Yuumi picked for the first time in pro play in China

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Despite the controversy surrounding her overall strength upon release, Yuumi has seen professional play for the first time. She’s been played in NA Academy and other developmental leagues, but FunPlus Phoenix picked her up for the first time in a tier-one league on the opening day of the LPL in China today.

Liu “Crisp” Qing-Song picked up the Magical Cat and put her to work against the 2019 Spring Split runners-up JD Gaming. FunPlus left Yuumi late into the draft, allowing JD Gaming to draft their bot lane of Xayah and Leona before selecting Yuumi as a counter pick. Also picking Sylas, Olaf, Ryze, and Lucian, FunPlus’ ability to chase down targets gave JD Gaming a hard time in this game.

Crisp took Heal and Exhaust, as well as Arcane Comet as his keystone because of its strong synergy with Prowling Projectile. The 80-percent slow at rank five means every Comet is guaranteed to hit, allowing for a great amount of burst damage. Crisp also rushed Athene’s Unholy Grail before branching out into Boots of Lucidity and Mikael’s Crucible to counter JD’s heavy engage comp.

With this, FunPlus were able to run over JD Gaming, skirmishing at every possible moment in the river. While Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang died for first blood, FunPlus were able to turn around and secure three kills in return.

Five minutes later, as the teams were posturing around the Mountain Drake, FunPlus’ jungler “Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang taxied Crisp’s Yuumi into JD’s backline, securing three kills and the dragon. With this roaming pressure from Yuumi on Olaf’s back, JD couldn’t contest anything in their own jungle and had to rely on Zeng “YaGao” Qi’s Cassiopeia and Gu “Imp” Seung-bin’s Xayah to scale into the late game.

But FunPlus kept forcing fights and locking down JD’s carries, spiraling the game out of control before putting it to rest at 26 minutes with a 15,000 gold lead.

Yuumi has appeared in a variety of developmental leagues across the world, most notably being picked up three times in NA Academy. The champion has a 64.7 percent win rate over 17 competitive games, according to Leaguepedia.

While there were concerns about her low win rate on release, Yuumi has proven to be a viable pick in professional play.