Huni brings Ezreal to the top lane at LoL World Championship

Oct 8, 2019

Reading time: 2 min

The first two play-in teams have earned their seats in the 2019 League of Legends World Championship group stage. DAMWON Gaming defeated Lowkey 3-1, while Clutch Gaming defeated Royal Youth 3-0.

In game three of the Clutch Gaming series, the team used their final two picks to add Lucian and Ezreal to their draft of Rek’Sai, Thresh, and Syndra. This was the second time they went with a double AD carry team composition in the three-game series. In game one, Damonte played Lucian in the mid lane and Cody Sun played Kai’sa.

The outspoken top-laner of Clutch, Heo Seung-hoon “Huni” Heo, took Ezreal to the top lane. Early in Worlds play, the Kleptomancy rune has had a big impact. Ezreal is a perfect match with Klepto, and Huni has shown a desire to play carries in the top lane. Ezreal allows him some mobility and that mobility helps him to better absorb top lane pressure.

This might have just been a one-off pick, but it may also be the start of a new trend.

Huni is one of the only top laners playing Ezreal in solo queue. According to his solo queue history, he has played 35 games this season on Ezreal. He has a 71% win rate on the champion and a 2.7 kill-to-death ratio. These games were played on the “Fnatic Huni” account.

Huni went 2/2/9 with a 249 creep score and 16.7k gold earned on Ezreal in the deciding game against Royal Youth.

It’s possible that the explosive top laner was just throwing out something fun in a game that he felt he already knew the outcome of. Certainly, the Ezreal top lane pick in a meaningful game will make it something that opposing team’s have to at least consider moving forward in their drafts against Clutch.

This isn’t too far fetched for Huni. He was among the first players to bring Lucian to the top lane in competitive play. He’s always been willing to experiment on the biggest stage and has often found success in those experiments. It will be interesting to see how often, if ever, he comes back to this pick as the 2019 League of Legends World Championship continues.