Caps’ never-before-seen Neeko play at Worlds 2023 is mindblowing players

The 2023 League of Legends World Championship is in full swing, and although Europe hasn’t made it to playoffs, G2 Esports’ Caps made a mark in his last series with a genius play on Neeko.

In the second game of G2’s last Worlds match against LPL team Bilibili Gaming on Oct. 29, midlaner Caps successfully performed a tower dive with jungler Yike on Neeko by using her passive in an unexpected way.

At the five-minute mark, Yike rushed to BLG midlaner Yagao’s tower on Nocturne while Caps cleaned the minion wave. To help his jungler survive, the midlaner used Neeko’s passive to take the shape of a canon minion, which allowed him to tank four tower hits without an issue.

“This is kinda insane. Even Yagao said in the Chinese post-match interview that he didn’t know this Neeko feature and never expected such a play,” wrote the top-voted comment of a Reddit thread showcasing the action.

Neeko’s Passive, Inherent Glamour, allows her to look like an ally champion or minion. If she uses a spell or takes damage from an enemy champion, her disguise will break. This passive is often used to confuse enemies, but it also allows her to tank more damage.

Caps’ play saved the tower dive because disguising as a minion was the only way for him to tank that many tower hits at the start of the game. While the damage of tower hits ramps up on champions, they don’t on minions. In addition, Siege minions will receive less damage from turrets than others.

Turrets will only deal eight to 14 percent damage of the minion’s maximum health, according to the Wiki, making it specifically geared to tank those hits.

If Neeko had taken the shape of another champion instead of the canon minion, the disguise would have broken beforehand and she might have died under the tower.

In the thread’s comments, players debated on whether this was an unintended bug or not, because they’d never seen a Neeko use her passive to transform into a minion before. But this peculiar use is showcased in her official champion page—it’s simply rarely used, or even known, by Neeko players.

This genius play from Caps helped G2 Esports get ahead in the game, which they eventually won. Still, they ultimately lost 2-1 to BLG, missing the Worlds’ playoffs. Now, the roster will rebuild ahead of the 2024 LEC season.