I first encountered Sivir in 2011, way back before she'd been reworked the first time. I was new to the game and found her rather confusing, mostly in the same way that I found all AD carries confusing at the time. As I learned more, I developed a great appreciation for her. I got Tristana for free through the Facebook offer, but Sivir was the first ADC I actually bought with IP. Sivir got me into the habit of playing a very conservative bot lane, picking up last hits no matter how much pressure was on me, and building up enough damage output from items to wreck teams, eschewing defensive items in favor of tactical gameplay. It's still how I play pretty much all of my carries.
Sivir's incredible late game has never really been a secret, but in some ways it has avoided capturing the attention of the majority of players. Traditionally, other champions have been seen as better for extreme carrying. Tristana gets massive range, an AS buff, and high mobility with her Rocket Jump. Vayne gets evasion from Tumble and Final Hour, a stun, and extra damage from Silver Bolts. Kog'Maw gets massive range, armor shred on Caustic Spittle, and extra damage from Bio-Arcane Barrage. In theory, Sivir can't compete with that. In practice, Sivir has a lot going for her late game. Or rather, she did. Between her first and second reworks, Sivir was the best split pusher of any ranged champion, possibly the best base-defender against enemy minions, and could attack entire teams with Ricochet, targeting initiators from a safe distance and managing to damage enemy carries.
After Karthus and Singed, Sivir was definitely my third most-played champion in Season 2. She was my go-to ADC. I got my first pentakill with Sivir. Season 3 changed my itemization, but I quickly settled on a new build that I liked even more than the one I'd been using in Season 2. I branched out, becoming proficient with some other ranged AD champions, but Sivir was my best. That was why she made my "A" list for Ranked games, and subsequently became my second most-played champion for Ranked (after Karthus). I think that I've mentioned all of my Ranked games in my "Going for the Gold" series, so anyone who actually reads through that will see that I've been relying on Sivir. At first, she was the only ADC that I was really playing, and I haven't seen success with any other ADC so far. Before the recent rework, I could have been described as a Sivir main.
Every time Riot reworks a champion, there is some outcry over the changes. Until now, I haven't been in that group. But I do contend that this time, it's different. Here are some reasons...
- Sivir had already been reworked before. There'd been some bemoaning the loss of her Ricochet output following the first rework, but generally, she still felt like the same champion, with the same capabilities. People were happy with her.
- Sivir lost her niche with this rework. Her pushing power is gutted and she's not particularly better at mowing down waves of minions swamping her base than any other ADC.
- There wasn't anything wrong with Sivir. She did her job. She wasn't dominant, and she wasn't underplayed. A lot of players liked her mechanics, enjoyed playing her, and liked her lore and personality. The one problem, which everyone knew about, was with her clunky, outdated model. Triangle feet and running in slow-motion. Sivir looked bad. No doubt about it. And I get the impression that Sivir players initially assumed that Sivir was simply getting a VU. Instead, they hit her mechanics with a wrecking ball, gave her a voice that makes it sound like she has laryngitis, and made her lore go from enigmatic to bland. Maybe the bit about lore should be a separate rant. I don't think I've seen anyone make a case for any of the lore revisions Riot has done. And it's not like the bar is set in some particularly loft manner. Most of the champion lore is pretty bad. And yet Riot manages to find their oldest, worst-written lore and replace it with something that is much, much worse.
- With previous reworks, many players pointed out something like how the invisible Karma mains somehow turned up to complain once there was a rework. That sort of thing. But with every rework I can remember, the champion was either technically broken due to general gameplay changes (Jax, Kayle, the first Sivir rework) or horribly underpowered and too difficult to buff without becoming overpowered (Sejuani, Karma, Heimerdinger). Sivir is the one exception. I don't have the numbers to prove it, but just from experience I can tell that she was seeing her fair share of play. Sivir mains didn't magically turn up once there was a rework. They really did exist, and there were a lot more of them than there were Karma mains.
- Everyone who has spoken positively about the new Sivir wasn't playing the old Sivir. This ties into the previous item, but it's important. I have seen positive reception for the Sivir rework, but none of it has been from people who were already playing Sivir. Riot is already in the business of making new champions. They shouldn't take away popular champions from one group to give a new champion to a different group.
- They changed Sivir from an AD carry to a weird AD caster. Her single-target DPS is a shadow of its former self. Other reworks haven't so fundamentally taken something away from a champion. Jax went from being a lategame killing machine to being a lategame killing machine with some tweaks. Sejuani went from being a tank to being a tank. Sivir simply cannot be played as she was being played before, even though other champions with similar functionality retain it. The closest I can think of is Evelynn, and that was a rework of an entire mechanic, and still not comparable to what's been done to Sivir.
- They really fixed what wasn't broken. There were some calls for mechanical change to Sivir, but they were generally either about her autoattack range, and most Sivir players seemed fine with her range anyway. "I want less sustained damage and more burst," said no Sivir player ever.
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