Buzz
(Homeland) - This champion is widely favored and boasts diverse gameplay but often suffers defeats at Worlds 2023.
At Worlds 2023, patch 13.19 was applied with some long-lost champions like Caitlyn and Lee Sin making a powerful comeback, alongside Syndra. Additionally, some playstyles were significantly weakened, such as LeBlanc and Zeri, equipped with the Electric Sword... Prior to this, with the strengthened 'vault' champions, many spectators even predicted T1 to have a significant advantage to reach the final match, perhaps even win Worlds 2023. However, that is a matter of the future. At present, there is a champion causing headaches for both players and Riot, and that is Kai'Sa.
This Marksman champion isn't fundamentally a novel choice. In fact, alongside Zeri and Xayah, Kai'Sa was highly favored in the Summer of 2023 and even before that, at MSI 2023 as well as the Spring Split earlier in the year. With excellent damage output, strong ranged poking, quick minion wave clearing, and high mobility, Kai'Sa in the hands of talented Marksmen like Ruler, Elk, or Gumayusi, Aiming truly becomes a perfect assassin in the AD position.
At Worlds 2023, Kai'Sa is also the Marksman with the most diverse playstyles. Accordingly, there are 4 item builds applied to Kai'Sa. They include: Kai'Sa playing fast and winning fast (Guinsoo's Rageblade, Phantom Dancer); Critical Strike Kai'Sa (Infinity Edge, Rapid Firecannon); Control Kai'Sa (Kraken Slayer, Galeforce) and lastly, AP Kai'Sa (Rabadon's Deathcap, Luden's Tempest). Of course, each build will bring about different effects but all are suitable for Kai'Sa's skill set.
But they haven't translated into effectiveness. According to statistics from the specialist website Gol.gg, Kai'Sa has a 70% pick rate, but only a 32% win rate - an extremely low figure. Even champions seemingly 'pick to lose' like Lee Sin have a much higher win rate than Kai'Sa (43%).
The reason for this is said to be, first and foremost, not every item build is optimal. For instance, it wasn't until Ruler utilized it that Kai'Sa's Phantom Dancer - Guinsoo's Rageblade combo saw its first victory. Not to mention, Xayah proves to be much more effective, being strong from the laning phase, early skirmishes, all the way to late-game. Meanwhile, Kai'Sa often lacks the skills to escape besides her Killer Instinct, and her early game damage isn't particularly strong.
In addition to the aforementioned reasons, the skill level of players using Kai'Sa cannot be overlooked. However, she remains a good choice and is expected to potentially increase her appearance rate further in the remaining time of Worlds 2023.
