The 2021 League of Legends World Championship has presented one of the most diverse champion metas in the tournament’s decade-long history. With 85 champions picked or banned over the course of the tournament’s first 62 games, well over half of the champions on League’s roster have been involved in at least one draft.
No player at Worlds has been more flexible in their picks than Cloud9 top laner Fudge, though. The first-year LCS player selected 10 different champions across the 11 games he’s played at this year’s World Championship. Only Beyond Gaming top laner Liang and PEACE top laner Vizicsacsi have played 10 champions at Worlds, but both of those players have been eliminated from title contention.
During the Worlds play-in stage, Cloud9 played eight individual games, plus an additional three during the group stage of the tournament. So far, Fudge has played almost every viable top laner in the current meta at least once. He’s selected Gnar, Camille, Jax, Gangplank, Irelia, Malphite, Jarvan IV, Jayce, Wukong, Gwen. Among those, the only champion to get the nod from Fudge more than once was Gangplank, whom the C9 top laner played twice during play-ins.
A total of 26 different champions have been played in the top lane during Worlds, the most for any position at the event, according to League stats site Leaguepedia.
Despite his obvious versatility and deep champion pool, Fudge has been one of the worst-performing top laners at the Worlds group stage from a statistical point of view. Across Cloud9’s three losses, Fudge averaged a deficit of 1,346 gold at the 15 minute mark at the tournament—the second-worst among all players at the event, according to League stats site Games of Legends. Fudge also ranks in the bottom five among all Worlds top laners in KDA, gold per minute, and damage per minute through the first round robin of the group stage.
Fudge and Cloud9 will return to the Worlds stage tomorrow, Oct. 15, for the final three games of their group stage run against Rogue, FunPlus Phoenix and DWG KIA.
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