EU’s read of the League meta was far ahead of NA at Rift Rivals

The EU LCS is flat better than its NA counterpart right now. That’s a tough pill for NA fans to swallow, especially after a dominating victory at Rift Rivals last year. But over the past several seasons, at big tournaments like Worlds and MSI, EU has been the better region.

So when Rift Rivals started this year, EU was expected to win—just look at our combined LCS power rankings. Even with Splyce serving as a sacrificial lamb—shh, don’t tell Team Liquid about that—Fnatic and G2 should have carried the day. But then they got a gift that we didn’t expect: An advanced read of the meta.

European teams were far ahead in their use of innovative picks and team comps on Patch 8.13. From Aatrox to Heimerdinger to Pyke, EU teams had NA constantly guessing what was going to come next.

Related: All the details on Patch 8.13

Let’s start with that Aatrox. He’s been a problem both pre- and post-rework, prompting a spate of panicked hotfixes. But the EU teams happily picked him in both top and mid lane, going 4-0 in games where NA teams foolishly left him up. Aatrox’s early lane is simply ridiculous, and he was strong enough to help Wunder become our MVP of the group stage.

And then there’s Heimerdinger. According to League stats site Games of Legends, Heimderdinger has never been picked in the NA LCS. But he’s been an absolute terror in EU this split—and in four games at Rift Rivals, NA teams learned why.

Heimerdinger was a huge part of Splyce’s upset victory over Liquid, shutting down what should have been a strong Liquid bot lane. A lot of that was Liquid making boneheaded mistakes, but Heimerdinger’s 100 percent winrate in the tournament is nothing to scoff at.

Heimerdinger was just one sign of EU’s devotion to innovating the bot lane. EU teams were consistently more comfortable playing comps with either the marksman in the mid lane or even no traditional marksmen altogether. And even though NA teams had success on strong marksmen like Kai’Sa, it made her a really easy ban for EU in the final portions of the tournament.

And bot lane wasn’t even the biggest disaster for NA in the tournament. In 13 games, NA top laners had more kills than deaths only once. And let’s not forget the multiple times NA mid laners looked like they were trolling.

Overall, EU looked better at every position, including the coaching staff. Maybe getting blown out last year gave them extra motivation to dominate. From micro play in lane to understanding the meta, NA teams have a lot of ground to make up.