In the months following Vanguard’s arrival in League of Legends, nearly a dozen unlucky champions have been slumping across several modes. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though, with the sharp decline in wins mostly because Riot’s kernel-level anti-cheat has been banning bot players using the characters.
The impacted League champions (all AD carries) include Twitch, Karthus, Sivir, Vayne, Samira, Zeri, Ezreal, Kalista, and Kog’Maw—the latter of whom must be the least surprising considering how often scripters use the Void creature.
The major win rate drops, which the Riot development team had revealed as part of their latest League anti-cheat update this week, were led by Twitch; the toxic ADC sagged from winning nearly 54 percent of games to a hair over 51 percent. Sivir also dropped a lot, down to around the same as Twitch now.
Before the Vanguard launch, Kog’Maw had led the ranks between the nine impacted League champions, with the Void marksman winning five percent more games than 0.500. Interestingly, that top-tier victory rate has barely dipped despite the bans.
At the time of writing, here’s each of the nine League champs’ win rates in ranked. These should be a bit lower than (untracked) normal wins:
- Ezreal — 48.77 percent
- Kalista — 47.48 percent
- Karthus — 53.75 percent
- Kog’Maw — 52.29 percent
- Samira — 49 percent
- Sivir — 49.71 percent
- Twitch — 50.57 percent
- Vayne — 48.68 percent
- Zeri — 45.97 percent
There were other characters associated with cheaters, Riot’s anti-cheat lead Phillip Koskinas added, but these nine were selected for one big reason: “A buffet of mouse clicks is something scripts can serve faster than humans.”
Other factors have played a role in some of the dropoffs, with balance changes, seasonal resets, and the rise of counterpicks all seeing a “fall in favor.” Overall though, Vanguard’s release has directly dented the ability for League cheaters to keep their accounts in Diamond and compete with good players. Said Koskinas after sharing the data, “Puts a real spring in my step when I think about it.”
These dropping win rates are just one of the many positive responses Riot’s seen from the Vanguard release in League, with the devs now happy to declare the anti-cheat launch a huge success months on. (Small PC issues aside, of course.)
Elsewhere, the team is also looking to build back the strength of its League honor system, with new rewards and progress being added in a September update.
