Olaf after rework enjoys great popularity. Players willingly choose him and win matches.
Rework of the already slightly forgotten Olaf allowed him to return to the meta in great style. Not so long ago, the middle-class jungler is now wreaking havoc not only in the jungle but also on the top lane.
Although Riot Games wanted to make the berserker feel at home again on Summoner’s Rift, he feels so good there that it is now hard to get him out of there. Immediately after the update was released, his popularity jumped by 9% and has now stabilized at around 8%.
Olaf dominates the meta
On Wednesday, May 11, a small rework of Olaf hit the official League of Legends servers. Almost all skills except “E” have been updated, including the passive. A champion picked often by professionals didn’t find many fans in the solo ranked queue. Therefore, the developers decided to redo him. Here’s how Riot Games describes the changes:
With this mid-scope update, we’re aiming to shift some of his power away from his clear speed and into tools that will help players feel stronger and in more control of Olaf’s survivability as he rides the edge of disaster at low health. These changes should not only help better define Olaf’s identity as a Berserker, but also allow him to take a new place as a viable top laner.
This led to a sudden jump in his popularity as well as the winrate. This is clearly visible on leagueofgraphs.com:
Currently, Olaf has a win rate of 53.28% in the top lane and 50.45% in the jungle. Previously, it was only 42% in TOP and 45% in the jungle. So the jump is huge, and it’s hardly surprising that players choose him so eagerly.
Arming his skill set with an endless ult, giving a shield to his “W”, and increasing the damage made him a tough to get rid of killing machine already at level 6. We will probably not see him in professional competitions. MSI is being played on update 12.8, and in a few days, patch 12.10 will come to LoL, changing the entire meta and balance. However, despite the heal and shield nerfs and stamina boost, he will probably still be very strong. So it’s worth keeping an eye on him, and when playing TOP with a character unable to deal with him, it is better to ban him first.