User blog comment:Megames1/Against the Meta- Xerath, and More!!/@comment-5194571-20121021005205

I play Xerath (rarely) on PBE. I like the idea of "murder from afar" as I like to call it, but you don't really get the chance to do that very often. The problem is that champions with gapclosers and escapes are the most favored picks at the moment. Corki/Ez/Graves all have escapes, most of the new champions out have gapclosers (Rengar, Kha, Xin rework, Eve rework, Elise) and those things screw Xerath over. Get lucky and find yourself in a game against a team with very few of those things and Xerath can and will wreck them, hard. It's just finding one of those games.

I have the same problem with one of my favourite champions; Trundle. He's so good, an epic jungler buy so rarely played. The problem with Trundle is that if he's jungling, he needs to land a good pillar or his ganks won't work because he needs to be in melee range to do anything. But now, champions with escapes are the ones people take. I played a game as jungle Trundle against a team of Fizz, Morg, Corki, Lulu and Shaco. I couldn't gank at all. Fizz would just E away, Morg would just shield and walk over pillar, Corki would simply fly over pillar and Shaco would blink over it. My best bet was Lulu, though she was still unlikely to kill. And there's the fact that 99% of games everyone on both teams has Flash, allowing them to escape pillar yet again. Because of that, I don't jungle Trundle any more. I take Heca, Maokai and Jax instead. I play Trundle top if I really feel like playing him. Still kinda sad though.

As for Renekton, I kinda see what you mean. However, I think he has indirectly been fixed. For those of you who play on PBE, you will know about the Twisted Treeline remake. With the new items, one in particular, Renekton can be really, really strong there. And the games don't last as long, so he should peak when it matters, in the "late game" of that particular map playstyle/meta. Bruisers do so, so well because of the shorter game length, which means they peak around the time you have those game-winning teamfights. As Renekton's early game is so good, he will snowball really easily and probably carry most games if played well enough. Give it a few months or so and you will see a lot of Renektons once the map is balanced and the hype has calmed down. Give people time to theorycraft and they will come to the same answer: Renekton!