Since the start of the 2020 Spring Split, Aphelios has become a staple pick for almost any competitive team. After more than a month of play, the Weapon of the Faithful has remained the most played—and the most successful—ADC in the League of Legends pro scene with a 97.7 percent pick-ban rate among LCS, LEC, LCK, and LPL teams.
On release, Aphelios was incredible overtuned. His ultimate was doing too much damage and his kit had plenty of clarity issues that made it hard for players to understand what guns he had equipped. Casters, pros, and amateurs all had their beef with the new champion, and as a result, he was nerfed multiple times.
The most meaningful patch to date was Patch 10.4, where Riot Games finally added an offhand indicator to Aphelios to show enemies the combination of weapons he has available.
This was a big issue before since a ton of Aphelios’ damage and utility stems from which weapon synergy he has in certain moments. Luckily, opponents can now play around him a bit better since they can judge when to engage based on whether he has good weapons at his disposal.
All these changes, however, didn’t affect his play rate in the pro scene. In fact, he has the second-highest win rate of any champion with over 70 games played globally, sitting at an impressive 56 percent over 116 games. The highest win rate still belongs to Gragas, who has a 60.6 percent win rate. But he’s only been played 71 times so far this year.
It’s likely that if a team picks Aphelios, they’re going to win their match. And it’s also likely that he’ll remain a meta pick for the rest of the season unless Riot makes some drastic nerfs that alter his kit.
