Blaze vs Yrel: The Solo Lane Heroes

Written by: Dthehunter

Edited by: EsportsJohn

Blaze - Veteran Firebat

Yrel - Light of Hope

Conclusion

Welcome to our first Master League blog! Today we wanted to examine two prominent solo laners in the current meta and see how they compare against one another. All stats are taken from MasterLeague.net and include data from NA, EU, KR, CN, and ANZ premier leagues only. These numbers are current as of 7/12/18 at 11am EDT. First up is Blaze , a well-known staple in the pro scene since inception. His primary draw was the insane waveclear and awesome sustain that made him ideal for the solo lane, but his real claim to fame was Bunker. With Bunker, Blaze became THE anti-dive bruiser that could save teammates from being sliced up by Dragonblade or blown up instantly by mages.With an involvement rate of 66% out of a total 261 matches in the HGC so far, we see that Blaze is a very highly contested hero. Blaze was picked 135 times, and from those picks he was picked in the first wave 104 times (77%). Out of his 38 bans, 21 of them have been in the second ban rotation. The combination of these two things means that Blaze rarely makes it to the second phase of drafting.Overall, Blaze's win rate sits at a modest 50%, which is not a surprising number for very common heroes. When we take a look at his map priority, we see that he's clearly played on Tomb of the Spider Queen (23 games) more often than Sky Temple, Cursed Hollow, and Dragon Shire (12 games). The best map for him hands down is Cursed Hollow with a whopping 92% win rate, and his worst maps are Volskaya Foundry and Tomb of the Spider Queen with rates of 37% and 35%, respectively.Now for in-game stats. Blaze averages 7.24 takedowns and dies 1.82 times per match, resulting in an average KDA of 3.99. His average death time per match is 70 seconds. In other words, Blaze doesn't die very much, which is not surprising considering his innate tankiness, great self-sustain, and escape-death tool Bunker. Blaze does an average of 116,742 siege damage and 28,557 hero damage; again, his stats show that he is an excellent PvE waveclear hero while not necessarily putting up the highest marks in teamfights.Blaze takes 49,291 damage on average per match and collects an average 14,068 experience for his team. His self-healing averages at 340 HP per match (This statistic for Blaze may be bugged on Master League). Now let's take a look at Yrel , the newest kid on the block. Already two weeks into pro play, Yrel is making a big splash in the solo lane. Yrel's Level 1 talent Maraad's Insight makes her a beast who can outsustain anyone in the solo lane while still clearing the wave at a decent pace. While her teamfight presence isn't outright astounding, the stun, slow, jump, and heal in her base kit combined with relatively short cooldowns make her a versatile tank in a variety of circumstances.She has an involvement rate of 42% out of the 217 matches she was allowed to be picked or banned in so far. Most of this involvement has been in the first rotation where she was picked 71 times out of 92 total picks. She has only received 15 bans in total, and 10 of those have been in the first ban rotation. With a promising win ratio of 56%, she is showing how much of a menace she truly is in the solo lane as well as in teamfights.Yrel is very popular on Volskaya (19 games) but sees almost no play on Cursed Hollow (3 games). If we ignore maps where she's been played 4 or less times, her highest win rate is 69% on Battlefield of Eternity. The map she seems to be struggling with most is Dragon Shire (33% win rate), but she's won all 4 of her games on Braxis Holdout.As far as Yrel's individual stats go, she averages 7.29 takedowns and 1.77 deaths per match, resulting in an average KDA of 4.12. Her average death time per match is 65 seconds. In a vacuum, it appears that Yrel has slightly more success overall than Blaze numbers-wise, which is why she might be slowly overtaking him in terms of being the top solo lane bruiser.Yrel does an average of 98,447 siege damage and 28,073 hero damage and collects 13,064 experience per game. Here's where the big difference is, though: Yrel takes an average of 61,340 damage and heals for an unbelievable 16,677 HP per match. The difference between Blaze and Yrel here in terms of damage soaked is astronomical.Yrel and Blaze both shine in the solo lane and also engage and disengage from fights well. While Yrel is doing wonderfully, we cannot forget how good Bunker is. Despite Yrel's incredible tankiness, a 60 second cooldown to save allies on command is generally more useful in the current meta. Bunker combined with fantastic waveclear is the main reason why Blaze is still a higher priority pick.However, Yrel is excellent at soaking up damage and being obnoxious in the solo lane. A large part of this is Yrel's self-healing. In terms of siege damage, hero damage, and collecting experience, Yrel and Blaze are more or less in the same class and fairly even. Yrel's stats trend more toward the tanky, teamfight side while Blaze's trend more toward waveclear.All in all, both heroes are great solo laners with a lot to offer competitive teams. There's no doubt we'll have a fierce battle that will continue raging on for a while.