Is Gnar As Powerful As Teams Think He Is?
The professional champion pool for top lane has widened considerably since last season. So long are the days of Orrn and Volibear dominating the top lane. Now, and during the back half of season 10, the top lane is slightly more versatile. The lane can be home to tanks, bruisers, ap champions and even ADCs.
Among those champions is also the most picked top lane champion across the world - Gnar. The champion has come to occupy the default tank pick across all major regions. The missing link champion has become a staple for blind and counter picking in the lane, despite some general community and analyst push back.
Why is Gnar so widely picked?
Gnar has been consistently picked since his introduction to the game in 2014. A ranged fighter and a team fighting tank all rolled into one is a powerful tool in the hands of most professional players.
The champion has always had decent diversity in runes and builds, changing based on whether the player wants to build into a tank or a fighter build and how scrappy they want to play the laning phase. Even with the new item changes, Gnar still has the same diversity of playstyles. The champion normally runs either Fleet Footwork or Grasp of the Undying as its primary runes and builds into Goredrinker, Stridebreaker, or Divine Sunderer for its Mythic item. From there, players choose whether to go all-in on tank stats for teamfights or damage, and armour shred for a more sidelane focused build.
Along with the champion’s versatility, it also has decent lane matchups against most of the core top lane champions. Gnar’s current lane statistics have the champion beating out most of the carry champions, like Aatrox, Camille, and Renekton, in lane and is only struggling against Jayce so far.
So to most professional teams, Gnar is a blanket top lane pick that can be countered into the melee carry matchups, and does decent against everything but Jayce, while also allowing for versatility in playstyle and build path. The champion can be blind picked, counter picked, and is usually not on the ban list for many teams.
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Jack of All Trades, Master of None
While Gnar is extremely versatile, the champion does not seem to have any definable strengths outside of matching melee carry champions in the laning phase and potentially their pressure on the sidelanes in the mid-game.
“His laning phase, teamfighting, and split-pushing overall is a bit weak, but because of the champion’s versatility, our team internally ranks him pretty high on the list. However, this champion isn’t that hard to play; there are limits to the champion’s functions.” Kim “Khan” Dong-ha, top laner for DGW KIA, said in an interview with Inven Global.
Click to enlargeGnar also thrives off the current scrappy and teamfight focused meta where he can use his transformation and his ultimate during the chaos of a fight or skirmish.
But, as Khan points out, the champion is not that hard to play and thus is not that hard to play against. Playing around the champion’s transformation mechanic is something that teams always figure out when Gnar is popular in the meta, and this season should not be any different.
The champion seems to be a placeholder for teams as they figure out what other champions could fill the role that they are using Gnar to fill because of his versatility. But, this could also mislead teams into using the champion improperly as Nick "LS" De Cesare pointed out.
Gnar’s Statistics so Far
Gnar is the most picked top laner by far with over 70 games played at this point in the season. He holds a barely over 50% win rate across all of those games and was just recently pulled out of a 0% win rate hole in the LCK.
The champion has appeared, either picked or banned, in almost half of the professional games played so far. But, it is more often picked than banned, only showing up on the banned list in 32 games so far. Gnar also averages a decent laning phase across the board, having positive numbers in gold and experience difference at 15 minutes into the game.
The players with the best win rate on the champion, and the players that teams should look to when finding the champion's strengths, are Kang "TheShy" Seung-lok on IG and the aforementioned Khan.
So is Gnar as powerful as teams think he is? Definitely not. The champion is versatile and may have a spot in the meta moving forward, but is not worthy of its current pick rate. Gnar may not be as unpickable as LS makes it seem, but should not be treated as a staple in the top lane in the future.
Images via Riot Games
