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Ivern, power flower or tree stump? We ask the pros
We take a look at the Green Father’s data and ask top LCS stars their opinion about the champion.
How strong is Ivern right now?
© Riot Games
Some champions entirely change the way League of Legends is normally played; Evelynn for example immediately upset the way defensive warding works since she remains undetected by normal wards. Like Bard, though, Ivern belongs to the group of characters that take a while to figure out. Because he is so unusual, it's difficult to compare him to other junglers. Yet with his unique kit, jungle clear and appearance, with some patience he can truly stand out. His role in the team is to support the other laners, he isn't a carry; he achieves this by creating bushes, shielding allies and snaring enemy champions while giving his team mates the opportunity to get into auto-attack range.
If you are not yet familiar with Ivern’s abilities and traits you can check out Ivern’s Champion Spotlight – his kit brings crowd control and when left unchecked, Ivern can deal some nasty damage. Because of his passive Ivern can clean his whole half of the jungle in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. At level one he can pull off some great red or blue invades which are both relatively safe and easy to execute.
Ivern is doing great on the ladder right now: he has a 53 percent winrate. But is he competitively viable? Is his kit too weird? Ivern saw competitive play for the first time during IEM Challenger – he was locked in by Vega Squadron, and proceeded to win the game (You can watch the highlights below). So what do the pros think after his debut? We caught up with a few LCS stars to get their thoughts.
Rami 'Inori' Charagh, the jungler for Phoenix1, thinks Ivern has a lot of strong points. “I enjoy playing him a lot because no other champion farms the jungle like him. He seems a little odd but I believe he can be very strong with the right amount of practice. Being able to have two of the same buffs is extremely strong and I can see that being very useful throughout the game,” he says.
Inori also thinks that the champion is competitively viable. “I think he needs to be very OP to work in competitive because of how unique his kit is. If Ivern is too weak then other junglers will just run him over but if he's too powerful than he'll just end up being perma-banned. I'd build a carry comp around him because he seems like a enable instead of a solo carry who relies on other champions to do damage for the team. I think he fits that role already and I expect to see him in some competitive games in the future.”
We also asked Inori about what he thought are Ivern’s strengths and weaknesses are. “Being able to clear the jungle without needing to fight the camp seems like a very strong part of his kit which lets him have more free time ganking or apply pressure in lanes. His base stats and ability power ratios look strong so I can see him being a monster late game with those and the random brushes he can make anywhere. Weakness would be his early clear could get ruined by heavy invade junglers like Lee'Sin or Shyvana, who can clear his camps while he has to wait to free them.”
Solo queue, of course, is an entirely different story; players are mostly limited to pings with their communication, so can a supportive jungler like Ivern really make his mark? We asked the ex-Roccat jungler, Jonas 'Memento' Elmarghichi, currently playing for NERV. He says: “When he first came out I spammed Ivern, but I came to realise he was dealing hardly any damage. I guess it was too early to tell what potential the champion had. I played around 15 games of Ivern when he came out and lost like 12. He relied way too much on his teammates and I think that’s terrible for a jungler in solo.”
“In solo you have to kind of carry the game and not rely on anyone, in my opinion. It makes it even worse that Ivern is such a unique champion that most people don’t know what he can and can’t do, so it’s hard to set up plays with him. I didn’t really know what to build with him as well – I couldn’t tell if he was supposed to build ability power items or as a tank. It was this dilemma where if you’d go tank you would deal no damage but if you went build ability power you'd deal some damage (still really low) and get one shot, any champion with gap closer would just obliterate him.”
Memento also commented on Ivern’s ability to clear the jungle “You'd use your passive on your camps then run around for 45 seconds waiting to get the experience. There was this one thing I did with him which was nice, I would set up two camps with my passive then run to the enemy jungle and take one of their buffs and then do a level two gank which was cool, but after that you'd just be really slow in the jungle and have no pressure at all.”
The NERV Jungler admits that he might have needed more time with Ivern to reach the maximal potential of the Champion. Memento said that The Green Father’s “kit is really weird” and that “he feels really clumsy when playing him, auto-attacks are really slow and deal almost no damage.”
Memento also commented on the experience he has when playing Ivern: “If you would miss your Q which is your snare, everything would pretty much be over, even if the enemy has 200 health points you wouldn’t be able to kill him since you can’t get close.”
We end Memento’s interview on a positive note as he said: “It seems now that he has gotten some buffs and players are saying he might be strong. I'll give him another shot and see how it goes. I wouldn’t really change Ivern in any way, he has a unique kit and needs to be played in a certain way, what that way is, I don’t know yet, but when players do figure out how to play Ivern and how to play around him, I believe he can be good.”
Ivern can be a power flower but it all depends on the environment. Memento thinks it’s hard to play him in solo queue and Inori thinks he can do great in the competitive scene. As time progresses players will feel more accustomed to his playing style and team compositions will be built around him.
We're excited to see the champion and the players perform with him on stage next season: professional players will develop unique and creative strategies with champions, things that only players that truly master a champion can do.
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