 during Season 2, Urgot was the most dominant champion in the world. At the MLG Spring championship, Urgot saw a 100% Pick/Ban rate in 96 games and won a whopping 58% of the games he was played in. Things were much the same at the two smaller tournaments of the time – DreamHack Winter and ECC: Poland. Urgot was picked or banned over 80% of the time in both tournaments. The results were clear – The Headsman’s Pride was the most dominant AD Carry in the world.
With so many AD Carries picking up Urgot, the competition was stiff to become the best Urgot in the world.The aforementioned Urgot players remained some of the strongest. Few managed to rival Genja’s understanding of the Headsman’s Pride, and Cpt Jack seemed to have a strange knack for turning fights around on Urgot that teams were still unable to adjust to. Blaze won fight after fight on supposed Jack “overextensions” only for their bot lane pair to turn the fight around with timely ultimates or clutch Lustboy buffs onto Cpt Jack. Of the remaining field, two of the most important Urgot players of the era included CLG’s yellowpete and Doublelift. Both players continued to play Urgot in Season 2 after his nerfs, but both largely abandoned the champion save for some one-off games in Seasons and 4.
Although they played on sister teams, the two players had extremely different approaches to the Urgot. yellowpete played Urgot in a style similar to Cpt Jack, he would usually try to stay safe while bullying his opponents out of lane alongside Krepo’s Soraka. Funnily enough, Krepo was an aggressive support just like Lustboy, and his propensity for taking kills on the supportive champion eventually led to the “Flash Banana” meme. The bot lane pairing’s propensity for Urgot combinations would not wane over the years. Even after Urgot’s nerfs, yellowpete and Krepo would pull out combinations of Urgot + Soraka/Taric to try and score surprise wins against opponents, often to great effect.
On the other hand, Doublelift’s Urgot could only described by relentless brutality. He played the champion with the inhibitions of regularly passive players like Jack or Genja, and he reached peaks on the champion that other players around the world just couldn’t compete with. Doublelift played with the same mastery and understanding of the champion that Genja had – he knew exactly when to go in and how to harshly punish opponent’s positioning errors. Two factors pushed him to a level above the Russian genius. Firstly, his superior mechanical play meant that he could often hit those critical Acid Hunters right as his opponents ran out of range or the lock-on expired. Secondly, whereas Genja played alone in a 1v2 lane as a enabler for his team, Doublelift laned alongside the lane-dominant Chauster and served as his squad’s focal point. As a result, his Urgot ran roughshod over his opponents. Much like with yellowpete, Urgot would continue to be one of his signature pocket picks many years after repeated stiff nerfs to the champion.
Unfortunately, Urgot would never truly recover after his round of nerfs. While Urgot virtuosos like Doublelift or yellowpete would continue to demonstrate their mastery of the Headsman’s Pride, Urgot never again would achieve meta status and would largely be relegated to cheese pick status. Most teams instead turned to the holy trinity of Graves, Ezreal, and Corki for the rest of season 2. As the season went by, it seemed like Urgot could have made a brief resurgence in the immobile utility ADC meta of Season 3, when champions like Miss Fortune or Varus ruled the day. Urgot was able to punish these champions and had an easy time chasing them down for free laning kills. Indeed, Urgot saw a brief resurgence near the beginning of Season 3, usually paired alongside lane partner Taric.
The possible Urgot craze would continue in the very first LCS ever, when Doublelift and aphromoo pulled out Taric and Urgot against TSM. (This was the famous HotshotGG no rune Malphite game.) CLG would continue to play Urgot throughout the season, scoring multiple wins with that team composition. Doublelift clearly had his old mastery of Urgot, but the team eventually gave up the composition due to a combination of meta shifts (the meta moved away from immobile AD Carries towards hypercarries like Vayne/Twitch) and a lack of personal interest from Doublelift, who professed to hating Urgot. Although he would bring out Urgot again to try and win against China during the All-Star tournament, Doublelift would never play a notable Urgot game again. With the player who brought Urgot to his greatest ever heights abandoning the champion, Urgot saw very little high-level competitive play for the rest of Seasons 3 and 4.
As mentioned earlier, yellowpete and Krepo would bring back Urgot during their time on EG in North America, but the team never reached particularly great heights, and the pair eventually dropped the strategy even though it drew multiple bans. Another notable Urgot pairing included GSG’s “LeBlurgot lane” combining Urgot’s potent laning phase with another infamous lane bully in support LeBlanc. Although the cheese failed to bring GSG to prominence, it did reveal an interesting strategy that future teams may try to emulate.
There’s no way around it – during Seasons 3 and 4, Urgot was a largely irrelevant champion. Against certain teams, there was always the threat of an Urgot cheese but compared to his glory days, it’s been a rough fall when compared to the glory of mid Season 2. On the bright side, a new era of Urgot play might be just around the corner.
Urgot has finally begun seeing solo queue play in the mid lane in Season 5. (I wrote an in-depth discussion about Urgot in the mid lane here.) His tanky passive allows him to survive most assassin matchups, and his high damage/repeated slows allows him to matchup well against immobile mages. In the mid lane, his ultimate becomes particularly powerful as a peeling tool, AD champions generally do more damage than most mid laners. Because he is both a strong counterpick and can be flex into the AD role, Urgot is a great fit into the modern day meta which emphasizes the pick-ban phase. Whereas Urgot was once forced to wait and see what AD Carries he would be facing off against, he now can be first picked with impunity due to his versatile roles.
Gravity mid lane Keane has always been a player extremely unafraid to pick unusual champions. Initially known for his beloved mid lane Hecarim, Keane began spamming Urgot in solo queue, supposedly after he saw Faker playing the champion when spectating the greatest mid laner in the world. If he had seen Faker playing it, it was a mere one-off and nothing in comparison to Keane’s practice on the champion. Spamming Urgot game after game after his original 4.15 buffs, Keane was well prepared for when Urgot took took the next step with his Season 5 upgrades. Keane spammed in Urgot in over 50 games in solo queue, but his LCS peers were still shocked when he brought out the Headsman’s Pride against the IEM World Champions. Claiming that he would have picked Urgot into any matchup, Keane initially fell behind due to a greedy flash Q, but played a critical role in Gravity’s comeback, repeatedly shutting down TSM’s carries with his powerful ultimate and sending them to their demise.
Other players around the world have also begun playing Urgot. After losing to Keane, Bjergsen would bring out an Urgot of his own. The abomination has also begun seeing play in his native AD role. PraY, a former Urgot himself, brought out the champion for the first time in the AD role, shutting down KT’s Arrow and drawing bans in the next two games. Faker, the original Season 5 Urgot, faked out his opponents by trading Urgot to Wolf and taking Anivia in SKT’s potential playoff preview against Jin Air. With his Urgot peers currently either retired or on the bench, it’ll be interesting to see if Doublelift brings out his one of his most reliable champions with play-offs right around the corner for CLG. With only one of the original generation of Urgot greats still playing, it’s time for new stars to rise and hopefully keep Urgot in the competitive meta. The crab is back, and fans around the world are hoping that he is here to stay.
All hail Urgod.
EDIT: This article has been edited to include information about bigfatlp’s mid lane Urgot play and to give more information about the buffs that improved Urgot and sent him to his current state in competitive play. Thanks to RudikRudnikov and OverlordLork on Reddit for these suggestions!"Chomachar", given a list of categories: company, educational institution, artist, athlete, office holder, mean of transportation, building, natural place, village, animal, plant, album, film or written work