The 2024 League of Legends meta was certainly an interesting one, from lane swaps in professional play, to ADCs running rampant in the mid lane, there have certainly been some exciting periods throughout the 2024 season of League of Legends. Let's take a look at how the League of Legends meta evolved throughout the year.

Lane swaps returned for 2024

One of the many re-introductions for 2024 in LoL was the return of the lane swaps. In traditional lane swaps, this is where the team with the less favorable matchups would swap the lanes to ensure the ADC which should normally have a tough time, is able to farm up turret plates in order to get some much-needed gold. For top laners, this was their worst nightmare, as they were often secluded from farming any minions in the early game and were forced to just be the punching bag for the enemy team.

And while Riot did eventually put their foot down by the time Worlds 2024 came around, the damage had already been done during the competitive season with fans and players to a degree being unhappy with how frequent lane-swaps were. Across the competitive year, the best teams in the world had mastered the art of lane-swapping, and the teams that were near the bottom would struggle to compete as they were playing a completely different game from those at the top.

The introduction of Aurora

Aurora was one of the new champions introduced to League of Legends in Season 14, and it's safe to say they were another champion that at one point was completely broken and Riot struggled to keep them at a balanced state.

Around the time of Patch 14.15, Aurora got so bad that Riot needed to introduce a micro-patch just to ensure she was viable to play without ruining the experience for everyone. This has often been the case for Riot when a new champion hits the server. More often than not players found the new champions are 'too overpowered', forcing Riot to make adjustments not long after they are released to the public servers. This was felt the most if you were a melee champion trying to play into Aurora, the game was completely unplayable, which is why many players had a major issue with Aurora when they were first released to the LoL servers.

How does Aurora fair now as we are approaching Season 15? Let's take a look. In Patch 14.24, Aurora is in a solid place. According to Mobalytics, Aurora is ranked in the A tier for their mid-lane tier list. This means that she is a strong pick in the mid lane, but isn't the strongest option to choose from. As for the top lane, she's been completely gutted from the pool and is currently ranked D-tier. Her best state is in the mid-lane where players will still get a lot of joy out of picking her.

ADCs had a dominant year in the mid lane

2024 was a weird year for League of Legends in the sense ADCs were heavily featured in the mid lane for a good portion of the 2024 season. Corki vs Azir was replaced with Corki vs Tristana, as this gave players a great strategy to shove in the wave and be able to roam to help secure either the Rift Herald or the Dragon. Even solo queue, Corki and Tristana were some of the primary picks throughout the 2024 season.

In North America's primary League the LCS, Tristana at one point had a 93% pick and ban presence, which was absurd for a champion that should traditionally be in the bottom lane. Tristana was able to get early advantages in lane and hard push the early turret plates for gold, and with lane swaps being a major player in the pro scene, ADCs didn't really get targeted in the early game like they would in a standard pro match. On top of that, they were extremely efficient after one item, so it made sense to force them into the mid lane where they would be a higher level than the bottom laners.

By the time Worlds 2024 came around, Riot had gotten rid of ADCs in the mid lane completely, with champions like Yone, Ahri, and Sylas all the three most picked champions in the Worlds 2024 main event. With Riot doubling down on ensuring lane swaps are a thing of the past, we should expect the lanes to return to a 'standard' state. Champions like Jhin, Ashe, and Varus always benefit from item changes, so expect those champions to remain prominent going into 2025.