NattyNatt spent three months grinding Korean solo queue and the numbers tell the story. While the North American Rengar specialist climbed to rank 1 on the Korean Challenger ladder, Rengar’s ban rate in that bracket hit 42.26 percent according to data from Lolalytics. After he left Korea, the ban rate dropped to 10.76 percent.
The swing reveals how much players were specifically targeting NattyNatt. Korean Challenger has a small player pool where the same names appear repeatedly in lobbies, so when one player only queues with a single champion, everyone learns to ban it.
NattyNatt was notorious for maining Rengar during his Korean run. Ordinarily, the champion isn’t dominant in high-level play and shows mediocre win rates globally. In the hands of a true specialist, though, Rengar becomes a different beast.
The assassin offers high burst damage from stealth and strong snowball potential. At peak performance, a great Rengar player can control vision and pick fights before enemies react, making him frustrating to face but difficult to execute for most players.
If you can’t beat it, ban it
Target banning is standard practice in Challenger, as the gap between a one-trick’s main champion and their backup options is usually massive. Forcing them off their signature pick often wins games before the match starts.
In one game near the end of his ladder climb, the enemy team picked Rengar away from NattyNatt, sent it top lane, and the player allegedly ran it down intentionally. This didn’t have the intended effect, as NattyNatt still secured rank 1.
The ban rate statistics come from a small sample size. Korean Challenger only recorded 33 Rengar games during patch 15.20. Subsequent patches showed win rates bouncing between 39 and 63 percent, confirming the limited data pool.
But even accounting for statistical noise, a 30-point ban rate drop tied directly to one player’s departure is striking. It demonstrates how individual specialists can distort regional meta statistics when the competitive ecosystem is small enough.
When one player becomes the boogeyman
Korean solo queue is widely considered the strongest League of Legends ladder in the world. Many pros and high-level players travel there to test themselves, and the server’s reputation makes reaching rank 1 a significant achievement for any Western player.
Similar cases have appeared before, such as when a Kayle specialist on the EUNE server driving that champion’s ban rate above 40 percent in high ranks. When Froggen played in Korea years ago, teams banned Anivia specifically to avoid his signature pick despite the champion not being meta.
