Are predictions of Seer’s ALGS demise premature?

Seer has dominated the ALGS meta for what feels like forever. Roundly unpopular with both fans and players, there has been much delight at the announcement that Seer would get a range of changes in advance of the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs in London.

While there is no room for debate on if these changes will have an impact on Seer, it might not be a slam dunk for those looking for Seer to not be a fixture at LAN.

For full details on what is changing with Seer, see here.

If one thing has been true of Pro Players over the last few months, it's that they aren't shy when it comes to sharing opinions on Seer.

Twitter was awash with commentary on what this means for Seer. Seer is over a 90% pick rate in some ALGS regions and has been very oppressive in ALGS gameplay.

Pro's such as 100 Thieves Scuwry have expressed their dislike for Seer. Speaking with esports.gg during the latest Pro League, he explained the impact Seer has on the meta.

"The current meta is just too oppressive, it's hard to try other comps when it's mostly, when Seer is in meta he ruins a lot of creativity for teams because the only way to counter a Seer is to play Seer."

Despite this desire for Seer to drop out of the meta, not everyone agrees that this is a nerf.

So, will we see Seer at LAN and what sort of teams would use him?

What is beyond doubt is that Seer will not remain at a 90%+ pick rate. His current abilities make him a 'jack of all trades' legends. Pure wall hacks are always useful, either for zone or edge teams.

Now, the new Seer seems like he will be a strong team fighting character with some decent scan abilities still. In particular the ten second Silence ability is very powerful. This will be especially so for edge teams, who will use this ability a lot more frequently because those teams end up taking more engagements.

However, there are also arguments that Seer will still be good for zone teams to counter attack. Being able to Silence a Horizon, or a Bangalore for instance can help level out the ability differential. Silencing a Loba, a Wattson or a Valkyrie for instance doesn't really do much if the team is already set up in their building or position.

Of course, Seer still has access to a heartbeat sensor which helps prevent ratting. He also can still scan Survey Beacons which is a powerful tool.

Seer has value still. Not as much as before, and he is clearly a different sort of legend than we have known him before. The question is do other legends offer more? Teams tend to wish to play for zone at LAN, super aggressive team fighting comps are few and far between.

We also do now have the hard counter to Seer too. His new abilities will still be blocked by Catalysts Dark Veil, which will be another factor in his pick rate. Lots of teams are using Catalyst at the moment, which might keep Seer's pick rate down.

As Scuwry said, Seer denied teams the opportunity to be creative with their legend choices. Assuming we do see a drop in Seer's popularity as expected, who might we see take his place?

Players are already discussing the return of Gibraltar, who was previously a very high pick rate himself. Seer's cancel ability was a major counter to Gibraltar. Losing the chance to reset essentially means you were just delaying your inevitable death, while now being on scan.

Now, Gibraltars reset ability is back and we might see teams return back to to the defensive legend. He has a strong class passive, and he is a powerful legend for Mouse and Keyboard players. The higher amount of controller players probably stops Gibraltars pick rate from getting back into the 90's.

Valkyrie is another legend who has been popular in the past. The addition of Evac towers has reduced teams dependency on Valk. But, she is the sort of legend that becomes more valuable on LAN. Teams will want to rotate faster, and being able to get to zone as quickly as possible is more valuable. The RNG of having to find Evac towers when fast looting might be enough to push people back to using Skyward Dives, especially on Storm Point.

Particularly when combined with Bangalore, Bloodhound could now make a return. Wallhacks are wallhacks, and free information will always be powerful. Of course, Bloodhound has had their own set of nerfs but they are the strongest 'scan legend' left in the game.

Crypto is another legend that has more value at LAN. While the class changes changed what Crypto was about, his fundamentals have stayed the same. People liked Seer for the information he provided, and the low risk you had to take to gather it. Crypto's drone allows you to gain information risk free. When more teams play Zone, Crypto becomes more powerful. We've already seen some teams experiment with him during International scrims.

All eyes will be on the two daily blocks of International Scrims after the event releases on June 20th. If teams stick with Seer and what style of teams choose to use him. The potential removal of a huge mainstay Legend could result in huge meta shifts. There are a lot of counter picks and legends that are in or out as a direct result of other legends.

For example, do people want Catalyst if there are less Seers? If we see more Gibraltars, will there be more Mad Maggies?

The possibilities are endless, with LAN less than a month away.

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