage, amplified by Conqueror. You can also try Lethal Tempo to further improve her ability to deal damage through auto attacks but Conqueror is the better choice most of the time.
She also became a meme during MSI 2022 and the T1 - RNG finals, “Gwen is immune” is a phrase that you see after you try to use a spell on or deal damage to Gwen while she is inside her W and you are not. Her E is a dash that also amplifies her auto attack damage, and her ultimate is both a source of damage and of slow, which helps her catch enemies and deal damage to more than one person.
Be careful when you face Gwen in SoloQ. If she was able to take down T1, she can take you down too, no matter how good you are.
If you are interested in esports, check out Luckbox to find the best events, watch them live, claim your 100% bonus and place your bets on the teams.
