It took some time, and a significant cost increase on Trinity Force, before Draven finally saw his original debut in the competitive scene. Once he arrived, though, it was difficult to get through a day of games without seeing him. The Glorious Executioner was a favorite in the competitive scene throughout much of season 3 for his ability to absolutely dominate other ADCs in the laning phase. The incredible 45% AD scaling on Spinning Axes at level 1 combined with his stacking dot passive made Draven level 2 all-in tactics a common theme, and it often made up for his lack luster late game.
The popularity of Draven among teams like DragonBorns in EU and Dignitas in NA led to an impressive combined 32 bans and 23 picks across both regions in the inaugural spring split of the LCS, nearly 25% of all games. Though he lost popularity in EU after DragonBorns was relegated, Draven continued to have intense popularity in NA among teams like TSM and Cloud 9 causing his pick/ban rate to increase to 37% of all games played in the NA LCS summer split. Draven played a clear part in these and more teams successes in the LCS, so much so that Riot began to consider him a problem champion. Thus came July, patch 3.09, Draven's new passive, and a sudden drop in his popularity in the competitive scene.
Patch 3.09 completely stripped Draven's old damage over time passive, in it's place came the League of Draven. The new passive gave Draven stacks of adoration for catching an axe or last hitting a minion, and those stacks were cashed in for bonus gold on champion kill. The new passive reduced Draven's early kill power, taking away the actually rather significant stacking damage over time from Draven's attacks. To make things worse League of Draven was not very efficient, because it only consumed half the adoration stacks on a kill early kills almost felt punished for the very low return on the passive. Patch 3.11 would improve the passive to it's current point, using all the adoration stacks as well as giving a 50g baseline for the passive, but by then the damage was done. A few picks still occasionally landed on Draven but for the most part the competitive scene had moved on, Cloud 9 was running their Ashe/Zyra duo lane and the Trinity Force users had risen to the top yet again for World Championships.
So after his fall from grace what is it that makes me believe Draven is due for a comeback? A combination of factors that have come together in the last few patches.
The first is the passive fix. Now that it consumes all stacks of adoration early kills no longer feel punished and the longer Draven is able to farm the more incredible a lead he can gain from a single kill. The effectiveness of the new passive is demonstrated quite well in this weekend's Cloud 9 vs Curse game where Sneaky is allowed to safely farm for quite some time on Draven eventually resulting in a 1272 gold bonus, roughly equivalent of 4 individual kills, from League of Draven on his first kill. That number is certainly a bit of an outlier but a similar total can reasonably be expected to be accrued over the course of a game thanks to the passive consuming all stacks of adoration.
The second major factor is the tower changes in patch 4.1. The old standard 2v2 bot matchups are more common and the bot tower is easier to drop now. That plays right to Draven's strengths as an unmatched lane bully. Now if Draven can get a quality all in at level 2 and either kill his opponent or force them out of lane he can make quick work of the enemy turret.
Finally the lineup of current favorite ADCs Jinx, Sivir, and Lucian, all have a very tough time dealing with Draven in lane. Jinx lacks mobility and her range doesn't out pace Draven's for several levels making her an easy victim. You can't spell shield Spinning Axes and that combined with higher damage output of Draven, plus Sivir's lack of mobility, spells doom for Sivir in lane. Lucian is the best equipped of the 3 to fight Draven, but Lucian's mana pool is quickly depleted and using Lucian's double shot passive requires getting in range of Draven's axes. All 3 of the currently most popular AD Carries have a much harder time dealing with Draven than champions with high mobility and ranged poke like Ezreal and Caitlyn, or strong disengage like Vayne.
With so many things once again favoring Draven, the surprise is not that Cloud 9 and Dignitas both brought him back in their matches this weekend, but rather that it took this long for Draven to make his return showing in the LCS.
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