When analyzing the current meta, one must take into account the most variables possible.

 

We’ve all seen the proliferation of GP10’s in our current meta. These items are critical in a support champions for reasons we already know and I won’t mention. But I wondered about these items being utilized in other lanes and champions, and wondered if this is really the best way to build champions in both our current meta and the average game length in LOL.

 

In professional matches the average game length runs about 40-55 mins, and Riot states that the average match in the ENTIRETY of LOL ranges at about 30-40 mins. While these numbers are great for talking generalities, they are terrible when trying to figure out exact data. I spent a whole week analyzing different elo play times, and came up with some interesting numbers.

Lower elo play (<1200): average game length (43 games observed) 23mins

Mid elo (>1200-<1800): average game length (31 games observed) 26mins

Upper mid elo (>1800-<2400): average game length (39 games observed) 35mins

I will include a nifty table about the cost effectiveness of GP10 items, and their time to payoff.

 

So, taking this into consideration and the average length times that were observed in ranked matches, it stands to reason that for Top lane and Mid lane, GP10’s are NOT worth it for the average game lengths observed.

GP10 items build into some great items (Shurelyia’s, Randuin’s, DG). But maybe, starting to build a mid game item early would benefit both Top lane and Mid lane better. Rushing mid game items or even building toward those late game items would allow players to have a HUGE advantage over the team who goes for the “lategame” build and goes for GP10’s.

Not to say that these items are bad, don’t get me wrong. But it stands to reason that in lower levels of elo people tend to do 1 thing constantly:

Play very aggressively

Now I should ask of couple of things

1)      Is your team built around a late game?

2)      Is the champion you chose better in the late game?

3)      Are you incompetent in acquiring CS?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then maybe you should consider the GP10 build, but then again maybe your elo isn’t in the lower tier if you’re aware of all these prior conditions.

In summary:

Higher elo games go on for longer periods of time, so they benefit from GP10 items a lot more than lower elo games, due to the brevity (aggressiveness) of them. Build for early –mid games in lower elo, and stomp those players that build for “late game”.