-Before worlds began, many people assumed Azir would remain on top of the mid lane meta due to LB shiv getting gutted. Azir has been a strong mid lane pick since the buffs after his ability reshape, he never really was THE best pick like in Worlds 2022 but it was more due to other mid lane champs being absurdly strong like Annie meta -> Neeko meta -> shiv LB/tristana meta

-Anyways the trend continues as Orianna is by far the better blind mid lane pick and she destroys the Azir match up

Azir vs Orianna, Azir won 2 games, Orianna won 9 games

-the Azir vs Orianna match up is also the most common match up for Azir in Masters+, Orianna also has him beat in soloQ

-The two Azir wins comes from Faker who is the only player that managed to win the Azir vs Orianna match up: T1 Faker vs BLG Yagao [Game 1] and Faker vs T1 LNG Scout [Game 3]. Worth noting that BLG immediately banned Azir in Game 2 and LNG had picked Azir in Game 1 and banned Azir in Game 2

https://preview.redd.it/4wye3lqx2mzb1.png?width=759&format=png&auto=webp&s=7916562988bc648c9c56dd267d9da2c8ee4b3850

-Also Azir has a peculiar fun fact regarding his runes

https://preview.redd.it/gr7yjxc33mzb1.png?width=1498&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d3d9b0534e44749ed50cbcc6fe19196d814ad1f

Hail of Blades [HoB] were picked in 33% of Azir games in Worlds and Azir lost each time it was picked.

Caps played 2 HoB Azir, lost 2 games

ShowMaker played 2 HoB Azir and 1 Conqueror Azir, only won the conqueror game

Bdd played 2 HoB Azir and 1 Conqueror Azir, only won the conqueror game

Xiaohou played 1 HoB Azir and 2 Conqueror Azir, only won the conqueror games

-Out of the 4 remaining mid laners in the semi finals, only JDG Knight didn’t play Azir at all on stage, in fact JDG Knight didnt play a single game of Azir in the entirety of 2023. Last time Knight played Azir was one year ago: Worlds 2022, he played 2 Azir games where his Azir lost in group stage vs RGE Larssen and DRX Zeka.