One of the most exciting parts about international League of Legends tournaments is the clash between different regional playstyles. While teams in different parts of the world do take inspiration from one another, differences naturally arise in how each region plays, from which champions they value to how they execute their in-game strategies.

To set the stage for the 2016 World Championship, here's a statistical look at some of the similarities and differences between the six participating regions, from their champion priorities to their game pacing, objectives and vision.

Note that all of the statistics below are based on the 2016 summer playoffs and regional qualifiers for each region, except where otherwise stated. Only games played on patch 6.15 or, in the case of the International Wild Card Qualifiers, patch 6.16, are included.

Champion Popularity

Champion pools are one of the clearest places where we can see regional differences. Here are the five most popular champions in each role for each region since the arrival of patch 6.15, based on pick/ban rates.

Note that these tables do not include champions primarily played in other roles.

Top Lane

Shen, Gnar, Gangplank and Ekko were almost universally the most popular top lane choices, in various permutations.

Rounding out the top five, some regions opted to bring in Trundle, while others preferred to flex Trundle to support. Irelia and Poppy were some of the next-tier selections, but Rumble was a somewhat surprising priority in both the NA LCS and the LCK. In North America, Trundle wasn’t played in top lane at all, but Rumble’s priority jumped all the way up to 40%. That was due to Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon playing the champion in a single game, and having it repeatedly banned against him afterwards.

Jungle

Rek'Sai and Gragas dominated the global jungle. With both of these champions seeing nerfs in recent patches, this may change, and Elise and Nidalee seem poised to surge into the gap. Europe's junglers may be most excited by this possibility. They were already playing Elise in 86 percent of their games, the only region to value Elise above Gragas. North America saw things somewhat differently, playing Elise far less and bringing in some Olaf instead, perhaps partly for his potential as a flex pick in the top lane. Meanwhile, the LMS was the only region to bring back the Kindred pick. Mid Lane

Europe has an odd Kassadin obsession: they picked or banned Kassadin in almost every game, even though Kassadin hardly showed up in any other region. Players like Chres “Sencux” Laursen and Fabian “Exileh” Schubert showed that Kassadin can be very powerful in the right circumstances, but it remains to be seen whether international opponents will allow Europe’s mid lane representatives to find success with the pick. Ryze was another champion whose appearances were exclusively restricted to Europe. Rumors suggest that other regions have been actively picking up Ryze heading into Worlds, but Europe may have a head start. All three Asian regions tended to draft more utility into the mid lane, compared to the LCS and IWCQ regions, who focused more on carry threats. The LCK, LPL and LMS could be heavily affected by the nerfs Taliyah has received. AD Carry

Somewhere in the heart of China, Kelsey Moser is doing a happy little dance as she sees the 100 percent and 97 percent pick/ban rates for Sivir in North America and Europe, respectively. The big drop in Sivir's priority in the LMS is a minor annoyance — after all, the LMS's two ADC representatives are considered one of the weaker parts of their player contingent.

Sivir, Jhin and Ashe have dominated the AD carry meta for quite a while. That's why the nerfs to all three champions that landed in 6.17 will be so keenly felt at Worlds. Europe once again seems well positioned for the likely disruption to the AD carry pool, since they've already been playing disproportionately high amounts of Lucian and Konstantinos "Forg1ven" Tzortziou-Napoleon has even flexed his muscles on Tristana.

Support

Tahm Kench and Braum have been the dominant fixtures at support, and this will likely continue.

Karma has been a steady feature around the world, but some regions have preferred to flex her into mid lane more often than they play her at support, which has resulted in her being left off this list for the LCK, LMS and LPL (she is on those regions' mid lane lists, instead.) Trundle is another champion whose flex pick nature has kept him out of the top five list at support for the IWCQ and LCK.

First-Objective Timings and Win Rates

Differences in focus and pacing between regions can lead to different values being placed on different objectives. We can see those differences in the timings and associated win rates for the various "firsts," from first blood to the first Baron.

First Blood

First Blood win rates have been quite consistent across regions, but the LMS and EU LCS saw slower pacing on when those first kills happened, while the LPL unsurprisingly got its killing started the fastest.

First Tower

With the arrival of patch 6.15, and its bonus gold for felling the first tower of the game, first tower win rates increased. This was most visible in the IWCQ tournament, where taking the first tower led to victory more than four-fifths of the time.

First Dragon

Though the LCK put less emphasis on taking an advantage through the game’s first tower, it led the way in the value of dragon control, generating an 83 percent win rate when taking the first dragon. Comparatively, NA LCS teams put more focus into taking the first dragon early in the game, but that led to less favorable results in terms of win rate.

First Baron

China and Europe love their Baron plays. The first Baron fell more than two minutes earlier in the EU LCS and LPL games than in the other regions. The early Barons were less productive for the Chinese teams, though, as China was the only region where the first Baron led to a win rate under 80 percent.

Pacing

Based on average game length and league-wide combined kills per minute (CKPM), the LPL plays some of the fastest, bloodiest LoL in the world. While Europe’s games in the playoffs and regionals were even shorter, the LPL crammed in 10 percent more kills each minute.

Somewhat surprisingly, the LCK was not the slowest-paced region on patch 6.15. Korea has typically taken a more methodical, drawn-out approach to the game, by taking fewer risks and focusing more on vision control and information flow. However, the LMS, NA LCS and IWCQ all played longer games than the LCK, and the LMS saw fewer kills.

At major international events in the past, the interaction between regional play styles has produced noteworthy jumps in kill pacing.

It’s reasonable to expect that this could happen again this time around, for two main reasons. First, games between unequal opponents are more likely to produce high kill numbers, so when the ROX Tigers come up against Albus NoX Luna, watch out! Second, teams sometimes have difficulty predicting the movements and decision-making of their international opponents due to a lack of familiarity, and that can lead to fights breaking out unintentionally when the teams stumble upon each other in unexpected places.

Vision

Vision volume is another area where the LMS has taken over from the LCK as a frontrunner. In fact, as a league, the LCK was out-warded during their playoffs and regionals by most of the other regions.

With many teams around the world stepping up their ward output, the World Championships will be a chance to directly compare how efficient each team is with its wards. Effective warding involves using vision in important areas during important times, such as covering the area around an objective that you’re about to target, or getting deep vision on the split pusher’s side of the map before they get their minion wave pushed past the river. Widely distributed vision may produce high ward numbers, but if it leaves blind spots in a key location, or if it empties your Sightstones prematurely, then that vision is not efficient.

Takeaways

Though regional play isn’t always a perfect indicator of what we’ll see from each region’s teams at Worlds, we can draw some general inferences to help set our baseline expectations.

Champion pools will be shifting across the board, and the EU LCS teams may be the most naturally comfortable with champions like Elise, Ryze, and Lucian whose popularity may be growing. Look for Asian teams to focus a bit more on utility mid laners, including the possible return of Orianna as a priority pick, while the LCS and IWCQ teams give their mids more chances to hard carry.

Overall, we’re likely to see a bit of a faster pace at Worlds, with more kills than we’ve been seeing in domestic play, assuming the historical trends hold true. The LPL and IWCQ teams are the most likely to drive that tempo, assuming Albus NoX Luna and INTZ can maintain the confidence to be proactive, while the LMS teams will probably take things relatively slow.

When it comes to objectives, each region has tended towards its own tier list. Europe has placed significant value on early towers and Barons. North America’s interest lies more in dragons. The LMS teams seem to avoid early combat, instead taking down the fastest towers and playing a longer game. Korean teams are generally on the slow side when it comes to nabbing objectives, but they are the most consistent at turning dragons and Barons into wins. For China’s part, they believe the best kills and Barons are the ones taken the soonest, but their first Baron win rate hasn’t shown good reward for their efforts.

In the vision game, the LMS’s ward volume may lead the way, but efficiency will be the real question. The best teams in the world know how to make every ward count, and how to work with the information they do and don’t have. At Worlds, we may see important differences in the timing and spread of wards between teams like the Flash Wolves and the ROX Tigers.

All of these stylistic differences will be highlighted over the first few days of play. As the tournament plays out, the teams will draw more inspiration from one another, and will seek ways to exploit their opponents’ tendencies. The styles will blend and evolve at a rapid pace, and that’s one of the greatest parts of the grand spectacle of the World Championship.

Tim "Magic" Sevenhuysen runs OraclesElixir.com, the premier source for League of Legends esports statistics. You can find him on Twitter, unless he’s busy giving one of his three sons a shoulder ride.