Out of sight, out of mind



Vladimir is a pick that seemingly comes up every once in a while in the NA and EU LCS, but not enough for my liking. He is currently valued more in the Asian scene, specifically Korea, and I would like to see that change in the near future. Champion strength is very cyclical in League of Legends; with every balance patch, champions are inevitably nerfed. When these nerfs take place, the champions that are not nerfed generally become stronger picks because the “top picks” are now less valuable. For example, after Riot nerfed Draven, many Draven players have turned to Twitch to fill a similar high damage, lane bully ADC role. Twitch was not buffed, but he became a stronger pick, or more valuable, because Draven is no longer as strong or valuable as he was before the nerf.



In this sense, competitive play is always about staying ahead of the curve. Champion strength is pretty well balanced at the top of the champion pool (we don’t have to worry about the bottom for competitive play), so each balance change can drastically change picks and compositions. Bringing this all back to Vlad, I think teams in NA and EU are undervaluing what Vlad can bring to a team based on them not picking up how strong and versatile he is in the current Meta. But before we get to those strengths, we must assess his weaknesses.



Lack of CC/engage, Ramp up time



The two main points against Vlad are significant, so let’s take the time to explore them. First, his lack of crowd control. The only form of CC Vlad has is his Sanguine Pool, which, while lasting for 2 seconds, only slows enemies for 1 second. This is a legitimate concern for competitive play, as CC is king, especially in late game fights. Locking up a team so they cannot fight back can never be a bad thing, but lack of CC can always be picked up by other roles on the team, specifically by the jungler and support.



Secondly, Vlad has a ramp up time before he becomes a big force in the game. His 1v1 laning is extremely weak versus any champion that can gap close and all in him pre level 9, and his sustain is on a long cooldown before it is maxed out. The base damage on his ultimate is quite low early, and without spell vamp, spamming his Tides of Blood will take a good chunk of his health away. Vlad needs time to get items so he can be beefier, have stronger sustain, and do significant damage (with four damaging abilities).



Good wave clear, Sustain, Difficult to dive



It is tough to put Vladimir in a 1v1 that he won’t have trouble with early without help. But, with the prevalence of 1v2 matchups and teams being more proactive in moving champions around to find favorable matchups, I think Vlad is an ideal candidate to lane 1v2. One of the most important things for a champion to have in a 1v2 is wave clear, and Vlad has that in his Tides of Blood, and even potentially in his Sanguine Pool.



Further, because he is manaless, his wave clear can easily be used each wave and is reliant only on his health pool, which he replenishes with his Transfusion. Start off with a Doran’s shield, Health potion, and you have 250 hp with an extra 10 hp regen/5, not to mention the 4% increase after using a stack of Tides of Blood. Because, as I explain later, you ideally want Vlad to be split pushing or stopping a split pusher, by picking up teleport you add further to his early game sustain by enabling him to back and get back to lane instantly and back to full hp and with much needed item help.



Finally, another thing that 1v2er’s face is a potential tower dive. With Sanguine Pool being a nice one point wonder, Vlad becomes untargetable for 2 seconds, which is a long time early levels for someone on the other team to be tanking the tower. It also allows for more time to tick down on the cooldown of his Transfusion, potentially keeping him sustained and alive for even longer. Sanguine Pool also gives Vlad a 37.5% movement speed bonus for 1 second and slows enemies by 40% for 1 second. By avoiding CC and making himself untargetable for 2, Sanguine Pool is one of the strongest anti-dive abilities in the game.



Strong split push, Strong team fight



With his strong sustain, ramped up wave clear, and strong ability to get away from ganks, Vladimir is an ideal split pusher. Being a strong split pusher doesn’t always mean being able to attack really fast or being Twisted Fate. Just being able to force an enemy to deal with you because you can wave clear and push out so quickly is good enough to force pressure. Not only that, but it is really hard to bully a mid-late game Vlad from a lane. Even if you are able to force a good all-in and leave him low, his insane sustain will allow him to stay in lane almost indefinitely, until another enemy teammate shows up. In the same vein, Vlad is great at stopping split pushers, such as Shen. He can wave clear before the enemy minions make it to the tower, and can chip down at Shen while remaining at full health the entire time. By running teleport, he won’t even miss out on a teamfight if Shen ults in.



And when he does get in a teamfight, Vlad brings with him one of the strongest AoE ults in the game. At the very minimum, I think of him as Rumble-like in terms of his ult: no matter how hard you shut him down, his ult will still be a factor every fight. A 12% damage increase is nothing to laugh at. And while the damage amplification is incredibly powerful on its own, it also does 350 (+70%AP) at level 16. Add in Sanguine Pool and Tides of Blood and he has 3 AoE damage abilities. That’s just insane. He’s also incredibly hard to kill with his pool and a Zhonya’s Hourglass. He can cycle his Transfusion and Tides of Blood, then pool, then cycle them again, then Zhonya’s, then cycle them again. It’s pretty cool to be untargetable for 4.5 seconds in a fight with incredible sustain and AoE damage each on 4 and 4.5 second cooldowns, not even factoring in any cooldown reduction you should have.



Where’s the love?



So why isn’t Vladimir picked more often? If I had to guess, it’d be that teams are afraid of him getting shutdown early, falling too far behind and becoming a nonfactor as the game snowballs out of their control. And that’s a legitimate concern. But, if played correctly, I think Vlad is a powerful champion warranting a lot more picks and attention than he has been getting.

