Will new League of Legends champion Viego be viable in competitive play?

The Ruined King was recently released as a playable champion. What does this champion do, how do you play him and is he viable for competitive?

Riot released their 154th champion and dubbed him a jungler. After the introduction of the item “Blade of the Ruined King” we had to guess who this “Ruined King” was. With that question being answered, Riot made sure to introduce new mechanics with his release. We have had champions stealing your resistances, your summoner spells and your ultimate abilities, but now there is a champion who steals your whole identity and literally becomes you.

Abilities

Let us look at Viego’s abilities starting out with his passive, since this is what makes this champion so unique, before we jump into playstyle and competitive viability. Whenever Viego kills or assists with the killing of a champion, he can possess them. When he does this, he heals for a small portion of their maximum health and can use all his (or her) abilities except for their ultimate. Instead, he can still use his own ultimate ability which we will discuss later. He also gets the stats from the items of the person whose champion he has possessed, truly becoming the champion, also able to use the actives on these items.

His Q is basically the Blade of the Ruined King passive we already knew from the item. He can charge it to slash forward and damage all enemies in front of him. His W is a small dash that requires charging and when you hit someone with it, it stuns. The longer you charge, the longer the stun. You cannot dash over walls. His E creates a black mist, camouflaging him when he is in it and gaining movement and attack speed. It can attach to walls and spread over the whole length of the wall. His ultimate ability is him dashing forward and leaving the possessed champion (if he was in one). He then attacks the lowest percentage health champion in his range dealing damage based on their missing health. If there is another enemy nearby and in range, he gets knocked away.

Viego’s Playstyle

Viego has everything in his kit to be a powerful assassin and duellist in the later stages of the game, but he also has enough damage to contest junglers in the early game and the crowd control to set up ganks.

Early

Just like every jungler, Viego should look to unlock his three abilities first before looking for a gank opportunity. He has enough sustain in his kit to have a healthy clear. If you have no intention of ganking any lane, you should look for a full clear starting off with a pull from your botlane on your buff (which is either blue or red depending on which side you play on). Then quickly clear all camps and contest the scuttle crab. Ultimately, you should farm until you can afford the Ironspike Whip. This increases your one versus one potential, but also gives you a stronger and faster clear. Whenever you are clearing the jungle, beware not to use your black mist (E-ability) on walls. This could reveal your position to your enemies who now anticipate a gank or will invade you.

If you have gankable lanes with some setup, do abuse them. You have enough damage in your kit to sneak in a gank or two before you hit level 6 and gain your ultimate. Make sure to use the black mist effectively to gain distance on your opponent. If your lane does not have crowd control, start of with landing your stun to follow-up with all the damage in your kit. Ganking bot could also give you another edge. If you can kill the support easily, do so and possess them. Most of the times you can then use the abilities of the support to land more crowd control and damage on the marksman, setting up another kill.

Mid to late game

When successfully going through the early game, you should now be a strong assassin and duellist. Try to find flanks on the enemy team by positioning yourself outside of the  teamfight. Next up, use your black mist to sneak up on the enemy carry or use your passive to get a quick assist and take over a frontline champion. You have many options here to either play an assassin against the enemy backline or try to kill their frontline and then possess them to regain health and use his abilities against the enemy team. Ideally, you should use your passive and ultimate ability to the maximum, possessing enemy champions and finding resets with your ultimate.

Competitive viability

Viego fits the current meta that revolves around carry junglers. However, when a new champion is released, everyone is always hyped to see him in professional play. Unfortunately, he often gets banned by the team that is on red side because they can not secure him with their first pick. Until a champion is found that can effectively counter him, we will most likely not see him in pro play. This could result in teams not even picking him up in scrims and/or dedicate the time to master him.

There is also a possibility that a professional team sees more in the champion than just a jungler, playing him in other lanes and abuse his kit for newfound tactics. So whenever we see Viego in professional play, look at the other team because they will have found an answer on how to counter this champion.

In the end, Viego still has some games to go before we can honestly say how this champion will play out. For now we know one thing for sure: Viego will be terrorizing your solo queue games but not always in the ways you think, as a lot of people are still learning how to play the champion most effectively.

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Image credit: Riot Games
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