Is Rekkles' passive playstyle making him undesirable in the professional League of Legends scene?

G2 Esports' former ADC, Martin "Rekkles" Larsson, is undoubtedly one of the best League of Legends players in the world. However, his passive playstyle might be causing him issues in terms of team preferability.

The 2021 League of Legends off-season showed that Rekkles is a lot less desirable when compared to other ADC's like Hans Sama and Carzzy. This became crystal clear when G2 Esports CEO mentioned in a recent AMA (Ask Me Anything) that Rekkles had not received any serious offers during the off-season.

Rekkles has been one of the best ADC players in the world for the past three-four years. It seems though, that it is no more the case as Rekkles failed to find a team in both the LEC and the LCS and had to settle for a semi-professional league in the LFL.

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Rekkles not receiving any offers from top-flight professional teams provides a lot of insight on the current League of Legends meta

Rekkles joined G2 Esports during the 2020 off-season and was undoubtedly part of one of the strongest western rosters of all time. The roster was destined to win it all and was expected to carry the western region to its first-ever world championship title.

Not only did they falter miserably, the team even failed to qualify for League of Legends Worlds 2021. This led to G2 Esports deciding to sell a lot of their players, including Rekkles only a year after signing him.

Initially most fans blamed G2 Esports and their management for deciding to sell Rekkles. Many fans even blamed G2 Esports' jungler Jankos after it came out that him and Caps had issues playing with Rekkles. They claimed that the way they played League of Legends was entirely different.

However, considering Rekkles is one of the best ADC players of all time in League of Legends, he should have easily found a different team. It seemed, though, that no top-flight professional team was interested in buying him.

In fact, while an argument can be made about his initial buyout price, no one agreed even after it was reduced considerably. The only two ADC's that people wanted were Hans Sama and Carzzy.

This situation raises a lot of questions about the current League of Legends professional meta. Rekkles is an ultra passive player who loves to farm hard for a significant part of the game before becoming involved. He does not like going aggressive in the lane very often.

Carlos Rodriguez on Rekkles' off-season (Image via Reddit)

However, most current botlane players always love to push into the enemy as much as possible. Botlane duos like Upset and Hylissang from Fnatic would climb onto their enemy's shoulders and pressure them out of the lane. Such a League of Legends playstyle is almost impossible with a super passive player like Rekkles.

This could be the sole reason why nobody wants to buy him. Playing aggressively and gaining early gold and tower advantage can be instrumental towards objective control. Since the current game revolves around the dragons and barons, maintaining lane priority is a necessity.

Thus, if a player like Rekkles focuses solely on farming and does not assert dominance, it can lead to losing objectives and losing the game eventually. The thing is that Rekkles is not bad. He is undoubtedly one of the most mechanically gifted players out there.

The problem is that his playstyle is becoming outdated in League of Legends and is slowly getting replaced by young and upcoming players who view the game differently. However, Rekkles did find a home at LFL's Karmine Corp and will hopefully be back at the LEC for the 2023 season.

Note: The article reflects the views of the author.