How LoL Season 2 is shifting the meta in a new direction

League of Legends Season 2 has finally hit the live servers with the release of Patch 25.09. Aside from the new theme around Spirit Blossom, the update came with a series of changes already redefining how the game is played, from solo queue to the highest levels of professional competition. 

This article breaks down what’s new in Season 2, how the pro meta has shifted, and the implications for competitive play and viewer experience. Whether you’re grinding ranked or following your favourite teams across the top regional leagues, these changes will affect how the game unfolds in the coming months.

Let’s dive deeper into our meta analysis and examine how the champions’ priority has transformed with the new patch. 

The most prominent change in LoL Season 2 is the overhaul of early-game pacing, specifically centred around objective control. The Void Grubs now spawn at eight minutes instead of six and will only appear once per game. 

Additionally, the mid-late game boss Atakhan received a rework, removing the Tenacious form and only leaving the Ruinous one, which has been renamed to Thornbound. Season 2 brings the Spirit Blossom event back into the spotlight, featuring the new Spirit Blossom visuals on Summoner’s Rift. 

Even though I agree that the new Atakhan will have more impact on how teams should coordinate in the mid-late game transition, the big game changer for professional meta is actually the Void Grub spawn timer. 

The first patch of League of Legends Season 2 saw Void Grubs’ spawn timer pushed back from six to eight minutes, and will only spawn once in every game, compared to the two times pre-update. This adjustment has heavy implications in how the early game should be played, for two different reasons: jungle ganking and first objective priority. 

In Season 1, teams often found themselves the first neutral objective on the map as the first Dragon and Void Grubs would spawn at a similar time. This made it extremely hard for teams to capture both, as it would require all lanes to have a serious advantage in the laning phase, whether it was lane priority or skirmishing potential to contest. 

What essentially happened was that the team with better priority would choose which objective to take, leading the other team to trade the remaining objective. This also slowed down the overall early-game proactivity since neutral monsters required a pre-planned setup that would often force support and mid laner to play cautiously to avoid volatile situations. 

With the Void Grub spawn timer delayed now, teams will have a bigger time window to make plays and ganks on the map. The three-minute gap between Void Grubs and the Dragon timer will give players the option to choose how they want to execute their game plan. 

The main consequence of this will be in the champion choices, especially in the jungle and support positions. To play in a more proactive manner, you will need to have strong engaging options with playmaking potential, thus marking a return of tank supports and skirmish-heavy junglers.

We have already started seeing this trend in professional play, with champions like Vi, Xin Zhao, Pantheon, and Sejuani being preferred choices. In the support role, champions like Alistar, Rell, Rakan, and Leona have also re-emerged. 

Regardless of whether these champions get nerfed over the next few months, the class type of picks should be more or less the same. We should witness more variance in professional play compared to ranked players, given that teams will have to go through Fearless Draft, but the first matches of each series are likely still going to prioritise this kind of core champion.

The teams that will have more success will be the ones able to be creative with their early game and can push their leads. The coordination between the jungler and support will be vital in finding opportunities on the map, and given that teams are expected to play around your core jungle-support duo, the other roles will have to adapt their champion pool to respect the overall theme of the team composition.

You still want to have at least two carry options split between top, mid, and ADC, and this will likely depend on what type of player and which characteristics they have in every single role. For example, if you know you have a mid-tier top laner who cannot find leads to snowball, you probably want to prioritise your mid and bottom lanes. 

The positive aspect of the current meta is the presence of several carry options for each role. In the top lane, you have champions like Rumble, Ambessa, Gwen, and Jayce as viable picks, and they are expected to be traded back and forth depending on pick order. 

For the mid lane, control mages with strong scaling and high damage output are prioritised: Viktor, Azir, Ryze, and Orianna have been seeing more play in the new patch. 

The most played mid lane champion in tier-one competitions, however, is Taliyah, according to data site Games of Legends. This is mainly due to her anti-engage kit, which is often chosen as the top meta counter. Ahri and Yone are exceptions, but they are being played given their playmaking potential in the teamfights.

In the bottom lane, the ADC choice is dependent on the support choice and what kind of duo you will face. Varus and Jhin are chosen for their strong laning phase and ability to start fights, while Miss Fortune is mainly used for teamfighting purposes. Kai’Sa is among the top-picked champions, although her win rate is relatively low, currently below the 40% mark. If you have a roaming support, then Ezreal is a highly prioritised pick given his ability to self-manage the laning phase and scale later into the game. 

League of Legends Season 2 introduced substantial shifts to the game’s tempo and competitive strategy, especially for professional play. With Void Grubs spawning later, teams will be able to focus on finding creative gank paths and increasing the overall agency around lanes. 

As a result, champions that excel in early aggression and skirmishes will be prioritised, especially in jungle and support, and will reward teams who can take the initiative and be proactive.