LoL Worlds 2023 is underway with the first-ever Swiss Stage. While the blue side does tend to have a better win rate than red side, this World Championship is especially lopsided towards blue. Why could this be though?
In League of Legends there are two sides. Players can either be on blue side or red side, which depends where they start on the map, as well as when they get to pick their champions during the pick and ban phase.
There are win rate differences between the sides, with the tendency leaning towards the blue side in recent years, but at the 2023 League of Legends World Championship this win rate has risen exponentially. Why is blue side so important, especially in pro play though?
LoL Worlds 2023: Blue Side Far Stronger Than Red Side
This year's League of Legends World Championship has reached new highs thanks to the introduction of the Swiss Stage. While this has improved the tournament immensely, giving fans far more variety than in previous years, there is also a clear indication that blue side has far surpassed red side – and it doesn't seem like this will change as the tournament goes on.
This year, according to gol.gg, blue side has an almost 80% win rate, with red side barely hanging on at 20%. While in previous years, blue side was stronger, there was never such a big discrepancy. In 2022 blue side had a 52% win rate and in 2021 the margin was at 51%. Even looking at solo queue stats, blue side has a 51% win rate over red side.
But this is the League of Legends World Championship we're talking about right now and not our bronze solo queue matches, so what makes the big difference when it comes to the side of the map teams play on?
The answer lies within the draft of the game. There is a clear system when it comes to drafting, with the blue team getting first pick, while red side tends to have more counterpicks – or at least one guaranteed. If there are multiple overpowered must-ban champions though, red side will have more pressure to ban those, rather than target ban enemies, since blue side does have the first pick before every game.
This year, there are multiple strong picks, like Xayah and Kai'Sa in the bot lane, as well as other OP picks like Maokai, Orianna and Rumble as well. This means that red side teams will likely have to ban some of these overpowered picks, ignoring any target bans towards their opponents.
Sure, red side will have the final counterpick, but in the current meta of the game that is far less impactful than getting your hands on one of the OP picks in the game right now.
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