After a hectic Game 1, Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses continued to give fans more to cheer about. After EG locked in Yasuo, TL made an even spicier decision. Not only did they EG back their Jinx/Tahm Kench combo, Team Liquid picked the combination of Ashe and Zyra in the bot lane for the first time in years.
In fact, this is Zyra’s second pick in any region so far in 2022. G2 Esports’ Raphaël “Targamas” Crabbéin was the last to pick the champion during Week 2 of the League of Legends European Championship against Team Vitality. That game saw Zyra paired with Caitlyn, and it did not end well for G2. And despite looking like Team Liquid might change that narrative, Zyra ultimately fell short for them as well.
History of Zyra Support
Zyra has not been a meta pick in the support position in five years. In Season 11, players only picked Zyra four times. During season 10, players picked her a bit more, but still only 22 times out of many opportunities. When looking at the big picture of the last five seasons combined, Zyra only showed up on Summoner’s Rift a total of 60 times. As a point of comparison, in just the 2022 LCS spring split alone, players picked Jinx 56 times.
Zyra is locked in for @TLCoreJJ in the bot lane! #LCS pic.twitter.com/A8Gq5mwaan
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) April 23, 2022
Historically, the specific combination of Ashe and Zyra produced dominant results. Back in 2013, Cloud9 were famous for using the combination in their first year as an organization. Daerek “LemonNation” Hart had an absurd 15-0 record on the champion domestically in NA during Season 3. In 11 of those 15 games, Ashe accompanied Zyra.
Since then, Zyra showed up as a viable support, especially in Season 7. According to gol.gg, players picked Zyra 550 times across all levels of pro play. And coincidentally, Team Liquid’s Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in was the best Zyra player in Season 7, back when he won the 2017 League of Legends World Championship with Samsung Galaxy. He managed a 75% win rate across 24 picks.
Still, CoreJJ couldn’t reproduce the same results, as Evil Geniuses eked out the win. Now, Team Liquid have their back against the wall in the LCS spring playoff loser’s bracket final.
