The Empress of the Void has finally been unleashed on professional play after her release on June 8. Here’s a rundown of everything we’ve seen from Bel’Veth in her first competitive appearances, including build path and runes to take into your solo queue games.
Bel’Veth’s officially seen her first full week of pro play presence. After being enabled on June 29, she had a slightly underwhelming debut, picked by Matthew ‘Akaadian’ Higginbotham in Golden Guardians Academy’s defeat to Immortals Academy. She quickly picked up speed, appearing in six games in only two days of Academy play, and averaging a 66% win rate across those NA games. All in all, a solid debut – but she hadn’t yet seen major region play.
Bel'Veth is enabled in pro so I had to break down some of the most useful tips & tricks I've found playing her!
Let me know if you enjoyed it and RT if you learned something new! Hoping to do more of these for every new Champion release!#LCS pic.twitter.com/6FQkJzEm0v
— Isaac CB (@AzaelOfficial) July 3, 2022
That changed on July 1, when she saw her first two games in the LEC; one win with Team Vitality and one loss with SK Gaming. In both games, she took a fair while to come online – but Team Vitality jungler Kang ‘Haru’ Min-Seung showed an impressive performance on her in the late game despite a slow start.
As of July 7, the LEC and LCK are the only major regions to have picked Bel’Veth. She’s seen 44 bans across all competitive regions, and 29 picks, all of which have been in the jungle. Right now, she’s sitting comfortably at a 51.7% win rate with a 4.0 average KDA.
Frostfire Gauntlet versus Kraken Slayer
But how are the pros building Bel’Veth, and is it any different from what we’re seeing on her in solo queue?
Her core mythic is, of course, Kraken Slayer, which has been built in 16 of her 29 total games. Stats-wise, it gives her everything she’s looking for. Her kit is heavily focused around attack speed, and the attack speed steroid on her passive lets her quickly stack autos for Kraken Slayer’s true damage passive.
In the seven games where Kraken Slayer wasn’t built, players almost universally opted for Frostfire Gauntlet. It doesn’t work quite as well with her overall stat profile, giving health, resistances, and ability haste as opposed to attack speed and damage – but what it does do is allow her to be a little more of a front liner in squishier team compositions.
Other items
We saw one game of Turbo Chemtank Bel’Veth out of Danil ‘Diamondprox’ Reshetnikov with Bifrost in the NLC (unsurprisingly, it didn’t work out all that well).
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Another interesting build variation came from Safièn ‘YallaSafSaf’ Godthelp, jungler for LowLandLions in the Benelux, who’s been the only player so far to opt for Immortal Shieldbow on Bel’Veth, another marksman item that takes the place of Kraken Slayer in a damage-oriented Bel’Veth build.
From June 30 onwards, every Bel’Veth game bar one saw her build Blade of the Ruined King, regardless of her mythic item. The only player not to build it was Order jungler Jeong ‘Goodo’ Minjae, and the only reason he didn’t build it is that his team had lost before he’d gotten an opportunity to build a second item.
The general consensus seems to be Kraken Slayer (for a carry build) or Frostfire Gauntlet (if your team lacks a strong front line) into Blade of the Ruined King. Pro players tend to opt for defensive boots, either Plated Steelcaps or Mercury’s Treads based on enemy damage composition.
It’s less common for pro junglers to get to a third item, but Death’s Dance seems popular amongst those pros who are able to miraculously complete a third item before the nexus explodes.
Conqueror for an Empress
Runes-wise, every pro Bel’Veth except one has run Conqueror. It’s a similar story in solo queue – her most popular rune page sees her run Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Alacrity, and Last Stand, with Inspiration tree secondaries in Magical Footwear and Cosmic Insight.
The only other rune we’ve seen on Bel’Veth in pro has been Lethal Tempo, which was run by PEACE jungler Thomas ‘LeeSA’ Ma in the LCO. That rune pick came alongside a controversial tank Bel’Veth build which saw him go Blade of the Ruined King first item into Sunfire Cape second – the only pro player to build Sunfire Bel’Veth since her release.
It was also run by Galatasaray Esports’ Berk ‘Mojito’ Kocaman in the TCL earlier on this week, but with the more ‘traditional’ Kraken Slayer build.
Conqueror is pretty much perfect for Bel’Veth, especially when building Kraken Slayer. You’re stacking on-hits on top of on-hits and gaining a boat load of attack speed to shred through enemies. In terms of secondaries, pros seem to be almost universally taking Inspiration, simply because of how strong Magical Footwear is as a secondary rune.
