@myth-leagueoflegends was yummi in this tournament rushing ardent censor? Since W heal on hit and ardent heal hit stacking? I realise yummi was not in the game yet xd
yep, i think it was 7.17 where they changed it to be flat 25% instead of scaling to 35%. but it also started off stronger, used to scale from 20% instead of starting at 25%. so it was buffed early and a bit weaker later
I think what broke the camel's back was relic sheild ADC. Once that was figured out it was doomed. I remember watching old Imaqtpie videos from that time
@qq1933 id rather that than the mythic worlds where every game you hear "and x has completed his divine sunderer/goredrinker!!" 4 times every game again. XD
The fact that Alistar had a viable healer build (when his e was the aoe heal) with 45% cdr just because of ardent was crazy, iirc the healer build was way better than the tank one.
It wasn't just ardent, his interaction with it & windspeakers blessing made that the best "keystone rune/mastery" for him too. (I cant remember if they were technically called keystone runes or masteries back then, they were still part of the "mastery" trees)
i was still pretty new to the game and i've always been a top laner so i never paid attention to what was happening bot lane. this meta literally just came and went without me ever even realizing but i did play through it lmao.
Yup, and I was playing bot 😂. Granted, I was bronze and blessed by 0 game sense. I actually miss those days when I thought Zed had a kill button and nothing made sense to me
i was new player too but i was always a meta slave. When people banned lulu or janna i just picked kayle support max W and first item ardent censor. It even became better when it started working on it's user,so it's like i got myself a nashor tooth and gave it to my adc as well
@@HelterwithoutSkelter Assuming hes not already fed, Zed's "kill button" requires him to hit Q and E after ulting, dodge one of those and u usually survive. I think that's what he's referencing. Before he knew how it worked lol
fervor leona was actuallly a strat misfits used to nearly eliminate skt in quarters; they thought they could replicate it, but coulldnt finish the game quickly enough.
it was fr crazy bc skt couldn't deal with it and also skipped out on the ardent support and played braum and such ircc I was so hype that series, fr such a breath of fresh air
i can imagine this item with new champs like seraphine,millio senna(enchanter build) this could potentially break banrate chart having multiple highest banrate
oh, new champs would absolutely be permabanned if this item was still that powerful. Imagine 5.0 attack speed akshan. Kai'sa being a plasma stacking machine gun. APHELIOS!!
Milio would be a really good user of it but Im not sure about Seraphine. Remember that it was about stacking as big of a shield as possible on one single ADC. That's why Janna and Lulu were the most popular and not Sona (AoE shield) or Soraka, although Sona and Soraka were still in the high tiers
I remember abusing this and getting platinum in like 100 games from silver 4 or something with 60 plus win rate with Janna. No one seemed to notice in solo queue till June that year. You could play any shielding support and as long you had one fed member in your whole team you had a chance to win by following them or forcing them to go mid and force fights when you got advantage. Insane item. I am so happy they nerfed it and the fact that I got out of gold 1 without playing support just to prove myself it wasn't the item. However the item made it so easy.
I abused it too at the time. I was just playing my typical Sona then Ardent Censer was one of the recommended items. I read the whole thing and thought this might be a good build. I love how pretty much no one dies in my team on a TF when I was playing Sona since her W can proc it the the whole team. Pushing towers with it was also insane. You'd prolly save about 20 seconds of pushing both T2 and T3 turrets
In retrospect Ardent Meta was so funny. Janna/Lulu lanes every game, the same 5 ADCs always picked, Cho'Gath was simultaneously the best tank and the only viable assassin. God, what a disaster
Season 5 was the Juggernauts/top lane meta - GP, Morde permaban. -funnel all resources into Darius, Fiora, Riven. -even Faker was on Lulu mid duty Season 6 was the mid lane/AP meta. -Syndra permaban. -funnel all resources to LeBlanc, Orianna, Ryze, Azir.. or Rumble, Kennen -3 pushing lanes -tank Ekko -support Miss Fortune Season 7. well, Ardent meta -league of pink wards -10k gold deficit comeback -Fervor Leona -Galio, Chogath, Trundle facetanking everything -relic shield ADCs Season 8 was the start of flex meta, the unpredictable pick-bans. every player xcept ADC share the same champion pool -Akali, Aatrox, Irelia, Jayce top or mid -Camille top or jungle -3 west teams in semis, but China still won omegalul
This video was an awesome blast from the past. Not just the PTSD of ardent meta. But seeing the morde ghost dragon, old art, the champion picks being on the side of screen, first year of 10 bans, hearing Phreak, Riv, papa smithy casting, huni on SKT. I miss old league
I was a part of the community that tried pointing out how absurd this item was before worlds that year. I'm glad you brought up that AF vs SKT match in particular because I distinctly remember commenting in a reddit thread for game 1 something like "If this doesnt show how broken Ardent is i dont know what will" and getting dog piled for it because afreeca lost. I felt pretty vindicated in my belief when worlds came along but it didn't make the matches any less boring :( Good video!
I hate that league players will justify almost anything in a match because of a win or lose. Thankfully the community overall seems to be getting less stupid over time.
What's hilarious is that it took months for Ardent to get picked up. That piece of garbage item was ruining soloQ in January-February of 2017 yet pros were convinved tank/engage supports were the meta. It was a horrible time to play adc because you were completely at the mercy of your supp
It also had the same timing with the buffs to Ivern after release, so imagine the carnage of an enchanter in the jungle with ardent, who can hide drake with bushes, it was too broken, I abused it right up until the Ivern W nerfs and just swapped to Janna. Season 8 was the payback for the ardent meta
The worst part of this meta was before this when you queued for support you got support, after this meta you weren't guaranteed support and now jungle is the more likely role to get
Fr. I was support main and before then I always got my role oruto filled to when practicing top or mid. Since then I don't think I ever been auto filled into support when practicing my off roles.
@@Treecake1 You realize, that Ignar and his team had another ardent champ in that game aswell? They played with Ivern jungle, who bought Ardent first. Like Myth said in his video about Game 3 of SSG vs SKT. You can go Leona bot lane, as it is a counter, but you still get an Ardent on another champ in the team. I agree it was a counter to gold stacking on supports, but it wasn't a counter to the Ardent meta. You had to go Ardent, if you didn't you just lose the game by 20 mins.
The 2017 Star Guardian event was basically Ardent Censer: The Movie: The Game. I also remember I was building literally any champion that had a slow with Stoneborn Pact + Ardent Censer on ARAM back then, and it was so good.
Enchanters are my favorite characters, but this meta made me bored and tired of the same thing game after game from both sides. I kinda quit the game & didn't play through the height of the ardent censor meta
As an adc at first I enjoyed it cause I felt the care of my supp, but then I realized I liked a more aggressive all in Nauti/Leona type of lane. Scaling every game didn't feel exciting
3:43 - Oh I don't have to imagine the pain. I dealt with that many times during the 2017 Ardent meta as an old Jinx ADC main. One match always sticks out in memory, when our team support hadn't tried to buy even the components of Ardent by minute 18, and their excuse was "the item isn't really that powerful."
i was recommended this channel randomly by YT. and as a League player for about 12 years now i will say all your videos are good!!! one patch i would suggest you do a video on is patch 4.20 aka the warwick meta in post season 4/pre season 5
You know what's funny? Trundle support was actually somewhat meta as he was building (surprise) ardent censor. There was a rune that gave healing to allies if you stunned someone so he could proc it
I actually enjoyed this item a lot, because it made it actually viable for ADC to buy the same gold-sharing item that supports buy, to share more gold in the duo. The games where I could convince my ADC to buy the support item in the start, we were able to take baron directly when it spawns.
Such a great video. I remember that was my second season maining adc and it was fun for a moment to feel like my team actually played for my role, but then it became so repetitive and it really killed the mood for worlds making it boring and quite predictable :(. I only disagree with you in 15:20. I think the series I most enjoyed that tournament was MSF vs SKT, ignar was the one to came up with the Leona with AD mastery page to counter lulu, and then he picked a blitz that actually made it difficult to faker to play the game. Watching a LEC team take to game 5 the then (and now 'cause 2024 lol) current world champion revitalized my hope to see more diversity of picks in the rest of the playoff, sadly it wasn't that way
They reworked Mordekaiser right before worlds, but this was not just a rework like any other. This was a rework that was designed to shift the meta, for the first time ever they designed a champion to 'innovate' on the standard lane assignments. Bruiser/Tank top, Carry/Bruiser jungle, Mage/Assassin mid, Marksman bot, Enchanter/Tank CC sup was the standard. Mordekaiser was a melee midlaner to counter assassins as he was kinda tanky, but got reworked to be the first functioning melee botlaner. W gave passive bonus exp to the ally you put it on, to ensure you were higher level than your lane opponent (the idea was that this exp advantage would counter the range disadvantage). He did crazy damage with his Q that was "next 3 auto attacks are empowered and especially the 3rd was essentially a tactical nuke, with triforce this 3rd Q would oneshot squishies). AND THEN his passive of his R was that whenever you killed dragon you got a phantom pet dragon that you could control like Tibbers but was as tanky as the dragon you killed. This resulted in a botlane that was always ahead, would always have bottom prio, therefore always killed dragon, would get a pet dragon to either push with or simply click to attack the enemy botlaner who had to run back to their T2 tower because they would just get killed by phantom dragon under T1 tower if they 'ignored' it. In worlds this translated to: The team with mordekaiser would win the game, TSM went 1-5 in groups I think, the 1 game they won was vs the best in their group (korean team i dont remember which) and the only reason they won that game was because that Korean team was pretty much locked and left mordekaiser open either as disrespect or to get some practice against mordekaiser piloted by a lesser team I started playing at the end of season 3 so it has been a while, but this is what I remember from 2015 worlds meta if I missed anything or am wrong about something somebody please correct me haha
I still remember getting 11 straight wins in rank playing utility nunu with zzrot portal and banner of command. Zero kills per game. Games end in less than 15 minutes. No tower plates yet. I just straight up push 2 lanes at the same time and watch their inhibitors melt
If I remember correctly, this was the year that I started playing. I didn’t know about the Ardent meta. But I did theory craft running Relic on ADCs before it became popular, for a completely less impressive reason. I was like ‘the shield is great, it helps me last hit, and it generates gold’. Edit: actually after listening more, I think my Relic route was before this, it was in the early days of Relic. Before the nerfs. I must’ve started the year before
i dont know exactly what the juggernaut update was, but i remember playing GP back then meant you would only need IE and stattik shiv to dominate with gp. You could 1 shot people with these 2 items afaik
also not even to talk about the consequences that this had the next season, enchanters went completely downhill and in general only a pair of times were they able to recover in other extreme weird metas and for ADCs... the feeling of ADC being the center od the match-up really affected bad to other lanes, this ended up in basically killing all the ADC items... Syndra and Heimerdinger were the best bot laners that season (and Kai'Sa who was released that year but her whole Gimmick is that she literally can build whatever)
Thankfully the LoL balancing team learned from this monumental blunder never made gigantic, game-breaking changes to the game ever again, right? ... right?
In fairness for all the Incidents that have happened since, nothing has been even as remotely bad as Ardent and at least usually gets nerfed fast like the Banner Incident and AP Galio Incident
I was a bot lane main back in S4. It was a very tense time in solo/duo queue as I remember dodges were really prevalent if you weren't playing an enchanter support. The only time I can remember more dodges was the crit item changes and mage APC bot laners.
hey that's my favorite item. it's why I mained Sona when i still played the game, found it real cool that I can constantly tag my team in fights with buffs and protection and they refuse to die.
In 2017 I was just starting to play this game so I'm really glad I was throwing games with my friends in blind pick matches instead of worrying about meta strategies and stuff, this whole meta sounds like it was hell to deal with for everyone involved
I played back then and played mostly as an adc. I honestly remember this time really fondly, mostly because I got to have a lot of impact in every game, since all my mains back then were hyper carries xD
You made me remember a game in 2017 where my Mid laner was insulting me for not starting the support item for the Ardent meta, then my support followed up with "Dude Im playing Leona", we both got reported for not playing the meta bot lane comp
To create more context of how good this item was, Xmithie was buying it on Sejuani to proc off of masteries that healed your team when they attacked enemies you CC'd. The stats were so significant it didn't even matter if the heal was noticeable.
This feels like the Overwatch 1 equivalent of when Brigitte first came out and everyone just stacked 5 more tanks around her shielding... but instead of an all tank push, it was 1 AD carry, 3 tanks and some support with Argent Censure.
I definitely agree with you but i have to say, one of my fav set of games come from that meta... Misfits vs T1 was and still is one of the best we've seen, especially in that awful meta
I still rmb the old days when we used to be a very dominant bot lane duo. We even won some of the small tournaments because our botlane was shitting on them. Now looking back, it was definitely more of a item diff lmao, I didn’t know all the math back then but the stats it gave was immensely overwhelming. I always rush this since I only played enchanter back then and my duo is an adc
oh, and i completely forgot about the exploits. this item briefly gave the attack speed and on-hit health/damage buff with self-shields. This meant picks like ardent censer Diana mid were not only viable, but actually dominant.
oh i remember buolding this item always on soraka cause of the att spd plus the healing was so good back then I would always just stand behind my ad and spam w on them and this was the first soraka rework too where her q has longer range and can insta heal u to full health lmao it was also so satisfying how u go from %5 health to full health whenever u land the best 5 man q my enemies were always flabbergasted whenever they see a 5 man q from soraka lol
This was my favoriye meta. on hit ad udyr with old rage blade was so food at bursting adc. And you were fast af. With an early ravenous hydra, you healed as you power farmed, with plenty of aoe and single target, and could pull off insane invades, tiger stance applying a dot, so if they flashed because of low hp, it still killed. But rushing an adc, and switching to tiger would shred
Recently watched a video about Khan’s history in league and how the ardent censer meta invalidated his play style as an aggressive top laner. Great explanation as to why that was.
You should make a video on the meta where every single champion become a top lane tank rushing Bambi cinder/ice borne gauntlet. If I remember correctly this was season 5. Any champion could be an immortal tank that destroyed everything. The most common where ekko/fizz
Actually for me, I was really noob back in 2017 and it was just in that meta with OP ardent that I finally reach gold for the first time spaming my main in that moment Janna, so I actually have good memories of that time. Not sure how would I react to playing that meta today.
Something that went unmentioned was that the stats that were supposed to be unique stacked if you built more than one You could full heal your adc from less than 5% hp with soraka w+r in under .1 seconds
Fun fact we had the same issue in dota 2 with the solar crest rework. Not becaus it would buff teammates. But it could buff yourself. Basically the item gave movement speed, armor, attack speed, physical damge shield. And a bit of the same in stats pasifly. . The biggest chance they made is that it only gives you the shield and the stats overall were reduced. Item now no longer is a core rushed item after the chance. Still good but not meta.
I remember playing around this time, and everyone was already complaining how OP it was and riot was like... nah we don't believe you and the stats FOR MONTHS. It was worse than 5.16 patch.
Actually it was to opposite. The playerbase claimed that gold coin start was bad, it got a bunch of buffs, and people still insisted the item sucked. Ardent was way stronger, and got a few small nerfs before people realized how stupid broken the item was. Even with the item being OP, there was a line of thought that enchanters were subpar compared to engage supports. When enchanters started dominating the meta, PEOPLE STILL DID NOT BLAME THE ITEM, they said that the culprit was the shield/heal mastery. The Phreak clip shows how the players were delusional on how strong coin and ardent censer were. And the most infuriating part: When the playerbase finally realized on how strong Janna was, they weren’t worried about the meta being around botlane, that how the game has ever been. What made people mad, was because they felt people with no skill were climbing ranks with Janna without really deserving it (and also, engage support players who felt that it was unjust that skill expression didn’t matter). I swear to god, if wasn’t the fact that the item could only be used by braindead champions, it could be even more broken, and the playerbase wouldn’t care at all.
I was a Karma main, and this was the era of me playing Karma Jungle/Karma Top, no one liked me for it but god was it funny, ardent censer made her a total goofball in ganks, run in, shield the carry, walk in a straight line, free assists lol. I think they ended up nerfing Karma's off roles to keep her bot at some point after I left, so I feel like I was ahead of the curve on Brusier Karma meta in the end.
@@CKWong-sp3oeHe nerf the champs he gets ran down by and buff the champs he plays. His highest rank was when he super buffed Janna and fell off again when she was nerfed
@@skrattaoppar9753 I know, but giving your whole team permanent Ardent buffs was brutal, also considering the meta at that time, playing sona was as safe as it will ever be, because the other team will be playing another enchanter, and she outscale them all, and the early wouldn't be as much of a problem
it was a matter of value. lulu gave attack speed and Janna bonus ad and their shields made it so you could not itemize against them. That was the key factor. This was before serpents fang was a thing. Sona and soraka lost their value with anti-heal. Lulu and Janna only got stronger
@@M0ONCommander on top of that, Janna and Lulu have strong disengage, and anti-dive tools. They could afford to pick weak early game champions and not be permadived, Soraka and Sona couldn’t. And who else would benefit from the Ardent buff? Top was some tank frontline, and mid a control mage (or even another tank like Galio), and Jungle was also a tank. Aside from Janna and Lulu, we also had Rakan, Taric, and Karma, all who were way superior than Sonna and Soraka
Remember blackfire torch used to have an active ability like BOTR did? And you could first buy it on pre-rework swain and essentially just burn the enemy outta lane. The good ole days
some time around this time was when i picked up playing Morg from watching one pro or another and the strat was to max Black Shield first for ardent, this also led into playing Font of Life Trundle Support, maxing pillar first to proc font, to proc ardent...
@@alexisauld7781 it still proccs from slows nowadays, but its a single small heal for you and lowest hp ally with a cd of 20 seconds instead of the debuff on enemy that let your allies heal themselves (proccing your on-healing items) like it used to be.. i miss it so much it feels so usseless now :(
What I remember most about this meta was having to change lanes to win more games. I was (and am) a main adc, but because of smurfing and boosting I had to change from lane so bot lane was smurf against smurfs
I loved it. I finished Diamond 4 that year one tricking ardent censor janna with like a 30 kda and 75% win rate. I never finished above Plat 3 in any other season.
I am offended that BoC and Zzrot were not included in that collection of items at 0:04 😠 As an enchanter support main I enjoyed Ardent Censer meta. It gave me a small taste of what it felt like to be the undisputed valued carry of the team :')
I'm surprised no one mentions the banner of command+ zzrot portal combo that was a nightmare to go against especially against champ's who are already good at split pushing 😅
I remember when arden used to give the buff to yourself when you shielded yourself. It was used mainly on diana if I recall. I personally built it on skarner an you had pretty much pernament arden buff.
As a guy who played Janna, I liked the Ardent :) I began to built Banner of Command when the new Baron update came out and it was so fun seeing cannon minions destroy turrets from across the map. Sad they removed it :(
You could ve shown the MSF series, where the Blitz/Leona actually worked and forced skt to change their drafts as well (IK they still had Ardent in other lanes)
Okay but does anyone remember the old, self cast, ardent that created the monster we knew as Ardent Diana… then a few years later we had moonstone mord😐
I was basically just starting my ranked journey that year as an adc main and I got so sick of getting ardent diffed that I swapped to spamming Janna support. I also want to point out that this item was so strong that if you were able to proc it AT ALL, you built it. Yes, even Shen.
I know someone who's been a top lane main for years, harstuck silver. during ardent censor meta, he swapped to support, and made it to plat. after, he swapped back to top, and is back to being hardstuck silver.
Ardent was the most fun meta in the game. Normal back to front teamfights without any of the cancer assassin garbage, no juggernaut 1v9's. It lasted too long, and it was just a little bit too strong. But equally, not one single team tried to do anything else, everyone fell in like sheep. No wonder everyone hated watching it.
I see you as the League historian.
i ponder the ancient tomes 🧙♂
except this one hopefully doesnt steal his content x) iykyk
@myth-leagueoflegends was yummi in this tournament rushing ardent censor?
Since W heal on hit and ardent heal hit stacking?
I realise yummi was not in the game yet xd
the funny thing is before the Ardent Meta the item was already nerved, it was even stronger some patches before
yep, i think it was 7.17 where they changed it to be flat 25% instead of scaling to 35%. but it also started off stronger, used to scale from 20% instead of starting at 25%. so it was buffed early and a bit weaker later
@@myth-leagueoflegends was it not 20-35 but scaling from lvl 1? So in theory it was stronger all the time bcs u wont buy full item pre lvl 7 anyway
wrong
@@babiniu based on level of target ally btw
I think what broke the camel's back was relic sheild ADC. Once that was figured out it was doomed. I remember watching old Imaqtpie videos from that time
Ardent, ZZrot, and banner of command metas gave me PTSD
banner of command was a fkin mistake
@@kjonkey1 As an udyr main I had a love hate relationship with Banner and ZZRot but I definitely don't miss them
Lol banner of command was so trolly/funny
Man, I miss the ZZrot
Zzrot was a cool item, wish they could've just balanced it
Oh yes, I was there during the dark ages, where every single game of league you can hear the casters say “Ardent Censer meta”
@qq1933 id rather that than the mythic worlds where every game you hear "and x has completed his divine sunderer/goredrinker!!" 4 times every game again. XD
@@einjharrelraca yeah and the moment one got it, it was over for their opposing laner and would dissappear to "help" their team xD
@@einjharrelraca i didnt play during ardent censor meta, but i had shivers down my spine when i saw ds camielle or gore kayn in soloq
The fact that Alistar had a viable healer build (when his e was the aoe heal) with 45% cdr just because of ardent was crazy, iirc the healer build was way better than the tank one.
People were running it on Nidalee jng, it was so heinous
Man it was every game like every game from your own games to games on screen it was no running away from it 😂
It wasn't just ardent, his interaction with it & windspeakers blessing made that the best "keystone rune/mastery" for him too. (I cant remember if they were technically called keystone runes or masteries back then, they were still part of the "mastery" trees)
i was still pretty new to the game and i've always been a top laner so i never paid attention to what was happening bot lane. this meta literally just came and went without me ever even realizing but i did play through it lmao.
Yup, and I was playing bot 😂. Granted, I was bronze and blessed by 0 game sense.
I actually miss those days when I thought Zed had a kill button and nothing made sense to me
i was new player too but i was always a meta slave. When people banned lulu or janna i just picked kayle support max W and first item ardent censor. It even became better when it started working on it's user,so it's like i got myself a nashor tooth and gave it to my adc as well
@@o.osmoketheheaven1387zed does have a kill button what do you mean
@@HelterwithoutSkelter Assuming hes not already fed, Zed's "kill button" requires him to hit Q and E after ulting, dodge one of those and u usually survive. I think that's what he's referencing. Before he knew how it worked lol
@@IIMiikexDII i was just calling all of zed's buttons kill buttons
fervor leona was actuallly a strat misfits used to nearly eliminate skt in quarters; they thought they could replicate it, but coulldnt finish the game quickly enough.
Was going to say this. Was such a good series
they still have an Ardent carrier on the team. either Karma mid or Ivern jungle
it was fr crazy bc skt couldn't deal with it and also skipped out on the ardent support and played braum and such ircc
I was so hype that series, fr such a breath of fresh air
SKT in 2017 was completely asleep. Faker carried every game 1v9 and got put on Ardent duty in the finals. GG kkoma
i can imagine this item with new champs like seraphine,millio senna(enchanter build) this could potentially break banrate chart having multiple highest banrate
oh, new champs would absolutely be permabanned if this item was still that powerful. Imagine 5.0 attack speed akshan. Kai'sa being a plasma stacking machine gun. APHELIOS!!
Milio would be a really good user of it but Im not sure about Seraphine. Remember that it was about stacking as big of a shield as possible on one single ADC. That's why Janna and Lulu were the most popular and not Sona (AoE shield) or Soraka, although Sona and Soraka were still in the high tiers
I remember abusing this and getting platinum in like 100 games from silver 4 or something with 60 plus win rate with Janna. No one seemed to notice in solo queue till June that year.
You could play any shielding support and as long you had one fed member in your whole team you had a chance to win by following them or forcing them to go mid and force fights when you got advantage. Insane item. I am so happy they nerfed it and the fact that I got out of gold 1 without playing support just to prove myself it wasn't the item. However the item made it so easy.
based
I abused it too at the time. I was just playing my typical Sona then Ardent Censer was one of the recommended items. I read the whole thing and thought this might be a good build. I love how pretty much no one dies in my team on a TF when I was playing Sona since her W can proc it the the whole team. Pushing towers with it was also insane. You'd prolly save about 20 seconds of pushing both T2 and T3 turrets
yep! i got to high diamond with janna and karma from it too LOL
In retrospect Ardent Meta was so funny. Janna/Lulu lanes every game, the same 5 ADCs always picked, Cho'Gath was simultaneously the best tank and the only viable assassin. God, what a disaster
Season 5 was the Juggernauts/top lane meta
- GP, Morde permaban.
-funnel all resources into Darius, Fiora, Riven.
-even Faker was on Lulu mid duty
Season 6 was the mid lane/AP meta.
-Syndra permaban.
-funnel all resources to LeBlanc, Orianna, Ryze, Azir.. or Rumble, Kennen
-3 pushing lanes
-tank Ekko
-support Miss Fortune
Season 7. well, Ardent meta
-league of pink wards
-10k gold deficit comeback
-Fervor Leona
-Galio, Chogath, Trundle facetanking everything
-relic shield ADCs
Season 8 was the start of flex meta, the unpredictable pick-bans. every player xcept ADC share the same champion pool
-Akali, Aatrox, Irelia, Jayce top or mid
-Camille top or jungle
-3 west teams in semis, but China still won omegalul
The Jugg meta was 2015??? Nearly 10 years ago... What happened... Where did time go???
This video was an awesome blast from the past. Not just the PTSD of ardent meta. But seeing the morde ghost dragon, old art, the champion picks being on the side of screen, first year of 10 bans, hearing Phreak, Riv, papa smithy casting, huni on SKT. I miss old league
@@grifentaunton9610 hearing about quints and seals was nostalgic. I didn't realize they were still around in 2017.
@@Skaypegote yes! the old runes system, having to buy rune pages! Thank God i was always a one/two trick and only needed 2 pages
it was also long range poke meta because a lot of assassins got nerfed around that tie too
I actually screamed when he mentioned Juggernaut meta. It was insufferable.
I was a part of the community that tried pointing out how absurd this item was before worlds that year. I'm glad you brought up that AF vs SKT match in particular because I distinctly remember commenting in a reddit thread for game 1 something like "If this doesnt show how broken Ardent is i dont know what will" and getting dog piled for it because afreeca lost. I felt pretty vindicated in my belief when worlds came along but it didn't make the matches any less boring :( Good video!
I hate that league players will justify almost anything in a match because of a win or lose.
Thankfully the community overall seems to be getting less stupid over time.
@@SoulDevoured Really? I feel like it's just as stupid as it's always been, players have just gotten mechanically better to compensate.
@@therebelofchaos1674 player base is still dumb as hell but being able to point to history helps alot in esports and technique debates.
What's hilarious is that it took months for Ardent to get picked up. That piece of garbage item was ruining soloQ in January-February of 2017 yet pros were convinved tank/engage supports were the meta. It was a horrible time to play adc because you were completely at the mercy of your supp
It also had the same timing with the buffs to Ivern after release, so imagine the carnage of an enchanter in the jungle with ardent, who can hide drake with bushes, it was too broken, I abused it right up until the Ivern W nerfs and just swapped to Janna. Season 8 was the payback for the ardent meta
These documentary videos are so unbelievably good. Never stop making them.
The worst part of this meta was before this when you queued for support you got support, after this meta you weren't guaranteed support and now jungle is the more likely role to get
Fr. I was support main and before then I always got my role oruto filled to when practicing top or mid. Since then I don't think I ever been auto filled into support when practicing my off roles.
Full Team ZZRod and Banner was my favorite Meta. The sheer level of rage my friend group experienced when doing this was glorious!
Supports been paying the price in soloq since
Me, a Leona OTP during 2017.
Living, only to suffer
Any supp tank really
It's not like Fervor Leona was a beast and a huge upset at worlds 2017, it was like THE support to counter the Ardent Meta.
@@Treecake1 You realize, that Ignar and his team had another ardent champ in that game aswell? They played with Ivern jungle, who bought Ardent first. Like Myth said in his video about Game 3 of SSG vs SKT. You can go Leona bot lane, as it is a counter, but you still get an Ardent on another champ in the team.
I agree it was a counter to gold stacking on supports, but it wasn't a counter to the Ardent meta. You had to go Ardent, if you didn't you just lose the game by 20 mins.
I'd just go ardent + redemp with leona. Less tanky but with good team buff
@@miguelperdigon5871I was main Swain during that time , suffering consumed me
The 2017 Star Guardian event was basically Ardent Censer: The Movie: The Game.
I also remember I was building literally any champion that had a slow with Stoneborn Pact + Ardent Censer on ARAM back then, and it was so good.
As a support main (who loves using enchanters), this was my era.
Enchanters are my favorite characters, but this meta made me bored and tired of the same thing game after game from both sides. I kinda quit the game & didn't play through the height of the ardent censor meta
me a support main: this was the best season ever
As an adc at first I enjoyed it cause I felt the care of my supp, but then I realized I liked a more aggressive all in Nauti/Leona type of lane. Scaling every game didn't feel exciting
I got to diamond because of it 😂
Same, it was the season when we all supports said "Our time, has come!"
Not really because it meant that as a support you had to at least pick someone who can use ardent censer and literally just stick to the ADC forever.
me too
3:43 - Oh I don't have to imagine the pain. I dealt with that many times during the 2017 Ardent meta as an old Jinx ADC main. One match always sticks out in memory, when our team support hadn't tried to buy even the components of Ardent by minute 18, and their excuse was "the item isn't really that powerful."
As an adc main i personally had no issue with this meta :)
i was recommended this channel randomly by YT. and as a League player for about 12 years now i will say all your videos are good!!! one patch i would suggest you do a video on is patch 4.20 aka the warwick meta in post season 4/pre season 5
You do you, as a support main, I loved that meta, the best meta though was the ZZ'Rot + Banner meta.
new league player, love your content getting me caught up with all the lore
You know what's funny? Trundle support was actually somewhat meta as he was building (surprise) ardent censor. There was a rune that gave healing to allies if you stunned someone so he could proc it
Yep, I played that quite a bit during that meta :P I remember experimenting with different champions like that. Jarvan for instance
Thank you for reminding me of these easier times!
I’ve been support main in this specific meta and I’ve used to build Ardent Censer every game,lol.
damn, quality video
keep up man!
I actually enjoyed this item a lot, because it made it actually viable for ADC to buy the same gold-sharing item that supports buy, to share more gold in the duo.
The games where I could convince my ADC to buy the support item in the start, we were able to take baron directly when it spawns.
Such a great video. I remember that was my second season maining adc and it was fun for a moment to feel like my team actually played for my role, but then it became so repetitive and it really killed the mood for worlds making it boring and quite predictable :(.
I only disagree with you in 15:20. I think the series I most enjoyed that tournament was MSF vs SKT, ignar was the one to came up with the Leona with AD mastery page to counter lulu, and then he picked a blitz that actually made it difficult to faker to play the game. Watching a LEC team take to game 5 the then (and now 'cause 2024 lol) current world champion revitalized my hope to see more diversity of picks in the rest of the playoff, sadly it wasn't that way
I love how the excuse for not nerfing it before worlds was because they felt like pros would not be able to adapt quick enough
18:52 What happened in worlds 2015 LMAO, Im curious now.
They reworked Mordekaiser right before worlds, but this was not just a rework like any other. This was a rework that was designed to shift the meta, for the first time ever they designed a champion to 'innovate' on the standard lane assignments.
Bruiser/Tank top, Carry/Bruiser jungle, Mage/Assassin mid, Marksman bot, Enchanter/Tank CC sup was the standard.
Mordekaiser was a melee midlaner to counter assassins as he was kinda tanky, but got reworked to be the first functioning melee botlaner. W gave passive bonus exp to the ally you put it on, to ensure you were higher level than your lane opponent (the idea was that this exp advantage would counter the range disadvantage). He did crazy damage with his Q that was "next 3 auto attacks are empowered and especially the 3rd was essentially a tactical nuke, with triforce this 3rd Q would oneshot squishies).
AND THEN his passive of his R was that whenever you killed dragon you got a phantom pet dragon that you could control like Tibbers but was as tanky as the dragon you killed.
This resulted in a botlane that was always ahead, would always have bottom prio, therefore always killed dragon, would get a pet dragon to either push with or simply click to attack the enemy botlaner who had to run back to their T2 tower because they would just get killed by phantom dragon under T1 tower if they 'ignored' it.
In worlds this translated to: The team with mordekaiser would win the game, TSM went 1-5 in groups I think, the 1 game they won was vs the best in their group (korean team i dont remember which) and the only reason they won that game was because that Korean team was pretty much locked and left mordekaiser open either as disrespect or to get some practice against mordekaiser piloted by a lesser team
I started playing at the end of season 3 so it has been a while, but this is what I remember from 2015 worlds meta if I missed anything or am wrong about something somebody please correct me haha
I still remember getting 11 straight wins in rank playing utility nunu with zzrot portal and banner of command. Zero kills per game. Games end in less than 15 minutes. No tower plates yet. I just straight up push 2 lanes at the same time and watch their inhibitors melt
Great video. Make one about the insanity that was Ezreal mid couple of years ago, I don't remember which season.
The rune glave ezreal was in 2015 and it was pretty much the most overpowered ezreal could ever got.
14:02 the communi-lly had even point-itled out
all these clips are so perfect - great video keep it up!
If I remember correctly, this was the year that I started playing. I didn’t know about the Ardent meta. But I did theory craft running Relic on ADCs before it became popular, for a completely less impressive reason. I was like ‘the shield is great, it helps me last hit, and it generates gold’.
Edit: actually after listening more, I think my Relic route was before this, it was in the early days of Relic. Before the nerfs. I must’ve started the year before
i dont know exactly what the juggernaut update was, but i remember playing GP back then meant you would only need IE and stattik shiv to dominate with gp. You could 1 shot people with these 2 items afaik
also not even to talk about the consequences that this had the next season, enchanters went completely downhill and in general only a pair of times were they able to recover in other extreme weird metas and for ADCs... the feeling of ADC being the center od the match-up really affected bad to other lanes, this ended up in basically killing all the ADC items... Syndra and Heimerdinger were the best bot laners that season (and Kai'Sa who was released that year but her whole Gimmick is that she literally can build whatever)
As a sona main this was THE era to play league, I loved it so much
1:35 Nazaré is everywhere
I just had a PTSD flashback, thanks.
Hey from the future. You made that Juggernauts video. It was pretty cool.
Thanks time traveler!
Thankfully the LoL balancing team learned from this monumental blunder never made gigantic, game-breaking changes to the game ever again, right?
... right?
Kayn and Aatrox laughts in overhealing 180% of their HP.
they decided everyone should get one (Mythics)
Oh yeah Moonstaff meta definitely didn't happen with the mythic overhaul, Riot would never allow something like that to rise again !
ZZrot and banner of command would like to have a word with you
In fairness for all the Incidents that have happened since, nothing has been even as remotely bad as Ardent and at least usually gets nerfed fast like the Banner Incident and AP Galio Incident
I was a bot lane main back in S4. It was a very tense time in solo/duo queue as I remember dodges were really prevalent if you weren't playing an enchanter support. The only time I can remember more dodges was the crit item changes and mage APC bot laners.
I remember the countless times I stood in awe while typing "ardent cancer" every single game
hey that's my favorite item. it's why I mained Sona when i still played the game, found it real cool that I can constantly tag my team in fights with buffs and protection and they refuse to die.
Good video. I dont think anyone misses this meta
In 2017 I was just starting to play this game so I'm really glad I was throwing games with my friends in blind pick matches instead of worrying about meta strategies and stuff, this whole meta sounds like it was hell to deal with for everyone involved
i remember the ardent censer meta. i also remember playing brand to counter the ardent censer meta, it was surprisingly effective
I played back then and played mostly as an adc. I honestly remember this time really fondly, mostly because I got to have a lot of impact in every game, since all my mains back then were hyper carries xD
You made me remember a game in 2017 where my Mid laner was insulting me for not starting the support item for the Ardent meta, then my support followed up with "Dude Im playing Leona", we both got reported for not playing the meta bot lane comp
To create more context of how good this item was, Xmithie was buying it on Sejuani to proc off of masteries that healed your team when they attacked enemies you CC'd. The stats were so significant it didn't even matter if the heal was noticeable.
This feels like the Overwatch 1 equivalent of when Brigitte first came out and everyone just stacked 5 more tanks around her shielding... but instead of an all tank push, it was 1 AD carry, 3 tanks and some support with Argent Censure.
I definitely agree with you but i have to say, one of my fav set of games come from that meta... Misfits vs T1 was and still is one of the best we've seen, especially in that awful meta
I swear that LCK was all the teams holding their big card for the real show.
I still rmb the old days when we used to be a very dominant bot lane duo. We even won some of the small tournaments because our botlane was shitting on them. Now looking back, it was definitely more of a item diff lmao, I didn’t know all the math back then but the stats it gave was immensely overwhelming. I always rush this since I only played enchanter back then and my duo is an adc
Can't wait to hear about the Fiora broken ult
oh, and i completely forgot about the exploits.
this item briefly gave the attack speed and on-hit health/damage buff with self-shields. This meant picks like ardent censer Diana mid were not only viable, but actually dominant.
oh i remember buolding this item always on soraka cause of the att spd plus the healing was so good back then I would always just stand behind my ad and spam w on them and this was the first soraka rework too where her q has longer range and can insta heal u to full health lmao it was also so satisfying how u go from %5 health to full health whenever u land the best 5 man q my enemies were always flabbergasted whenever they see a 5 man q from soraka lol
This was my favoriye meta. on hit ad udyr with old rage blade was so food at bursting adc. And you were fast af. With an early ravenous hydra, you healed as you power farmed, with plenty of aoe and single target, and could pull off insane invades, tiger stance applying a dot, so if they flashed because of low hp, it still killed. But rushing an adc, and switching to tiger would shred
Recently watched a video about Khan’s history in league and how the ardent censer meta invalidated his play style as an aggressive top laner. Great explanation as to why that was.
I loved it because i am support main and at that time it was not often that we supports had so much present in game.
Running ardent with banner of command felt so WILD back then
i play since season 6 and i remember vividly this meta. What a good time to be a Tristana Main it was...
You should make a video on the meta where every single champion become a top lane tank rushing Bambi cinder/ice borne gauntlet. If I remember correctly this was season 5. Any champion could be an immortal tank that destroyed everything. The most common where ekko/fizz
Actually for me, I was really noob back in 2017 and it was just in that meta with OP ardent that I finally reach gold for the first time spaming my main in that moment Janna, so I actually have good memories of that time. Not sure how would I react to playing that meta today.
I love ardent censer, 2017 is best year
Something that went unmentioned was that the stats that were supposed to be unique stacked if you built more than one
You could full heal your adc from less than 5% hp with soraka w+r in under .1 seconds
Fun fact we had the same issue in dota 2 with the solar crest rework.
Not becaus it would buff teammates.
But it could buff yourself.
Basically the item gave movement speed, armor, attack speed, physical damge shield.
And a bit of the same in stats pasifly. .
The biggest chance they made is that it only gives you the shield and the stats overall were reduced.
Item now no longer is a core rushed item after the chance.
Still good but not meta.
I remember playing around this time, and everyone was already complaining how OP it was and riot was like... nah we don't believe you and the stats FOR MONTHS. It was worse than 5.16 patch.
Actually it was to opposite.
The playerbase claimed that gold coin start was bad, it got a bunch of buffs, and people still insisted the item sucked.
Ardent was way stronger, and got a few small nerfs before people realized how stupid broken the item was. Even with the item being OP, there was a line of thought that enchanters were subpar compared to engage supports.
When enchanters started dominating the meta, PEOPLE STILL DID NOT BLAME THE ITEM, they said that the culprit was the shield/heal mastery. The Phreak clip shows how the players were delusional on how strong coin and ardent censer were.
And the most infuriating part: When the playerbase finally realized on how strong Janna was, they weren’t worried about the meta being around botlane, that how the game has ever been. What made people mad, was because they felt people with no skill were climbing ranks with Janna without really deserving it (and also, engage support players who felt that it was unjust that skill expression didn’t matter).
I swear to god, if wasn’t the fact that the item could only be used by braindead champions, it could be even more broken, and the playerbase wouldn’t care at all.
I was a Karma main, and this was the era of me playing Karma Jungle/Karma Top, no one liked me for it but god was it funny, ardent censer made her a total goofball in ganks, run in, shield the carry, walk in a straight line, free assists lol. I think they ended up nerfing Karma's off roles to keep her bot at some point after I left, so I feel like I was ahead of the curve on Brusier Karma meta in the end.
9:00 phreak before he became hated by everyone😂😂
Why is he hated?
I still love him 😢
@@CKWong-sp3oeHe nerf the champs he gets ran down by and buff the champs he plays. His highest rank was when he super buffed Janna and fell off again when she was nerfed
its crazy to see league ¨history¨ for new people when I lived through these metas (Feral Flare were my favorite because I was jungle lmao)
Cant wait to see your new video about Yone and Aurora for world 2024
worst part is nobody used sona with ardent and that was even more broken
Janna has more safety net, if you caught a sona, it's pretty much over
@@skrattaoppar9753 I know, but giving your whole team permanent Ardent buffs was brutal, also considering the meta at that time, playing sona was as safe as it will ever be, because the other team will be playing another enchanter, and she outscale them all, and the early wouldn't be as much of a problem
No it was not
it was a matter of value. lulu gave attack speed and Janna bonus ad and their shields made it so you could not itemize against them. That was the key factor. This was before serpents fang was a thing.
Sona and soraka lost their value with anti-heal. Lulu and Janna only got stronger
@@M0ONCommander on top of that, Janna and Lulu have strong disengage, and anti-dive tools. They could afford to pick weak early game champions and not be permadived, Soraka and Sona couldn’t.
And who else would benefit from the Ardent buff? Top was some tank frontline, and mid a control mage (or even another tank like Galio), and Jungle was also a tank. Aside from Janna and Lulu, we also had Rakan, Taric, and Karma, all who were way superior than Sonna and Soraka
We can have 7 tank support worlds meta in a row but god forbid we have one enchanter support meta
Remember blackfire torch used to have an active ability like BOTR did? And you could first buy it on pre-rework swain and essentially just burn the enemy outta lane. The good ole days
some time around this time was when i picked up playing Morg from watching one pro or another and the strat was to max Black Shield first for ardent, this also led into playing Font of Life Trundle Support, maxing pillar first to proc font, to proc ardent...
Here was a degen one I played at the time: Font of Life Ashe supp, because it procced off slows at the time iirc...
@@alexisauld7781 it still proccs from slows nowadays, but its a single small heal for you and lowest hp ally with a cd of 20 seconds instead of the debuff on enemy that let your allies heal themselves (proccing your on-healing items) like it used to be.. i miss it so much it feels so usseless now :(
What I remember most about this meta was having to change lanes to win more games. I was (and am) a main adc, but because of smurfing and boosting I had to change from lane so bot lane was smurf against smurfs
The Myth, the Legend, has done it again.
I loved it. I finished Diamond 4 that year one tricking ardent censor janna with like a 30 kda and 75% win rate.
I never finished above Plat 3 in any other season.
I am offended that BoC and Zzrot were not included in that collection of items at 0:04 😠
As an enchanter support main I enjoyed Ardent Censer meta. It gave me a small taste of what it felt like to be the undisputed valued carry of the team :')
I love how I watch so much LoL videos but I don't even play league anymore. I should play it again sometime
I'm surprised no one mentions the banner of command+ zzrot portal combo that was a nightmare to go against especially against champ's who are already good at split pushing 😅
Imagine how much more of a nightmare that item wouldve been if pre reworked yummi was out at that time ahah
I remember when arden used to give the buff to yourself when you shielded yourself. It was used mainly on diana if I recall. I personally built it on skarner an you had pretty much pernament arden buff.
As a guy who played Janna, I liked the Ardent :)
I began to built Banner of Command when the new Baron update came out and it was so fun seeing cannon minions destroy turrets from across the map.
Sad they removed it :(
You could ve shown the MSF series, where the Blitz/Leona actually worked and forced skt to change their drafts as well (IK they still had Ardent in other lanes)
Okay but does anyone remember the old, self cast, ardent that created the monster we knew as Ardent Diana… then a few years later we had moonstone mord😐
the good old prereworked nunu ally buff with ardents, maxed attackspeed at all times with a ap percentage buff making machinegun kog raid boss
17:04 literally they won by focusing the supp with ardent censer xDDD
It wrecked the whole year maybe some a few parts of next seasons also :))
I was basically just starting my ranked journey that year as an adc main and I got so sick of getting ardent diffed that I swapped to spamming Janna support.
I also want to point out that this item was so strong that if you were able to proc it AT ALL, you built it. Yes, even Shen.
I know someone who's been a top lane main for years, harstuck silver. during ardent censor meta, he swapped to support, and made it to plat. after, he swapped back to top, and is back to being hardstuck silver.
Would be fun if you made a video of the terror of old Kassadin. The time when he had a 99% ban rate.
2:15 doesn't lifesteal apply using post mitigation damage? thus 17% lifesteal should be less than the onhit heal value, no?
Ardent Cancer Meta literally drove me to Diamond playing as Soraka and Lulu and I don't even play support before this
Ardent was the most fun meta in the game. Normal back to front teamfights without any of the cancer assassin garbage, no juggernaut 1v9's. It lasted too long, and it was just a little bit too strong. But equally, not one single team tried to do anything else, everyone fell in like sheep. No wonder everyone hated watching it.