Whenever a new champion gets added to League of Legends, there’s always a bit of a transitional period as the player base gets used to the newest addition to the roster. Most of the time, that new addition struggles to put up solid numbers, usually due to a combination of inexperienced players trying their hand at the champion, as well as Riot Games making balance changes based on a small sample size early into the champion’s lifespan.
We saw this phenomenon occur last fall when K’sante spawned onto the Rift and immediately struggled to gain any momentum, and now, we’re seeing it again with Naafiri.
Just over three days into the champion’s existence, Naafiri jungle is the worst pick in the game in high-level solo queue, according to League stats site U.GG. The solo queue win rate tracking site recognizes 226 combinations of champions and positions, and certain champions, including Naafiri, have enough data to warrant multiple listings in multiple positions.
Out of all 226 champion-position combinations in the game, Naafiri jungle clocks in with the 226th-best win rate. The assassin’s games at the jungle position are currently dead last, with a win rate of 40.69 percent in games played at Emerald rank and above, according to U.GG. For reference, her mid lane win rate ranks 161st.
Related: League is getting a ‘hangry jungler’ and ‘artistic mid laner’ as new champions later this year
Although Naafiri can be played as a jungler and mid laner, the champion has only a few more games played at mid lane on the new patch (just over a difference of 1,000 games), so it’s still relatively debatable what her “main” position actually is. While it’s trending toward the mid lane, Naafiri jungle still has a high enough sample size where it’s worth diving into the stats. As far as her performance in the mid lane goes, Naafiri holds a less-than-impressive 48.85 percent win rate—which is still miles better than the just-above-40 percent win rate that she’s seeing in the jungle.
Moving forward, it’s possible (if not totally likely) that players will leave Naafiri jungle in the dust and prioritize her as a mid lane assassin; few new champions maintain prominence in more than one position long after release, anyway. If Naafiri’s 40 percent win rate is any indicator of her potential as a jungler, it might be evident that her jungling capabilities may need a buff or two. She did receive a series of nerfs in a hotfix on July 21 that hurt some of her core abilities and dropped her mid lane win rate by six percentage points over the last 48 hours.
We expect Naafiri to be continuously buffed and nerfed over the next few patches, as is the case with most new champions.
