After 4 days of competition in the 2023 World Championship Play-in Round, the gameplay of the tournament has gradually been determined. Among them, Xayah and Kai’Sa are emerging as the strongest options in the Gunner position with extremely outstanding pick/ban rates at Worlds 2023. Specifically, Xayah and Kai’Sa own 100% respectively. and 83% appearance rate at Worlds 2023.
Kai’Sa and Xayah are the ADCs with extremely high pick/ban rates at Worlds 2023.
In the case of Kai’Sa, despite being chosen a lot, this character’s win rate only stops at 42%, a relatively low number. The audience even discovered that Kai’Sa with her playstyle on Wind God Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade has not yet had any victories. After 6 matches, Kai’Sa with this style of play received 6 defeats.
Kai’Sa lost all 6 games when she upgraded to Wind God Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade
So what makes Kai’Sa with Phong Than Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade have alarming stats at Worlds 2023? Basically, the above two items combined with Nashor’s Fang will help Kai’Sa evolve all 3 skills at the 3-equipment threshold. This helps this character have good damage output and mobility when completing all 3 of these items.
However, the weakness of this build is that Kai’Sa will have very limited damage in the mid-game. The reason comes from the fact that Phong Than Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade do not have much interaction. Meanwhile, the matches at Worlds 2023 place a heavy emphasis on the Gunner’s 2-equipment threshold to conduct fights and dispute goals. As a result, Kai’Sa with Wind God Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade appears extremely weak in the mid-game.
Even in the recent match against GAM, R7’s Ceo also did extremely limited damage with this build for Kai’Sa.
Sadly, the first person to apply the above item build at Worlds 2023 is Slayder of GAM Esports. The weakness of this style of play contributed to GAM’s defeat against LOUD on the opening day of this tournament.
Slayder also had great difficulty using Kai’Sa Phong Thanh Sword and Guinsoo’s Rage Blade
To be fair, the Wind God Sword, Guinsoo’s Rage Blade, and Nashor’s Fang builds are not weak for Kai’Sa. However, with the nature of the matches at Worlds 2023, this style of play is very difficult to be effective. It’s very possible that ADC players at Worlds 2023 should ignore this build style for the rest of the tournament.
