I think Azir is the champion whose playrate is the most affected by pro play, the same thing happened last year in Worlds 2022 where his pickrate kept rising as Worlds was being played, this worlds is no different as Azir’s presence was gradually increasing until it exploded after the JDG vs T1 series, this ultimately caused a big WR drop to Azir as hes kinda a hard champ
Heres Azir’s playrate by Region:
Worldwide: [Yellow line is all ranks combined]
Azir’s game count went to the moon
Korea
Vietnam
EUW:
NA
-so who started picking up Azir?
Emerald players no matter their regions are all picking up Azir and playing him en masse followed by Diamond, Plat, Gold, Silver players
-Will Azir keep this staggering amount of playrate? most likely no, within a day or two, Azir’s pickrate should fall down a bit after this crazy spike. The Hype won’t be able to sustain the lp losses
-To make a comparison, Azir’s game count in the day of JDG vs T1 series was similar to busted K’Sante’s game count right after his buffs [before he got hotfix nerfed]:
Azir [12 November]: 55k games vs KSante [25 October] : 59k games , KSante got hotfixed on 26 October
-One last fun fact: While HoB Azir hasn’t won much in pro play [Faker alone has the only HoB Azir win in Worlds], HoB Azir is winning much more than Conqueror or Lethal Tempo Azir in SoloQ
source: https://lolalytics.com/lol/azir
Imagine getting T1 Azir, his play rate is going off the roof