(Image: Riot Games)

“I’m trying to stop playing Lee Sin as much as possible,” laughs Lee “Rush” Yoon-Jae. “He’s been overrated since Season 3.”



Cloud9’s star jungler and preeminent North American Lee Sin player doesn’t believe that the Blind Monk is particularly good right now. And yet, he continues to play him. Like a forlorn lover, no matter how hard he tries to leave Lee, he keeps on coming back.

As Yahoo Esports spoke to many of the most well-respected Lee Sin players in the NA LCS, that notion kept popping up. Lee Sin isn’t seen as a strong, meta-worthy champion. There are champions that do what he does, but better. And yet, the likes of Rush, Svenskeren, and Dardoch keep playing him. What is going on here?

View photos

(Image: Lolesports/Riot Games)

Mind over meta

As one of the most mechanically difficult champions in League of Legends, Lee Sin is something of an odd duck when it comes to competitive play. Much like his support counterpart Thresh, he’s consistently played at the highest level of professional League of Legends, despite being considered weaker than the vast majority of the other champions in their role.

“[Lee Sin] was never that viable in competitive,” says longtime Lee Sin player and Team SoloMid jungler Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnson. “Stuff like Gragas takes so much less effort to be good at, and you can do the same things.”

Team Liquid jungler Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett is on the same page.

“His jungle clear isn’t that good,” he said. “His 1v1 potential is really weak. If people actually look at the numbers, champions like Kindred or Elise will just straight up beat him. People have this fixation that he’s a guy that, at level 3, will just destroy you. His Q does like 58 damage at level 1. It’s not going to kill you. Lee’s 1v1 potential is super overrated. It’s just that, if you’re really good at him, you make him look like he’s the best champion in the game.”

And really, that’s the key to Lee Sin on the competitive stage. Anything less than the highest skill on the champion renders him a liability. But those who can play him, will.

View photos

(Image: Lolesports/Riot Games)



Making the plays

Despite his immense utility, Dardoch says that there’s no way to take full advantage of Lee Sin without putting significant time into practicing him. Like, more than 1,000 games’ worth of practice.

“I only recently got as good as I am now,” he told Yahoo Esports. “It probably took me 1,500 games on him alone to get even as good as I am.”

“You learn new tricks all the time,” he continued. “In Season 3, the hardest thing to do was ward jump and kick. In Season 4, you learn the kick-Flash. There’s so many variables to playing Lee. For example, if I’m playing against a Morgana, I have to ward to the side before I Flash behind to kick them. You have to put in a lot of games to figure out what you have to do to pull off the stunts that you need to be a high-level Lee Sin player.”

View photos

Story continues