It’s very subjective of someone to say a particular champion is bad, even if one starts losing all their games with it. So i'm just going to say this guy is cursed instead! In the wake of a play-off chalked full of upsets, one particular pattern kept popping up in this year’s League of Legends LCS match-ups -- all the teams that played Lee Sin on their roster lost… badly.

Prior to the Spring Play-offs, I spent some time watching the OGN match which involved Korean pro teams Najin Sword going against MVP Ozone. Needless to say, the team with Lee Sin lost. Can’t really say it was his fault that time around but it still happened. Come the first round quarter-final of the NA LCS play-offs, Dignitas’ playmaker, Crumbz, pulled out the blind monk in game one against Good Game University. My immediate reaction was “Nooooooo Whhhyyy.” But that’s just me, particularly because I haven’t seen him play the fella’ in a while. Despite my confidence in veteran play, Dignitas lost that game and ended up falling to GGU in the whole series 2 to 1.

But wait, there’s more. Counter Logic Gaming’s play-maker, Chauster, pulled out the cursed monk(I get to call him that now, right?) for their game 1 against Vulcan. Surprise surprise, utter annihilation befell the all-star ADC, Doublelift, and his team where Vulcan confidently took game 1. I know one champion can’t possibly be at fault here, but the chat doesn’t lie when they say “the monk threw.”

Come back time for CLG and I knew this already when Vulcan decided to “steal away” Lee Sin from CLG -- “Watch how you play Lee Sin, Chauster”, ‘Watch how jungle is done”-- the twitch.tv's chat box users kept typing. Want to know the first words that came out of my mouth? Vulcan is GOING TO get destroyed and their dead bodies will be fed to bears. Score boards don’t lie, a 16 to 4 run by CLG led to the absolute devastation of Vulcan’s base in 31 minutes time and the only thing that surprised me? The game lasting that long. This time, poor old Lee can be somewhat to blame here, I mean, he was basically a dead weight, oh, and kicking the enemy mage to safety doesn’t help either.

Bad Lee Sins? Pros having bad games? I'd bet more money on the latter, I mean, the poor monk doesn’t always lose his games, in fact, when he does good he sets the foundation for his team’s absolute domination of the opposition. This is common in casual, non-pro matches. Lee Sin is straight-up amazing in the hands of someone with more mechanical skill than the others but why has he failed recently, relatively speaking in high-level play?

Wards. Duh. Lee Sin thrives on being able to snowball the game, but pros are very aware of such so they lace the map with vision and a lot of it so ganks are completely negated. On top of that, Lee Sin just naturally falls off after a certain point, since his damage is fixed, it’s bursty, and its primary use is utility. Personally, I love playing a support-style Lee, and just kick threats out of my carries’ face because there’s no real damage output in the late game situation. I guess this just means good Lees are defined by how well they execute the gank and use their utility before they drop off.

This really is just me complaining. I love Lee Sin, but I’d love to see one win a pro game, heh. What do you guys think of Lee Sin’s current state? I think he’s fine, but at the same time, not fine. He is true to the title of “high risk, high reward” champions because getting everyone fed early is game breaking, but doesn’t always happen. He's still really good in solo queue but for now, I think he's cursed in pro-play... CURSED I TELL YOU!