League of Legends First Stand saw a huge variety of champions as the entire esports tournament was played as Fearless best-of-fives.
And when previewing LoL Patch 26.7, Riot claimed that it was happy with the balance and meta at the tournament.
Lead gameplay designer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison said it was refreshing to see ranged supports strong again after melee supports had dominated pro play for so long. But did cite a lack of AP junglers and AD mids as one concern.
With so many matches ending 3-0, there were fewer matches than expected. Yet with 45 games played, there were almost 100 different champions picked throughout the quickfire tournament.
Yunara Dominates LoL First Stand 2026
While there were a lot of picks, Yunara stands out as the clear winner from the First Stand meta.
The ADC was the only champion picked in every series at the tournament, with 13 picks and five bans.
Yet, despite the high pick-rate, Yunara also impressively sported a remarkable 69% win rate following nine wins.
The most picked champions overall at First Stand 2026 were as follows:
| Yunara | 13 picks | 5 bans | 69% win rate |
| Vi | 12 picks | 9 bans | 50% win rate |
| Ahri | 12 picks | 5 bans | 42% win rate |
| Aurora | 12 picks | 3 bans | 33% win rate |
| Xin Zhao | 11 picks | 10 bans | 73% win rate |
There’s no surpirse to see that the combo of Vi and Ahri continues to be prevalent in pro play as the duo’s single-target crowd control can completely nullify any threat.
Meanwhile, Aurora also saw a lot of play at the event but suffered a rather abysmal win rate of 33%.
On the other hand, Xin Zhao had a very strong showing at First Stand with the jungle pick winning 10 of its 11 games.
Similarly, Pantheon was picked 9 times and won 8 of those matches.
Meanwhile, Orianna and Ryze were by far the most banned champions at the event with 33 and 34 bans, respectively.
Both champions have been popular in pro play this year and, after the equally popular Azir and Taliyah were both nerfed, it seems teams clearly rated those as the strongest midlaners in the game.
Do you think First Stand had a healthy meta? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
Fans seemed to enjoy the tournament, especially as G2’s First Stand heroics restored hope for LEC fans.
