League of Legends doesn't stop to surprise us with the weirdest strategies. A few months ago, some players were stacking Doran's Blade on Miss Fortune, or Agility Cloak on any ADC to quickly reach the 100% Critical Strike cap. Now, a new trend appeared: the "zCS Senna" strategy.
A staple of the meta since her release, Senna has built her popularity with the public as a first-rate threat in the botlane. With her passive ability, Senna can permanently increase her damage, range, critical strike and regeneration statistics by harvesting the "Souls" left behind by minions and slain champions. With the door open to infinite scaling, Riot Games had to revise its copy during the implementation of Patch 10.3. The main logic behind balancing the champion: to keep his potential on the lower path by considerably reducing his impact as an ADC.
In fact, the probabilities of Senna's "Absolution" passive have been changed. Souls" now have a better chance of appearing on minion that Senna doesn't kill (5% more chance), while canon minions killed by Senna now only offer a very small chance of delivering a "Soul" (1.67% compared to 100% before the patch). In addition to an adjustment that was supposed to complicate his carry role, minion eliminations via the use of a support item now count as a standard elimination (1.67% chance of retrieving a "Soul" versus 25% before the patch).
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In practice, the 10.3 patch has delayed Senna along her entire scaling curve, unless she's played as a support. From this state of affairs, a new trend emerges: the "Fasting Senna", which invites the player to focus only on the recovery of "Souls", to the detriment of the golds offered by minions.
One of the best botlanes of the moment
Popularized by Sangyoon in Challengers Korea, then up to LCK passing by Cloud9 in LCS, the "Fasting Senna" requires to start with a support item that will generate golds, and to accompany a support champion that will take care of minions. Senna will always be paired with a champion who will have much higher revenues than the opposite support, while she will keep up with the opponent's ADC using her passive.
Today Senna's win rate is higher than it was before Patch 10.3. Before that, the starting object with the highest win rate on Senna was Doran's Blade at 53%. But with the changes to the champion, the Spectral Sickle becomes the most reliable starter with a 57.5% win rate.
To complete the botlane, the players set their sights on Tahm Kench. With a lot of resources, the champion quickly becomes difficult to defeat, and the chances of losing the botlane become very slim. Some variations exist with Taric, but the "River King" is favored for his ability to preserve the Senna in case of heavy exchanges.
The statistics are very complacent towards this new formula. Under Patch 10.5, the Tahm Kench soloQ win rate reaches new heights with 55.8% of wins, a 10% increase before the appearance of the "Fasting Senna". In all, Tahm Kench is paired with Senna in almost 50% of the games.
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On the pro side, Innaxe, the substitute for FORG1VEN at Schalke 04 in the LEC, points out the faults in the balance inflicted on Senna."I don’t know how they are going to fix her. Developers are trying to make Senna a support, but unless they work on her support item issue, where she gets so much gold from it, I don’t think they will be balancing it. " said the ADC for Inven Global.
As of yet, no updates for Senna, Tahm Kench, or any support item have been put on the table with the latest patch note.
Sources: Reddit, League of Graphs
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