As you know, the meta of League of Legends changes with patches that come periodically. In season 12, the top lane was in a strictly restrictive position. In the early stages of the game, teleporting was a common practice for both casual and professional players. However, this means that the top lane players are almost motionless until the teleports come back. Riot Games must have thought that this situation should change, as it surprised everyone by going through a great meta change.
League of Legends continues to grow every year. In this way, the structure of the game changes every year. In today’s article, we will examine the new Janna meta. Let’s take a look at our content now without wasting much time.
The spring season of the 2022 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) has just begun. In the second game of the season, FlyQuest’s top laner Kumo chose Smite to play in the top lane. And that oddly enough, it worked, helping them win the match.
If you like to bet on Esports, we would like to give you a little tip here. Next time you make a LOL bet, consider teams with amazing Janna players to use this new tactic. Because when we look at the statistics, the Janna Smite meta is not losing and seems very profitable at the moment.
How Does Janna-Smite Top Lane Work?
In the new pre-season, Riot Games made two big changes to the League of Legends meta that could affect how players play. The first was that the developers changed the teleport. Thus, players can only use their teleports to tp only Turrets in the first 14 minutes of the game. After the game progresses and past 14 minutes, players can dig the “Unleashed Teleport” feature that allows them to teleport towards minions, but this is not very useful. This situation, of course, completely restricts the top lane and reduces the influence of the top laner players in the game.
In the old meta, good use of teleportation and summoner spells gave a chance to get ahead in the early game. Especially with the top lane’s teleport, sudden roams to the bottom lane could change the course of the match in an instant. With the new meta, this is completely over.
With such a chance removed from the game, top laners started to think about new strategies and actions. As a result, the Smite top meta kicked in.
Top lane players could now be anywhere instead of standing in their own lane. The biggest effect seems to be stealing the opponent’s forest farm and causing chaos in the match by making sudden raids.
Especially in the Twitch clip below, Lourlo’s move by completely sacrificing his position shows the new meta. While still at level 1, he roams Akali in the mid lane and then flashes, taking Graves’s red buff and flash. And he does it all with Janna, a support champion.
We need to understand that the Janna-Smite top meta actually feeds off, creating chaos. On a more micro-scale, the Smite top meta overlaps a lot with Riot Games’ new mechanic called “objective bounties.”
How Does the Janna-Smite Meta Reflect in Esports Matches?
Janna Smite top has become the choice of top laners with League of Legends Patch 12.2. Especially in the matches played at high elo, this meta seems to have achieved a win rate of 58.06. As we said at the beginning of our article, FlyQuest team player Kumo made this choice in the LCS Spring season match against CLG.
This way, the Janna Smite Top meta would have been applied once in a major Esport match. The match’s pace was so confusing that CLG had the upper hand and reached the opponent’s Nexus towers within 30 minutes. The reason for this was actually the Janna Smite Top meta. Because Graves, the opponent’s top lane, was alone, he could easily reach wherever he wanted and take the towers.
FlyQuest’s top laner Janna fed her teammates due to her raid on the bottom lane with Jungle in the early game and allowed them to establish an advantage quickly. In short, Janna was all over the map throughout the match, constantly messing up and interfering with everything. As a result, Janna had just reached level 12 while the rival top laner was level 16. And they were able to win because FlyQuest’s other players had grown incredibly strong.
Janna Top pays off for @FlyQuest as they defeat CLG in just under fifty minutes! #LCS #FLYWIN pic.twitter.com/OLtsOA7yqi
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) February 5, 2022
The Other Janna-Smite Case
Janna-Smite, played by Kumo, was actually the first top laner pick in Esport matches. Dreedy, the top laner of the Barcelona Esport team, played with Smite. Although he left his team behind very heavily in the match he played, thanks to the team’s harmony and Janna’s return, they managed to win the match in the 32nd minute. So far, no one has been able to beat Janna in Esports matches and high elo. We’ll probably see more of the Janna-Smite Top meta in the League of Legends Esports arena in the coming days.
How is Smite Janna Played in Challengers Elo?
If you remember, we talked about a mechanic called “objective bounties” at the beginning of our article. This is Riot Games’ system designed for teams that lost in the middle and late game to make a comeback. This reward system is usually determined according to the goals that both teams can achieve. However, turrets, dragons, Baron Nashor, or the Rift Herald may be the target of these rewards. This is exactly where the Janna-Smite Top meta works. Players in high elo are almost absent in the top lane, helping to farm any mob on the map. In this way, teammates get stronger quickly and win the match.
Another factor for higher elo players to play better games is undoubtedly the eDPI settings. If you want to learn mouse speed and eDPI settings, you may want to take a look at the article from Thunderpick’s blog. Because as you know, reflex=win in MOBA games. Instant reactions to the opponent’s spells in the games and the use of abilities can sometimes change the match’s fate. For this reason, high elo players, namely Challengers, usually use customized eDPI settings.
