TS Hani (Source: VETV FB)

When it comes down to the VCS, not only are the games super entertaining, but the champion picks themselves are a joy to watch in what makes for an unique match. Sometimes champions don’t work, but others do certainly work, which makes for an different meta than any other league has to offer. Due to the set up of the Vietnamese league with the bo3-system, a lot of teams tend to try out new picks more often than not.

In this article we will take a look on the five most interesting picks in the VCS that have succeeded or have a notable presence in the competition.

1. Shyvana jungle

The dragon lady in the jungle has no fear on the rift, as she is dominating in the VCS with an whopping 71% winrate in 7 games. She was first seen picked by GAM Esports Levi in the match against CERBERUS Esports, where he ended the match with 10 kills and 8 assists in a bloody game.

The champion offers insane amounts of AP burst which is an nightmare for squishy carries that have little to no mobility such as Senna and Aphelios. The build has runic echoes blue smite, nashors tooth and a morellonomicon with sorcerers shoes. With dark harvest as standard rune, the champion can burst squishies with just one button press as seen on the highlight above where FTV 1Ground comically gets oneshotted by the enemy Shyvana (FL YiJin). Lets see if other regions will pick her up as other teams in the VCS seem to ban her out more often aswell.

2. Tristana flex

With Tristana in the toplane, midlane and bot lane we have another champion who could fit all three roles in competitive play. The champion sits at a comfortable 55% win rate in 11 games. It was first seen picked by GAM Esports Dia1 in that same series against CERBERUS Esports where the previous highlighted champion in Shyvana debuted.

Main goal of Tristana is to get as many turret plates as possible in order to snowball the match. With press the attack and the demolish rune in the resolve tree, it makes for easy trading and also easier turret destruction. She can easily snowball out of control, due to having more base stats with playing her in a solo lane. Her core build usually has blade of the ruined king, stormrazor and an infinity edge. The champion can bring a lot of power in various compositions, as long as she doesn’t jump into her gray screen.

3. Blitzcrank support

Another hook support has landed on the support position. Other than Nautilus and Thresh, Blitzcrank makes his return in pro play in the VCS. The pick has been locked in by none other than Team Flash support CBL, who played him 5 times and has gotten multiple target bans against his Blitzcrank. In total the champion has been picked 12 times in the VCS with 75% winrate.

FL CBL (Source: FB VETV)

The main thing that Blitzcrank offers is pick potential. Another thing that Blitzcrank excels in is countering champions with long cast timings or no mobility. Champions like Senna, Varus and various other champions will have a tough time against the robot. The build that CBL likes to go is mobility boots into zekes convergence and shurelyas reverie. This makes Blitzcrank super speedy and have a lot of damage at the same time, while also having the stats that he needs.

4. Cassiopeia mid

While other regions tend to pick other various mid laners such as LeBlanc and Zoe, the VCS tends to pick Cassiopeia more often than other regions, which is super interesting. Cassiopeia has been an comfort pick for most of the VCS mid laners, and the champions has been either popping off or nonexistent.

The snake lady has a large presence with 27 picks, but only has a disappointing 44% win rate, which is not what you´d like to see as the most picked mid laner. The champion runes can often differ between phase rush and conquerer, depending on the match up. She can do tons of damage when set up right, but is really squishy once jumped and bursted upon. It is mostly a feast or famine pick, but more often than not a famine pick from what we´ve seen in the VCS.

5. Lucian flex

Flex picks in general are the name of the game currently, and with Lucian on the table you can definitely see and feel his presence in all of the games. The first time that we’ve seen Lucian is in the game V Gaming Adonis vs. Dashing Buffalo, where VGA’s mid laner PHT picked the champion and dominated the enemy opposition with insane aggression which showed the potential of the pick.

Lucian has been a flex pick for a very long time since season 9, but it is surprising how many teams pick the champion nowadays. Lucians goal is to bully the enemy oppositions pick and dodge crucial abilities in order to do massive damage. Due to the nature of solo lanes, the champion also gains more experience than usual on the traditional role. However the champion has also seen play on bot lane, most of the time against Miss Fortune. The build of Lucian consists out of blade of the ruined king, followed by essence reaver and depending on the enemies team composition, Lucian will alter the build in either black cleaver or infinity edge. The champion can be very entertaining, and can very often outplay enemies as shown above. Without any nerfs in the future, we will probably see Lucian more and more often in other regions as well.

Wondering what next pick is going to show up?Watch the next VCS match!

So you want to watch the next VCS match? Join us on the live broadcast on either the official Vietnamese broadcast or the English broadcast! Starting next Friday on 11AM CET, the first match that will be played is going to be CERBERUS Esports versus. Team Secret.

You can also join our VCS English Discord to discuss even more about VCS.

I hope you had a wonderful read about Five unique champions that the VCS play, and on every Tuesday I will post an new article which features various things about the VCS as well. So stay tuned!