When Aurelion Sol first hit the Rift in League of Legends, nobody really thought of much him. His kit was boring, had very little counterplay and he had to nuke people with his ultimate in order to do any real damage. After some major buffs over the last few patches, the dragon made of stars has emerged as one of the best mid laners in the game.
For the first three days of the League of Legends World Championship, Aurelion Sol was disabled due to a bug where players couldn’t see all of his spinning comets. In his absence, control mages like Orianna and Malzahar started to come out of the woodwork. On day four the bug was fixed, so AS was able to play again. He was picked in two games and absolutely dominated both of them.
Huhi Is The Dragon God
Counter Logic Gaming struggled to really get a foothold in this World Championship. They lost to a Wildcard team, Albus Nox, looking unlike the team that dominated the world at MSI 2016. On day four of the World Championship, CLG squared off against ROX Tigers, the Korean super team many believed could win the whole tournament. In a shocking game, CLG managed to beat ROX with the help of Huhi and a little blue dragon.
Aurelion Sol is really strong in this meta because he’s great at roaming and wave clearing. At level one, Huhi completely cleared out his wave before his opponent, Kuro on Malzahar, managed to kill two minions. He then floated on down to the bottom lane and secured first blood, which started his snowball. Huhi kept roaming, clearing his wave in the mid lane and then heading bot or top. Before the 20-minute mark, AS had a fully stacked Dark Seal.
CLG managed to beat the best Korean team in the world by focusing on AS and his strengths. They didn’t wait for a fight; they were always engaging. Huhi would float into a lane, stunning an enemy carry with his supernova and then following it up with his ultimate. At around 30 minutes, Pray on Ezreal tries to duel Huhi, only to die within seconds to his immense power.
Huhi ended that game with 11 kills and zero deaths. At the end of game interview, Sjokz asked Huhi if he was going to be sad that he’s never going to get play Aurelion Sol again, because he’s always going to be banned. It was a joke, but it was also pretty serious. After day four, there isn’t a team left in the World Championship that’s going to leave Aurelion Sol open for CLG.
Maple Shows Faker Who The Real Mid Lane King Is
Not to be outdone, Flash Wolves’ mid laner Maple also put on an amazing Aurelion Sol performance. He didn’t cheese nearly as much as Huhi did, but was still just as deadly. Maple managed to get two early game kills on Faker on Cassiopeia, who is still considered the best League of Legends player in the world.
Time and time again, Faker kept getting caught by Karsa on Lee Sin who then kicked Faker’s snake lady straight into a cosmo of death. After a few ganks, Faker caught on and managed to avoid dying, but by that point AS had taken off. In teamfights, the damage Maple put out was disgusting, shredding backlines with well timed comet rotations.
SK Telecom won the World Championship last year, and there’s a chance they might not even make it out of the Group Stages. If that dosen’t show you how powerful Aurelion Sol can be, I don’t know what will.
Aurelion Sol And You
Huhi and Maple are two of the best mid laners in the world. Their teams know how to collapse, get objectives and fight like a coordinated front. Choosing Aurelion Sol in one of your solo queue games and expecting to “stomp face” probably won’t happen. AS is good in competitive play, but isn’t broken enough to get you out of Gold.
If you do way to play him, you have to know how to roam. An Aurelion Sol who just sits in lane and farms misses out on one of his biggest strengths. Like Taliyah, you want to push up your lane and leave it as soon as possible to help bottom or top. A good AS knows when it’s time to fly top lane and dive a tower with a giant stunning star. A bad AS will dive a tower without backup, lose waves of minions in his lane and then blame his jungler for not ganking.
Aurelion Sol is still a new champion that pros and regulars alike are still trying to figure out. The only thing I can say is that the blue dragon made of sky will be seeing a lot of play in the near future.
